The devotional life is essential for spiritual growth and is best cultivated through a daily quiet time with God. This practice, likened to feeding a newborn babe, provides spiritual nourishment, counsel, cleansing, and strength for conflict, as exemplified by Jesus' own prayer life. Practical suggestions for a quiet time include using a plain text Bible, a notebook for thoughts and prayer requests, setting a specific time and place, and approaching the time with an expectant spirit. Ultimately, consistent engagement with God's Word and prayer leads to spiritual maturity, obedience, and the ability to share one's faith effectively.
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Now, my own heart has already been blessed today just for the two things that we've sung. I don't know whether they spoke to you or not. But see, there's some people who have the ability to put in the words the thoughts that we have about the privilege of knowing Christ and knowing a living God. Now, I don't have that guilt, but there are some who do. I think of standing cross being... Men like Charles Wesley, I have been told that both of them wrote around two thousand hymns. Of course, many of them were published. Many of them were not. And then it's a blessing to know that the God that we know in love is a very, very practical God.
And of course, as you mentioned Sunday night and Sunday morning, that's what we're going to be talking about and thinking about this week. Are the practical aspects of the Christian life. You see, since he is all wise and all know it, he knows what's best for us, he created us, he has redeemed us, and after bringing life into us, he didn't just leave us out to wander around. He's given us a very, very practical reasonable, logical guidebook.
And I think that one of the things that God would like for us to do as Christians is to learn how to live a balanced Christian life. Now, when we come to know the Lord Jesus, essentially speaking, we obeyed in Christ. I was talking with some of the Christians, I think it was perhaps at the dinner table, or visiting in a home. I don't know. I talked to many people. But I was telling about a friend that we have in Columbia, and he thinks that he must get one person a day to make a profession of faith in Christ.
And many times he's gone out at eleven o'clock at night and buttonhole the first color he saw, a little boy, and he gets a profession out of it. Now, I love this brother. There's one little family. In fact, he has a daughter that'll probably be coming to work for us within the next several weeks in our Christian bookstore in Columbia. But many times he gets professions of faith out of people and doesn't even bother to follow them up. And I think this is... I'm not going to tell you what I answer is. I told him in love. It's unfortunate. All right. We come to the Lord Jesus. We are babes in Christ. We have the very spirit and presence of the living God in our souls, but we need nourishment.
Now, beloved, God has ordained that we grow by feeding. And there are many parallels between the physical life that we have and the spiritual life that we have. And in order for us to grow spiritually, we must eat or feed. Now, of course, somebody already thought about a verse that I'll be reading, so I'll go ahead and read it. First Peter, two two. Most of us know it by heart. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
If for thee ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. And there's another verse in second Peter, the last verse, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Now, this morning, we're going to think for a few moments about a very, very needful and important aspect of the Christian life.
And this is needful when you are two days old and when you are five days old and when you are five years old and when you are twenty years old in the Lord. And if you've known the Lord for fifty, sixty, seventy years, it's still needful. We're not talking about systematic Bible study now. I'm talking about the importance of a daily quiet time with the Lord. A quiet time is a time when you come to the Lord to receive something from him for that day. And I'll pray this before I forget it, because I don't have it in my notes. I found for my personal life and my personal life, because I usually put in an average of twelve or thirteen hours a day, that the best and the only time for me to keep from neglecting it or missing it completely is to have this little principle, this little motto of chocolate.
Now, this is not necessary for everybody, but the chocolate it is. No Bible, no bread. Now, I'm aware of the fact that many of the people that are listening to me right now, you're retired. You don't have a rigid schedule every day, like many of us do. And so for you, it would not be as essential that you get up an hour before breakfast, for example, as I try to do, and spend forty-five to fifty minutes with the Lord. Because you have more leisure time during the day, and I can see whether this would be quite all right. Of course, I would never think of turning out of the bed, even if I were retired, without stopping to give the Lord thanks for a restful night's sleep and for the new day and asking His guidance and things like that.
And then perhaps have some breakfast. And then if you do have a considerable amount of leisure time, well, of course, there's ample time throughout the day to have a time of the Lord. But for a busy person with a rigid schedule, if you try to just find some time later, you better watch out. You better set a time before his unconfirmed. It's no Bible, or rather no breakfast. On the left I've had my Bible. The part of the Christian life that God can use to be a blessing to someone else has been fed by my friend Stephen Oldfoot, who I talked at length with about what I'm talking about right now.
I had a visit with him in Wales. In fact, when I was with Brother Bob Willick in Bristol, they put me on the train one day, and I rode under the longest tunnel I've ever been in my life. He knows all about it. He knows right where it is. And I went over and visited this dear brother, who I have loved and appreciated ever since. And... He said that the blessing that comes out of a Christian life is the overflow of the Lord Jesus. And he says that it's in the quiet time that you have an overflow. I remember something else that I read when I was a very young Christian. Back when I was preparing to work for one year with End of Oxford Christian Fellowship or the staff member, they sent us some books that we were supposed to read between the time we were appointed to the staff and the time we actually started working with the staff when we went to the staff conference in Guelph, Ontario.
And one of the books was a little book on the early morning quiet time. And I remember the basic thought in the first paragraph, it was something like this. If an authority were needed for the importance of an early morning quiet time, a careful study of the devotional lives of the great Christians of all time would be sufficient. I'm sure that's not word for word, but that's the essence of what it says. Take the example of our Lord Jesus in Mark's Gospel, chapter thirty-five, and in the morning, rising up a great pile before it age, Jesus departed into a solitary place, and there was free.
It is in my observation as a Christian servant of the Lord's that those who have disciplined themselves to spend time with the Lord in the morning are the ones that continue on, that grow and grow in these lives, become effective and useful in the words of the Lord. Another friend that's helped me a lot concerning the early morning quiet time is my friend Jack Worcester in New York City. Well, it used to be in New York City. And I heard Jack tell a story about an experience that occurred at the Word of Life rally. It was during the war. And some of you know from the greater New York era, they had this Word of Life rally every Saturday night in the Gospel tabernacle just off of Eighth Avenue on Eighth Avenue near Times Square.
And they gave out a little ticket out on the street. to service men and anyone who would take one, invite them to come in and see a live broadcast because of the rarity, part of it was broadcast every Saturday night. And on this particular Saturday night, a young man who came in, responded to the invitation to receive Christ, and Jack had a little visit with him afterwards. He said, and tomorrow night I'm going to be speaking over the Baptist tabernacle over in Brooklyn somewhere. Well, and she comes. Well, good enough. The next night, Jack looked out in the during the preliminaries, and there he was.
Lieutenant Mitchell was his name. He was in the Merchant Marine. So he sent a little note down to him and said, Clay, would you give the word of testimony? And then Jack said, you got the thinking after he wrote that fellow notes. Clay, I don't know this fellow. I've never seen him before last night. I don't know what he's going to say. Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll get four or five others that are more established in the word to give that testimony first. Then he kind of kept on with the word he's supposed to say. So he sent notes out to two of the other fellows. He already knew, you know, there were established Christians, servicemen, and they gave that testimony, and he called on Lieutenant Mitchell. Last, and Lieutenant Mitchell...
was talking, but he had a wonderful story there. He told about how he'd gone up in a very, very affluent home and so forth. He'd gone up to college and he'd gone to seminary, graduated from seminary, gone to the ministry, and was dissatisfied because, you see, he was an unconverted man. And then he said, he had joined the merchant movement to see the world, and he tried to get his thinking straight. Then he said, but last night, In time squared, at the Word of Life rally, I found what I've been looking for all these years for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, I found my life. And Jack said it was a wonderful testimony. He said, in fact, all he did was just to give maybe the gospel, a plan of salvation, about five minutes he gave in on the table.
Well, he told Lieutenant Mitchell about the importance of getting into the word and about memorizing the script and getting some navigator material. And some of the navigators invited him to their home for two or three days out in Brooklyn, you know. And he said six months later, he looked out in the audience, and that was Lieutenant Mitchell. He'd been out on the cruise, he was back in. And he motioned to him on the sea afterwards. And after the rally, he and Marge and Ballback and some of them took Lieutenant Mitchell out to get a hamburger or something after the rally. And he said, well... Lieutenant Mitchell, how are you doing? He said, oh, not too good, Jack. I really haven't dreamed in as much accomplished as I would like to have. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that new sinner. Well, he said, well, we've done pretty good already.
And he said, I've read through the Bible two times. And I memorized the first half of the book of Romans. We have two Bible studies going each week on Schilt, and we led sixteen fellows to the Lord, but I hope to be able to give a better report the next time I come in. Well, Lieutenant Mitchell had gotten who he'd found the scripture. He'd gotten into the Word. He'd learned the joy of memorizing the Word and of hiding it away in his heart. Now I want to give you some practical reasons for that. A devotional time. Now, I want to say once again that if your schedule is not rigid, well, I wouldn't think you'd have to be legal about the early morning, but for some of us, that's the time.
Number one, a devotional time in the life of a Christian is absolutely essential. You don't even need to turn to it because you know it by heart. But in Matthew chapter four, four, It is the word of God. It's the word out of the mouth of God that we really get our strength and our life from. It is absolutely essential. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that recedes out of the mouth of God. Number two, a quiet time is essential to our spiritual constitution.
as newborn days desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby now let me make one little suggestion use the word of God for your real spiritual food now devotional books are fine in fact I'm going to tell you about one tonight I'm going to take two books tonight and mention it because The reason I'm in the Christian book so bitter than Columbia is because of what the Lord did in my life as a young Christian through the right kind of book in addition to the Bible, of course. And I know what they can do in their life.
Don't use a devotional book as a crutch. Now, I didn't say don't use them because I use them. But I don't use the same one all the time, and I don't use one all the time. I find that I like varieties. but get your thoughts about God basically from what the Word of God says itself. And if you'll come to the Lord and take a passage and ask the Lord, before you begin reading, by the way, to speak to you from that passage, the Lord will answer. Because you see, he's the light in your noise, him in a better way.
Milk is all right, and many of the devotional books are very, very fine, and they give you some good milk, because you want milk. Go into the Word. Not only is it essential for our spiritual constitution, but it is essential for our spiritual counsel. Second Timothy, three. We all know that verse. The heart. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is possible for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete or perfect, thoroughly finished, under all good worry.
In the word of God are the principles of life, and if you want to have wise counsel based upon the words of God. We must hurry. Here's another one. Not only is it essential for spiritual counsel, but the Word of God is essential for spiritual cleansing. Now I know that if you are thinking, if you can think back right now to a wonderful verse in the hundred and nineteen psalm that I'm about to quote, Well at all shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed of that to according to thy word. I don't know how many of you ever had the privilege and the joy of going up on a farm in Georgia or not, probably none of you.
Well, I did. And I wonder how many of you have ever had to haul hay in the middle of July when we're humid and hot. And then when you finish that last load of hay, you run down to the river. We live near a river. and took a big swim. That was our shower. We didn't have shower. We didn't have running water. The only time we had running water is when it rained. That's right. Until I was about seven years old. We got rural electrification and had a pump and a well from the well. That was the running water we had from the rain. All you had to go to the river or the branch.
And oh, how should you feel after you've been working in the field all day long and you go out and get a big swim in the river? Well, you know, beloved, That's exactly the way I feel sometimes when I finish meditating upon the word of God. Well, let all shall a young man cleanse his way, by taking heed that to according to thy word. You see, when the word of God goes through us, he cleanses us. I remember a very, very simple principle that I learned. We had learned it in high school, but it was reviewed in physical science in college when I went to the University of Georgia.
You take a filter and put it in a little beaker. And you pour water that looks perfectly clean if you looked at it. You pour water through that filter into the beaker. And when you finish pouring the water, you look at the filter and you find impurity in that trainer. that it is taught as it pours what look like perfectly clean water through. Now in the world that we live in and that we walk in every day, we are defiled in this world. But it is as we read and meditate upon the world of God that we are cleansed of the defilement from the world. And if there's a Christian here that doesn't daily feed upon the word and meditate upon the word and have the word in his or her heart, they are defiled.
because we are cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word. And I believe that it's possible for a person to live on a conference grounds like this and to come to services every morning and every night. And unless you know what it means to read the Word and meditate upon the Word, it can be defilement in your life. Now, something's going to take issue with me about that, but I believe it. When I get to heaven, I believe you'll find out how much. All right. Now, we have one other reason for a quiet time and a devotional time. It is essential for spiritual conflict. Did you ever notice, I'm sure you have, that when the Lord Jesus was tempted and tested of the devil, you notice what he used?
He used the word of God. It is written. I often think of a story about Dwight L. Moody. Back in his day, you know, there were a lot of people that would take issue with an evangelist and a man of God, and they'd come up at the close, and they would argue with him and so forth. And this man came up on one occasion. He claimed that he was an atheist, an agnostic, or something like that. And he came up, and he had all these arguments. He was going to give to D.L. Moody. And everything G.L. Moody said, he said, well, the Word of God says, so and so and so and so. He says, yeah, but the Word of God says, so and so and so. And finally he gave up such great day.
I didn't come up here to argue with God. I imagine from what I've heard about G.L. Moody, he must have been about like Robert J. Little. He knew the Word and that's the Word. The Word of God says so and so. All right. The Word of God is our seed and our weapon. And we've got to hurry. We have Two other basic points that I'd like to leave with you. I'd like to give you now some practical suggestions about a quiet time. And I want to say this, that the approach or the pattern or the schedule followed by one Christian will not necessarily work so well with another Christian, because, you see, our makeups are different.
But I believe that you will find some things here that will be very practical to you. And that's what we're trying to do is give you some practical pointers on living a balanced Christian life. Number one, you need a good Bible. And of course, I'm sure that everyone knew that. But I'm going to say something that you probably never thought of. You might not have thought of this before. It'd be good if you had a Bible for your quiet time that didn't have a lot of notes in it. You say, well, why in the world? Well, I'm going to tell you why. You have a lot of notes in it. He's marked it a lot. More than likely, there's going to be some wonderful, wonderful promises in that Bible that you're going to miss because they're not understood. And the things that are going to jump out and hit you, and you're going to notice are going to be the ones that someone is understood or that have notes by.
So it's good for a Christian to have not just one Bible, but a number of Bibles. Of course, as some of you know, who know me well, I'm a great believer in comparing Scripture with Scripture. I believe it's one of the best methods of Bible study in the world to compare Scripture with Scripture. The best commentary, by the way, on the Bible is the Bible, in case you didn't know that. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. And for your quiet time, it'd be good to have a plain, what they call a text Bible. A text Bible is a Bible that doesn't have any notes in the margins. It's just the text of the Bible. All right. Besides a good Bible, you need a little notebook.
By the way, it does me good to see people taking notes. Because as a rule, if people take notes, they're going to review them, and if they review them, they're going to get a lot more out of the message when they review them than they did when they took the notes. And you're going to remember what you heard. You need a little notebook. Now, you use this notebook for taking down germ thoughts that God gives you from the Word. Dig it out. It'll use ten in each. Each will run out of pencil. Because if you use the notebook, the pencil will erase. It'd be good to have also a page or two in the notebook for your prayer request. I was blessed the other day when Brother and Sister Huller asked me how soul and soul was doing, and I'd asked them to pray for him three years ago.
They called him by name. That was a blessing in me. There's some people that I'd ask them to pray for somebody, and I'd see them three years later in their prayers. Just one good thing, if you pray about somebody a lot, you'll remember the name, even if you don't read it in the notebook or something like that. So it's good to have a notebook for a quest and your answers. By the way, it'd be a real blessing if you put a date up there when you start praying for this person and then have a place to put the date when God gives an answer. By the way, beloved Christians, when God answers your prayer, don't forget to thank him.
Did you know I think that happens a lot? I think we ask God for things, and God, in His mercy and grace, He sits to answer our prayers because He knows it's best for us, and we forget the things. And every time I think of that, I think of the time that He healed these people, ten of them that were left with us in us. And I think of the words of our Lord when one man came back to give thanks, and he said, Where are the nine? Well, they're not nine. Ten healed? Oh, one of the attributes and characteristics of a godly man or woman, I believe, is a grateful man or woman. Thankful, grateful. All right? I would suggest that you have also a set time and a set place and an expected spirit.
You know, this is important when you come to a meeting, by the way. Oh, well, I don't know this fellow. Never heard of him. Oh, well, I'll go, you know. An expected spirit. Regardless of who it is on the platform, go with an expression spirit because God is saying there and he sent you there and he has a message for you. And I heard, well, Brother Dykman, he said something to me. He said, Brother, I've learned that regardless of who's speaking or where he's speaking, that if he is God's man, he has a message for me. Because no matter how educated or how uneducated he may be, that's not the same. If he's God's servant, he has a message. So when you come to the Lord and you come for your quiet time, it's good to come with an expected spirit.
It's good to tell a time and it's good to tell a place. Now I like to say this, that I have found that my prayer time is much more meaningful to me if I pray aloud. Now this is going to mean that I hope you have an extra room in your house or your apartment. And I've heard some wonderful testimonies from Christian servicemen who during World War II, the places they went to to have that devotion. All right, well, it's kind of funny something. But they found a place. And they had to hurry them sometimes. Sometimes only ten minutes. But they knew they had to spend some time alone in the Lord.
God enabled them to find a place in a time. So find a place and set a time aside and make a date. And you know who you're making a date with? The king of kings and the Lord of lords. You're going to meet him and you're going to talk to him and you're going to have him talk to you. I borrowed this little phrase right here from Brother Olford's little book. If you don't have it, it's out there in the little book store. Manner in the Morning. I've given thousands of them away. The mountaintop is his prayer room. The green grass is his prayer mat. And the darkness is his bolted door.
If you set aside a time, if you make an appointment with God, don't break the engagement because remember, if you're not there, he's there. And I've already suggested to have a definite place. Very important. Have a place. Each place has been become sacred to us. When I was in Bristol, England, Brother Bob took me to the Mueller orphanage. And the custodian, the caretaker, whoever it was, I said, could I see the room that Mr. Mueller used to have his devotions in? Oh, yes. He knew right where it was.
He took me there for the place where he used to pray. Man that never told a soul except God where he needs. God always provided me. There may be some of you here this morning. You've never read the life of George Miller of Bristol. You ought to get that book and read it. Have an expected spirit. Be physically alert. You say, well, now, what do you mean by that, brother? You will. I'll tell you what I mean by that. I mean by that. I know some Christians that don't have much energy or they're not very alert in the morning because they've been very, very stupid and they've stayed up too late talking or watching TV or doing something late at night, and they are physically not alert when they get up to have the devotions.
They're half asleep. Well, maybe you need to take a cold shower. Watch your face. When the clock went off this morning at ten or seven, The plague said, Shockley, don't you know it'd be wonderful to lay in bed about thirty more minutes? And I just gave the devil a black eye before he could say it again. I was out of bed. I went in and washed my face in cold water. And then I had the victory by that time, too. If I laid there about thirty more minutes, the longer I laid there, the better it would have felt. Because it was just soon enough to feel good under itself. Keep dinking hours.
Be practical. Use your head. If a man is going to fly a seven point or seven across the ocean, they require that he get a good night's sleep before he goes. You're going to be your best for the Lord. When you get up to meet the Lord tomorrow morning, you need to be fit and alert. All right? There's a moral requirement if you want to be successful in your quiet time. That moral requirement is that everything be right between you and your brother or your sister. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
Now tonight we're going to talk about this at length. Tonight we're going to talk about why God doesn't answer some prayer and why he answers other prayer. That's our subject tonight. But if you want to be rightly related to God, you have to also be rightly related to your brother and to your sister. So if you have all against any brother, expect the Lord to hear you. When you go to your knees to pray, you better make it right. And John, verse seventeen, we have spiritual obedience. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. All right. Now we have seven minutes to give you some practical suggestions. that you might want to follow to implement what we have already said.
Number one, your quiet time should precede your prayer time. Now, you say, well, wait, I'm a little confused. Then you say, when you get up in the morning, you talk to the Lord, and you ask Him to speak to you in His Word. Yes, this is just a brief prayer. You're asking the Lord to speak to you from the Word. Your meditation... Your feeding upon the word should be before you really get on your knees to have your time with the Lord to speak to him and let the Lord speak to you. Well, certainly, you never open God's word before you ask God to speak to you. But then, as God speaks to you from the word, then you put it into action when you get on your knees and ask him to reveal to you what he wants you to have.
It's good to have a system for readings. various portions of the Bible. Some have a system of reading so much in the morning and so much at night, and in the course of a year, they go through the Bible. That's all right. You want to follow that system. But I'd like to say this. A small portion of Scripture read and digested and meditated upon is much better than a large portion. In other words, just three whole verses. This morning I had a wonderful time in the first three verses of the fortiest psalm. And even though I've read it a hundred times, the Lord gave me things in the fortiest psalm. I've never seen one of my favorite psalms.
But there I was reading it and meditating upon it. And he was speaking to my heart in a portion that I'd seen many, many times. He'll do this. Then let the Spirit of God speak to you. You might ask yourself these questions. I'm not sure, but I think maybe, Brother Willie, this probably came from Scripture Union. If it does, you'd know because you're well acquainted with it. Ask yourself these questions. Is there a promise for me to believe? Is there an example for me to follow? I go a little slow because I can hear a few people have taken notes.
Is there a blessing for me to claim? Is there a sin for me to shun? Is there a warning for me to heed? Is there a command to obey? Is there a new thought about God? about Jesus Christ, about the Holy Spirit, and about the devil. And there's no impression without expression.
Learn to put into action what God has given to you in your quiet time. This is why it's good to take notice. and then to review them and to remind yourself of what God has given to you in your meditation. Put your thoughts on table and then pray until your life is in conformity with the thoughts that God has given you. Then pray for others in accordance with your meditation. Suppose the Lord has spoken to you in your quiet times about your lack of love for some unlovely evil.
Now this is a basic problem with most every Christian that I know of. There's somebody that you just don't like. That personality. That character. That conduct. It just rubs you the wrong way. And beloved, this is sin. Because the Lord looked at us and he saw us. And he loved us. And I look at us. And you're reading in the word. And I was reading in there this morning about our Lord. And about how he loved the unlovely.
He loved them so much that there were people I'm sure they were utterly shocked. Take their woman, take another gentleman. I know she was shocked when he said, Where are those violent youths? No, they were. Neither do I condemn thee, Lord. Oh, this is breaking with tradition. You've never heard anything like that. That's the kind of love we're supposed to have, and if we don't have it, the Lord needs to deal with us about it. I tell you about the man Sunday night up in Reedville, South Carolina, came to this little church, and the tenants had been going down, down, down.
The preacher's been preaching the word, but he's been preaching the law, the law, the law, the law. And this man comes in. The love of God is radiating out of his face. And he loves people because God loves them. And their tenets have tripled in too much. Make two determinations. To share it with someone else. By the way, if the Lord gives you some sweet morsel in his words, the best way to remember it is to share it. I know some people, every time I see them, they've got a new joke. And if it's a good joke, I'd like to hear it, and it's a queen. You know how they remember them?
It's because they keep telling them. You keep telling them, you'll remember them. The best way to keep something like this is to share it. Then number two, determine to translate it into obedience at every opportunity. God wants not to sacrifice, but your obedience. I've been struck with this recently. In fact, one of the messages this week is going to be a message that the Lord just gave me in the last couple of weeks on the path of obedience. Because we have the most wonderful example in all the world of our faith, the obedient church.
Our Father and our God, we thank you that you've not left us here without instructions, without admonitions. without giving us your life and your wisdom. We thank thee that we have in thy word all that we'll ever need to sustain us spiritually. We thank thee for the Christian fellowship that we can have one with another, but we thank thee most of all for the fellowship that we can have with thee. Wonderful to talk to the king's men, but far more wonderful to talk to the king. And may the devil never succeed in causing us to think that we are too busy to spend time with you.
We thank you for the fact that, to some degree, many of us here this morning have experienced in our hearts and in our souls what we've been talking about. We thank thee that it gives us Christ as a reality and that we love it. and that he has caused us to want to share our life that we have from him with other people. Bless us throughout this day. We thank you for the beauty of it. And we would look to thee to bring us back tonight in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, Father, may many people in North Florida find out that the people that part of the ponds are practical people.