'Not Like Moses;' Take Him as Your Father — Hans R. Waldvogel

The Universal Need for Prayer

Teach us to pray. All the world, all the people, in all the religions, sort of look upon prayer as an absolute necessity for getting to heaven. I think it was Jelinek who pointed out the fact that whatever bones have been dug up of prehistoric man, no matter how primitive he may have been, no matter how big or little his skull has been, you always find religious articles buried together with man.

You never find that with the monkeys or the elephants that have been buried. But man, everywhere somehow, feels akin to some deity, to God. And Jesus said, this is life eternal at the night. Know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

And now the disciples came and said, Lord, teach us to pray. They recognized the absolute necessity of knowing how to pray. But it isn't only on our side that the necessity is great, but God commands.

That's it. That's what makes prayer so absolutely imperative. God commands you to pray. God demands from you that you pray. God commands all men everywhere to turn away from idolatry and turn to Him. Because He has raised Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead, and He has opened the doors into the heavenlies.

God commands us to pray, and He tells us how to pray, and tells us when to pray, and what to pray for. The Father seeketh worshipers. Supposing the President of the United States made it his business to pray like that.

Suppose all the congressmen made it their business to pray like that. Supposing all the churches in the United States prayed like God counts praying. When ye pray, your Father seeketh worshipers. Jesus said God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must be filled with the Holy Ghost.

They must become baptized with the Holy Ghost. They must become one with Almighty God. It is like when a child is born into this world. It has to begin to breathe air. Air that surrounds us is a picture of that Spirit of God by whom, in whom we live, in whom we are, have our being.

Worship in Spirit and Truth

And now there's a very wonderful, wonderful teaching. When that woman came to Jesus and said where shall we worship? The Samaritans say that on the mountain of Samaria we should worship. And the Jews say in Jerusalem is the place to worship.

And Jesus said it's neither time nor place. The hour is now when the true worshipers. Oh God, seeketh sons. Begets sons. Beloved, now are we sons of God. Be therefore sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

Among whom ye shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life. I tell you there's a revival coming upon this earth that's going to knock the bottom out of the kingdom of the devil. And it will mean the manifestation of the sons of God.

It'll mean that the church will be made ready to enter into the marriage of the Lamb. And there will be that marriage when Jesus Christ comes down from heaven. To dwell in his own and to live out his own life within them.

And that victory has already begun. When God saves a person and baptizes them with the Holy Ghost. He transplants them. He translates them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his own Son.

And that kingdom is beautifully pictured in this prayer. The kingdom of God. Cometh not with observation, but it is within you. And now Jesus Christ talking to the subject of the kingdom says, when you pray.

Taking God as Our Father

Our very first sentence we discussed yesterday is to say our Father which art in heaven. Oh praise God. He's no stranger to me anymore. I'm no stranger to him. He's my father. Someone said to me that there is no juvenile delinquency in a certain nation.

And there was no juvenile delinquency in Formosa when I was there. Why? Because the father is the boss. The father is the boss in every home. And the wife obeys the father. And it's been that way to some extent in Europe.

I like to hear German wives talk about Papa. Husband is Papa or Vater in Switzerland. The Vater hat es geseit. Hallelujah. And that settles every question in the home. The Vater hat es geseit. And then the children, they also talk about his word is law.

And not only is he the boss, but he is the father. He's the Papa. He's daddy. He's the provider. Glory to God. It's his responsibility to provide for the family. But more than that, he is the priest of the family.

He is between God and his family. Every man's head is Christ. And the woman's head is the husband. Now you tell that to the women and see what a howl will go up. No, no, that's not American. But how very wonderful that in the kingdom of God, God is absolutely the father, God is the provider.

God's word is law. Absolutely law. Thank God. And so when you pray, come on, Jesus Christ introduces me to his father and he says, now he's your father, too. And oh, what a different relationship I have now to my God.

He is my father. Tell me how different this world would be if all the churches lived like that. If God was their father and in the power of the Holy Ghost, everybody recognized his fatherhood and bowed before his law and submitted to his law, how different everything would be.

The Sermon on the Mount shows us the nature of our father and the nature of the kingdom of God. And why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? But that's the revival that's coming.

God's going to have a church in which Jesus Christ is absolute head and God is absolute father and everyone is a child of God. And we dwell together in unity because we have fellowship with God, the father and with God, the son, and we have fellowship one with another.

And as dear children, we are followers of God. Thank God. And now God commands all men everywhere to pray. And when you pray and he tells us not in Jerusalem and not in Samaria, but everywhere is the kingdom of God.

Everywhere is the sanctuary. Enter into your closet. Your father is in secret. And he means your heart. The kingdom of God is within. That's where God must be worshiped. If with thine heart thou shalt believe that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Prayer as Communion With the Living Water

There immediately is that reconciliation accomplished. Glory to God. My heart becomes a shrine and becomes a fountain. And it's united to that everlasting fountain, which Israel has forsaken. They've forsaken me.

The fountain of living water. But now he that believeth in me, as the scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. Father cleans your heart. He possesses your heart. He takes your heart.

And prayer means being united to that great fountain of living water all the time, just like man has to live by breathing the air. So the child of God lives by breathing that spirit of God, constantly, constantly abiding.

Oh, how different is prayer now. Your father, who is in secret, he is always there. And how very wonderful. When I pray, there are always these two, the father and myself. And what does he want? What does he want in my heart?

I'm his child. And it isn't me who I'm demanding of God to give me something, but it's God demanding from me to give him something. Give me your heart. Give me your body. Let me work in your body. He that hath wrought us for the self, same thing is God.

What has he wrought us for? Why he wants this body to be transformed one of these days into the likeness of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, God wants something. And that something can only be brought to him in prayer.

That kind of prayer that breathes the life of God that says, my God, you know what I need before I ask you. Now you give me what I need. You provided for every need of mine, for body, soul and spirit.

You called me to be preserved blameless unto the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ. Now, faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. That requisitions and requires a prayer without ceasing. A life without ceasing.

Thou hangest herz und blicke an den geliebten Herrn. That's what Jesus Christ means when he says, if your eye is single, that is, you see nothing but Jesus, your whole body is full of light. We're living in a world full of darkness.

But you and I are to be full of light. Like that tower in London that I was speaking of when London was plunged into darkness because of a fog that covered it for days. There was one spot in London that was lit up.

It happened to be inside of a church and the tower stuck up above the clouds, above the fog. And there was an open window up there and the sun shone through all the way down to the bottom. And people gathered there to get a little sunshine.

That's you and me. Glory to God. You have your window open to Jerusalem. Have your eye on Jesus Christ all the time. That was Moses. He endured as seeing him who is invisible. And here he was surrounded by darkness.

And all the time, God communicated with Moses. What a life. And now Paul says, not like Moses. He had to cover his face. But we with uncovered face behold in the glass the glory of the Lord and are changed into the same image.

Hallowing the Father's Name

Oh, wonder of wonders. When we ask Jesus to teach us to pray, he teaches us the ABC. He says, first of all, learn to know your father. Learn to honor your father. Hallowed be thy name. That's what it means to worship God.

It means to recognize his presence, his lordship, his indwelling, his faithfulness over my life. It produces in my heart a childlike confidence. A walk in faith and by faith and whatsoever is not of faith is seen.

We ought to be afraid not to pray without ceasing. We ought to be scared. A young sister testified one day and I enjoyed her testimony. She got up and she said today while I was working in my shop, suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten Jesus.

She said, I stopped right where I was and closed my eyes and returned silently in my heart and presently he came and covered me with the mantle of his presence, you don't dare forget him. Beloved, that's the teaching of Jesus.

Your father is in secret. And that's where you worship him. And when you pray to your father in secret, he rewards you openly. That means it takes care of your natural life, your body, your thoughts, your words, your feelings, your actions, everything is controlled from headquarters.

I told you how I flew a constellation over the fog and over the clouds. Over the ocean. I found out how these pilots find idle while they fly through the clouds and over the clouds and they can't see anything at all.

And yet they're carefully directed. They have earphones. They constantly hear directions from headquarters. And then they have a map that tells them exactly how the winds blow. And so they know exactly how high to fly and when to come down to a lower altitude or to rise to a higher altitude.

They know exactly every moment where they are. And my God who knows what I need before I ask him, he has provided for this way before the foundation of the world. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass.

He shall guide me with his counsel. I need his counsel. I need to shift the gear from thinking my own thoughts and let God Almighty take over. And he'll think his thoughts in me. That's prayer without ceasing.

That's the provision God makes. Our Father, which art in heaven, you're in headquarters, thank God. You're directing me from heaven. That's what makes prayer so difficult for the natural man. He can't.

He's not in contact. He doesn't know where he's at. He's lost in the clouds. He's going to have a crack up shore. But the child of God is filled with the Holy Ghost and that spirit of God keeps him constantly in communion with Jesus Christ on the throne.

And Jesus Christ, who sends forth the seven spirits of God into all the earth. He holds you by his mighty hand in the right direction and in the right way. Prayer. Oh, beloved, we need to learn from our Lord Jesus Christ how to pray and when to pray.

The Hidden Life of Prayer

He says, go into your closet and shut the door. We need an inward life. We need a life that is hid with Christ in God. And the Lord has told me how few people that are in the world that live that kind of a life.

I've never told it. I'd be ashamed to tell you how few there are in the world that live like that. But wherever you go, you'll find people will pray in church and they'll pray once in a while at home.

But God commands us to pray all the time. And he provides for us that kind of a life. Father, one such who worship him in spirit and in truth. That's the truth. When you enter into that true fellowship with God, the father, where he takes over, where he is the father, he is the boss, he is the provider.

He has given us all these promises in the Bible that by them we might escape the corruption that is in the world through lust and might be partakers of his divine nature and might live constantly abiding.

It takes an effort to get into that place. And we have quoted it many, many times. And I'm glad we have that classic description of the inward life. When the Bible says that when you practice the presence of God for a while, it becomes your portion and you don't have to do it anymore, the Holy Ghost does it for you.

He thinks for you. He remembers in you. He lives in you. He keeps you in the way. It's his job. It's the ministry of the Holy Ghost. That's why Paul says, not like Moses. He are the epistle of Christ written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God known and read of all men.

And that's what it means to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection. If in thine heart thou dost believe that God raised him from the dead, why he raises you, you can't help but be raised together with him when you have contact in your heart with the resurrected son of God, because after all, he died for our transgressions and he was raised again for our justification.

Prayer, Obedience, and the Tongue

It is high time we made a made a study of prayer, don't you think so? It's high time we made a real high school, a real university education. What would happen to this assembly if everybody entered into a life of constantly abiding?

It would shut your mouth. German sister complained to me about Reinhold. Reinhold was our sexton in Kirchheim. A clumsy Schwab. He's a nice fellow, though. And I, I taught them something about French.

Ferme la bouche. And now the girls complain that every little while it says to them, ferme la bouche. Keep your mouth shut. Well, beloved, constantly abiding. Pray without ceasing. It'll put a muzzle on your mouth.

It will. It'll keep your tongue. I will says, if you don't, your religion is is a farce. We ought to believe that. We ought to believe that God almighty commands me to keep my mouth shut and to speak only the things that glorify him.

To let my mouth, my tongue and my mind be under the control of the Holy Ghost. That's why he says, when you pray, say, our father, my goodness, not Maria, mother of God, pray for us poor sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Amen. Or Saint Alphonsus, find for me the key that I have lost. No, our father, you are in heaven. Oh, my suraji, how that bows my heart. Father. None of the Old Testament saints dare call him father.

But when Moses came in touch with God, he fell on his face for 40 days and 40 nights and he didn't eat or drink. And then when he came out of that prayer, he had the Ten Commandments engraven upon stone.

And now Paul says not like Moses. He writes his law in your heart. Oh, my father, I used to envy Moses. I used to say, my goodness, if you'd let me get into that mountain and see that burning bush or hear that voice like trumpet, my God, what would I do?

And Paul says not like Moses. You can always see his face. Wonderful salvation when we always see his face. Oh, perfect habitation. What a quiet resting place. Why don't we get there? Well, maybe we don't believe it's possible.

But why does my father come to me? And why does my father ask me to come into the closet and meet him and shut the door? What does he want with me? Does he want me to dictate to him what to do? Does he want me to tell him what my needs are?

Jesus says he knows much more about that than you do. Come on, get still, get still. Believe God, come in faith and you'll be surprised. He'll do exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think.

My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. I've had strange experiences along that line. Very strange. When I got started in the ministry and held meetings, some preachers felt so sorry for me, they thought, well, the poor fellow hasn't any money.

I didn't. And so they tried to get some engagements for me so I could preach and and pass the collection basket. And that's the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to get along with God. I wanted to find Jesus Christ.

And I had begun to live the faith life and I had to support my parents. And I told my father, if I can't support you, I'll go back to the jewelry business. I'm going to take care of you. And one time I had bought for my parents a house in the lot and I had to paint that house and I owed the painter still $20.

Well, I could have gone out and scratched at some church door and ask, don't you want an evangelist? Don't cost you much. I can preach German and English and Schweizerdeutsch too. No, that's the last thing I wanted to.

I wanted to pray and find the Lord. So even though I owe $20, I look for a place where nobody would find me. I was in that trouble. People were after me and when they knew what I was, they call me. And so I went into another town from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

I went into Oak Park, Illinois, where my sister lived. And my sister, my brother in law were working all day. And so I said, if I go there, I can pray all day and nobody will find me. I didn't tell anybody where I was.

So I went in there and I had a strange experience. I prayed like I always did. I prayed like a house of fire. I'd walk up and down and yell at the Lord and wonder why he didn't answer me. And presently something happened.

A great silence would come over me. It was as if God slapped my mouth and say, for goodness sake, let me say something. And I didn't understand that. I'd never heard of such a thing. And finally, I sat down and I said, well, see what will happen.

And a great cloud of God's presence covered me. I hardly dared breathe. God came to me. God came. God spoke to me. God wrote into my heart while I didn't hear any voice. And yet God spoke his word of life within me.

A grantee who lived that kind of a life. And he said, the great imperfection of souls is not to wait upon God sufficiently. The act of nature, unsubdued, seizes on fair pretexts to intermeddle and thinks it is doing wonders.

And yet this is what troubles the silence of the soul. And so God does not produce in us his word of life. He said, the secret that I have discovered is to do nothing of myself, but just to let God do it.

Well, I learned something about that lesson. And the strange thing was somebody rang the doorbell. I said, now, who in the world is coming? It isn't Christmas time. Else I thought it'd be Santa Claus.

Somebody wanted to get in. And here it was a stranger whom I had led to Jesus years before. And he said, I'm so glad I found you. I don't know to this day how he found me, but he found me. He had been hunting me up.

And he said, I got to give you 20 bucks. Think of it, not 19, not 21, but $20. He said, God laid it on my heart to bring you $20. $20. Why, that was a wonderful lesson for me. Beloved, if we would only learn our lessons, Jesus tells us how we would find out exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.

Somebody said to me, ought to write a book. I can't. When I tell people things that God has done, they think I'm a liar. No, I couldn't write the book. But beloved, the beginning was difficult because the old flesh doesn't like it.

And God wants us to get out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of the son of his love. That's where we belong. When you pray, come on, here's your father. You don't have to run the gauntlet and you don't have to stand in line for several hours to get something, but you've got access with boldness and with confidence by the faith of him.

And beloved, we're never going to fulfill in God until we learn our lesson. Somebody is going to learn it. Somebody is going to wake up and somebody is going to do God's will. And why not you?