Contents
- The
Sin and Cause of Prayerlessness
- The
Fight Against Prayerlessness
- How
To Be Delivered from Prayerlessness;How Deliverance May Continue
- The
Blessing of Victory; The More Abundant Life
- The
Example of Our Lord
- The
Holy Spirit and Prayer
- Sin
vs The Holiness of God
- Obedience;
The Victorious Life
- Hints-for
the Inner Chamber; Time
- The
Example of Paul
- The
Word and Prayer; Preaching and Prayer; Wholeheartedness
- 'Follow
Me'; The Holy Trinity; Life and Prayer; Perseverance in Prayer;Carnal
or Spiritual
- George
Mueller; Hudson Taylor; Light from the Inner Chamber
- The
Cross Spirit in Our Lord
- Taking
Up the Cross
- The
Holy Spirit and the Cross
- A
Testimony & An Epilogue
Andrew Murray as an author.
Andrew
Murray's first published books dealt with the urgent question of the
training of children. Nothing can have impressed this young minister on
his journeys among the voortrekkers as deeply as the large numbers of
infants presented for baptism. The Boers are a healthy and prolific
race. Families of a dozen or more are common, and mothers are
occasionally met with who have borne twenty or twenty-four children.
The task of Christian mothers, upon whom devolves the duty of
inculcating the first principles of morality and teaching the simplest
truths of religion, is assuredly no easy one. Mr Murray's first book
was designed to assist the mothers of his flock in the performance of
this duty by providing a Life of Christ in language adapted to the
comprehension of the child. It appeared in 1858 as an illustrated
quarto volume under the title Jezus de Kindervriend.
His
methods of work during the latter years of his life are thus described
by his daughter: 'He sits up very straight in his study chair, and
dictates in a loud, clear voice, as though he were actually addressing
his audience. His hours of work are usually from 9 or 10 till 11 in the
forenoon, during which time two or three chapters of a book are
completed. He is very particular about punctuation, and always says:
"New paragraph," pointing with long, slender finger to the exact spot
on the paper where the new line must commence, "fullstop," "comma,"
"colon," "semi-colon," as the sense may require. Should his secretary
perpetrate some mistake or other in spelling, he would make some
playful remark like: "You will have to go back to the kindergarten, you
know." At 11 o'clock he would say: "Now give me ten minutes' rest; or
no, let us write some letters for a change."
Then half a dozen
letters would be quickly dictated, in reply to requests for prayer for
healing, for the conversion of unconverted relations, for the
deliverance of friends addicted to drink, or, it might be, business
letters.
He always dictated in a tone of great earnestness,
and was specially anxious to get a great deal into a page. "Write
closer, closer," he often repeated. When near the end of the foolscap
page, he said: "Now the last four lines for a prayer"; and then he
would fold his hands, close his eyes, and actually pray the prayer
which ended the written meditation.
To a greater extent than
almost any other religious writer of our age Mr Murray possessed the
insight and the authority of one of the prophets of olden time. At
critical moments in the history of the church he never failed to raise
his voice and to direct attention to the real issues. Those who are
intimate with his career in South Africa will agree that there was no
man who could rise to a great occasion like Andrew Murray. He possessed
the gift of speaking, at the right season, the right and just word, of
opening up the larger view and kindling the nobler emotions. This gift
he exercised in his writings also.
Of the blessing which Mr
Murray's writings have brought to the thousands, the tens of thousands,
and the hundreds of thousands who have purchased and presumably read
them, it is impossible to speak. Scores of letters have been preserved,
from correspondents all over the world, expressing the deep gratitude
of the writers for spiritual benefit derived from the study of Mr
Murray's volumes. The author of these lines has personally examined
some one hundred and fifty such letters, and their perusal has produced
an overwhelming impression of the blessed ministry which Andrew Murray
exercised by the use of his fertile and tireless pen. Unknown persons
in every quarter of the globe hail him as their spiritual father, and
ascribe whatever growth their Christian life has undergone to the
influence of his priceless devotional works. 'What I owe to you
eternity alone will reveal,' is the language of a lady in New South
Wales; and her testimony can be paralleled by that of correspondents
from the United States and Canada, Great Britain and the Continent,
Holland and South Africa, India, China and Australasia.
[From The Life of Andrew Murray of South Africa by J. Du
Plessis, Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1919, pp. 460ff.1
Foreword
A
few words with regard to the origin of this book and the object with
which it was written will help to put the reader into the right
position for understanding its teaching.
It was the outcome
of a conference of ministers at Stellenbosch, South Africa, April
11-14,1912. The occasion of the conference was as follows: Professor de
Vos, of our Theological Seminary, had written a letter to the ministers
of our church (Dutch Reformed Church) concerning the low state of
spiritual life which marked the Church (universal) generally, which,
(he said), ought to lead to the inquiry as to how far that statement
included our church too. What had been said in the book, The State of
the Church, called for deep searching of heart. He thought there could
be no doubt about the truth of the statement in regard to the lack of
spiritual power. He asked whether it was not time for us to come
together and in God's presence to find out what might be the cause of
the evil. He wrote: 'If only we study the conditions in all sincerity,
we shall have to acknowledge that our unbelief and sin are the cause of
the lack of spiritual power; that this condition is one of sin and
guilt before God, and nothing less than a direct grieving of God's Holy
Spirit.'
His invitation met with a hearty response. Our
four theological professors, with more than two hundred ministers,
missionaries, and theological students, came together with the above
words as the keynote of our meeting. From the very first, in the
addresses there was the tone of confession as the only way to
repentance and restoration. At a subsequent meeting the opportunity was
given for testimony as to what might be the sins which made the life of
the Church so feeble. Some began to mention failings that they had seen
in other ministers, either in conduct, or in doctrine, or in service.
It was soon felt that this was not the right way; each must acknowledge
that in which he himself was guilty.
The Lord graciously so
ordered it that we were gradually led to the sin of prayerlessness as
one of the deepest roots of the evil. No one could plead himself free
from this. Nothing so reveals the defective spiritual life in minister
and congregation as the lack of believing and unceasing prayer. Prayer
is in very deed the pulse of the spiritual life. It is the great means
of bringing to minister and people the blessing and power of heaven.
Persevering and believing prayer means a strong and an abundant life.
When
once the spirit of confession began to prevail, the question arose as
to whether it would be indeed possible to expect to gain the victory
over all that had in the past hindered our prayer life. In smaller
conferences held previously, it had been found that many were most
anxious to make a new beginning and yet had not the courage to expect
that they would be able to maintain that prayer life which they saw to
be in accordance with the Word of God. They had often made the attempt
but had failed. They did not dare to make any promise to the Lord to
live and pray as he would have them; they felt it impossible. Such
confessions gradually led to the great truth, that the only power for a
new prayer life is to be found in an entirely new relation to our
blessed Saviour. It is as we see in him the Lord who saves us from sin
- the sin of prayerlessness too - and our faith yields itself to a life
of closer intercourse with him, that a life in his love and fellowship
will make prayer to him the natural expression of our soul's life.
Before we parted, many were able to testify that they were returning
with new light and new hope to find in Jesus Christ strength for a new
prayer life.
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