Page 35 - Heros of the Faith - Textbook w videos short

Study Section 5: Heroes between 1709 - 1759

5.1 Connect.

How would you like to be used of God by preaching the Gospel in your village or city, and every
bar closed its doors, and evil places shut down? How you like to experience a massive revival
where thousands of people who heard your preaching came forward to receive Christ as their
Savior and Lord? That’s what happened when William Grimshaw and George Whitefield preached
in their day! How did this happen? Was it because they were men of prayer? Or were they
dynamic preachers who had a special gift of preaching? Let’s examine each of their lives and see if
we can figure it out….

5.2 Objectives.

1. The student should be able to describe the life of William Grimshaw and how his faith brought
thousands to Christ through his preaching.

2. The student should be able to describe how George Whitefield led revivals in America and
England. We will discover how his life changed two nations.

5.3 William Grimshaw of Haworth 1709 – 1763 by Faith Cook
https://www.evangelical-times.org/22304/william-grimshaw-remembered/

With any mention of the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, the
names of George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley, Howell Harris
and others instantly spring to mind — instruments in God’s hands of
that great work.

But one name is frequently missing from the list — one whom William Romaine
described as ‘the most indefatigable preacher that ever there was in England’:
William Grimshaw of Haworth.

Grimshaw died at the relatively early age of 54; a short life compared to that of John
Wesley who outlived him by 28 years, even though he had hoped that Grimshaw might become a future leader
of the burgeoning Methodist movement.

Nevertheless, Grimshaw’s life was packed with astonishing activity right up until his death in a typhus epidemic
in April 1763. ‘I expect my stay on earth will be but short’, he had predicted, adding, ‘and I will endeavor to make
the best of a short life and so devote my soul to God as not to go creeping to heaven at the last’.

Newly converted in 1741, even though he had already been a curate for almost 10 years, William Grimshaw
could not forget the debt he owed to the grace of God. It had rescued him from the hypocritical life of a godless
cleric as he ‘embraced Christ for my all in all’. Now he could declare from a full heart, ‘I can never do enough for

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