TWICE-BORN MEN
REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE
Compiled by HY. PICKERING
A Royal Naval Officer
PHILIP WOLFE MURRAY, Commander, R.N., thus details his conversion:
“I was born at Cringletie House, Peeblesshire, brought up in a very good way, and received most excellent teaching from my father and my mother. I was always led to believe that the Bible was the Word of God, and that the Lord Jesus Christ was my Saviour. And not only so, but I was a religious child. I had a religious mind, and I can look back upon moments in my childhood when God definitely spoke to me. But I never really gave my heart to God. I never really as a child received Christ as my Saviour. I was just content with those religious feelings and convictions, and never thought it was necessary, or even beneficial, for me to definitely yield my heart to God. And because of that I fell away.
“I was sent to a boarding school at the age of 111⁄2 and from that moment to the time I gave my heart to God at the age of 29, so far as I know, I never bent the knee in prayer, I never read my Bible, and my condition was that described in the Psalms: ‘God is not in all his thoughts.’ I lived for self and for self alone. What a condition! I was afar off from God, alienated from the love that is in God by wicked works. In spite of all my good teaching, in spite of all that I heard, I was overcome of evil and became the slave and the bondservant of sin. And I enjoyed it. It is no good telling young people that there is no pleasure in sin, because there is pleasure—the Scriptures tell us so. The pleasures do not last long, however, and very soon some sin becomes such a ‘gall of bitterness,’ such a ‘bond of iniquity,’ that it makes the slave who cannot escape from it miserable.
“I began to read the Bible every day. I never allowed a day to pass without reading the Word of God. I was very busy at the time preparing for a stiff examination, but I never allowed my studies to interfere with my reading of God ‘s Word. And not only that, but I began to leave off things that I knew I ought not to do. I have said that I was very fond of the theatre, but I said, ‘If I am going to be a servant of God, I must not go to the theatre.’ But I often longed to go. I gave up dancing for the same reason, although I often longed to dance. I gave up a lot of things—not because I did not like them, but because I thought that I would purchase the favour of God by so doing. I thought if I was religious, said my prayers regularly, read my Bible regularly, and did not go to these things that I knew brought me into temptation, that at the end of my life, partly for my own sake and partly for Christ ‘s sake, God would take me to Heaven.
“For seven years I was like that, and it was a sore bondage , because religion without Christ can be nothing else. At the end of the day I would say to myself, ‘Have I done enough to please God to-day?’ and ever was obliged to answer, ‘I don’t know.’ So I never had a settled peace, because I did not know whether God had accepted my works.
“About this time I went up to Aberdeenshire—I was in command of the ‘ Jackal.’ I had a cousin who lived about twenty miles from Aberdeen—Mrs. Davidson, of Inchmarlo, whom I had not seen for seven years. Accordingly I went out to Inchmarlo on a Friday night, and my cousins asked me to go with them to the prayer meeting. I went to the prayer meeting, but it might have been Greek to me; I did not like it at all. I did not like the hymns; did not understand the prayers; and I was the only unconverted person n the room. After we went home, my cousin took the Bible and began to read in the Epistle to the Ephesians. He spoke of things that belonged to the believer now, and which I had thought were only to be had after death. For instance: ‘Forgiveness of sins,’ ‘an inheritance in Heaven,’ both could be mine now. Here it was in the Word of God. I went up to my room and opened my Bible. I was intensely interested. I began to read the second chapter. I read: ‘And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.’ And I said, ‘that is what I have been; a man of the world, a child of wrath, a child of disobedience.’
“I read on: ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’
“I said, ‘Who is us?’ Something my cousin had said downstairs was recalled to my mind, and I looked back to see to whom the letter was written , and I read: `To the saints which are at Ephesus—to the faithful in Christ Jesus.’
“I said to myself, ‘I know this, that I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with all my soul. I know that I have been an unbeliever, but I am certain that now I am a believer.’ I read those words: By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast’ (Eph. 2.8).
“What a burden rolled off my soul! And what a relief! Now think! I had been nearly eleven years—three under the conviction of eternity, and eight seeking to please God by prayers, by self-denial and good works, and never knowing whether I had succeeded. And when I saw that God had saved me, and that I need not do any more to be saved—I danced round the room! I have been dancing ever since, I know; not with my heels, but in my heart, praising God because He is my Father, because Heaven is my Home, the Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour! What a blessed experience! And it just came by giving God credit for speaking the truth.