Andrew Murray: Continual waiting on God is the only way to live!

“It is because Christians do not know their own relation to God of absolute poverty and helplessness that they have no sense of the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or the unspeakable blessedness of continual waiting on God.”

Andrew Murray in Waiting on God (Renaissance Classics, 2012) 7.

“Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“I trust, therefore, I have shown that upon every ground the total abolition ought to take place.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. Acts 10:37-38

“Wherever the sun shines, let us go round the world with him, diffusing our beneficence; but let us not traffic, only that we may set kings against their subjects, subjects against their kings, sowing discord in every village, fear and terror in every family, setting millions of our fellow-creatures a hunting each other for slaves, creating fairs and markets for human flesh, through one whole continent of the world, and, under the name of policy, concealing from ourselves all the baseness and iniquity of such a traffic.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“Let us put an end at once to this inhuman traffic. Let us stop this effusion of human blood. The true way to virtue is by withdrawing from temptation. Let us then withdraw from these wretched Africans those temptations to fraud, violence, cruelty, and injustice, which the slave trade furnishes.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“It is a trade in its principle most inevitably calculated to spread disunion among the African princes, to sow the seeds of every mischief, to inspire enmity, to destroy humanity. And it is found in practice, by the most abundant testimony, to have had the effect in Africa of carrying misery, devastation, and ruin wherever its baneful influence has extended.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“These two vices of avarice and sensuality, the most powerful and predominant in nature thus corrupt, we tempt, we stimulate in all these African princes, and we depend upon these vices for the very maintenance of the slave trade. Does the king of Barbessin want brandy? He has only to send his troops, in the nighttime, to burn and desolate a village; the captives will serve as commodities, that may be bartered with the British trader.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“I determine to forget all my other fears, and I march forward with a firmer step in the full assurance that my cause will bear me out, and that I shall be able to justify upon the clearest principles, every resolution in my hand, the avowed end of which is, the total abolition of the slave trade.”

From William Wilberforce’s speech on abolition of the slave trade, including his 12 resolutions, delivered before the House of Commons in London – May 12, 1789.

“The key to true riches is not to hoard wealth, or to spend it on our pleasures, but to give it away. God blesses the generous, cheerful giver by providing more resources and opportunities for giving. In becoming like Christ, who gave away the riches of heaven so that we might ultimately share in them, we receive far more that we ever give away.”

Tony Payne in Cash Values: Studies about Money (Kingsford, Australia: Matthias Media, 2009) 40.

“We must bring money back to its simple role as a material instrument. When money is no more than an object, when it has lost its seductiveness, its supreme value, its superhuman splendor, then we can use it like any other of our belongings, like any machine. Of course, even if this relieves our fears, we must always be vigilant and very attentive because the power is never totally eliminated.

Now this profanation is first of all a result of a spiritual battle, but this must be translated into behaviour. There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly again the law of money, an act for which money is not made. This act is giving.”

Jacques Ellul in Money and Power (Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1986) 110.