God himself must judge the sin. He alone can do it. This is often the cause of lifelong failure with believers, that when they see sin they seek to deal with it themselves. And by dealing with it they have failed to conquer, they count it a permanent thing that cannot be overcome.
Oh, Christians, let God deal with your sin.
If you would have your heart broken down, and your hands made utterly weak, so you no longer resist God, let God deal with your sin. Bring the sin that is discovered in his temple, in your body, or in your heart, to him, and let him execute his fierce judgment on it.
Be it the lust of the flesh, sin in the body and its appetities; be it the lust of the eye, sin in choosing the visible above the invisible; be it the pride of life, sin in preferring self before God or the neighbour – bring it out before a holy God, give it into his charge, and ask him to deal with it, to execute judgment on it.
Ask him to do what he has spoken, not to spare and not to pity, but to pour out his fury upon it, till the sinful deed is utterly destroyed before his presence.
‘They shall know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance on them.’ Give your sins over to God’s vengeance, wait on him as the God of judgment, then will he fulfil the promise, ‘From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.’
(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 47)
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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.