"YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN"

TWICE-BORN
MEN

TRUE
CONVERSION
RECORDS OF
~100 WELL - KNOWN
MEN IN ALL
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 neces-
sary, 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 11½, 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 read-
ing 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 Inch-
marlo, 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 uncon-
verted
person in 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
[H]e 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 dis-
obedience: 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 [H]is
great love wherewith [H]e 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 yourselves: 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.

[ Twice-Born Men ] [ Christian Home Bible Course ]