The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Iain Murray)

The Puritan Hope

Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy

Today, the church’s hopefulness about our mission of winning the nations to Christ is pretty low. We doubt whether we will ever see the gospel make much progress before the 2nd coming of our Savior. Are future days going to be darker? Here is a book which, focusing on Romans 10-11, emphasizes the hope we have of a major Jewish revival in the future and that spreading to the rest of the world.

Endorsements

‘The author reaches new heights, presenting a winsome portrait of the Puritan divines, focusing upon their extraordinary vitality and the understanding of history which undergirded it.’ — James M. Boice, who served for decades as Senior Pastor, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA

‘I think it is a fine piece of work and the chapter dealing with the imminence of the advent (N.T. sense of imminence) in relation to other data of an exegetical and historical nature is masterful.’ — John Murray, Professor of Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Revival Christianity: England
2. Revival Christianity: Scotland
3. Unfulfilled Prophecy: The Development of the Hope
4. Apostolic Testimony: The Basis of the Hope
5. The Hope and Puritan Piety
6. The Eighteenth-Century Awakening: The Hope Revived
7. World Missions: The Hope Spreading
8. The Eclipse of the Hope
9. Christ’s Second Coming: The Best Hope
10. The Prospect in History: Christ Our Hope

Appendices:

• John Howe on the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• C. H. Spurgeon’s Views on Prophecy

About the Author

Iain Hamish Murray, born in Lancashire, England, in 1931, was educated at Wallasey Grammar School and King William’s College in the Isle of Man (1945-49). He was converted in 1949 through the ministry at Hildenborough Hall, Tom and Jean Rees’ Christian conference centre in Kent. It was at Hildenborough later that same year that he first met Jean Ann Walters, who was to become his wife (they married in Edgeware on April 23, 1955).

After service with the Cameronians in Singapore and Malaya, he read Philosophy and History at the University of Durham with a view to the ministry of the English Presbyterian Church (his parents’ denomination). It was at Durham that he began to read the Puritans, whose writings were to become a lifelong passion. After a year of private study, he assisted Sidney Norton at St John’s Free Church, Oxford, in 1955–56, and it was here that The Banner of Truth magazine was launched, with Murray as its first editor.

From 1956 he was for three years assistant to Dr Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel and there, with the late Jack Cullum, founded the Banner of Truth Trust in 1957. He left Westminster in 1961 for a nine-year pastorate at Grove Chapel, Camberwell. With the world-wide expansion of the Trust, Iain Murray became engaged full-time in its ministry from 1969 until 1981 when he responded to a call from St Giles Presbyterian Church, Sydney, Australia. Now based again in the UK, he and Jean live in Edinburgh. He has written many titles published by the Trust, in whose work he remains active. He is still writing.