- Home
- Speakers
- Andrew Murray
- God Expects Your Surrender
Andrew Murray

Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917). South African pastor, author, and revivalist born in Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony, to Dutch Reformed missionary parents. Sent to Scotland at 10, he studied at Aberdeen University and Utrecht, Netherlands, returning ordained in 1848. He pastored in Bloemfontein and Worcester, later moderating the Dutch Reformed Church’s Cape Synod. In 1860, he sparked a revival in the Orange Free State, preaching to thousands across racial lines despite apartheid’s rise. Murray wrote over 240 books, including Abide in Christ (1882) and With Christ in the School of Prayer, translated into dozens of languages. His emphasis on holiness, prayer, and divine healing influenced global Pentecostalism. Married to Emma Rutherford in 1856, they had eight children, four becoming missionaries. He founded theological seminaries and the Huguenot College for women. Despite chronic illness, he traveled to Europe and America, speaking at Keswick Conventions. His devotional works remain widely read, shaping Christian spirituality across denominations.
Download
Topics
Sermon Summary
Andrew Murray emphasizes the necessity of absolute surrender to God, drawing parallels from everyday objects that serve their purpose only when fully dedicated to a specific task. He illustrates that just as a pen must be surrendered to the hand for effective writing, believers must wholly yield themselves to God for Him to work in their lives. Murray points out that the temple of Solomon was dedicated entirely to God, and similarly, each person is a temple meant for divine habitation, contingent upon their complete surrender. He asserts that God is worthy of this surrender and that without it, His transformative work cannot occur in us.
God Expects Your Surrender
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to cover my body. This building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him. And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition-absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917). South African pastor, author, and revivalist born in Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony, to Dutch Reformed missionary parents. Sent to Scotland at 10, he studied at Aberdeen University and Utrecht, Netherlands, returning ordained in 1848. He pastored in Bloemfontein and Worcester, later moderating the Dutch Reformed Church’s Cape Synod. In 1860, he sparked a revival in the Orange Free State, preaching to thousands across racial lines despite apartheid’s rise. Murray wrote over 240 books, including Abide in Christ (1882) and With Christ in the School of Prayer, translated into dozens of languages. His emphasis on holiness, prayer, and divine healing influenced global Pentecostalism. Married to Emma Rutherford in 1856, they had eight children, four becoming missionaries. He founded theological seminaries and the Huguenot College for women. Despite chronic illness, he traveled to Europe and America, speaking at Keswick Conventions. His devotional works remain widely read, shaping Christian spirituality across denominations.