Gary George: George Whitfield: Our Need of His Fire in Preaching & His Passion for Souls

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MP3 Available Here

Gary George, pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel of Southbridge, MA, will address the theme: "George Whitfield: Our Need of His Fire in Preaching & His Passion for Souls".

George Whitefield is our guest's favorite figure from church history.

According to the Anglican Library:

Whitefield [1714-1770] was an astounding preacher from the beginning, and within a year it was said that "his voice startled England like a trumpet blast." At a time when London had a population of less than 700,000, he could hold spellbound 20,000 people at a time at Moorfields and Kennington Common. For thirty-four years his preaching resounded throughout England and America. He was a firm Calvinist in his theology, yet unrivalled as an aggressive evangelist. Though he was slender in build, he stormed in the pulput as if he were a giant. Though a clergyman of the Church of England, he cooperated with and had a profound impact on people and churches of many traditions—Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and along with the Wesleys, inspired the movement that became known as the Methodists. In his preaching ministry he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and became know as the 'apostle of the British empire.' A century later, the great Baptist preacher, C. H. Spurgeon wrote of Whitefield, "Often as I have read his life, I am conscious of distinct quickening whenever I turn to it. He lived. Other men seemed to be only half-alive; but Whitefield was all life, fire, wing, force. My own model, if I may have such a thing in due subordination to my Lord, is George Whitefield; but with unequal footsteps must I follow in his glorious track."

Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons in his lifeftime, an average of 500 a year, or ten a week. Many of them were given over and over again. Fewer than 90 of them have survived in any form.(Read the entire article here: http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/whitefield/index.htm).
Our guest, Gary George, has been the pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel of Southbridge, MA for the past 18 years. He is a native of Worcester, Ma. where he began doing open air evangelism in the late 1970's. Gary graduated from Holy Cross College in Worcester with a degree in Religious Studies and later attended Gordon Conwell Seminary. Gary has taught apologetics at New England Christian Information Center and is currently teaching in a recently founded Bible institution called: The Academy for Advanced Biblical Studies. Gary has been involved in debates with the cults and aberrant Christian groups both as a moderator and a debater.

His passion is evangelism and does something that very few preachers have had occasion to do, preach to the multitudes outside the walls of a church building, and not to mention, he does it without notes or preparation. Gary is also well known for his God given ability to quote verbatim, thousands of verses from the Scripture which he has committed to memory.