THE QUIET TIME & GEORGE MUELLER

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1 THE QUIET TIME & GEORGE MUELLER We ve been spending time, - a useful and helpful time, I hope, - looking at the subject of the Quiet Time. One of the dangers when we come to study in a setting such as this evening is that we come to know what we ought we to do but there seems a barrier to us actually doing it. I want to take some thoughts from the autobiography of George Mueller. I want to read a portion from his autobiography to show you the quality of the Quiet Time he enjoyed. His words tie in with how we have been thinking about this subject. He was born in Prussia in 1805 and lived to He is most well-known for establishing orphanages in England and for joyfully depending on God for all his needs. Early in life, George Mueller began running from God. By age ten he had worked out a scheme to embezzle government money entrusted to his father. He spent his schooldays in drunken immorality. He even served time in jail at the age of sixteen for failing to pay his bills. He was a very capable lad. The university he attended had some 900 divinity students, but Mueller said there were not nine of them who truly feared God. He continued his sinful habits during his college days until finally at age 20 the burden of his sins caught up with him and he trusted Christ to save him. At last I saw Christ as my Saviour. I believed in Him and gave myself to Him. The burden rolled from off me, and a great love for Christ filled my soul. That was more than fifty years ago. I loved Jesus Christ then, but I loved Him more the year after, and more the year after that, and more every year since." Soon after he became a Christian, the weight of his calling became so heavy that he committed himself to a full-time gospel ministry. When he was twenty-five, he went to Teignmouth with his new wife, Mary, to pastor a small church. To pay his stipend the church rented the pews; but when he learned about this he gave up the small amount that was offered to him. From that time on he resolved to live by faith.

2 D.G. 2 He and his wife moved in 1832 to a church in Bristol where he became the pastor. It was there that his famous work with the orphans began when two young children were thrown upon the church s care. When he began the orphanage work Mueller had only two shillings to his name, but over the next sixty years God sent more than 4million to supply their needs. New buildings were built or purchased, staff was hired, and the hundreds of children never missed a meal. Many times prayers were said over empty plates only to have food arrive at the last moment. Mueller resolved never to tell anyone what his needs were. He told them to God and confidently trusted Him to meet them. During his life he began 117 schools that educated over 120,000 young people and orphans. The Bethesda Chapel that he pastored in Bristol had some 2,000 members at his death. Spurgeon said of him, Of flowers of speech he has none, and we hardly think he cares for them; but of the bread of Heaven he has abundance. How did Mueller kindle this fervour for the work; where did the joy come from with which he carried it out, and what was the secret of this man s faith? This is his testimony: While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now...more than forty years have since passed away. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved,

3 D.G. 3 instructed; and that thus, whilst meditation, my heart might be brought into experimental, communion with the Lord. I began therefore, to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God; searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me that food for my own soul is the object of meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I have myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man. The difference between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer... But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

4 D.G. 4 It often now astonished me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning-by-morning is to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man; not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts... I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself, and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials and the temptations of the day come upon one! No-one could ever have imagined that God would take in His hands and use to His glory someone like George Mueller but when God saved him Mueller s primary purpose in life he saw as being happy in the Lord. He argued a good principle that if you are not happy in the Lord you will not be satisfied with the Lord. If you are not happy and satisfied in the Lord How can you enjoy your relationship with Him? How can you meaningfully express the benefits of that relationship towards others? And if you are not happy and satisfied in the Lord what makes you any different from those who don t know Him?! Mueller freely confessed what many of us might be reticent to confess; he owned up and admitted that his Quiet Time had simply become a bland habitual duty.

5 D.G. 5 But when he realised the privilege of spending time alone with God he rediscovered the priority of the Quiet Time, i.e. to read and study the Word of God. Here is how he advises us: Ask the Lord s blessing as you come to His Word. Seek to find the message God personally has for you that particular day. Thus, the primary reason he maintained - for the study of the Word is for the sake of obtaining spiritual food for the soul, for when accompanied by the leading of the Holy Spirit God, - in the Quiet Time, - manifests a response, - confession, intercession, thanksgiving, supplication. That is how Mueller described the purpose of the Quiet Time as being the time when God s children get in touch with their Heavenly Father. This is the place, he believed most strongly, brought the heart into tune with God and brought the believer to that place of absolute confidence and happiness in the Lord. Does it work? Mueller s formula? Yes, it works because it is based upon Biblical formula. To be happy in the Lord is not something flippant or frivolous or superficial or glib. It is an absolute contentness based upon complete trust in God. When I pray I know He hears my prayer and He will answer that prayer in accordance with His will. However He chooses to answer I know He knows best! These things are only known in the Quiet place. Other great men and women of God have proved it works. David in the Bible, as he withdrew from the busyness of life, recorded, He restoreth my soul. Yes, it is in the Quiet Time that God prepares His people for the work He has ahead for them to do. It is the place the psalmist craved after, Ps. 84: 2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. May we too continually discover the preciousness of spending time before the Throne of the Almighty and Everlasting, All- Sovereign God.