John Murray > Quotes

“You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”
― John Murray

“There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it is another for us to live in sin.”
― John Murray

“To say to the slave who has not been emancipated 'Do not behave as a slave' is to mock his enslavement. But to say the same to the slave who has been set free is the necessary appeal to put into effect the privileges and rights of his liberation.”
― John Murray

“The presence of sin in the believer involves conflict in his heart and life. If there is remaining, indwelling sin, there must be the conflict which Paul describes 7:14ff. It is futile to argue that this conflict is not normal. If there is still sin to any degree in one who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then there is tension, yes, contradiction, within the heart of that person. Indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his Savior, the more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, the more conscious will he be of the gravity of the sin which remains and the more poignant will be his detestation of it.”
― John Murray

“Regeneration is at the basis of all change in the heart and life. It is a stupendous change because it is God's recreative act. A cheap and tawdry evangelism has tended to rob the gospel which it proclaims of that invincible power which is the glory of the gospel of sovereign grace. May the church come to think and live again in terms of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.”
― John Murray

“To aspire to be like God in one sense is the essence of virtue, to aspire to be like him in another sense is iniquity. To preserve this line of distinction is indispensable to all right thinking on truth and the right.”
― John Murray

“For it was no secret that in Central Asia lay some of the last great prizes of the twentieth century.”
― John Murray, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia

“Faith is knowledge, conviction, and trust.”
― John Murray