My Bible reads in Mark 1.35, And
in the morning, rising up a great while
before day, he went out, and departed into
a solitary place, and there prayed.
This verse speaks volumes to me, friends, on
the significance of having a daily, vital, quiet
time with God in prayer.
I say daily because it must be a
regular habit in our Christian walk.
I say vital because we go there to
refuel and reignite our love relationship with our
Lord Jesus.
And I say quiet time because as Christ
got away from those in his company, the
disciples, so he could be alone to communicate
with the Father, so we as well need
to have a regular meeting place with our
God each day.
This message is not on prayer per se.
It is on the necessity for prayer every
day.
This message is on the devotional life of
a believer, the importance of it, the necessity
of it, and the benefits gained from it.
I normally don't do a three-point message,
but in this case, if the shoe fits,
wear it.
There are three vital aspects to the daily
quiet time I want to share with you
today, friends.
1.
The priority given.
2.
The person sought.
3.
The benefit gained.
Let's examine these friends one by one as
they pertain and fit together like a well
-worn glove.
Let's look at the first of these, the
priority given.
When I examine the lives of men and
women that God has used in former times,
I see a common denominator between them.
They each had a vital life of prayer.
George Whitefield read his Bible on his knees
every day alongside Matthew Henry's commentary.
Well, one day I decided to give that
a try.
I still have the date I wrote my
Bible when I attempted this, June 1, 2008.
I'll be very frank with you friends.
I'm no George Whitefield, for I soon abandoned
that idea of reading through my Bible on
my knees each day.
Perhaps Whitefield was a much younger man than
I when he did that.
But it got me to study the prayer
lives of saints that God had used, and
it encouraged me as I read about them.
That's why I'm a firm believer in reading
Christian biography.
It's a deep well to dip into for
refreshment.
I read about the prayer life of John
Sung, and it shamed me.
I'll quote you what his daughter wrote about
him.
He would kneel and pray every night, even
after a long and grueling day, during this
period of his convalescence.
And this was, friends, after Sung underwent surgery
for cancer on his colon.
He would pray on his knees for hours
after Bible study sessions with fellow workers.
Five hours at a stretch were not too
long for him.
He also prayed with his wife every morning
after she had changed his dressings.
In the evenings, he led his family in
prayer and Bible study.
He would kneel on one knee when he
found his wounds too painful to do so
on both.
Well, that shames me.
I don't know about you, friends.
But my own testimony in regard to the
reasons for having a daily quiet time go
back to my friendship with my homiletical mentor,
Dr. Stephen Oldford, who taught me how to
have a daily quiet time with God.
It was Dr. Oldford's influence of the necessity
of the daily quiet time that so transformed
my own life.
He wrote a little booklet entitled Manna in
the Morning.
It's only a few pages long, but it's
worth its weight in gold.
So there is a priority given to having
a daily quiet time.
We must make it a regular habit in
our lives.
Secondly, the person sought.
We see the intimacy between Christ and his
disciples, with the disciple John with his head
nestled in his bosom as they recline at
the table with Jesus, resting there, delighting there,
feeling the safety and security there, beneath the
master's shadow, so to speak.
As Psalm 91-1 intimates, He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The disciples sought out Jesus and they found
him praying.
We read in Luke 11-1, And it
came to pass that, as he was praying,
in a certain place, when he ceased, one
of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach
us to pray, as John also taught his
disciples.
I had for years discipled men in my
home, often twice a week with different groups
of men, and the main purpose I felt
led to host a discipleship group was to
influence the men to incorporate a daily quiet
time in their home and to grow in
the knowledge of Christ Jesus.
The person sought in that daily quiet time
a prayer.
I placed great emphasis on the daily quiet
time with them.
As I do now to you, friends, I
know the benefits of it.
And that brings us to my final point,
the benefit gained.
Let me share with you my introduction to
my biography on the evangelist, Rolf Barnard, so
you can get a sense of this, friends.
And it's a word of encouragement to my
preacher brethren as well.
The germination of this project is the result
of the following story.
While rereading David Wilkerson's book, The Cross and
the Switchblade, I was impressed by a facet
in Wilkerson's life.
Early in his ministry, he was a country
pastor who spent the hours of midnight to
2 a.m. watching television to unwind and
relax.
One evening, God challenged Wilkerson to give that
time to him.
Wilkerson sold his TV and never replaced it.
From that point forward, he gave God midnight
to 2 a.m. And it was during
this time that God called Wilkerson to New
York City to minister among teen gang members,
eventually starting Teen Challenge.
I realized that God did not reveal this
wider ministry opportunity to Wilkerson until he chose
to go deeper with God in a sacrificial
daily quiet time.
I had maintained a regular daily quiet time
for many years, but lately my time with
the Lord was missing something.
There was no sacrifice attending it, and the
God of the Bible delights in sacrifice, for
he sacrificed his only son.
Well, during this time, after reading Wilkerson's story,
I made a covenant with God to rise
at 4.30 a.m. and give God
the first hour and a half of each
day walking with him.
It's amazing how God honored that time.
During this period, I became familiar with a
man I never heard of, Rolf Barnard.
No man told me about Barnard, but God
did.
God called me to write this biography on
Barnard and gave me great assistance in performing
this most impossible task.
This book would not be in your hands
had it not been for a willingness to
go deeper with God.
Let me ask you a question, and please
be honest, friends.
Does your daily quiet time with God have
a sacrificial aroma attending it?
Is your sweetheart love for Christ more passionate
today than yesterday?
His desire is to spend time with you.
God is looking for a man to walk
with.
Those Enochs would be translated to a deeper
walk and wider usefulness to him for his
glory.
Well, I hope this little message on the
daily quiet time has been helpful to you,
friends, as it has been to me.
It is my prayer that your own life
will dramatically take on new spiritual dimensions from
the time you spend walking with God in
the cool of the day as Adam did
in the garden.
Let us pray.