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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.
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Andrew Murray emphasizes that humanity's spiritual nature is designed to know and enjoy God, yet it often seeks wisdom in the world instead. This pursuit leads to a reliance on worldly reasoning, which becomes an obstacle to experiencing God's love and fosters pride. He illustrates this struggle through the temptations faced by Jesus, highlighting the dangers of self-sufficiency, materialism, and pride. Ultimately, Murray calls for a return to seeking divine wisdom rather than worldly knowledge.
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‘And to Be Desired to Make One wise.’
‘And to be desired to make one wise.’ Man has a spirit capable of knowing and enjoying God. That spiritual nature was turned to the world to seek in it and its wisdom the knowledge of good and evil. And so the wisdom of this world, with its boasted reasoning about God and good, has become the great enemy of the love of God, and the chief source of that pride of life in which men content themselves without God. In our Lord’s temptations we have exactly the same three tendencies illustrated. First came the satisfying of the bodily hunger by his own power without waiting for God’s will. Then there was the lust-of-the eyes temptation in the kingdoms of the world shown to him. And then the appeal to the pride of life in the call to prove himself the son of God. (Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 29).
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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.