With Christ in the School of Prayer

A 31-Day Study

Andrew Murray

• Publisher: Aneko Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781622455669
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book has been written with a deep impression that the place and power of prayer in the Christian life is too little understood. I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer solely as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that we need nothing more than to study and practice the art of praying.If I have succeeded in pointing out the progressive teaching of our Lord in regard to prayer, and the distinct reference of His wonderful promises of His last night to the works we are to do in His name – to the greater works and the bearing of much fruit – we shall all admit that only when the church gives herself up to this holy work of intercession can she expect the power of Christ to manifest itself on her behalf. I pray that God will use this book to explain to some of His children the wonderful place of power and influence that He is waiting for them to occupy and that a weary world is waiting for too.
- Andrew Murray

Notes

George Müller and the Secret of His Power in Prayer

When God wishes to teach His church a truth that is not being understood or practiced, He mostly does so by raising some man to be in word and deed a living witness to its blessedness. And so, God raised up George Müller and others in the nineteenth century to be His witnesses that He is indeed the Hearer of prayer. I know of no way in which the principal truths of God’s Word about prayer can be more effectually illustrated and established than with a short review of his life and of what he tells of his prayer experiences.

Müller was born in Prussia on September 27, 1805, and is thus now eighty years of age at this writing. His early life, even after entering the University of Halle as a theological student, was wicked in the extreme. But when just twenty years old, a friend took him to a prayer meeting one evening. He was deeply impressed and soon after came to know the Savior. Not long after, he began reading missionary papers, and in the course of time, he offered himself to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews.

He was accepted as a student but soon found that he could not submit to the rules of the Society in all things, because it left too little liberty for the leading of the Holy Spirit. The affiliation was dissolved in 1830 by mutual consent, and he became the pastor of a small congregation at Teignmouth. In 1832, he was led to Bristol, and as pastor of Bethesda Chapel, he was led to the Orphan House and other works, where God has remarkably led him to trust His Word and experience how He fulfills that Word.

A few excerpts about his spiritual life will prepare the way for what we wish to quote of his experiences in reference to prayer.

In connection with this, I would mention that the Lord graciously gave me a measure of simplicity and of childlike disposition in spiritual things from the commencement of my divine life. While I was exceedingly ignorant of the Scriptures and still from time to time overcome even by outward sins, yet I was enabled to carry most minute matters to the Lord in prayer. I have found godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come (1 Timothy 4:8). Though very weak and ignorant, yet I had, by the grace of God, some desire to benefit others, and he who so faithfully had once served Satan, sought now to win souls for Christ.

It was at Teignmouth that he learned how to use God’s Word and trust the Holy Spirit as the Teacher given by God to make that Word clear. He writes:

God then began to show me that the Word of God alone is our standard of judgment in spiritual things, that it can be explained only by the Holy Spirit, and that in our day as well as in former times, He is the Teacher of His people. I had not experientially understood the office of the Holy Spirit before that time.

My beginning to understand this latter point in particular had a great effect on me, for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience by laying aside commentaries and most other books and simply reading and studying the Word of God.

The result of this was that the first evening I shut myself into my room to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, and I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously.

But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing this. I now began to test with the Scriptures the things that I had learned and seen, and I found that only those principles that stood the test were of real value.

On obedience to the Word of God, he writes as follows, in connection with his being baptized:

It had pleased God in His abundant mercy to bring my mind into such a state that I was willing to carry out whatever I should find in the Scriptures. I could say, “I will do His will.” Because of this, I believe that I saw which doctrine of God I would observe here. By the way, the passage to which I have just alluded (John 7:17) has been most remarkable for me on many doctrines and precepts of our most holy faith. For instance, Resist not with evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone desires to sue thee at the law, and take away thy clothing, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two. Give to him that asks of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. . . . Love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for those who speak evil about you, and persecute you (Matthew 5:39-44). Sell what ye have and give alms (Luke 12:33). Owe no one anything, but love one unto another (Romans 13:8).

It may be said, “Surely these passages cannot be taken literally, for how then would the people of God be able to survive in the world?” The state of mind of John 7:17 will cause such objections to vanish: If anyone desires to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is of God or whether I speak of myself. I believe that whoever is willing to act out these commandments of the Lord literally, will be led with me to see that taking them literally is the will of God. Those who do so will doubtless often be brought into difficulties which are hard to bear. These will have a tendency to make them feel that they are strangers and pilgrims here, that this world is not their home, and thus to throw them more upon God, who will assuredly help us through any difficulty into which we may be brought by seeking to act in obedience to His Word.

This implicit surrender to God’s Word led Müller to certain views and conduct in regard to money, which mightily influenced his future life. They had their root in the conviction that money was a divine stewardship, and that all money had to be received and dispensed in direct fellowship with God Himself. This led him to adopting the following four great rules: (1) not to receive any fixed salary, both because in the collecting of it there was often much that was at variance with the freewill offering with which God’s service is to be maintained, and in the receiving of it there was a danger of placing more dependence on human sources of income than on the living God Himself; (2) never to ask any human being for help, however great the need might be, but to make his wants known to the God who has promised to care for His servants and to hear their prayer; (3) to take the command to sell what ye have and give alms literally and never save up money but spend all that God entrusted to him on God’s poor for the work of His kingdom; and (4) to take Romans 13:8, Owe no one anything, literally, and never buy on credit or be in debt for anything, but to trust God to provide.

This manner of living was not easy at first. Müller testifies it was most blessed in bringing the soul to rest in God and drawing it into closer union with Him when he was inclined to backslide: “For it will not do, it is not possible to live in sin and at the same time, by communion with God, to draw from heaven everything one needs for the present life.”

Not long after his settlement at Bristol, The Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad was established for aiding in day school, Sunday school, and mission and Bible work. From this institution, the Orphan House work, for which Mr. Müller is best known, became a branch. It was in 1834 that his heart was touched by the case of an orphan brought to Christ in one of the schools. This child had to go to a poorhouse where his spiritual needs would not be cared for. Meeting shortly after, he writes (November 20, 1835), “Today I have had it very much laid on my heart no longer merely to think about the establishment of an Orphan Home, but actually to set about it, and I have been very much in prayer respecting it, in order to ascertain the Lord’s mind. May God make it plain.”

And again on November 25 of that year he wrote, “I have been again much in prayer, yesterday and today, about the Orphan Home and am more and more convinced that it is of God. May He in mercy guide me. The three chief reasons are (1) that God may be glorified if He is pleased to furnish me with the means, as it is seen that it is not a vain thing to trust Him, so the faith of His children may be strengthened; (2) the spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children; and (3) their temporal welfare.”

After months of prayer and waiting on God, a house was rented with room for thirty children, and in the course of time, three more houses were rented, housing 120 children in all. The work was carried on in this way for ten years; the supplies for the needs of the orphans was asked and received of God alone. Often it was a time of sore need and much prayer, but it became a trial of faith more precious than gold unto praise and honor and glory of God.

The Lord was preparing His servant for greater things. By His providence and His Holy Spirit, Mr. Müller was led to desire and wait upon God until he received the sure promise of £15,000 (pounds sterling, British currency) from Him for a home to house 300 children. This first home was opened in 1849. In 1858, a second and a third home for 950 more orphans were opened, costing £35,000. And in 1869 and 1870, a fourth and a fifth home for 850 more children opened at an expense of £50,000, making the total number of the orphans 2,100.

In addition to this work, God has given him almost as much for other work – the support of schools and missions, and Bible and tract circulation – as for the building of the Orphan Homes and the maintenance of the orphans. In all he has received from God, to be spent in His work during these fifty years, more than one million pounds sterling. How little he knew that when he gave up his little salary of £30 a year in obedience to the leading of God’s Word and Holy Spirit, God was preparing to give him the reward for obedience and faith, and how wonderfully the Word was fulfilled to him: Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will set thee over many things. (Matthew 25:23)

And these things have happened for an example to us. God calls us to be followers of George Müller, even as he is of Christ. His God is our God; the same promises are for us; the same service of love and faith in which he labored is calling for us on every side. Let us study in our lessons the way God gave George Müller power as a man of prayer. We shall find the most remarkable illustration of some of the lessons which we have been studying with the blessed Master in the Word. We shall have impressed upon us His first great lesson – that if we will come to Him in the way He has pointed out with definite petitions, made known to us by the Spirit through the Word according to the will of God, we may most confidently believe that whatsoever we ask shall be done.

Prayer and the Word of God

We have more than once seen that God’s listening to our voice depends upon our listening to His voice (Lessons 22 and 23). We must not only have a special promise to plead when we make a special request, but also our whole life must be under the supremacy of the Word; the Word must be dwelling in us. The testimony of George Müller on this point is most instructive. He tells us how the discovery of the true place of the Word of God and the teaching of the Spirit was the commencement of a new era in his spiritual life. He writes:

Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been: God has condescended to become an author, and I am ignorant about that precious Book which His Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of His servants. It contains what I ought to know and the knowledge of what will lead me to true happiness. Therefo...