A Mighty Rushing Wind

“We must confess that just now we have not the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we could wish.  Many are being converted.  I hope that few of us are laboring unsuccessfully; but we are none of us laboring as our hearts could desire.  Oh, that I could feel the Spirit of God in me, till I was filled to the brim . . . . We seek not for extraordinary excitements, those spurious attendants of genuine revivals, but we do seek for the pouring-out of the Spirit of God.  There is a secret operation which we do not understand; it is like the wind, we know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; yet, though we understand it not, we can and do perceive its divine effect.  It is this breath of Heaven which we want.  The Spirit is blowing upon our churches now with his genial breath, but it is as a soft evening gale.  Oh, that there would come a mighty rushing wind that should carry everything before it, so that even the dry bones of the Valley of Vision might be filled with life and be made to stand up before the Lord, an exceeding great army.  This is the lack of the times, the grand want of our country.  May this come as a blessing from the Most High.”

C. H. Spurgeon, in Lectures Delivered Before The Young Men’s Christian Association in Exeter Hall From November 1858 to February 1859, pages 168-169.

(via Ray Ortlund's blog Christ Is Deeper Still)