
Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
“David Zeisberger, noted Moravian missionary passed through here in Oct 1767 en-route from Bethlehem to found missions among the Delaware Indians to the West. He was the first white man to travel through the primeval forests of this region.” (from official signage).
In the early 1700’s white people who attempted to travel the Forbidden Trail in north central PA and the NY southern tier were killed. In 1767, David was the first white person to travel through this area. He did it to preach the Gospel. Historians differ on his exact route from the western reaches of Susquehanna River at Mills, Pa to the eastern reaches of the Allegheny River found at Alma, NY. One proposed route took him near the church at Yorks Corners and the southwest to Alma. The attached sign is about 2 miles west of Gold, PA on SR 49.
Now the backstory… In the early 1700’s a congregation of some 300, Hussites, Anabaptists, Calvinists and others came together seeking refuge on the estate of Count Zinzendorf in Saxony, East Germany also called Moravia. Like the Count, who was 27 years old at the time, most of this community were young and fleeing persecution. At first they quarreled over doctrines of baptism, holiness, predestination and the like.
The Count encouraged them to just concentrate on their shared love for Jesus, and the his cross, which he reminded them brought their redemption not their doctrines. They joined in a covenant agreement to begin seeking the Lord in travailing prayer.
This is what happened: Tuesday August 5, 1727, Count Zinzendorf spent the entire night in watching and prayer. This was called “The Lords Watch”. Sunday August 10, 1727 when Pastor Rothe preached the congregation fell under the power of the Holy Spirit.
Wednesday August 13, 1727 at morning communion the power of God came upon that community in such shattering force that men working in fields 10 miles away were stricken and under the shock of it, the records of this time point to this event as the moment when the community “learned to love one another”.
Wednesday August 27, 1727 the Herrnhut Church began a prayer meeting that lasted day and night without stopping for over 100 years. This century long prayer meeting of laboring, travailing, intercession basically birthed the modern mission movement. Long after the original members of Herrnhut were dead every Protestant orientated denomination engaged in carrying the gospel to the unsaved did so because of that century of Moravian praying.
Moravian Missionaries quickly flooded out of Germany like water rushing out of a powerful artesian well, in 25 years more than 200 preachers and 3,000 evangelists went to every continent on earth. One such Moravian Pastor, a Brother Bohler, came to London, England and preached to John and Charles Wesley. During his sermon the brothers were deeply moved and John experienced “Justifying Faith”.
From the first prayers to the prayers over a 100 years ago, hundreds of millions came to faith, a slumbering tradition-choked Church was stirred back to life and the world was transformed.
Some of these Moravians came to America. One teenager who came with his family to Bethlehem, PA was named David Zeisberger. He learned tribal languages and traveled throughout PA and NY as a missionary to the native Americans.
When he arrived in western PA on the Allegheny River he was the first to preach to the Delaware native Americans there. He wrote in his diary that he felt, as never before, the “Power of the Gospel” as he preached his first sermon in that place, and that this power not only protected him from imminent danger, but he could see it working in the faces of his listeners. ‘Never yet did I see so clearly depicted in the faces of the Indians both the darkness of hell and the world-subduing power of the Gospel.”
It was night, in the middle of the assembly was a large council fire, whose flickering light fell with a ruddy glare upon the faces of the warriors, upturned in silent expectation to the white man who stood there calm, collected, ready to make known the glorious gospel of the blessed God. There was a blind chief, called Allemewi seated looking into the fire and also a very old woman who was carried there to hear David Zeisberger.
Will we seek God together for a spiritual awakening that bears fruit to the power of the Gospel? May God grant us boldness, courage and perseverance. God wants to move in power in our midst.