Friday, September 29th | George Whitfields Final Sermon

Hello, everyone. Today is Friday, September the 29th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-5825028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

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We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. The verse of the day today comes from Romans chapter two, verses five through seven. But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds. Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good, seek for glory, honor, and immortality. It's one of those things that we have chosen to forget. The stuff we do on earth matters to God. We are saved by grace through faith, and that is true.

But the life that we live matters very much. When we willfully sin or we willfully get away with that and we think we're just covered by grace, it says we're literally treasuring up for ourselves wrath. Think about that. You're storing up God's wrath for yourself. It's coming. You may not see it right now, but it is coming one day in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

That's crazy. Everything that you do has consequences. Don't think just because God is a God of grace and a God of mercy and a God of forgiveness that there's not going to be consequences for your disobedience. We see that in the Bible. The Israelites were God's people, and yet they were persistently disobedient to God, and they were taken into exile for it, orchestrated by God himself. If you think that God is just merciful and love and sunshine and rainbows, God is a God of justice.

Yes, he loves you. Yes, you are forgiven through Christ's death on the cross if you're a Christian, if you've accepted him as your Savior, but that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences. That's right. So be careful what you are doing and be careful how you exercise your freedom.

That's right. And you also can't look at God's justice and say, Well, that doesn't seem very just to me, but God is justice. What we should think justice is, is lining it up with his character and what we do. And I said, I think I talked about this last week. We do the opposite way where we think we know what justice is and then we see if God fits in. Right, right.

Not do that. Speaking of wrath, I was pretty angry this morning. You were pretty heated this morning. I was pretty upset, and David, I want to pitch this to you, because I pitched it to Ryan and I pitched it to Nicholas, and I pitched it pretty much to the whole office, and I didn't like the answers. I'm not going to lie.

I didn't like it at all. If Darth Vader can't use the Force and he can't use his lightsaber, think about this. Seven foot two cyborg warrior Darth Vader, can you beat him in a fistfight if he doesn't have the Force and he doesn't have his lightsaber? Yeah. David, there's no earthly way.

Are you serious? Y'all believe that y'all can beat Darth Vader in a fight. Without the Force. And without a lightsaber. He's huge and he's tough. No, he's not. His armor is tough.

He is like a soft shell crab. Bro, I could beat... But you're fighting him in his armor. Really what you're telling me to do is you're telling me to go find an asthmatic guy on life support and fight him. But he's in armor. Okay, would you fight me if I had a full suit of armor? Yes.

Why? You're talking about his armor like it's the end-all, beat-all. It's a glorified iron lung. My man is walking around on life support. This dude was trained. He fought in the Clone Wars for 20-something years.

With the lightsaber and the Force. But I'm saying he's been the Emperor's dog, his bodyguard, for another 20-something years. He's been trained in combat. Hold on. He's been trained in combat.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Trained in combat as a Jedi. He's been trained in combat using the Force, using a lightsaber.

He has not had military training outside of that. I could beat Darth Vader in a hot minute. I'm with David. I can't believe this.

Let's even take all that stuff away. He's still huge. He's a huge man. In the armor. Yeah, you're fighting him in the armor.

Do you know what the fatal flaw of the armor is? What? Peripheral vision, and he has a cape.

Also, wait a minute. He's huge in the armor, because without the armor, he doesn't have legs. Right.

Precisely. He's not huge. He's like 4'1 without the armor. Now, if the Force is on the table, no question. Darth Vader's wiping the table with anybody else. He's one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, Force users in Star Wars mythology.

I think Dr. Shaw is the only person on this show who knows how to think. I think that you are just a fanboy, and you're blinded by your love for Darth Vader. I could beat any of them without the Force. You've never seen him fight without the Force. I could beat any single one of them without Darth Vader. I don't think Obi-Wan Kenobi. Without the Force? And without his lightsaber?

No, I don't think. Yoda is 146,000 years old. What's wrong with you people? Yoda would be flicking a booger off my finger. I could do that in a heartbeat. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, I don't think I could take them.

I don't think I could take them. But Vader? 100%. Easy.

The dude is a toaster. I'm just going to kick him into a pond. We're clear. I can't believe this. You guys got to stand off in the comments, because I'm shocked.

No problem. Nicholas, I know your throat hurts, but just yes or no, could you take Vader in a fight? No Force, no lightsaber. Obviously. Okay. Obviously. Obviously. I'm done.

I don't see how you don't get this. I'm done. Let's turn it over to the people.

Let's pose it to the people. If you guys think you can handle Darth Vader in a fight, no Force, no lightsaber, just Vader in the armor, let us know by sending us a text to 2525825028, or you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. We're going to move forward with our show and ask Dr. Shaw what he thinks, because I think he's going to be the voice of reason and agree with the majority here that Vader doesn't stand a chance. We'll be back after this.

Yes. If I could take a bison, I could take Vader. Hey there, listeners. I'm Jon Galantis.

And I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shaw's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning, Daily Devotions to Help You Move Forward. You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 Days series, and the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. And when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start, but a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish, even with a bad start, and that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. 30 Days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Check out our website at ClearViewBC.org. Nope, I'm so sorry. I said the wrong website.

Oh, keep going. I was trying to mix it up and I said the wrong website. Our website here on the Clear View Today show is ClearViewTodayShow.com. We still want you to visit ClearViewBC.org though. Yeah, there's lots of good things there for you to check out. That's the website for our church here in North Carolina, Clear View Church. But the website for the show, ClearViewTodayShow.com. And if you would like to text into the show, let us know what you're thinking about the episodes and weigh in on the different topics that we talk about. Text us at 252-582-5028.

Let a maestro show you how it's done, bud. If today's your second time... Oh, darn it. But if today's your first time ever tuning into the show, or if you're just kind of scrolling through the radio and you heard us, we're glad you stopped by.

We want to let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shaw is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. You can find all of his work on his website, AbbadonShaw.com. Your countenance completely changed when you got to PhD. Dr. Abbadon Shaw is a PhD. I was like, yeah.

I was like dropping into it. I was like, oh, but Dr. Shaw is a PhD in New Testament. You get that like radio.

It was like visceral, like he is a PhD. Dr. Shaw, you worked in radio. You know, once you get the groove, you're kind of getting, you know. That's right. You want to keep that groove going.

Yeah. Radio was a lot of fun. Uh, I came to Tocqueville Falls College and had no intention of going into broadcast journalism, but that was the only field that was as secular as it gets.

And so I chose broadcast journalism. I remember going to my first radio class. I remember having to announce this song by First Call. Anybody remember the group First Call? They do not remember First Call?

No. Two ladies, one man, First Call. And they did a song called My God. And I was told to announce that because I'm like, okay, so I'm doing my best.

And I had a thicker accent at the time. So it came out something like, so the next song coming up is by the famous group First Call, and it is My God Studio Busted Out Laughing. This was a mock studio. And I'm like, what is wrong? What did I say? But the way you said, like you were shocked. Oh, okay. I got to work on this whole cadence up and down. But anyways, that's what I think of. That's pretty cool.

There is an art to it. I wonder if, did you ever have like really useless, like nonsensical segments on your radio shows? Oh, yeah, like if someone asked you, you would get upset if someone asked you like, hey, could you beat Darth Vader in a fistfight? And then one of your people were like, yeah, I certainly could. The leading question. Yeah, that never happened.

Never happened. Because we would have gotten an F for thinking of stuff like that. You get called in the office and they like play it out loud. And they're like, you want to explain this to me? What's the meaning of this? My radio professor was actually a radio man, Mr. Welsh.

Uh-huh. And Mr. Welsh, I hope he's not listening to this. He'd probably not be happy. But anyways, he had a radio persona and then he was in person.

In person, he was just bumbling his way through and people, students would make fun of him. All kinds of weird stuff. You get him behind a microphone and he was like, oh my goodness, this is a drive time rush hour DJ. Morning Zoo guy.

Yes. I'm like, what is happening here? Who is this guy? Some persona flips and he just comes out behind a microphone.

That red recording light goes on and he just changes. But he was sort of old school, so he would probably bring up stuff like this. He'd be like, no, you keep that out of the radio stuff.

Radio is not. Well, on today's episode, speaking of interesting, with radio broadcasts, it matters how you start a broadcast, but it also matters how you close a broadcast, how you end things. And we're talking about the ending today, specifically because today is the anniversary of the last sermon ever preached by George Whitfield. But his last message he preached today, back in 1770. Many, many years ago.

1770. And then he preached his message and then he passed away later that night. And we wanted to talk about it because you personally are a big fan of George Whitfield.

I really like him. He was an amazing, amazing orator. Just the way he could deliver his message. And so maybe we could talk about his life more than just his last sermon, which was sort of good, but also in a sense, anticlimactic. Yeah.

But yeah. Well, I think one of the things that I've learned through you and about you is that if you really want to be good at something, you study the classics. Like you study some of the classics. And I remember asking you once who your favorite preachers were. And I remember you told me like Donald Gray Barnhouse and there were others in there.

But I remember you always went back to George Whitfield because it's one of the great American classics. Yes, yes. And he was actually from England. Oh, really? But he traveled here seven times, six times or seven times to the colonies.

Okay. And he was very much instrumental in bringing the first great awakening. He went to Oxford University with John and Charles Wesley.

As part of that holy club. And then from there, there was a split where John Wesley was more on the Armenian side of things and George Whitfield went more on the Calvinist side of things. As you know, I don't get into the reform theology, but I do like the portions about eternal security, perseverance of the saints.

I mean, however you want to say it, because they do have different meanings there. But I'd definitely hang on to that. The one saved always saved. Having said that, there are other things that I don't quite understand or agree with, but George Whitfield was a tremendous, tremendous preacher of the word and impacted hundreds of thousands of lives.

Even somebody like Benjamin Franklin, who was... We're not sure if he was really saved or not. More than likely not. We don't know if a person made a decision on a deathbed.

Who knows? Right. Right. But he was greatly impacted by George Whitfield's life and preaching. Well, I remember we talked about it once where you told me that just his dependence on the scripture and his proclivity to stay grounded in the word. I think that's even evident in the way that you preach and its influence how you preach where you always have to come back to the text. You always have to come back to the word. He was not the type to sit down and study the scripture like I do. I will take hours and dig into the context and the Greek meaning or the Hebrew meaning of the words and get back to the original context, get back to the historical setting and then build from there. No, he was so steeped or steeped into scripture that he would just bubble forth and he would get up and preach powerful messages that changed thousands upon thousands of lives and continues to make an impact. I read his biography, I would say maybe 20 years ago, and it impacted me of how much he struggled, how hardworking he was.

So I also learned from him to know how to back off. I mean, this guy would vomit blood. I mean, it's so much. Yeah. Oftentimes people want to be like these people.

They don't realize what the price they have to pay. So he has stomach issues. He had things like that.

Wow. I'm looking here at this kind of blurb about his life. And it says that he died at 55, which is very young. I didn't realize that.

That's young. How did George Whitefield get his start? What kind of led him into the ministry?

What sparked that desire in him? Well, as I mentioned to you, he went to Pembroke College and he worked alongside John and Charles Wesley, they had this little holy club going on on how to live a holy life and how to be disciplined in their faith, in their daily life and practice. And then when Wesley sort of became more on the Armenian side of things, there was a split between those two and George Whitefield became more of a preacher to everybody. Now, John Wesley sort of became too, you know, the whole world is my parish kind of thing.

Mm-hmm. But George Whitefield was more open to go going anywhere. I'm not going to stick to just an established church. I don't have to have the Anglican church's blessing. I'm going to go everywhere, anywhere. Anywhere there's a pulpit, I'll get up and speak and I'll preach. Wow.

And he preached, I mean, from what people have estimated, 18 some thousand messages. Wow. So you go figure that out. Yeah. How much is that? That's a lot. That's all. Yeah, that's a lot.

And you consider that with like modern pastors who just have that kind of rotation of messages that they just kind of take them off the shelf and dust them off. But 18,000 over the course of the period. Yeah. At least that's what people say. We don't know for sure. But if that is the case, then you just do the math. Wow.

How much did he preach? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's one of those things where you look at the greats like this. And I kind of like what you said earlier. You look at the greats like this and you're like, I want that for my life. But you also don't see what it cost them and how God, just like with the Apostle Paul, the thorns that God places in their life to keep them humble and to keep them from becoming, I guess, too big or too proud. But thinking about George Whitefield and the impact that he's had on us as Americans now, Christians living in America today, I mean, it's just an encouraging thought to know that God is still... We tend to think, I think, that the Bible stops at Revelation, but God is still using people like this and maybe even people like us. Yeah, absolutely. You know, you talk about his impact on preaching today.

If you wanted to hear what George Whitefield's preaching sounded like, you would have to go and listen to the black preaching somewhere near Macon, Georgia. Really? Very similar? Similar. Wow. Right.

And I'm not saying today, I don't know how it is today. But I would say maybe 30, 40 years ago, what the black preaching was like, African-American preaching, because they were impacted greatly by George Whitefield's preaching, and that became the style. So often people say, well, that's the African-American style of preaching. No, that's also connected to George Whitefield's preaching. You know, if you do that math, a lot of times, if you do that math of like how many sermons he was preaching, he was probably speaking more than he was like eating food or sleeping.

I'm glad you said that, because I just was doing the math over here while we were talking. Do we know how old he was when he started preaching? I don't.

I don't. But very early on in his life, he was... I just kind of put down 20. So if he started at 20 years old, maybe that wasn't... Maybe he preached for like 30 years or something. I did 35. 20 to 55 is 35 years. If he preached 18,000 messages over 35 years, that comes down to if he preached a message every day, that's one and a half messages per day, every day for 35 years.

That sounds right. Yeah, that's incredible. He may not be preaching every single day.

So you've got to figure there's multiple messages. I wonder how many of those sermons were just like a straight like hour. Like, I'm sure they went on longer than that.

Yeah, sometimes an hour or two hours. Yeah, if he gets going, like there's no stopping it. Yeah. I have some quotes that I found on him. Here's one. Here's one, we can preach the gospel of Christ no further than we have experienced the power of it in our own hearts. That's true. That's true. And I think that's something that you say a lot is that if Christ hasn't changed you, you're going to make very little impact. You can try, but if you're not being transformed and you're not allowing your mind to be transformed, if it doesn't start in me first, then what impact can I truly have for the gospel?

Other men may preach the gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better gospel. Hmm. Ooh, nice.

That's a good one, right? Nice. Yeah. True conversion means turning not only from sin, but also from depending on self-made righteousness.

I agree with all of this. So, you know, that's... One thing you forget is that the good preachers also have to really be good writers. Yeah.

Because those are some really great lines. And he had people who sponsored him. He had a lady who was a Baroness, I believe she was.

And so he would talk to her, give her updates on how his missionary work was going on in the colonies, and then she would support his ministry. Wow. So he had... So I learned a lot from that, how to get people to buy into your vision, how to get them to support you, how do you give them updates on a regular basis? Those kinds of things I had to learn. Yeah. And I learned that from George Whitfield's ministry. Wow. Yeah. He was just a tremendous, tremendous person. And many people don't know that, but he was sort of cross-eyed. I think I talked about that one time.

Yeah. So the big joke about him was three people would get saved under his ministry. One from this side, one from that, and one who thought he was looking at them. We thought he's... It's funny because we went to...

I mean, that's what they would say about him. Yeah. I was kind of mean, but at the same time we get it. It was a museum that we were at. We were at a museum. Right. I don't remember which museum it was. I don't know if it was in DC or where we were at, but we saw...

It might have been the Bible Museum, I can't remember, but they had a thing on the first Great Awakening, and I saw his picture. Right. And I remember making the comment to you like, man, they really did not do him any favors. And you were like, oh no, he looked like that. I thought someone just was a really bad artist. And I was like, if I was Whitfield, I'd be angry. And I remember you were like, no, he... His eyes were like that. Yeah, I truly didn't know.

Because sometimes they draw them guys from antiquity, and it's like somebody could not draw. But nah, that was... Pretty faithful rendition. Pretty faithful. That's insane. Yeah, but he could speak, and he was loud in his preaching. I also learned that from him, how to have that passion, and how to have that booming voice. And Ben Franklin would say, at least one time, he remembers 30,000 people hearing him.

Wow. And having no problem hearing what he was saying. Yeah, because there's no PA out there.

There's no sound system or anything. It's just his voice and his passion. Yeah. He was talking about his last sermon.

Maybe we can talk about that for the next couple of minutes. But he preached his final message on 2 Corinthians 13.5, which is, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. And that was his final message. And before he got up there, one of his friends told him, sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach.

Wow. And he said, true, sir. And then clasping his hands together and looking up to heaven, he added, Lord Jesus, I'm weary in that work, but not of it.

If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for the ones more in the fields. Seal that truth, come home, and die. And for two hours, he preached on that text, 2 Corinthians 13.5. And then, sure enough, he died.

Wow. And I was reading on his final hours, and they say that when he got up, he sort of stood there for a while until he could muster the strength to start speaking. And one witness said that his voice was sort of heavy. Sentence after sentence was sort of rough and disjointed and all kinds of stuff. And he was talking about works, works.

A man get to heaven by works, I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand. Wow. This is what he's saying.

That's incredible. But another eyewitness said that his sermon was powerful. And he said something like, I go to a rest prepared. My son has arisen, and by aid from heaven has given light to many. It is now about to set forth. No, it is about to rise in the zenith of immortal glory. I have been outlived by many on earth, but they cannot outlive me in heaven. Oh, thought divine, I shall soon be in a world where time, age, pain, and sorrow are unknown. My body fails, my spirit expands. How willingly would I live forever to preach Christ, but I die to be with him. So that's... My dude is making me want to, like, write. Like, I want to go lock myself in a room and just, just write all that.

That's what I said. The African-American preaching, the black preaching world, that's how that preaching was. It was so moving.

It was so rhetorical. And where did they understand the idea of preaching that way? It was from George Whitfield, because that's how he preached. And I actually read that in, was it a preaching dissertation or something like that on African-American preaching, that George Whitfield made a big impact.

The impact in some ways is still extending today, but you have to find it in the right settings. So when it comes to you, because we say that at the top of every show, you're a full-time pastor, you pastor people, you're a radio show host, you're a teacher, a professor. Author.

Author and PhD. But as a preacher, when it comes to the act of preaching, what is it about it that gives you that energy? Like, because you're extremely good at it. But what is it about preaching that draws you in, I guess, or that you like? Or what's your favorite part of just the act of preaching? It's to be able to speak for God. I'm not saying everything I'm saying is coming from God.

I'm a flawed human being. That's why I'll never say, God is saying this to you. No, God's Word is saying that. To be able to take God's Word and begin to understand it and in that process, see how living it is and how applicable it is and how life-changing it is.

It changes people's eternal destinies because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That moves me. That motivates me like nothing else. This is not just selling something. There are a lot of salesmen out there, and they're wonderful. I appreciate salesmen because that's how they make a living. But for me, it's not just selling something. It is because the thing I'm selling itself has life. And I'm simply telling people, come look at this.

Come understand this. And if you're not saved, come get it. If you're saved, see how this will change your life. It will help you in whatever trial or tribulation you're going through. And that empowers me.

And I believe that's the Holy Spirit who empowers me, not just me psyching myself up. Those are the kind of preachers that I believe have impacted me. And that's where I've put people like Chrysostom or Augustine or George Whitefield. Or the new George Whitefield, which is Charles Spurgeon, was known as the new George Whitefield.

There's a book in my library that was written on him, the new George Whitefield. That's where I put people like Billy Graham and others. Billy Graham and others. My dad, Nicole's dad.

These are my heroes. And I feel like they were passionate. They were anointed. They preached from an overflowing heart.

I think of the Apostle Paul. Would he do that? Right.

Maybe not. Yeah. And I mean, that's good company to keep. The Apostle Paul, George Whitefield, Dr. Charles.

If you find yourself in that lineup, that's a good comparison to be made. Well, even I've done that from the pulpit, but from leading worship where this sounds good and it feels good and it's just coming and it's flowing like water. That's not evidence of the Holy Spirit. That just means I might be on a roll in my brains. My adrenaline is going, you know? And I've listened back to it. And I think a lot of people don't listen back to it. And I've listened back and I'm like, that didn't make a lick of sense. It felt good in the moment, but it didn't translate out of that. Yeah.

Yeah. I wonder how common that is for people, especially in worship or preaching, to just be on a roll and then go back and listen to it and be like, oh, that did not make sense outside of the state. Well, hopefully this episode inspired you guys to check out more about George Whitefield's life. We can learn a lot from him. And we pray that you would check out Dr. Charles' messages as well. Visit our church website or Dr. Charles' blog, abidonshawe.com. Check out the preaching side of things.

We don't often get to see that element here. We discuss sermons on the radio show, but check out some of Dr. Charles' messages. Only do that if you want a masterclass in preaching, though, if you want a free masterclass. Yeah.

Or if you want to be edified, grow in your faith. That's good, too. There you go. Text us and let us know what you got on today's episode or who your favorite preaching heroes are. 252-582-5028. You can, of course, visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. Click that donate now button and become one of our giving partners and join with us in impacting the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.