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 PrintableVersion The thief who gave his allThe testimony to God's transforming power in the life of George Muller (1805-1898)Five substantial but well-proportioned buildings in natural stone overlook the Gloucester County Cricket Ground on Ashley Down in Bristol. These are now the City of Bristol College, Brunel Campus, but stand as a lasting memorial to God’s amazing power in transforming a profligate sinner, and in graciously providing all the resources to establish and maintain a caring ministry which continues to this day, the bicentenary of his birth. How did this all come about? A young delinquentGeorge Muller was born in Kroppenstedt, Prussia (now Germany), on September 27 1805. He was certainly bright, and later mastered six languages: French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Greek and English, but he was also exceedingly devious. He stole money from his father, from friends, and even the greater part of his confirmation fees. As a student he had an alcohol problem and stayed at several hotels without paying, sometimes with a Catholic girl, until he was caught and gaoled. Even there he would boast to his cellmate of imaginary evils he claimed to have committed. But all this was to change. Convicted and convertedA friend asked him along to a house Bible study, which he unexpectedly accepted. Several things made a lasting impression — the warmth of his welcome, the Bible study and reading a printed sermon, the hymns, but above all the spirituality of the closing prayer of his host Wagner. Muller was made aware of his sinfulness and the moral bankruptcy of his whole lifestyle. He left filled with joy and a different man. From that time, his studies, intended merely to qualify him in the Lutheran ministry, were to be geared for equipping him to preach the saving gospel to lost sinners worldwide. Shortly afterwards, following the recommendation of his tutor Dr. Tholuck, he set off for further missionary training in London in March 1829. A providential convalescenceHe studied for long hours and soon fell sick and needed to convalesce. This he did in the mild climate of Teign-mouth in Devon. More importantly, it was here that he met his future great friend Henry Craik who lived across the river Teign in Shaldon. Through his influence he was to become better acquainted with several of the precious doctrines of grace: election, the Trinity, the second coming and the final perseverance of the saints. At the end of the year he became pastor of the recently-reopened Ebenezer Chapel, relying mainly on voluntary offerings for his subsistence, a practice he maintained throughout his life. He also separated from the Anglican missionary society, not willing to be ordained by unconverted men. His preaching at Exeter brought him into friendship, and soon marriage, with Mary Groves, the sister of A.N. Groves, an early Brethren leader. Craik’s young wife shortly died, and so he took Muller with him to preach with a view in Bristol. There was a good response, and Craik and Muller became joint teaching elders of Gideon Chapel and the new Bethesda Chapel in Great George Street in 1832. By the time of his death in 1898, the seven believers who met to form the church at Bethesda in 1832 had increased to over 1,200 in four affiliated congregations, and six further assemblies arose as offshoots. Two months later (in 1832) a cholera epidemic struck Bristol, resulting in an increase in the numbers of orphans. Orphanages were almost unheard of in Britain, but Muller was aware of the work of August Hermann Francke, who in about 1696, at Halle in Prussia, had started what was then the largest enterprise for poor children in the world. He trusted in God to meet all his needs, and this became the inspiration for Muller’s future caring work. On March 5 1834, George Muller founded the Scriptural Knowledge Society (later to become Institution). It provided general education and Scrip-tural knowledge for poor children, and helped to fund missionaries and missionary schools. (Recently, in 1997, it supplied £300,000 for these purposes.) On June 19 1834, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon in Essex, and he was later to become a friend of Muller. In 1836, after the Lord answered prayer in the provision of £1,000 and suitable staff, the first orphanage was opened at 6 Wilson Street in the St. Paul’s area of Bristol. Two further homes were later opened in the same street, but there were problems with caring for 130 children; sanitary facilities were limited, and the neighbours complained at the noise they made while playing in the street. There were still far more orphans requiring admission than they could handle. Purpose-built homesJust outside the city boundary, a mile to the north, seven acres of land was purchased at Ashley Down. Further prayer and the provision of an initial £10,000 enabled the first home for 300 children to be opened in 1849. By 1870 there were five houses costing over £100,000 and housing more than 2,000 children. (Spurgeon built the Stockwell Orphanage in London in 1867.) Today the Muller Homes for Children operate in a day-support rather than a residential capacity. Following the death of Mary in 1870 and his remarriage to Susannah Sanger, at the age of 70 he began 17 years of missionary travel to 42 countries (including China and Japan), addressed over three million people and covered 200,000 miles. While on his travels he met with his friend Spurgeon at Menton in southern France in 1879. PreachingMŸller would preach for an hour when on tour in America, and at home his expository style was witnessed by his biographer, Arthur T. Pierson: ‘It was the writer’s privilege to hear Mr. Muller preach on the morning of March 22, 1896, in Bethesda Chapel. He was in his 95st year, but there was a freshness, vigour, and terseness in his preaching that gave no indication of failing powers; in fact, he had never seemed more fitted to express and impress the thoughts of God. MŸller’s view of the churchHis awareness of unsaved and unspiritual ministers in the state churches and other denominations, together with the influence of his friends, predisposed Muller to adopt some of the attitudes of the Plymouth Brethren movement, founded in about 1827 in Dublin. This view of ecclesiology first took concrete form when Benjamin Wills Newton invited John Nelson Darby to help lead the Ebrington Street Assembly in Plymouth, Devon, in 1831. However, these two were later to fall out, Darby accusing Newton of clericalism. Also, Muller was to disagree with them over the status afforded to the Ebrington Street Assembly. From then on Darbyites became the Closed Brethren, and Mullerites the Open Brethren. In the Sword and the Trowel for February 1867 Spurgeon replied to a tract being distributed by Darbyites outside the Tabernacle accusing him of blasphemy, arising because of a misprint in one of his articles. ‘The only meaning we could gather from the rambling writer’s remarks was a confirmation of our accusation, and a wonderful discovery that a long controverted point is now settled; the unpardonable sin is declared to be speaking against the Darbyites. Our portion must be something terrible if this be correct, but we have so little faith in the spirit which inspires the Brethren, that we endure their thunderbolts as calmly as we would those of the other infallible gentleman who occupies the Vatican.’ Interestingly, he also says: ‘Neither Mr. Newton, nor Mr. Muller, would sanction such action; it is only from one clique that we receive this treatment’. In April 1840, Bethesda broke links with Gideon Chapel because some of their members held different views, which prevented a united witness to the world. Muller and Craik adhered to certain principles of church conduct: 1. Believers should meet, simply as such, without reference to denominational lines, names, or distinctions, as a corrective and preventive of sectarianism. PrayerWhen difficult questions on the appointment and scope of authority of elders and the mode of celebrating the Lord’s Supper were raised in the fellowship in 1838, Muller and Craik withdrew from Bristol for two weeks of prayer and meditation. This attitude to the seriousness of prayer for guidance accompanied all his undertakings. Muller said: He wrote: ‘How truly precious it is that every one who rests alone upon the Lord Jesus for salvation, has in the living God a father, to whom he may fully unbosom himself concerning the most minute affairs of his life, and concerning everything that lies upon his heart!’ His support came from unsolicited personal gifts, and was as high as £2-3,000 per year in the 1870s. However, he only kept about £250 for the needs of himself and his family, ploughing the rest back anonymously into the work of the gospel and among the needy. Indeed, he was a striking example of God’s transforming power by changing a thief to a benefactor. Dr. Nigel T. Faithfull, Further information © Evangelicals Now - October 2005 |
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