Every so often, I’ll come across an old book that looks good for recording on audio. Using the Voice Recorder app on my phone, I’ll read a chapter at a time aloud and save it for, well, for posterity, I guess. I did this most recently with The Solitary Throne by Samuel W. Zwemer (1937) and before that with The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer (1970).

I’m not sure why I selected this book as my next read-aloud, as I should have anticipated the author’s language from 1895 to be long-winded, wordy, and overfilled with thees and thous. It definitely was, and, adding to it the noise of kids playing in the background and the phone alarms going off mid-recording, it’s likely not an audiobook you’d want to listen to. But my kids might enjoy it someday, so there it is: posterity.

This is only the second book by Andrew Murray that I’ve reviewed, but I know it’s not the only one I’ve read. Earlier this year, I completed The Secret of Believing Prayer which I had enjoyed and portions of which I had sent off to friends. This book’s focus on humility sets it apart from Murray’s other more famous works on prayer but certainly provided much food for thought.

The book’s 12 chapters each tackle a different theme of humility, from its role in the life and ministry of Jesus to its role in the believer’s life as it relates to such things as sin, holiness, happiness, and exaltation. Of holiness, for example, he poetically writes that “Humility is the bloom and beauty of holiness.” (53)

This humility-proves-holiness mentality, though, tends to be a constant them in the book, for Murray writes pretty explicitly how a Christian’s life is just a sham unless it is marked by genuine, Christlike humility. In fact, as I read the book, I kept thinking of John’s epistles where he writes in such black-and-white statements, like, if you don’t love others, then you don’t posses God’s love (etc.).

Granted, I know that humility’s important (and this book has now really reminded me of that!), but so too is the process of sanctification, the growth towards maturity, and the grace and patience of God. Humility is important, but Murray needs to be careful when using such language that suggests, “If you don’t have humility, then you’re probably not saved.”

This pervasive sentiment was the only aspect of this book that made it slightly difficult to digest. Otherwise, it is filled with keen insights and some quotable lines. I’ll share a few here:

“May God teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning our fellow-men are His test of our humility towards Him, and that our humility before Him is the only power that can enable us to be always humble with our fellow-men.” (57)

“Sink every morning in deep, deep nothingness into the grave of Jesus; every day the life of Jesus will be manifest in thee.” (79)

“We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly-formed will is character. It is no otherwise in the work of grace. As acts, persistently repeated, beget habits and dispositions, and these strengthen the will, He who works both to will and to do comes with His mighty power and Spirit; and the humbling of the proud heart with which the penitent saint cast himself so often before God, is rewarded with the ‘more grace’ of the humble heart, in which the Spirit of Jesus has conquered, and brought the new nature to its maturity, and He the meek and lowly One now dwells forever.” (90)

It may be a while before I pick up another Andrew Murray book, not because I don’t like him, but because spiritual books are difficult enough to digest without having to wade through sentences that are 60 words long. In fact, Murray might be a good candidate for updating into modern lingo. If someone tackles that project, I may be more inclined to read.

©2022 E.T.