In the spiritual realm this pleasure in the power of knowledge is still more dangerous. This brings us to the second answer to the question we asked: How it is that men can delight in knowing about what they neither believe nor do; about a character and a life they do not possess.
When a teacher seeks to train his pupils to obedience, diligence, truthfulness, he is dealing with a life that is capable of these virtues, and has their seeds sown in conscience.
But God’s Word and the church have to deal with supernatural realities of a heavenly life, to apprehend which nature of itself is incapable.
It is because this is not believed or remembered, that all our Bible teaching has no larger results in training humble, holy believers wholly living for God, for the supreme and most blessed work of making God known to fallen men.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter one, Paul speaks about Christ who was made unto us of God’s wisdom, righteousness and sanctification. In regard to the latter all evangelical Christians believe that we have neither righteousness nor holiness of our own, and that we must find them in Christ, the righteousness through his death, the holiness through his Spirit.
But they do not believe that, just as little as we have a righteousness for merit, or a strength for holiness of our own, as little have we any wisdom of our own, nor is our human wisdom capable of apprehending divine things.
They do not believe that just as much as our heart has been depraved and our will perverted, so our mind has been deceived and darkened by sin as to spiritual things.
They have the impression that if God’s Word is heard and read with interest and intelligence, it will work out its own blessing. No mistake can be more fatal.
God has said: As the heavens are higher than the earth, so my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
As little therefore as I with my arm can reach to the stars, can I with my human reason reach to the spiritual truth and power of God’s thoughts.
I can form conceptions, pictures, shadows of what he thinks, and so apprehend them with the mind. But to apprehend the spiritual and substantial reality, this I cannot, but as God is pleased by his Holy Spirit to reveal and give it into the heart and life.
(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 22)
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Andrew Murray (1828 - 1917)
Brother Andrew Murray was a well-known writer/preacher in South Africa who ministered amongst the Dutch Reformed churches. His writings now are widely accepted by modern evangelicals and he is published more than ever in his life-time.Some of his better known books titles are: "Abide In Christ", "Absolute Surrender," and "Humility." His burden for the body of Christ were teachings on the abiding Spirit of Christ in the believer, the life of faith with God daily, and the life of intercession and prayer in the Church.
Andrew Murray was possibly the strongest spokesman of the Philadelphian age to expound the Body's necessity to abide in Christ, like the Apostle John before him.
Murray was born into a family of four children in the then remote Graaff-Reinet region (near the Cape) of South Africa. Educated in Scotland, which was followed by theological studies in Holland, Andrew returned to his native land to work as a missionary and minister. Given the daunting task of ministering to Bloemfontein, a remote region of 50,000 square miles and 12,000 people beyond the Orange River, Murray already began to sense the need to for the "deeper Christian life".
Though successful in preaching and bringing many to Christ, Murray found many of his greatest lessons in the School of Suffering, as will all who follow in the path of obedience.
Andrew Murray 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.