The InterVarsity Press publication that has perhaps done more to shape the spiritual life of readers than anything else we’ve produced was actually one of our first. Quiet Time is a quiet classic that since 1945 has sold a million copies around the world, introducing readers in simple direct language to the daily discipline of spending time alone with God. There, as we listen in the calm, we hear him not in loud thunderbolts but in a still, soft voice.
Remarkable for its day, Quiet Time is built not on a foundation of oughts and shoulds and musts but on the inviting premise that God, the creator of the universe, wants to spend time with us. There follows straightforward, practical advice on setting aside a half hour or so each day, on finding a quiet place, on expecting God to be with you, on reading Scripture, on praying.
Quiet Time offers a vision not only of what we can do but also of who we can become. “There is a passion for Christ,” say the authors, “which it has been given to very few to possess, but which has set those who have it apart for ever from their fellow men. Is not this the quality which separates between Christian and Christian, which marks out some—the rare ones—as beings apart from the rest of us?”
Come, it enticingly calls us. Don’t settle for the usual, the ordinary. There is so much more to experience and so much more to be than we can imagine. “There is the whisper of God’s love, there is the joy of his presence, and the shining of his face for those who love him for himself alone.” And it could all start, we hear, with something as simple as setting aside time each day to be with the one who whispers.
What is needed more than anything else now is a quiet time of desperation devoted, struggling, agonizing in prayer for a visitation of God or, in short, a Third Great Awakening. The best place to begin would be with the promises (about a hundred)Jonathan Edwards listed in his Humble Attempt which inspired William Carey, Andrew Fuller and others to begin praying for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign lands Thus, the Great Century of Missions was launched. Thanks to the promises recorded by Edwards that were pleaded in those prayers. Surely, the same promises were pleaded, leading to the Second Great Awakening. Were they pleaded, leading to the First Great Awakening? After all, they were know then even if not compiled. Could they now be pleaded for a Third Great Awakening, one that would lead to the salvation of every soul on earth in one generation, beginning with this one and continuing for a total of 1000 generations? After all, the Lord surely did not waste his breathe in saying He would be mindful of his covenant; the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. And is the statement concerning the number of the redeemed in Heaven being so great that no one could number them an example of Divine humor?(Rev.7:9)
The reference to a thousand generations was taken from I Chronicles 16:15. Since God is not noted for wasting his breathe, could it be that that statement was written to inspire us to think of the possibilities so many generations would afford to evangelism? John Owen, noted for his emphasis on Particular Redemption or Limited Atonement,yet made reference to the blood of Christ’s Redemptive work being of such value as would suffice for a thousand worlds. Could it be likely that, allowing 20 years per generation, we might have 20,000 years and thousands of worlds to begin to recruit the number of the elect that would amount to a number that no one can number?
Could the rise of Sovereign Grace believers in numbers that call for note in leading publications be the result of many praying for many years, pleading with God for such a transformation in our society as would be effected by the presence of heaven? Isaiah said, Dtop down, ye Heavens (Isa.45:8), and the model prayer calls for us to pray that the Kingdom of Heaven come and God ‘s will be done here under these circumstances just as it is being done in Heaven under the most favorable of circumstances. Could the promise in Hebs.12:26 to shake once more Heaven also (I would have thought it shaken sorely enough by the coming of the very heart of Heaven (the Lord Jesus) to earth)? Could it be that the most Heavenly influence will descend upon the earth, leading of massive conversions?