Turning to God

Day 16

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” - 2 Corinthians 5:17

In the fall of 1740, Harvard College tutor Daniel Rogers was eager to learn of an impending visit to the New England colonies by Anglican clergyman and transatlantic revivalist, the Reverend George Whitefield.

A 1725 graduate of Harvard College, Rogers was anticipating appointment to a pastoral position with Boston’s New North Church when he first had opportunity to hear Whitefield preach.  Although raised in a Congregational home and familiar with the orthodoxy common to the “New England Way,” Rogers had not personally entered into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ despite his familiarity with Christian doctrine.

A diary entry from this period reveals Roger’s spiritual longings:

“I am heart-sick of the kingdom of sin and Satan, and want the Kingdom of God within me in righteousness, peace, etc.  I hunger,  I thirst.  Lord Jesus, let me be filled, Lord help me to wait upon thee, to believe in thee, to hope in, rely upon thy promise.  I find myself a lost damned creature without thee…I hunger I thirst after an experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

In the time in which Rogers lived, “experimental” knowledge meant that which was personally experienced—something more than mere head knowledge, as important as that is.  Today we might call it “heart knowledge”—truths wrought deep into one’s soul by the power of the Spirit of God that transform a person from the inside out by Divine grace.

Not long afterwards, Rogers joined Whitefield’s entourage as they returned to New York City.  Somewhere en route, Rogers passed from a state of spiritual death and bondage to enjoy the eternal life that all receive and possess who have come to put their trust in Christ alone for the salvation they seek.  Rogers’s diary gives testimony to the spiritual transformation that took place:

“It pleased God of his free and sovereign grace to come into my poor soul with power and so to fill me with peace, yea with such joy in the Holy Ghost as I never experienced before.  I could not forbear smiling nay laughing for joy and gladness of heart.”

While many stories of conversion might be cited from Whitefield’s ministry among the New England colonies during the 1740s, features of the work of grace that led to widespread revival during those years remain the same for today: namely, a hunger for forgiveness from God and the righteousness that He alone can give to all who seek His mercy in Christ.

May God be pleased to give each of us the same hunger—and delight—that the Gospel message brought to Harvard-educated, but still spiritually lost, Daniel Rogers, when he heard the proclamation of a crucified Savior.