Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray Summary: The Nine Addresses
Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses (1897) collects nine talks by Andrew Murray, the South African minister best known for Abide in Christ and With Christ in the School of Prayer. They were spoken to live audiences, and they read that way: direct, repetitive in a good sense, full of homely pictures like a pen in a man's hand or a cup on a tea table. The message of the whole book fits in one sentence from its opening page.
The condition of God's blessing is absolute surrender of all into His hands.
Absolute Surrender, Address I
The other eight addresses show what that surrender looks like in practice: a life filled with the Spirit of love, broken free from the self-life, kept by God's power and joined to Christ like a branch to a vine. You can read Absolute Surrender free in TheWay Library. Each address below links to its page in the reader. (The library's text comes from a scan of the 1897 edition and is still being proofread, so you may spot a stray character here and there.)
Address I: Absolute Surrender
The first address starts in an unlikely place: 1 Kings 20, where the Syrian king Ben-hadad demands everything Ahab has, and Ahab answers, "I am thine, and all that I have." Murray takes those words as the words every child of God should say to his Father. He tells how he once asked a godly worker in Scotland, a man who trained Christian workers, what the great need of the church was. The man answered quietly:
Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.
Absolute Surrender, Address I
He then makes five points. God claims surrender, because nothing in creation can work as it should unless it is wholly given up to its purpose. God will work it in us Himself. God accepts it when we bring it, even with a trembling heart. God maintains it, moment by moment. And it will bless us wonderfully, the way an empty cup is filled.
Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty, and given up for the tea.
Absolute Surrender, Address I
For a fuller look at this address and how Murray answers people who fear surrender, read our article on what absolute surrender is.
Address II: "The Fruit of the Spirit Is Love"
The second address, on Galatians 5:22, is the longest in the book. Murray asks why the fruit of the Spirit is love and gives a string of answers: because God is love; because Christ came to restore love to a world sin had made selfish; because only love can drive out selfishness; because without it we can't live the daily life of love; because it is the only power for Christian work; and because only love fits us for intercession. He is blunt about temper and the tongue, which he says show what is inside us the way a clock's hands show its works.
If my vow — absolute surrender to God — was true, then it must mean absolute surrender to the divine love to fill me; to be a servant of love to love every child of God around me.
Absolute Surrender, Address II
Address III: Separated unto the Holy Ghost
The third address works through Acts 13:1-4, where the Holy Ghost says, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul." Murray draws out six thoughts. God has His own plans for His kingdom. He is willing to reveal them. He reveals them to people who wait on Him in prayer and fasting, as the leaders at Antioch did. His will is separation unto the Holy Ghost. The work becomes a partnership between the Spirit and His people, which calls for still more prayer. And great blessing follows when the Spirit leads.
God can only reveal His will to a heart that is humble and tender and empty.
Absolute Surrender, Address III
Address IV: Peter's Repentance
The fourth address takes Peter as a picture of every believer. Murray looks at Peter the devoted disciple, Peter living the life of self, Peter weeping after his denial, and Peter delivered from self at Pentecost. The turning point was the look of Jesus that broke Peter's heart. Murray notes that Jesus used the word "deny" twice: deny yourself, and you will deny Me.
There is no choice for us; we must either deny self or deny Christ.
Absolute Surrender, Address IV
Address V: Impossible with Man, Possible with God
The fifth address is built on Luke 18:27. Murray says there are two lessons in the Christian life. The first is that living it is impossible for us. The second is that it is possible with God. Many believers learn the first and give up in despair without ever learning the second. He traces the believer's path from confident effort, to discouraged failure, to the cry of Romans 7, and finally to trust in God's omnipotence, the same power that gave Christ His birth and raised Him from the dead.
Your religious life is to be a series of impossibilities made possible and actual by God's almighty power.
Absolute Surrender, Address V
Address VI: "O Wretched Man That I Am!"
The sixth address studies Romans 7:24-25, which Murray calls the gateway into Romans 8. The man speaking is regenerate: he delights in God's law. He is impotent: he wills the good but can't perform it. He is wretched, because he grieves over sinning against God. And he stands on the brink of deliverance. Murray points out that Christ and the Spirit are not named in that passage, but "I," "me" and "my" appear again and again.
The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature. The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit.
Absolute Surrender, Address VI
He warns against Christians who keep asking who shall deliver them and never go on to the answer Paul gives in the next breath: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Address VII: "Having Begun in the Spirit"
The seventh address comes from Galatians 3:3. Murray compares the Galatians to a train switched onto the wrong track in the dark. They began in the Spirit and tried to finish in the flesh, by their own religious effort. The sign of it was strife and bitterness among them. The only way back is to return to the point where the train left the line.
You are trying to do in your own strength what Christ alone can do in you.
Absolute Surrender, Address VII
Address VIII: Kept by the Power of God
The eighth address unfolds 1 Peter 1:5. On God's side, His keeping is all-inclusive (spiritual and everyday matters, good times and hard ones, great sins and small), almighty, and continuous. On our side, faith means helplessness, rest and fellowship with God. Murray tells how Canon Battersby found rest by believing the word of Jesus as the nobleman of John 4 did, and how that led to the Keswick Convention.
Let these be the two dispositions of our souls every day — deep helplessness, and simple, childlike rest.
Absolute Surrender, Address VIII
Address IX: "Ye Are the Branches"
The last address rests on John 15:5. The branch life, Murray says, is a life of absolute dependence, deep restfulness, much fruitfulness and close communion. Last of all it is a life of absolute surrender, which brings the book back where it began. He lets the branch speak for itself.
I am utterly given up to the vine, and the vine can give me as much or as little sap as it chooses.
Absolute Surrender, Address IX
Reading the book well
Each address takes a half hour or less, so the book works well as a nine-day reading plan, or nine weeks for a small group. Read the Scripture passage first, then the address, then ask what Murray asks: what in my life is not yet given up to God?
Murray's book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness makes a good companion, since both teach that the believer is an empty vessel God fills. You'll find his sharpest lines in our Andrew Murray humility quotes. Then open Absolute Surrender and start with the first address.