George Mueller Unit 2

George Mueller  (1805 - 1898)

Father was an unbeliever and George grew up a liar and a thief, by his own testimony.⁴⁴His mother died when he was 14, and he records no impact that this loss had on him except that while she was dying he was roving the streets with his friends “half intoxicated.”⁴⁵ He went on living a bawdy life, and then found himself in prison for stealing when he was 16 years old. His father paid to get him out, beat him, and took him to live in another town (Schoenbeck). Mueller used his academic skills to make money by tutoring in Latin, French, and mathematics. Finally his father sent him to the University of Halle to study divinity and prepare for the ministry because that would be a good living. Neither he nor George had any spiritual aspirations. Of the 900 divinity students in Halle, Mueller later estimated that maybe nine feared the Lord. ⁴⁶

Then on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of November, 1825, when Mueller was 20 years old, he was invited to a Bible study and, by the grace of God, felt the desire to go. “It was to me as if I had found something after which I had been seeking all my life long. I immediately wished to go.”⁴⁷ “They read the Bible, sang, prayed, and read a printed sermon.”⁴⁸ To his amazement Mueller said, “The whole made a deep impression on me. I was happy; though, if I had been asked, why I was happy I could not have clearly explained it. “I have not the least doubt, that on that evening, [God] began a work of grace in me. . . . That evening was the turning point in my life.”⁴⁹

...God became the foundation of Mueller's confidence in God to answer his prayers for money. He gave up his regular salary.⁵⁶ He refused to ask people directly for money.⁵⁷ He prayed and published his reports about the goodness of God and the answers to his prayer.⁵⁸ These yearly reports were circulated around the world, and they clearly had a huge effect in motivating people to give to the orphan work.⁵⁹ Mueller knew that God used means. In fact, he loved to say, “Work with all your might; but trust not in the least in your work.”⁶⁰ But he also insisted that his hope was in God alone, not his exertions and not the published reports. These means could not account for the remarkable answers that he received.

Mueller's faith that his prayers for money would be answered was rooted in the sovereignty of God. When faced with a crisis in having the means to pay a bill he would say, “How the means are to come, I know not; but I know that God is almighty, that the hearts of all are in His hands, and that, if He pleaseth to influence persons, they will send help.”⁶¹ That is the root of his confidence: God is almighty, the hearts of all men are in his hands,⁶² and when God chooses to influence their hearts they will give.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/george-muellers-strategy-for-showing-god

Robber of the Cruel Street
A documentary video100,000 orphans benefited from George Muller's orphanages through prayer

Primary source documents: Text from George Mueller's sermons at his wife's death