You have heard me speak of Shubal Stearns several times. That man was born on this day in 1745. He was raised in the Congregational religion, but he was saved through the influence of the one-eyed, Anglican Methodist, George Whitefield. Eventually he came to understand the Bible better than his Protestant teachers. He was immersed as a testimony of his faith in Christ, and on May 20, 1751 he was ordained as a Baptist minister. Sterns felt that God had a great ministry for him in Virginia, but he was mistaken. After spending an unfruitful period at Opeckon Creek, he moved to North Carolina. There on the edge of Sandy Creek, God began to bless with a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In that rural area, many were saved, and many others were called into the ministry. Stearns’ friends and associates carried the gospel message back to Virginia, throughout the Carolinas and down into Georgia. It was a thrill for me to stand inside the ancient building at Sandy Creek and to visit the place where Shubal Stearns was buried. The Baptist historian William Cathcart later wrote about the man: “Few men ever enjoyed more of the Spirit’s presence in the closet and in the preaching of the gospel.” He went on to say that if the man had been a Roman Catholic “he would have been canonized, and declared the ‘Patron Saint’ of North Carolina.”
