Andrew Murray: The missionary impact of humility

Why is humility so key to missionary breakthrough? In what way has pride and self-righteousness either prevented or killed times of revival? The well-known devotional writer Andrew Murray has much to teach us in these key areas.

Murray Jr.’s father, Andrew Senior, had come to South Africa from Scotland as a missionary in 1828.  The Dutch Reformed Church was so desperate for pastors that they would even accept Scottish Presbyterians into their fold.  Revival and missions were the air that Murray Junior breathed in his father’s house. Missionaries constantly visited the Murray home, including Dr. David Livingstone.

In 1838, when Murray Junior. was ten, he and his brother John went to study in Scotland. In the spring of 1840, the revivalist William C. Burns came and spoke in Aberdeen, Scotland. Burns’ heart was constantly broken over the lost, and he would weep and pray for hours for their salvation. This left a deep impression on young Andrew Murray Jr.

The two brothers then went to Utrecht, Holland, for further theological studies. There, they became part of a revival group called “Sechor Dabar” (Remember the Word, in Hebrew). 

When he returned to South Africa, Murray became a Dutch Reformed pastor, being elected six times as the Moderator of the entire Dutch Reformed Church denomination.  After initially trying to shut down the 1860 South African revival, he ended up giving strong leadership to this key revival. As people cried out in anguish, Murray initially said, “This must stop now. I am your pastor!” God changed his mind, so, with Murray’s blessing, great renewal broke out throughout South Africa with many thousands confessing Christ.

Suddenly in 1879, at age 51, he lost his voice for two years. Out of his painful two years of silence, he learned to depend upon God’s faithfulness, surrendering everything to God, and coming into a deep place of humility and love for others. In this time of waiting, he learned that we have nothing but what we humbly receive from God.  Humility is about being an empty vessel that God can fill.  Are we willing to be radically dependent on God? 

Murray’s amazing book Humility came of this deep time of self-crucifixion: “Nothing but a crucified Jesus revealed in the soul can give a humble spirit.” Humility, for Murray, was most clearly seen in the incarnate and crucified Christ who prayed “not my will but Thine be done.” He discovered that pride is death, and the other (humility) is life; the one is all hell, the other is all heaven.

During his voice ailment, Murray came to see that a lack of humility suppresses revival and missions: “A lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure.”

In 1881 he went to London to Bethshan, a healing home started by W. E. Boardman. He was completely healed there and never had trouble with his voice again. From that point on, he knew and taught that spiritual gifts were for believers today, and that God’s will is for healing and wholeness.  While in England in 1882, he attended the Keswick Convention which focused on holiness and deeper life in Christ. Eventually, he founded Keswick South Africa. 

Murray did not just recover his voice; His whole demeanor changed.  He became known for his joyful humour.  A long-time friend of the family wrote to Murray’s daughter Mary of this transformation: “A great change came into his life after that. He used to be rather stern and very decided in his judgment of things – after that year he was all love. His great humility also struck me very forcibly at that time.” Murray’s oldest daughter agreed, saying, “he began to show in all relationships constant tenderness and unruffled lovingkindness and unselfish thought for others which increasingly characterized his life from that point.” God showed Murray that “manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride.” He discovered that our defensiveness and unkind words reveal a lack of humility.

Murray ended up writing two hundred and forty books and booklets, including Waiting on God, The School of Obedience, Absolute Surrender, and The Deeper Christian Life. His anointed pen came from his anointed heart. One of his most transformative books was called The Key to the Missionary Problem where he taught that missions were “the chief end of the church”. Dr F.B. Meyer said that The Key to the Missionary Problem book, if widely read, would lead to one of the greatest revivals of missionary enthusiasm that the world has ever known.

Murray saw missions as so large and difficult that it required the Church returning to “the Pentecostal life of her first love. The Pentecostal commission can only be carried out by a Pentecostal Church in Pentecostal Power. … We have given too much attention to methods and to machinery and to resources and too little to the Source of Power – the filling with the Holy Ghost.”

Humble prayer, said Murray, was the heart of missions. He prayed that the cry of our whole heart, night and day, would be, “Oh, for the humility of Jesus in myself and all around me!”

God eventually used Murray as a peacemaker, humbly seeking to avoid the horrendous Boer/Anglo war where 26,000 of the 100,000 women and children in British concentration camps died of malnutrition and disease. He wrote, “The horrors of war are too terrible; the sin and shame of war are too great; the folly of war is too monstrous…I believe with my whole heart that in many respects Britain is the noblest, the most Christian nation in the world, its greatest power for good or evil…Once again I beseech the Christian people of Great Britain to rouse themselves, and to say, ‘This war shall not be.’ Let every lover of peace make his voice heard.”

In this time of tragic conflict in Ukraine, may we pray that another humble peacemaker, like Andrew Murray, might arise. What might it take for the Russian and Ukrainian people to humbly seek lasting reconciliation and forgiveness? Might God use such humility to even breathe a revival of missions throughout the world?