A Season Alone With God — Denny Kenaston

I come to you in the name of Jesus tonight, we thank you for the Word, we thank you Father for the preaching of the Word of God, and what it does inside of each one of us, Lord. It does energize us, it motivates us, Father, to go on and serve you, and we thank you for what it does.

Dear God, we just want to commit this last session into your hands this evening, I pray, Lord, that you'll take these simple words and just burn them and bear them down upon the hearts of these men. Lord, I pray that you'll change some lives through this simple session this evening.

God, I trust you to do that by your Spirit. I pray your blessing upon us in the name of Jesus. Amen. Matthew chapter 14, in Matthew chapter 14, reading, well, let's read from verse 14,. And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past. Send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves vituals. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart, give ye them to eat.

And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves and the two fishes.

And looking up to heaven, he blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled, and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

And they that had eaten were above five thousand men, besides women and children. And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray. And when the evening was come, he was there alone. I'd like to speak this evening on the subject of a season alone with God.

Jesus’ Solitude After the Feeding of the Multitude

It's very interesting to study the life of our Lord Jesus and to see the responses to the victories that came into his life. And here is a perfect example. There are others in the scripture, but this one is a perfect example of our Lord.

Here he has this multitude of people. There's food that they need to eat. The disciples, of course, looking at it from a natural perspective, they beseech the Lord, send them all away. They can go into the cities and get food.

And the Lord, looking at it from a heavenly perspective, he sees here's a perfect opportunity to show forth the mighty works of God. And he tells them to gather them all together, bring these five loaves, these two fishes.

He breaks them, feeds the multitude. After such a wonderful miracle as that, he sends his disciples into the boat, tells them to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, sends all the multitude away.

And then he goes up into the mountain, and there he is, alone. He's alone. That's not quite the way that we would probably do things. We tend to be in the natural one who would rather be around a lot of people after there's been some great victory.

We tend to want to gather the others around us after some great victory and be amidst of all of our brothers and sisters during times like that. But as we see our Lord's example, at times of great outpourings, at times of great blessing, our Lord departed into the mountains and he was alone.

Prayer Before Important Decisions

A season alone with God. Turn to Luke chapter 6 and verse 12, and we see another one of these examples. Luke chapter 6 and verse 12. Now in this example, it's just before some important decisions need to be made.

Verse 12, and it came to pass in those days that he, our Lord Jesus, went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. So here we see another example. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve whom also he named apostles.

And then it gives the names of the twelve apostles. Our Lord knew that he needed to make some choices the next day, and he went alone to be alone with his God, with his Father, before those choices were made.

Resisting Praise and Political Power

Alright, and then also in John chapter 6 and verse 15, we find another example. And this is the same example of the feeding of the five thousand, but we can see here a little more of the motivation for him going out and being alone at a time like that.

You see, even our Lord, we know, was tempted in all points like as we are. And here we have the reality of a temptation very much upon him, and that is the temptation of allowing these people to make him a king, to lift him up, to praise him, to surround him, to bless him.

And notice what he does. After, then those men, let's see, reading chapter 6 and verse 14, then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth, that prophet, that should come into the world.

When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. So we can see from the ministry of our Lord Jesus that his life was scattered with little seasons where he drew himself aside and was alone with his heavenly Father.

We've looked at a few of them here, but I just like to envision our Lord Jesus doing this from time to time throughout his whole ministry, and I believe that he did. He would give himself out and then he would fill himself back up again.

Then he would give himself out, then he would fill himself back up again. He did this over and over again, all throughout his ministry. He knew it was a key to the blessings of God. He knew it was a key to the strength that he needed in order to face the temptations that were upon him.

He knew it was the key to direction for his life. He knew it was the key to the power of God in his life, the miracle working power which he worked out day by day in his earthly ministry. And I don't believe for a minute that our Lord Jesus did the things that he did because he was God.

He did the things that he did by the power of the Holy Spirit, because he was anointed and because the Father spoke to him and gave him faith and gave him a vision. And he believed the Father and did what the Father said and the miracles took place.

So thus he had to get alone and draw strength from his Father day by day. And if our Lord Jesus needed to be alone from time to time and have seasons alone with his God, how much more do we need seasons when we get alone with our God and just fill ourselves back up after we've been giving out and giving out and giving out?

Becoming Devout by Taking Hold of God

It's God's will that the church of Jesus Christ be filled with devout men, even as it was in the days of old. Devout men? I studied the word devout. The word devout means to take hold well. And I thought, what a powerful meaning there is to that word.

Devout means to take hold well. And if I could just give the interpretation of that in light of what we're speaking about here this evening, men who have learned to take hold well of God. That's what devout means.

Men who have learned to take hold well of God. Isaiah bemoaned in his day and said, there's none that stirs up himself to take hold of God. That was Isaiah's burden in his day. Nobody's around who will stir himself up, who will go and get alone and get a hold of his God.

And I would say in the days that we live in, the cry would come up again, wouldn't it? There are very few who will really take the time to stir themselves up and get alone and take hold of their God. So we want to have a little lesson this evening on having a season alone with God.

The word devout means a careful grasp of the presence and claims of God. The word devout means fear and love for God mingled together. The word devout means piety toward God or a sacred awe of God. Those men were men who had pious attitudes toward God.

So we need to be devout men, devout men who have pious attitudes toward God, devout men who have a sacred awe of God, devout men who have piety toward God, devout men who have a fear of God and a love for God that is mingled together in a beautiful blend.

Now, obviously, this happens through personal seasons alone with God. Not to discount here this evening, daily fellowship with God, but I'd like to just zero in on some seasons of time alone with God, other than maybe your own personal devotions in the morning.

Maybe you get up and spend an hour in prayer and Bible study and I think, amen, that needs to be done. I believe there's something wrong if we don't do things like that. But I'm not speaking about that this evening.

The Purpose of Extended Solitude

Many, many of God's servants would testify that their ministry was made much more effective through seasons of being alone with God. Many times when we're alone with God in seasons of time, God reveals His will, His secrets and His future for our lives when we're alone.

Many times people don't know what God's will is because they don't ever take any time to shut out all the other noises and all the other voices and all the other distractions that are around them and just quiet themselves before God long enough to hear the voice of God saying, this is the way, walk ye in it.

And I believe this evening that one of the keys to effective ministry is to have seasons when we do this very thing, where we shut out every other noise, every other distraction, every other plan, every other desire and just get alone with God.

And if I could say, just here as we're getting into the teaching, I'm talking about a day, two days, three days, even a week where you just get alone with God. But for the sake of the teaching session this evening, we're going to speak about just getting alone with God for two days.

Two days. Have you ever spent two days alone with God? Have you ever spent two days where you blocked out all other distractions, where you're in a place where no telephone could ring, where nobody could come to you, where nobody could knock on your door, where no child could come and distract you, where no other things were there to distract you and you were just alone with God for two days?

If you've never done that, I would highly recommend it to you. And I must admit, that is my motivation here this evening, is first of all to convince you and motivate you that you'll do it. And second of all, I want to give you some helpful ways that you can.

I believe that major decisions should never be made without some season of being alone with God. Major decisions. I'm going to move to a different area of the country. I'm going to change churches. I'm going to change this business and go to this business.

I need direction on whether I'm supposed to go and spend a month in Africa or stay here at home. Major decisions like that should not just be made with a little bit of pondering and maybe to seek a little counsel, but it ought to be made with a season of time alone with God.

And of course, granted, the bigger the decision, maybe the longer time that you would be alone to hear from the Lord. I think of the illustration of Charles Finney, who had a ministry of thirty to forty years of revival type ministry.

And his testimony was that he continued to fan the fires of his revival ministry by having periodic seasons where he got alone with his God. In other words, he might go four or five months along and then just all of a sudden block out a week or block out three days and he wouldn't have any meetings and nobody would know where he was going to be.

And he would go alone somewhere and be with his God, praying, seeking the face of God. And after three days, come back out from that season alone with God and step right back into his revival ministry.

And it just kept right on going like that. Very important. I think of some Bible examples of men who spent time alone with God and maybe you can think of some others. But I thought of Moses, who spent forty days alone with God at two and it could be even three different times in his life.

Forty days alone with God. Now, I'm not pushing for forty days. In fact, I would question just about anybody here that would take off on a forty dayer. But I am encouraging you to get alone with your God.

Elijah had seasons alone with God periodically throughout his three years. He was there in hiding. Daniel, the prophet, he had twenty one days where he sought the face of God concerning some decisions and concerning some interpretation to some prophecies that he read in the Bible.

Also, I think of the psalmist David. And if you'll read through the Psalms, it's very evident that he set aside times in his life where he just sought after God with all of his heart. And of course, the Apostle Paul speaks of many seasons where he was alone with God.

Preparing for a Day Alone With God

So what I'd like to do is give you a little bit of an outline of how to spend a day alone with God. Many people, I believe, do not practice this matter of being alone with God simply because they don't have a vision to do it or they have no idea what they would do for a whole day.

And maybe that's where you're at. You wonder, well, what will I do? And maybe you even tried to spend a day alone with God and it didn't work out for you. Well, I want to give you some ways that may help you.

It was, oh, maybe a year ago, maybe a little bit more than a year ago, that two young men from the congregation here, they came to me and sought counsel. They had a Bible school that they wanted to go to and their desires were, we want to learn more about God.

We want to learn more about his word. We want his best for our lives. Can we go in a Bible school? And they suggested a Bible school to me and I investigated the Bible school and it didn't seem to me to be a very good place for them.

Seemed to be a lot of liberal tendencies there and a lot of lightheartedness among the other young people that were there. And I told these two young men, I don't think you need to go there to Bible school, but I'll give you another Bible school that you can go to.

And I told these two young men to just find themselves a cabin somewhere and go out to that cabin and spend a week out there alone with God. And I gave them a little bit of direction, but not a lot. At that point, I hadn't really meditated upon this to the point that I have now.

I gave them a little bit of direction of what they could do and sent them on their way and thought nothing else of it. Well, when Saturday of the following week came around, I was here studying and these two young men came to the church house and they were so excited.

They wanted to share with me all the things that had happened to them while they were away for that week. Their whole lives were changed. They came back saying, we got filled with the Spirit. God filled us with the Holy Spirit.

And I thought to myself, what a beautiful thing for young men to come back saying. What a beautiful thing. God filled us with His Spirit. Now, I'm not sure if they got the unction that we read about in the Word of God, but I know this, they had a meeting with God that they never had before and they've never been the same because of it.

So I began to meditate on this after I sat and listened to these two young men share their experience. I began to meditate on it further. And I thought to myself, you know, that needs to be shared, that needs to be planned, that needs to be given some thought, given a little bit of direction and given out to other people.

And that's what I want to do. Now, here's a few things that you'll need to know as you're planning to spend some time alone with God. Number one, you need to be well rested when you start. You need to be well rested when you start.

It's no little thing to spend two days alone with God. And if you're tired and you're wore out, you will not be very alert and you may not have very much success. You may find yourself sleeping when you should have been praying or reading and it won't be a blessed experience for you.

So first of all, I would recommend that you begin being well rested. Number two, you need to have a place to go where you will not be disturbed. A place where no telephone is going to ring, a place where nobody's going to come and distract you, a place where nobody else is, where you can be alone, completely alone.

When you're alone, you'll express your heart to God better. When you're alone, you'll think upon your own life more. When you're alone, you'll examine your own heart more than you will if you are around other people.

So you need to have a place to go where you won't be disturbed. And I tremble a little. I must admit, as I was pondering this and thinking about sharing it, I tremble a little because this building right here is a good place to be alone, but it's slowly becoming a place where you can't be alone because everybody comes here to be alone.

So you need to find a place where you can be alone, but let me have it on Saturday. It's a blessed problem and I just rejoice as I ponder it from time to time. No phone, maybe a cabin somewhere, out in the woods somewhere.

As I was studying for this, somebody that I was reading about who had seasons of being alone, they would even go to a public place to be alone. And you say, well, that's not a very good idea. Well, if you need to be alone, you can go to a place where nobody knows you and be alone, even though you're in the midst of all kinds of people.

I've spent a day alone with the Lord in airports before, not by plan, but just by providence, going to fly somewhere. This flight gets canceled, this one, and there you sit in an airport. I spent a whole day alone with the Lord in the airport, even though there are people all around me.

You can do it there. The point of being alone is in one sense so that you can be quiet before your God, and in another sense so that you can just block out all distractions. And if you're in a place where nobody knows you, you probably won't be distracted.

Number three, you need to plan and schedule a specific time to do it when you know that you'll have no interruptions. And just for the sake of illustration, I'm suggesting here, like on a Saturday and a Sunday, leaving a little time to come to church on Sunday.

But other than that, just block the whole time out, all day Saturday and here at church on Sunday and then disappear for the rest of the day again on Sunday. But you need to plan it and schedule it as a specific time.

If you don't, it'll probably never happen because we all have so many voices that are always crying to us, telling us what needs to be done, what has to be done. It just absolutely has to get done. Well, unless you schedule a time alone with God, it will not happen.

Materials and Physical Preparation

All right? What you need. Here are a few things that you need in order to have these two days alone with God. You need a Bible. You need a hymn book that you can sing the songs of Zion. You need a notebook so you can record your thoughts while you're there alone.

You need a concordance so that you can use it to study the word of God. You need also some stirring devotional book, maybe a book on revival, a book on prayer, a book on the power of the Holy Spirit, or just some devotional book.

But you need something of a devotional book. I would also suggest that you bring along with you a few sermons that stir you. Or, if you happen to be getting alone with God because of a particular need in your life, you get some sermons on cassette that minister to that very need in your life and bring them along with you.

And then also, bring an alarm clock. And the last thing you need, before we get into an actual outline of what to do, I would recommend that you bring along with you an empty stomach. An empty stomach.

Now, understand me. I'm not saying you have to have an empty stomach to spend a couple of days alone with God. But if you, if you're one of those who needs to eat occasionally, I would keep the eating to a very low minimum.

Because here's what happens. When the stomach is empty, the mind is alert. When the stomach is empty, the spirit is more open and receptive to the Lord and to His promptings, to His voice. When the stomach is full, the mind tends to be dull.

When the stomach is full, we tend to be groggy and sleepy and fall asleep easily when the stomach is full. So, I would recommend you take along with you an empty stomach. And if you don't, just limit yourself to a small meal once a day to keep your strength.

A Daily Schedule of Worship, Scripture, and Prayer

All right. Now, here's a little outline for you on having a season alone with God. And this will be an outline of one day. And you can just follow it for as many days as you would want to be alone with the Lord.

Okay. You want to rise at 5 .30 in the morning and wash and refresh yourself. Get, I mean, you get up like you're going to work. You get up like you're going to see somebody important. You get up like you've got something to do today.

This is not a lazy day. You have a day that you're going to spend with God. Get up, wash your face, take a shower, clean yourself up, just like you were going to go to work, just like you were going to have an appointment.

5 .30. Six o 'clock, you begin your day. At six o 'clock, begin with the singing of hymns and worship of your God. Now, you can do that in several different ways, but I'm recommending that you spend the first hour with a songbook in your hands.

You can be on your knees. You can be sitting in a chair. Sing a song or two. Spend some time worshiping God. Just telling God how much you love Him. Tell Him how wonderful He is. Praise Him. Glorify Him.

Magnify Him. Just spend the time doing that. Then sing a couple more songs. Then worship Him some more. And sing a couple more songs. And spend that first hour just singing, praising, worshiping, adoring your God.

Spend an hour doing that. 7 .00 a .m. Then you take your Bible and you start to read. You start to read. Now, in this exercise, I would like to recommend that you just read the Bible to be blessed. You're not going to read it for some insight for your life.

You're not going to read it to find some message to give the next time you have preacher's class. No. None of those. Spend this hour reading the Bible just to be blessed. Just to feed off of it. Just to receive strength from it.

A good place to read if you want to just get blessed is maybe in the Psalms. You can read through the Psalms. It will be a great blessing to you. But I want to recommend that you do that for one hour.

Ok? Now, at 8 .00 a .m., I'd like to recommend that you have a season of earnest prayer. Notice I said earnest prayer. An hour of praying out loud. Praying out loud to God in earnestness. Pray for yourself.

Pray for others. Pray for the souls of men. Pray for the world. Pray for the church. But spend an hour in earnest prayer. Whatever you have to do to do that. If you can spend an hour of earnest prayer on your knees, then amen, you do it.

But if you can't do that, then you walk back and forth in that little place where you've chosen and you stand up and pray and kneel and pray and lay on your face and pray. But spend an hour in earnest prayer to God.

Ok? Now you finish that hour. It's 9 .00 a .m. You get out your devotional book. Whatever that book is that you happen to bring along. And you're going to spend an hour reading in this devotional book.

This book that's going to stir your heart. This book that is going to stir desires in you. This book that is going to challenge you. It's going to lift your sights higher and maybe help you to see how somebody else lives and help you to see what the needs of your own heart and life are.

You're going to spend an hour reading in that devotional book. And you know, however you do, you know, you can respond. A lot of times when I read a devotional book in a setting like that, I'll read a chapter and get on my knees and pray over what I just read and then read another chapter and get back down on my knees and just pray over what I read.

You want to be careful when you do that. You might be surprised what it will bring into your life. Ok? When that hour is done, now it's 10 a .m., I want to recommend that you go for a walk with the Lord.

A walk with the Lord. You're going to leave the place where you've got yourself locked up and you're going to go for a walk. But it's not just a walk. You're going to go for a walk with the Lord. It's a time of general communion.

It's a time of general meditation. It's a time of just enjoying God and enjoying His creation. It's a time, and if you can see the point here, it is also somewhat of a time of diversion for you. You're not just going to be locked up in this little room the whole time.

But now, you've been alone for a while. You've been praying. You've got a lot of heavy things on your heart. You've been reading these devotional books. Now you're going to divert your attention some and just go for a walk and enjoy the Lord and talk to Him some while you're walking and just fellowship with Him and bless Him and love Him and enjoy the creation around you and have a nice walk while you're at it.

Get some exercise. Stir up the blood a little bit flowing through your body and clear your mind. You do that for an hour. Ok? Now it's 11 a .m. At 11 a .m. you're going to come back to the place where you found to be alone and you're going to spend an hour in memorization and meditation of the Word of God.

You can do what you want there. Again, you can tailor make it to whatever your needs are. Maybe you have a specific need in your life and you want to take a portion of Scripture, eight or nine verses, that minister to that very need that you're concerned about.

You take that and for one hour memorize and while you're memorizing, you meditate upon that Scripture that you've chosen and we're not going to say a lot about memorization and meditation because we spoke about it last week, but you're going to spend an hour doing that.

Just milling it over and over and over again in your mind for one hour. Ok? Now it's 12 o 'clock and at 12 o 'clock you're going to spend an hour listening to a stirring sermon. Listening to a stirring sermon.

Something that is going to challenge you. Not just some teaching session, but something, a message that will challenge your life. Something that will cause you to think, that will cause you to examine, that will cause you to face where you're at and what is reality in my own life and where am I really at with God.

Those kind of sermons are the ones you want to bring along with you if you want to spend a day or two or so on alone with God. Something that will shake you some and make you face reality of where you're really at with the Lord.

You're going to spend an hour doing that. Ok? Then at 1pm, you're going to rest for an hour. You're going to lay down. You're going to take your alarm and set it for one hour later and you're going to lay down and you're going to shut your eyes.

If you go to sleep, amen. If you don't go to sleep, you're just going to lay there for an hour. You're going to relax and you're going to rest for one hour because you've been doing a lot of things all day already.

Much energy is going out even though you're not running around or anything like that. The intensity of all the mental activity that you have had requires that you need to just rest a while. So you take an hour and you rest.

Then when you wake up from your hour of rest, if you go to sleep, but once the hour is over with, now it's 2pm and you're going to start over again with the singing of hymns and worshiping your God. You're going to start over.

Just do the same thing that you did that morning. Take some different songs and spend that hour praising, adoring, worshiping, magnifying your God. At the end of that hour, you're going to turn to the Bible again.

This time, you're going to read the Bible for specific food. Maybe a need. Maybe you want to do some study here. You have your concordance along. You want to do a topical study of the Bible. Here, I would recommend not just the reading, but here to spend the hour studying the Word of God, which means you're going to look up this word.

What does this word mean? And what does this verse mean? And where is another verse that applies to this verse? You're going to be going through the Bible more in a studious way than just reading it. You'll do that for one hour.

At the end of that, it's now it's 4pm. You're going to have again a season of earnest prayer for an hour, praying earnestly, fervently for whatever God would bring into your mind. And if you want to, I would suggest, although I don't go for a lot of lists for prayer, but with the amount of time that you're going to be here, it might be good if you just make a little jot yourself down a little bit of a list here of things that you can pray for.

Another suggestion you could do for an hour of earnest prayer is take the Lord's Prayer, that model prayer, which is broken down into six different points, an outline of prayer, and just take that down through there.

Ten minutes of hollowing His name. Ten minutes of praying for the will of God. Ten minutes of praying about your needs and temptations. Ten minutes of praying about spiritual food and physical needs in your life.

And then ten more minutes of hollowing and praising and adoring the Lord. You can do that. But whatever you do, a season of earnest prayer, one more hour. Then at the end of that, you're going to turn again, diverting from the earnest prayer, and you're going to pick up that devotional book again.

And granted, devotional reading is not as intense as earnest prayer. So you've you're kind of diverting yourself again. You're going to read in this devotional book again, and you'll do that for one hour.

Then at the end of that hour, it's 6 p .m., you're going to go for another walk with the Lord. Not just a walk, as I tell the children, but a walk with the Lord. Sometimes at home, I'll go for a walk and the children will say, can I go with you, Papa?

And I say, no, I'm going. Or they'll say, where are you going? I say, I'm going for a walk. Can I go with you? I say, I'm going for a walk with the Lord. And I recommend you do that. If you don't know how to do that, cultivate the ability to go for a walk with the Lord.

We won't say a lot about it. We've already mentioned it. At 7 p .m., again, you're going to turn back to your Scripture memorization and meditation. You'll spend an hour doing that. Then at 8 p .m., you're going to turn again to listening to another tape, a sermon that stirs your very heart.

And if you want to, you can replace, you know, you could put the reading of a sermon in there, although you're going to get more into mind things if you're reading rather than just sitting and listening.

So I would recommend, since we have the blessing of cassette players and sermons on cassette, that you bring those along and listen to a sermon. Then at 9 p .m., we're getting toward the end of the day.

I would recommend, instead of sleep, because you're going to go to bed here soon, you spend that hour in relaxation and general meditation and maybe take a piece of paper and record your day. Just record the thoughts and the impressions that you had throughout the day.

Just spend that last hour of the day writing down some of what your thoughts were and your meditations and how you're feeling about yourself and what are you seeing and what is your vision and what has God been saying to you through the day.

You write all that down. And then at 10 o 'clock, you go to bed for a sweet night's sleep. Then you sleep till the morning and at morning time, you set your alarm to get up at 530. And that may seem like a lot of sleep to some of you, but if you're going to spend as much time as I'm recommending in intense mental work, then you need to have a mind that is rested.

And I would recommend that you sleep those seven and a half hours. Don't overreact and say, well, I'm spending time alone with God. I'm going to stay up till midnight, sleep for three hours, get up at three and keep on going.

You may have more of a failure than what you think. And if you can do that later on, that's fine. But for now, as you're getting started, get the sleep you need that night. And then at 530, when you get up, same thing.