George Whitefield was born in Gloucester, England in 1714. He attended Oxford University. Two of his best friends were John and Charles Wesley. Though he began preaching early, there is good evidence he was not as yet born again. In 1735, while praying and fasting, he fainted from hunger. He thought that maybe he was becoming seriously ill and threw himself on his bed, crying "I thirst, I thirst." At that moment, as he later testified, he was born again and became convinced that "God had called on him to spread the gospel message of 'dynamic Christianity.'"
As Whitefield preached he drew large crowds of people. This "pale, pudgy preacher" was spellbinding to his audiences. He constantly admonished them "to be much in prayer." Next to the King of England, he was the most famous figure in the English-speaking world. Reportedly, he gave eighteen thousand sermons in his lifetime and was seen and heard, with his loud booming voice, by a record number of individuals, in the eighteenth century.
Before coming to the colonies, Whitefield’s friend John Wesley, wrote him to come over and bring evangelism to the new nation because "the harvest is so great and the laborers are so few." In America the clergy loathed him but the people revered him. When church doors were closed to him he would speak outdoors. Benjamin Franklin even helped by putting ads in his paper about Whitefield’s speaking engagements. But also being mathematically minded, Franklin would help measure off the common greens where Whitefield would speak so they could figure out how many people they could get into a given area to hear the Word of God! It is even said that Franklin’s personal wealth helped to sustain him financially after he entered into the costly public service.
Because the crowds could be so big, Whitefield had a carpenter build a collapsible, portable pulpit from which he could deliver his messages and "offer spontaneous prayers" for the audiences. Throughout his ministry, his message on prayer was always the same, paraphrased from the New Testament: "Pray, pray, pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17).
It is said that after giving his last message to an audience in Exeter, New Hampshire, he looked out at the crowd and prayed: "Lord Jesus, I am weary in Your work, but not of Your work! If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for You once more in the fields, seal Your truth, and come home and die."
Early the next morning, he died in a pastor’s home. Hearing of his death, thousands of mourners traveled enormous distances to attend the funeral.
