Surprises From the Holy Spirit

In A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir Collin Hanson and John Woodbridge recall an account from the 1st Great Awakening as follows:

The awakening also transformed African-American attitudes towards Christianity. New Lights, ministers who supported the revival, preached to audiences that included both whites and blacks. Many congregations accepted their first black members. Some slave owners were predictably upset. The Weekly History contained an account of a Boston slave owner who walked in on his slave preaching to himself, imitating Whitfield's dramatic style. The owner, no fan of revival, was so amused that he called together his friends for some after-dinner entertainment.

'Supplying his friends with pipes and glasses all around, he instructed his slave to mount a stool in the center of the room and preach as he had the day before,' historian Frank Lambert explains. 'As he began, the company laughed heartily, but when he warned against blaspheming the Holy Spirit and proclaimed the necessity of the new birth, 'the Negro spoke with such Authority that struck the Gentlemen to Heart.' To their host's dismay, the men began to listen intently, and many, as a result of that day's 'entertainment,' became 'pious sober Men.'"

The Holy Spirit enjoys such surprises.

Oh, that we would be surprised once again by the Holy Spirit