It is very usual in the life of grace, for the soul to receive in after years, a second very remarkable visitation of the Holy Spirit, which may be compared to the latter rain. As I told you, the latter rain was sent to plump out the wheat, and make it full and mature, ready for the after harvest ripening. So there is a time of special grace granted to saints, to prepare them for heaven, to make them completely meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. To some, this is given in the form of what has very commonly, and I think correctly, been called a second conversion. “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” was Christ’s remark to Peter, who was even then a converted man.

My brethren, there is a point in grace as much above the ordinary Christian, as the ordinary Christian is above the worldling.

Believe me, the life of grace is no dead level, it is not a fen country, a vast flat. There are mountains, and there are valleys. There are tribes of Christians who live in the valleys, like the poor Swiss of the Valais, who live in the midst of the miasma, where fever has its lair, and the frame is languid and enfeebled. Such dwellers in the lowlands of unbelief are for ever doubting, fearing, troubled about their interest in Christ, and tossed to and fro; but there are other believers, who, by God’s grace, have climbed the mountain of full assurance and near communion.

Their place is with the eagle in his eyrie, high aloft. They are like the strong mountaineer, who has trodden the virgin snow, who has breathed the fresh, free air of the Alpine regions, and therefore his sinews are braced, and limbs are vigorous; these are they who do great exploits, being mighty men, men of renown. The saints who dwell on high in the clear atmosphere of faith, are rejoicing Christians, holy and devout men, doing service for the Master all over the world, and everywhere conquerors through him that loved them. And I desire, oh, how earnestly I desire you to be such men!

My craving is, that all of you, my beloved, who have been watered by the former rain, may also be refreshed by a more than ordinary latter rain, which shall make you more than ordinary Christians, bringing you beyond the blade period and the ear period, into the full corn in the ear.
_____________________________

SOURCE: Charles Haddon Spurgeon July 11, 1869
Scripture: Jeremiah 5:24
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 15