Gleaning a few choice excerpts from "George Whitefield's Journals," one of my favorite books (boldface & italics mine). These are all taken from the year 1739...

Monday, March 19.  After having refreshed myself and friends by reading a packet of letters from London, and dispatched some other business, according to appointment, I set out for Bath, and got thither about three in the afternoon.  Dinner being ended, through great weakness of body, and sickness in my stomach, I was obliged to lie down upon the bed; but the hour being come for my preaching, I went, weak and languid as I was, depending on the Divine Strength, and, I think, scarce ever preached with greater power.  There were about four or five thousand of high and low, rich and poor, to hear.  As I went along, I observed many scoffers, and when I got upon the table to preach, many laughed; but before I had finished my prayer, all was hushed and silent, and ere I had concluded my discourse, God, by His Word, seemed to impress a great awe upon their minds; for all were deeply attentive, and seemed much affected with what had been spoken.  Men may scoff for a little while, but there is something in this foolishness of preaching which will make the most stubborn heart to bend or break.  "Is not My Word like fire," saith the Lord, "and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"

Friday, May 12 ... Many came to me this morning, acquainting me what God had done in their souls by my preaching in the fields.  In the evening, I preached to about twenty thousand people at Kennington as usual, the weather continuing remarkably fair whilst I was delivering my Master's message.  I offered Jesus Christ to all who could apply Him to their hearts by faith.  Oh that all would embrace Him!  The Lord make them willing in the day of His power.

Sunday, May 13. Preached this morning to a prodigious number of people in Moorfields, and collected for the orphans £52 19s. 6d., above £20 of which was in halfpence.  Indeed, they almost wearied me in receiving their mites, and they were more than one man could carry home.  Went to public worship twice and preached in the evening to near sixty thousand people.  Many went away because they would not hear; but God enabled me to speak so that the best part of them could understand me well, and it is very remarkable what a deep silence is preserved whilst I am speaking.  After sermon, I made another collection of £29 17x. 8d, and came home deeply humbled with a sense of what God has done for my soul. I doubt not but that many self-righteous bigots, when they see me spreading out my hands to offer Jesus Christ freely to all, are ready to cry out, "How glorious did the Rev. Mr. Whitefield look to-day, when, neglecting the dignity of a clergyman, he stood venting his enthusiastic ravings in a gown and cassock upon a common, and collecting mites from the poor people." But if this is to be vile, Lord grant that I may be more vile.  I know this foolishness of preaching is made instrumental to the conversion and edification of numbers.  Ye Pharisees mock on, I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.

Friday, May 18. ... As the walls of Jericho once fell down at the sound of a few rams' horns; so I hope even this foolishness of preaching, under God, will be a means of pulling down the Devil's strongholds, which are in and about the City of London...

Thursday, June 7.  Received two letters from persons, confessing that they came to hear me out of a bad motive, but were apprehended by the free grace of Jesus Christ...

Wednesday, July 18. ... I reached Abingdon, twenty-two miles from Cirencester, about seven, and preached to several thousands soon after I came in.  Much opposition had been made against my coming.  The landlord, whose house we offered to put up at, genteellly told us he had not room for us; and numberless prejudices had been industriously spread to prevent my success.  But God's Word will make its own way, let men say what they please.  Our weapons are not carnal, but mighty through the Divine Power, to the pulling down of Satan's strongholds.

Thursday, July 19.  At the request of several well-disposed people, preached again this morning, though not to so great a number as before.  A sweet power was felt amongst us.  The hearers melted into tears under the Word.  Oh, what a sudden alteration does this foolishness of preaching make in the most obstinate hearts.  'Tis but for God to speak the word, and the lion is turned into a lamb.  Oh, that we were like that dear Lamb of God, Who died to take away the sins of the world.

Saturday, July 28.  ... Preached at Blackheath in the evening and came home rejoicing.  The bills which are sent to me, plainly prove that God has worked on numbers of souls. At the judgment day, we shall see what good has been done by this foolishness of preaching.  Many, I believe, come to the fields to worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  God seeketh such to worship Him.

Do we really believe God's Word is a hammer and a fire? Do we believe God's Holy Spirit delights to work through preaching and prayer to save souls just He did in the days of George Whitefield? How often are we as 21st century Christians tempted to think we have evolved in some way from the 18th century days of Whitefield, or from the 1st century days of the early Church, so that when we look up and see those high and thick Jericho walls –– those stony, hard hearts of unbelievers, skeptics, mockers, and doubters –– rather than standing firm in faith, we begin to slip and slide into compromising –– and soon enough we have cast aside God's appointed means to convict and arrest and save souls and magnify His glory:  this foolishness of preaching? When faced with intimidating and daunting Jericho walls, how often do we find ourselves relying on worldly wisdom, carnal weapons, earthly power, human ingenuity, and fleshly manipulation –– rather than standing fast on God's Word, trusting in God's might, relying on God's wisdom and power, and preaching Christ and Him crucified? Are we all too ready to jettison God's instrumental means out of fear of looking vile, undignified, foolish, and weak in the eyes of men?

I Corinthians 1:18  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 19  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 22  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23  But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24  But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

II Chronicles 16:7  And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and NOT relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. 8  Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine hand. 9  For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. 10  Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.

  

We're almost a full month into 2013 now, and perhaps you've done that very same thing this year . . .

The 400 men who felt their need of David

The other night I was in a Bible study of I Samuel, and I shared how I LOVE the account of the 400 men who gathered themselves to David (I Samuel 22:1-5). Why do I love this account? Because David himself was an Old Testament type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the meek and lowly posture of those men is exactly the position poor and needy sinners find ourselves as we first come to Christ, as well as the position we must remain in as we continue to abide in Christ and let His words abide in us –– as we live as branches seeking to draw vital sustenance from the True Vine day by day, and moment by moment ~ John 15:4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing... Songs 8:5 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?).

I Samuel 22:2  And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.

Have you felt your need of the Son of David?

In like manner, every one who comes to Jesus must acknowledge and confess from the heart that he is in distress, in debt and discontented –– or, using Joseph Hart's words, you must come to feel your need of the Son of David.

"The Son of David is ready to receive distressed souls, that will appoint Him their captain and be commanded by Him. He receives all who come unto Him, however vile and miserable..."

Isn't that a marvelous truth?! The only begotten Son of God is the Son of David, and He is ready to receive distressed, indebted and discontented souls! Jesus Christ receives all who come unto Him! What Good News that is to all who have known such distress, debt and discontentment... however vile and miserable we might be! Look through the Gospels and see how tax collectors and sinners drew near to eat with Him! See how women and children flocked to the arms of the Good Shepherd! All you who are distressed today, come to Him, however vile and miserable you might be! Remember, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18) –– He delights in lavishing love, mercy and grace upon the chief of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ! Whosoever will may come to the True Bread and the Living Water to eat and drink, so you might never hunger or thirst!

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
    to every believer the promise of God;
    the vilest offender who truly believes,
    that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

(from Fanny Crosby's "To God Be the Glory")

In First Samuel 22, each and every soul who came to David had been filled with a holy distress. In the exact same way, every soul who ultimately comes to Jesus also shares in that same holy distress. That holy distress is the precious gift of God, and it is wholly necessary, for without a sense of holy distress, we will neither despise nor cast off our own fleshly confidence, our hard-hearted, stubborn sufficiency, and deadly self-reliance. And only as we come to see that any and every thing that comes from our own flesh and any and all help we might receive from the arm of man is all vanity and dung (as the apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:1-11), will we humble ourselves in the sight of God and cast ourselves wholly upon the God who is rich in mercy to save us. Christ must save, and Christ alone!

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

(from Augustus Toplady's "Rock of Ages")

• Unless and until you see you are not fit in and of yourself, unless and until you feel your need of Him, you will never come to Jesus Christ, the only fitting Savior for sinners.

Until we cry out with Peter, "To whom shall we go?..." (John 6:68), until we see that there is no salvation in any other, until we admit our spiritual bankruptcy, until we own that we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64:6-7), then we will not approach the mercy seat for the gift of salvation which is available through Christ alone.

Acts 4:12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Unless and until we feel our need of Him ... unless we see our true spiritual condition, unless the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-11), our spiritual position is no different than the rich man in the parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus:  a great gulf fixed exists between ourselves and Christ (Luke 16:19-31); we are infinitely far away from the fitness He requires.

 
And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed:
so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;
neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
(Luke 16:26)

If you're not aware of it, the name Lazarus is Greek for the Hebrew Elazar, meaning "God has helped." If you're familiar with Robert Robinson's hymn "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," you know the line:

"Here I raise my Ebenezer..."

(based on I Sam. 7:12:  Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben–ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us)

The Hebrew root word "ezer" means help. Notice how the name Elazar contains the root "azar" ("ezer"), plus the name of God ("El"). How blessed are helpless beggars like Lazarus whom God has helped! Blessed are men, women, boys and girls whom Christ is calling from every tongue, tribe and nation –– poor and needy souls who come to see their helplessness and feel their need of Christ. Blessed are those who have come to the end of themselves and can do nothing but appeal to God for mercy and grace through Jesus Christ, to seek the LORD for His help and to praise Him for His help poured out from the throne of grace. Blessed are those who proclaim the joyful song:  "I could do nothing. I could not help myself. But I was enabled to feel my need of Him, and this poor soul cried out to the Lord, and He heard my cry! God has helped! God has been my Helper, and He will continue to be my Helper till the end! He is able to help me and save me to the uttermost!"

• Have you owned that you are helpless? Have you received a spiritual sight of your need of the Son of David?

O! for the moment we feel our need of Christ: –– blessed heavenly fitness! –– we flee to Jesus Christ (just as those men gathered to David), and as we cling to and follow hard after Him, as we embrace our Savior and make Him our Captain, here are some of the exceeding great and precious promises we can embrace along with Him:

Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5  Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6  Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Those 400 men had come to see they had no fitness in and of themselves. They were in debt, and they knew it, and they freely acknowledged they had come to the end of themselves and their own supplies, and they gathered to David.

Along with those men, have you been blessed to see your own poverty of spirit, and come to the Son of David? Have you been given a true spiritual sight of your own spiritual bankruptcy and come to Jesus? Have you been convicted of sin and seen that you have fallen short of the glory of God? Have you seen that there is a sin debt which you could never pay in and of yourself? Has your mouth become stopped as you have seen that your are rightly judged as guilty before God? Have you seen that your sin and your guilt needs to be covered and forgiven and washed away by the blood of the Lamb? Have you seen that in order to stand unashamed in the presence of a holy God you need a righteousness that far exceeds that of the Pharisees? Have you had a view of the thrice Holy God and become undone? Have you seen a glimpse of God's just wrath that rightly judges sinners, and that the wrath of the Lamb cannot be satisfied by anything else but the blood of the Lamb shed on Calvary's cross? Have you mourned your own sinfulness and your sin? Have you seen the Lord Jesus was crucified in your place to take away your record of debt? Have you seen that you are a debtor to mercy alone? Have you cried out for a new, soft heart to replace your heart of stone? Have you humbled yourself in the eyes of the Lord? Are you hungering and thirsting for a righteousness than you in your own best efforts can never produce? In other words . . .

• Unless you come to a spiritual sight that you have no fitness in and of yourself, you will never come to the only fitting Savior for sinners!

About that word discontented, Albert Barnes writes:

"Discontented... The phrase here denotes those who were exasperated by Saul's tyranny."

In their exasperation, those 400 men keenly felt their need of a new sovereign. As a result, they sought out David and joyfully cleaved to David and willingly submitted themselves to Him as their captain. Have you been brought to see your own inability and your own lack of fitness? Unless you do so, you cannot feel your need of Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Know this, He is only a Captain to those whose eyes have been opened their own vileness and lack of fitness and to those who have become exasperated by the tyranny of their own flesh, the devil and the world. How do we show we have made Him Captain? We rejoice with trembling as we kiss the Son (Psalm 2), we cast off our idols and bow to Christ and Christ alone as the King of kings and Lord of lords, and willingly offer ourselves to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. Having been freed from slavery to sin, the devil and the world, having been united to Christ and raised with Christ, through His resurrection power at work in us, we seek to mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit, we put on the whole armor of God and walk circumspectly so we might guard against the wiles of the devil, we take every thought captive, and we walk in the light as He is in the light and we reject the darkness of the world.

John Elias:  a sinful, vile and miserable man who saw himself as nothing and felt his need of Christ

Most of you know how much I love reading Christian biography. I'm currently reading a book about  the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister, John Elias (1774-1842). Elias was a man who felt his need of Christ and showed himself to be one of the company who gathered to Jesus Christ. Near the end of his life, Elias penned the words below. Like the Psalmist (Psalm 45), Elias' heart overflowed and his tongue was the pen of a ready writer, as he freely and openly and joyfully confessed his own lack of fitness and unreservedly expressed his utter need of Christ and happily exulted in God's sufficiency and fullness and fitness that overflowed to him from the throne of grace and overflows to every poor and needy sinner who comes boldly to the great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God.

"I have written a brief account of my life from infancy till now (sixty-seven years of age), of the Lord's goodness towards me, and a review of his work amongst the Calvinistic Methodists. I have written this in my sick room, not knowing but that I am on the plains of Moab, on the brink of Jordan. I wrote a few lines now and then, in sorrow and through difficulty considering myself as writing every line in the presence of God, and writing perhaps that which will be read when I shall be quiet in the grave. I have nothing to say of myself, but of my sinfulness, vileness, and great misery; but I would be happy to speak of God's goodness, mercy, and grace towards me. 'This is the poor man that was raised out of the dust, and the needy man that was lifted out of the dunghill, and set with princes, even with the princes of his people'. If any good has been done by my imperfect labour, God in his grace has performed it. To him belongs the glory; I was as nothing."

~ John Elias, in "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume), 179, boldface mine

If you have never felt your need of Jesus Christ, if you consider yourself fit and sufficient in and of yourself, if you are continuing to put confidence in your own flesh (see Philippians 3), I plead with you to pray to God for His Holy Spirit to enlighten you, to impart to you a true sense of your need of Him, that you might join the apostle Paul, John Elias, those 400 men who gathered themselves to David, along with millions and millions of saints, and come to experience the spiritual fitness that God requires.

Advent #3 WHY HAS JESUS COME? not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance
First Week of Advent: The Most Scandalous Bailout Ever
Bible Reading: Luke--God's Kingdom Economy: Losers Who Win, or Grace Is Amazing Only to Those Who See Themselves as Wretched....
Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit
trusting the eagles' wings (reliance on the Holy Spirit)
Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
Birthday reflections ~ "Keep me an infant" (Isaiah 46:1-4)
by my God I can leap over a wall (Psalm 18:29b)
Can two walk together... Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit...
the poor & needy & joy ~ Psalm 35:9-10 | letter 105 on assurance & fighting for joy
at death and in life "there is only one thing that matters" (Lloyd-Jones' last days)
Outcast vine, faithless bride ~ What beauty? What did you see?
Surely none is righteous, no, not one ~ The Pharisee's Warning (Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:9-10)

Photo credits:

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fitness_Center.JPG  / CC BY-SA 3.0

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HK_Wong_Chuk_Hang_%E5%8C%85%E7%8E%89%E5%89%9B%E6%B8%B8%E6%B3%B3%E6%B1%A0_Pao_Yue_Kong_Swimming_Pool_31_Weighing_scale_May-2012.JPG  / CC BY-SA 3.0

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gustave_Dore_Lazarus_and_the_Rich_Man.jpg / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Roos_-_John_Elias_(1839).jpg  / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.