George Whitefield – (1714-1770), Methodist evangelist
George Whitefield was born on December 16, 1714, in Gloucester, England. The youngest of seven children, he was born in the Bell Inn where his father, Thomas, was a wine merchant and innkeeper. His father died when George was two and his widowed mother Elizabeth struggled to provide for her family. Because he thought he would never make much use of his education, at about age 15 George persuaded his mother to let him leave school and work in the inn. However, sitting up late at night, George became a diligent student of the Bible. A visit to his Mother by an Oxford student who worked his way through college encouraged George to pursue a university education. He returned to grammar school to finish his preparation to enter Oxford, losing only about one year of school.
In 1732 at age 17, George entered Pembroke College at Oxford. He was gradually drawn into a group called the “Holy Club” where he met John and Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley loaned him the book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. The reading of this book, after a long and painful struggle which even affected him physically, finally resulted in George’s conversion in 1735. He said many years later: “I know the place…. Whenever I go to Oxford, I cannot help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed himself to me and gave me the new birth.”
Forced to leave school because of poor health, George returned home for nine months of recuperation. Far from idle, his activity attracted the attention of the bishop of Gloucester, who ordained Whitefield as a deacon, and later as a priest, in the Church of England. Whitefield finished his degree at Oxford and on June 20, 1736, Bishop Benson ordained him. The Bishop, placing his hands upon George’s head, resulted in George’s later declaration that “My heart was melted down and I offered my whole spirit, soul, and body to the service of God’s sanctuary.”
Whitefield was an astounding preacher from the beginning. Though he was slender in build, he stormed in the pulpit as if he were a giant. 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. In his preaching ministry he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and became known as the ‘apostle of the British empire.’
He was a firm Calvinist in his theology yet unrivaled as an aggressive evangelist. Though a clergyman of the Church of England, he cooperated with and had a profound impact on people and churches of many traditions, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. Whitefield, along with the Wesleys, inspired the movement that became known as the Methodists. Whitefield preached more than 18,000 sermons in his lifetime, an average of 500 a year or ten a week. Many of them were given over and over again. Fewer than 90 have survived in any form.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Augustine of Hippo – The City of God (Part 1 of 69)
Amazon.com Review
“Augustine’s City of God, a monumental work of religious lore, philosophy, and history, was written as a kind of literary tombstone for Roman culture. After the sack of Rome, Augustine wrote this book to anatomize the corruption of Romans’ pursuit of earthly pleasures: “grasping for praise, open-handed with their money; honest in the pursuit of wealth, they wanted to hoard glory.” Augustine contrasts his condemnation of Rome with an exaltation of Christian culture. The glory that Rome failed to attain will only be realized by citizens of the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem foreseen in Revelation. Because City of God was written for men of classical learning–custodians of the culture Augustine sought to condemn–it is thick with Ciceronian circumlocutions, and makes many stark contrasts between “Your Virgil” and “Our Scriptures.” Even if Augustine’s prose strikes modern ears as a bit bombastic, and if his polarized Christian/pagan world is more binary than the one we live in today, his arguments against utopianism and his defense of the richness of Christian culture remain useful and strong. City of God is, as its final words proclaim itself to be, “a giant of a book.” “–Michael Joseph Gross
B. B. Warfield said, “Augustine [was one of the early founders] of Roman Catholicism and the author of that doctrine of grace which it has been the constantly pursued effort of Roman Catholicism to neutralize, and which in very fact either must be neutralized by, or will neutralize, Roman Catholicism. Two children were struggling in the womb of his mind. There can be no doubt which was the child of his heart. His doctrine of the Church he had received whole from his predecessors, and he gave it merely the precision and vitality which insured its persistence. His doctrine of grace was all his own: it represented the very core of his being . . . it was inevitable, had time been allowed, that his inherited doctrine of the Church, too, with all its implications, would have gone down before it, and Augustine would have bequeathed to the Church, not “problems,” but a thoroughly worked out system of evangelical religion. . . . The problem which Augustine bequeathed to the Church for solution, the Church required a thousand years to solve. But even so, it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church. (Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, 321-22)
Be advised that the illustrations (not photos) used in this video are graphic.
The intent of this video is to remind Christians of our brothers and sisters who chose agony and death rather than deny our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us not forget also the many Christians around the world today who are currently suffering persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. May we remember to pray for them always.
May we all in the Church today have such blessed faith.
The martyrs and means of torture and execution are depicted in the following order:
John the Baptist beheaded, AD 23
Stoning of Stephen, AD 34
Apostle James beheaded, AD 45
Stoning of apostle Philip, Hierapolis, Phrygia, AD 54
Martyrdom of apostle James the Lesser, Jerusalem, AD 63
Burning of Barnabas at Salamanca, Cyprus, AD 64
Death of Mark the evangelist, Alexandria, AD 64
Crucifixion of apostle Peter, Rome, AD 69
Apostle Paul beheaded, Rome, AD 69
Crucifixion of apostle Andrew, Patras in Achaia, ca. AD 70
Apostle Bartholomew skinned alive and beheaded, Armenia, AD 70
Apostle Thomas martyred, Calamina, AD 70
Evangelist Matthew beheaded, Naddavar, Ethiopia, AD 70
Crucifixion of Simon the Zealot, Syria, AD 70
Crucifixion of apostle Matthew, AD 70
Hanging of evangelist Luke, Greece, AD 93
Antipas roasted alive in a copper steer, AD 95
Vitalus buried alive, Ravenna, ca. AD 99
Ignatius thrown to the lions, Rome, AD 111
Burning of Polycarp, Smyrna, AD 168
Blandine half-roasted on a grill and then thrown to wild bulls, AD 172
Martyrdom of Cointha, Alexandria, AD 252
Torture of Origen, Alexandria, AD 234
Tharacus, Probus, and Adronicus thrown to wild animals, AD 290
Persecution by emperors Diocletian and Maximus, AD 301
Cassianus, a teacher, killed by his students, Imola, AD 302
Honoric, king of the Vandals, eaten by worms and lice, AD 477
Burning of Clement the Scotchman, AD 756
13-year-old Pelagius martyred, Cordoba, Spain, AD 925
Burning of Arnoldus, teacher from Brixen, Rome, 1145
Burning of many Christians called Publicans, France and England, 1182
Martyr, with his hands tied behind his back, hoisted in the air
by a rope.(pulley), over spikes, or sometimes, sharp flints, on to which the Martyr
was let fall.
Martyrs buffeted, kicked, and pounded with the fists, being stoned,
face and jaws are bruised and broken with a stone,
crushed under a huge stone.
Martyrs thrown head-first into a caldron full of molten lead or boiling oil,
in a hot frying-pan,
plunged into a boiling pot.
Martyr’s dismembered limbs put in a frying-pan.
Martyr in the brazen bull.
Martyr laid on the iron bed and broiled.
Martyr whose limbs are interwoven in the spokes of a wheel,
on which he is left exposed for days, till he dies.
Martyr bound to a narrow wheel, which is revolved, so that
his body is horribly mangled on iron spikes fixed underneath.
Sometimes martyrs were bound to the circumference of great wheels,
and so hurled from a height over stony places.
Martyr sawn in two with an iron saw.
Martyr’s hands and feet cut off.
Martyr suspended by the feet, and his head at the same
tim pounded with hammers.
Martyr suspended by the hands, which are tied behind
his back, heavy weights being fastened to his feet and
around his neck.
Martyr suspended by both feet, and a great stone fastened
to his neck.
Sometimes the Blessed Martyrs, after being smeared with honey
were bound to stakes fixed in the ground, and so exposed to the
rays of the sun to be tortured by the stings of flies and bees.
Martyr suspended by one foot; one leg is bent at the knee,
which is constricted by means of an iron ring, the other being
weighted with a heavy mass of iron.
Martyrs suspended by one foot.
Suspended by both feet.
Raised on the cross, head uppermost.
nailed to the cross, head downwards.
Hung up by both arms, heavy weights being attached
to the feet.
Christian woman suspended by the hair.
Martyrs hung up by one arm only, ponderous
stones being fastened to their feet.
Arthur Walkington Pink (1886-1952) evangelist and Biblical scholar
Pink was born in Nottingham, England on April 1, 1886 and became a Christian in his early 20’s. Though born to Christian parents, prior to conversion he migrated into a Theosophical society (an occult gnostic group popular in England during that time), and quickly rose in prominence within their ranks. His conversion came from his father’s patient admonitions from Scripture. It was the verse, Proverbs 14:12, ‘there is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,’ which particularly struck his heart and compelled him to renounce Theosophy and follow Jesus.
Desiring to grow in knowledge of the Bible, Pink immigrated to the United States to study at Moody Bible Institute. In 1916 he married Vera E. Russell, who was from Kentucky. However, he left after just two months for Colorado, then California, then Britain. From 1925 to 1928 he served in Australia, including as pastor of two congregations from 1926 to 1928, when he returned to England, and to the United States the following year. He eventually pastored churches Colorado, California, Kentucky and South Carolina.
In 1922 he started a monthly magazine entitled Studies in Scriptures which circulated among English-speaking Christians worldwide, though only to a relatively small circulation list of around 1,000.
In 1934 Pink returned to England, and within a few years turned his Christian service to writing books and pamphlets. Pink died in Stornoway, Scotland on July 15, 1952. The cause of death was anemia.
After Pink’s death, his works were republished by the Banner of Truth Trust and reached a much wider audience as a result. Biographer Iain Murray observes of Pink, “the widespread circulation of his writings after his death made him one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century.” His writing sparked a revival of expository preaching and focused readers’ hearts on biblical living.
John Owen was by common consent the weightiest Puritan theologian, and many would bracket him with Jonathan Edwards as one of the greatest Reformed theologians of all time.
John Owen – (1616-1683), Congregational theologian
Born at Stadhampton, Oxfordshire, Owen was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he studied classics and theology and was ordained. Because of the “high-church” innovations introduced by Archbishop William Laud, he left the university to be a chaplain to the family of a noble lord. His first parish was at Fordham in Essex, to which he went while the nation was involved in civil war. Here he became convinced that the Congregational way was the scriptural form of church government. In his next charge, the parish of Coggeshall. in Essex, he acted both as the pastor of a gathered church and as the minister of the parish. This was possible because the parliament, at war with the king, had removed bishops. In practice, this meant that the parishes could go their own way in worship and organization.
Oliver Cromwell liked Owen and took him as his chaplain on his expeditions both to Ireland and Scotland (1649-1651). Owen’s fame was at its height from 1651 to 1660 when he played a prominent part in the religious, political, and academic life of the nation. Appointed dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1651, he became also vice-chancellor of the university in 1652, a post he held for five years with great distinction and with a marked impartiality not often found in Puritan divines. This led him also to disagreement, even with Cromwell, over the latter’s assumption of the protectorship. Owen retained his deanery until 1659. Shortly after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he moved to London, where he was active in preaching and writing until his death. He declined invitations to the ministry in Boston (1663) and the presidency of Harvard (1670) and chided New England Congregationalists for intolerance. He turned aside also from high preferment when his influence was acknowledged by governmental attempts to persuade him to relinquish Nonconformity in favor of the established church.
His numerous works include The Display of Arminianism (1642); Eshcol, or Rules of Direction for the Walking of the Saints in Fellowship (1648), an exposition of Congregational principles; Saius Electorum, Sanguis Jesu (1648), another anti-Arminian polemic; Diatriba de Divina Justitia (1658), an attack on Socinianism; Of the Divine Original Authority of the Scriptures (1659); Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661), a history from creation to Reformation; Animadversions to Fiat Lux (1662), replying to a Roman Catholic treatise; Doctrine of Justification by Faith (1677); and Exercitationes on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1668-1684).
Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) was an English Christian evangelist and author who focused on the subjects of prayer and revival. He is best known for challenging the modern church (through his books and sermons) to compare itself to the early Christian Church as chronicled in the Book of Acts. His most notable book is Why Revival Tarries which has sold over a million copies worldwide.
Born in Leeds, in Yorkshire, England, Ravenhill was educated at Cliff College in England and sat under the ministry of Samuel Chadwick. He was a student of church history, with a particular interest in Christian revival. His evangelistic meetings during the Second World War drew large crowds. Many converts devoted themselves to Christian ministry and foreign missions.
In 1939, he married an Irish nurse, Martha. The Ravenhills had three sons: Paul, David, and Philip. Paul and David are Christian ministers, and Philip is a teacher.
In 1950, Ravenhill and his family moved from Great Britain to the United States. In the 1960s they traveled within the United States, holding tent revivals and evangelistic meetings.
In the 1980s, Ravenhill moved to a home near Lindale, Texas, a short distance from Last Days Ministries Ranch. He regularly taught classes at LDM and was a mentor to the late Keith Green. He also spent some time teaching at Bethany College of Missions in Minnesota, and some time in Seguin, Texas.
Among others influenced by Ravenhill were Ray Comfort, Ravi Zacharias, Tommy Tenney, Steve Hill, Charles Stanley, Bill Gothard, Paul Washer, and David Wilkerson.
He was a close friend of pastor and writer A. W. Tozer.
Through his teaching and books, Ravenhill addressed the disparities he perceived between the New Testament Church and the Church in his time and called for adherence to the principles of biblical revival.
Tozer said of Ravenhill:
“To such men as this, the church owes a debt too heavy to pay. The curious thing is that she seldom tries to pay him while he lives. Rather, the next generation builds his sepulchre and writes his biography — as if instinctively and awkwardly to discharge an obligation the previous generation to a large extent ignored.”
Gravesite at Garden Valley Cemetery
Ravenhill died in November 1994 and is interred at Garden Valley Cemetery in Garden Valley, Texas, near the grave of Contemporary Christian music artist Keith Green.
In 2011 Free Grace Press published a full biography of Leonard Ravenhill written by Mack Tomlinson titled, “In Light of Eternity.
Words: William Whiting, 1860. He wrote the lyrics as a poem for a student about to sail for America.
Music: Melita, John B. Dykes, in Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861. Dykes fittingly named the tune after a locale associated with a Biblical shipwreck. Melita was the
island the Apostle Paul reached after his ship went down (Acts 28:1); today we know it as the isle of Malta.
William Whiting (1825-1878)
In America, Eternal Father is often called the Navy Hymn, because it is sung at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It is also sung on ships of the British Royal Navy and has been translated into French. It was the favorite hymn of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and was sung at his funeral in Hyde Park, New York, April 1945. The Navy Band played it in 1963 as U.S. President John Kennedys body was carried up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to lie in state. Roosevelt served as Secretary of the Navy, and Kennedy was a PT boat commander in World War II.
The original words were written as a hymn by a schoolmaster and clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. William Whiting. Rev. Whiting (1825-1878) resided on the English coast near the sea and had once survived a furious storm in the Mediterranean. His experiences inspired him to pen the ode, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” In the following year, 1861, the words were adapted to music by another English clergyman, the Rev. John B. Dykes (1823-1876) , who had originally written the music as “Melita” (ancient name for the Mediterranean island of Malta). Rev. Dykes’ name may be recognized as that of the composer given credit for the music to many other well-known hymns, including “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” and “Nearer, My God to Thee.”
In the United States, in 1879 the late Rear Adm. Charles Jackson Train, an 1865 graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis was a lieutenant commander stationed at the Academy in charge of the Midshipman Choir. In that year, Lt. Comdr. Train inaugurated the present practice of concluding each Sunday’s Divine Services at the Academy with the singing of the first verse of this hymn.
The hymn, entitled “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” is found in most Protestant Hymnals. It can be more easily located in these hymnals by consulting the “Index to First Lines” under “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” The words have been changed several times since the original hymn by Rev. Whiting was first published in 1860-61. One will find that the verses as now published differ from the original primarily in the choice of one or two words in several lines of each verse.
Music: Arthur S. Sullivan, 1842-1900
Words: Sabine Baring-Gould
Lyrics:
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!
Refrain
Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
At the sign of triumph Satans host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hells foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.
Refrain
Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.
Refrain
Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.
Refrain
William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829. At the age of 13 he was sent to work as an apprentice in a pawnbroker’s shop to help support his mother and sisters. He did not enjoy his job but it made him only too aware of the poverty in which people lived and how they suffered humiliation and degradation because of it. During his teenage years he became a Christian and spent much of his spare time trying to persuade other people to become Christians too.
The young William preaching in the streets.
When his apprenticeship was completed he moved to London, again to work in the pawnbroking trade. He joined up with the local Methodist Church and later decided to become a minister.
After his marriage to Catherine Mumford in 1855 he spent several years as a Methodist minister, traveling all around the country, preaching and sharing God’s word to all who would listen. Yet he felt that God wanted more from him, that he should be doing more to reach ordinary people. He returned to London with his family, having resigned his position as a Methodist minister.
One day in 1865 he found himself in the East End of London, preaching to crowds of people in the streets. Outside the Blind Beggar pub some missioners heard him speaking and were so impressed by his powerful preaching that they asked him to lead a series of meetings they were holding in a large tent.
The tent was situated on an old Quaker burial ground on Mile End waste in Whitechapel. The date for the first meeting was set for 2 July, 1865. To the poor and wretched of London’s East End, Booth brought the good news of Jesus Christ and his love for all men. Booth soon realised he had found his destiny. He formed his own movement, which he called ‘The Christian Mission’.
Slowly the mission began to grow but the work was hard and Booth would ‘stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue, often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck’, wrote his wife. Evening meetings were held in an old warehouse where urchins threw stones and fireworks through the window. Outposts were eventually established and in time attracted converts, yet the results remained discouraging-this was just another of the 500 charitable and religious groups trying to help in the East End. It was not until 1878 when The Christian Mission changed its name to The Salvation Army that things began to happen. The impetus changed. The idea of an Army fighting sin caught the imagination of the people and the Army began to grow rapidly. Booth’s fiery sermons and sharp imagery drove the message home and more and more people found themselves willing to leave their past behind and start a new life as a soldier in The Salvation Army.
Inevitably, the military spirit of the movement meant that The Salvation Army soon spread abroad. By the time Booth was promoted to Glory in 1912 the Army was at work in 58 countries.
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