It’s amazing what you find in the paper.  Recently, I picked up a Wall Street Journal and read Barton Swain's review of Thomas Kidd's new biography, George Whitfield.

Born in 1714, Whitfield was just 21 years old when—as he put it— after enduring

many months' inexpressible trials by night and day… God was pleased at length to remove the heavy load and to enable me to lay hold on his dear Son by a living faith.

George Whitfield’s spiritual journey caused him to deeply ponder the subject of conversion itself.   This passion pushed him toward further study, ordination, and an itinerant preaching ministry.  He traveled 14 times to Scotland and came to America 7 times.   In a given week, he often preached more hours than he slept.

And the great English evangelist didn’t sugarcoat his Bible teaching.  “I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher,” Whitfield once proclaimed.   He made good on that promise with statements like:

Before ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must not only be sick of your original and actual sins; but ye must be sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances.... If ye never felt ye had no righteousness of your own, if ye never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness, ye can never come to Jesus Christ.

Whitfield once spoke to a mining town near Bristol.  By the time he was through, Whitfield recalled “white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks.”

A gripping image, isn’t it?  “White gutters made by their tears…”

Have you come to that place where you are finally “sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances?”  If so, you are finally ready to receive the forgiveness Christ alone can offer.

Psalms 51:7 “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.” Jesus is ready to make you clean. Why not let Him do what He does best—right now?