| ... was one of four children
born to Pastor Andrew, Sr., and Maria Murray. He was raised in what
was considered to be the most remote corner of the world - Graaff-Reinet,
South Africa. Educated in Scotland and Holland, in 1848 Andrew,
Jr., returned to South Africa as a missionary and minister with
the Dutch Reformed Church. His first appointment was to Bloemfontein,
a territory of nearly 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people.
Andrew and his brother John had been in close
contact with a revival movement in Scotland, an evangelical extension
of the ongoing Second Great Awakening in America. He prayed for
the same sort of awakening for the church in South Africa and
wrote, "My prayer is for revival, but I am held back by the increasing
sense of my own unfitness for the work. I lament the awful pride
and self complacency that have till now ruled my heart. O that
I may be more and more a minister of the Spirit." (J. du Plessis,
The Life of Andrew Murray)
In 1860, revival did come to the churches of Cape
Town, South Africa, and subsequently spread to surrounding towns
and villages. Even remote farms and plantations felt the impact
as lives were changed. Where once the churches had not been able
to find one man ready to be a leader for God, the revival raised
up 50 in Murray's Cape Town parish alone. There were more conversions
in one month in that parish than in the whole course of its previous
history. (Leona Choy, Andrew Murray: Apostle of Abiding Love)
Greatly concerned for the spiritual guidance of
new converts and renewed Christians, Andrew Murray wrote over
240 books. His writings reflect his own longing for a deeper
life in Christ and his prayer that others would long for and experience
that life as well.
"The condition of God's
blessing is absolute surrender of all into His hands. If our hearts
are willing for that, there is no end to what God will do for
us, and to the blessings God will bestow." (Andrew Murray, "Absolute
Surrender")
I pray these works will bless you, as they have
us at bibleteacher.org.
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