In September 1769, Whitefield visited America for the seventh and last time. “I’m strong as to my bodily health,” he said, just before he started the journey, “and I’m persuaded that this voyage will be for the Redeemer’s Glory and for the blessing of precious and immortal souls. Oh, the joy of being a Christian and a minister of Jesus!”
Immediately after arriving he began a tour through the cities which he had visited on previous trips to America. It was appropriate that his life should almost end in field preaching which had been his most successful style of preaching.
“He got up from his seat and stood up straight,” explained one who was present at his last outdoor service. “His appearance alone was a powerful sermon. The thinness of his face and the paleness of his skin visibly contrasted with the power of the heavenly truth seeking to be made known through the weakness of a decaying body. He remained several minutes unable to speak, and then he said, ‘I will wait for the gracious assistance of God, for He will, I’m certain, help me once more to speak in His name.’
“Then he preached thus: ‘I go, I go to a rest prepared; my sun has arisen, and soon from heaven it will give light to many. Now it’s about to set — no, but rather it’s rising to the heights of immortal glory. I’ve outlived many on earth, but they can’t outlive me in heaven. My body fails but my spirit is still fresh and young. I would willingly live forever in order to continue preaching Christ! But I die to go be with Him! How brief, comparatively brief, has my life been when compared with the great labors that I see before me yet to be accomplished. But if I leave now, while so few care about heavenly things, the God of peace will surely visit you.’”
“Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach,” said one friend to him, his brow wrinkled with concern.
“True,” replied Whitefield, and he clasped his hands and said, “Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of Thy work. If I’ve not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, bearing one last witness to Thy truth, and then go home to die.”
That night he only ate a little supper, and then went to bed very early.
In the nighttime he woke up his servant and told him, “My asthma is coming on again. I need two or three days’ rest.” Then after a pause, he said, “It’s now Sunday morning. Put the window up a little higher; I can’t breathe. I hope I’m better soon, a good pulpit sweat will give me relief; I’ll be better after preaching.”
“I wish you wouldn’t preach so often,” commented the concerned servant.
“It’s better to wear out than to rust out,” he replied.
Then he dropped off to sleep, and about four o’clock in the morning he awoke again.
“I’m almost suffocated,” he said. “I can hardly breathe! My asthma is choking me.”
Then he got out of bed and went to the open window for air.
“Smith,” he said, “I’m dying! I’m dying!” These were the last words he spoke on earth.
There was no need for such a man to give a dying testimony to the truth which he had preached. He had been a living witness of the truth of the gospel, and nothing more was required to make his testimony complete. Thus on the 30th of September 1770, at the young age of fifty-six, George Whitefield closed one of the most remarkable careers that have ever blessed and benefited the Church and the world.
A funeral procession nearly a mile long followed his body to its last resting place, but no outward expressions of sorrow could gauge the loss that the Church had sustained from his departure. He had distinctly begun a new era in Christian preaching, or rather he had revived the earlier practice of our Lord and His apostles, who were open-air and travelling preachers.
The spirit of Christ in Whitefield was evident in him as an incessant earnestness, and a loving temper which all admired. No adequate memorial or portrait of him exists, but he left the impression of his Redeemer deeply engraved in many immortal souls who are now his crown and rejoicing in the Lord.
Not all preachers will enjoy the response to their preaching that Whitefield did, but all servants of Whitefield’s God should be just as earnest as he was, and no less delighted to live and to die for the love of Christ. There is a lot of work to be done in this day of ruin in the Christian testimony. Accept Christ as your own sufficient, complete Saviour, and then in season and out of season preach the Word to the lost, and exhort and comfort the people of God. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:5858Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58)).