Be Diligent to Get Alone With God — Hans R. Waldvogel

Sometimes people seek the Lord, and they make all the plans, and they have all the ideas. When I was a beginner in the ministry before I came to Brooklyn, I used to try to get a week now or two weeks then to wait upon the Lord.

And one time I found out that a brother-in-law of mine and his family were going away on a vacation. And so I asked him whether I couldn't be in his house for those two weeks. So he allowed me to if I would take care of his chickens.

Well they were all dead by the time he came back, and two weeks later, and his little girl said to me, you died them, didn't you? Well no, they died by themselves. I didn't have to do anything about it.

But at any rate, when I had made that plan, some ministers got after me and they thought it was a waste of time. They tried to persuade me that that was a waste of time, that I ought to be out preaching.

So I went to the Lord. In those days we had the privilege of going to some of the so-called vessels and ask them to pray. And I said, well it seems to me that it makes a lot of difference. And the Lord said, why certainly, two weeks out of your life, two weeks.

Seeking God Alone and Offering Him a Perfect Heart

I found out that those two weeks were controlling weeks. They changed my whole life. The course of my whole life was changed. You know that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for somebody whose heart is perfect toward him.

What is God looking for? Can't he find hearts? Very, very few. Whose hearts are perfect toward him. Oh, what an expression. Is my heart perfect toward my God? I don't see him, that's true, but I meet with him when I pray.

When I come here, I meet with my God and he meets with me. Oh, how I ought to be awake, how my soul ought to be alert, how I ought to prepare myself very carefully. That's what made the saints of old fast.

They wanted nothing to hinder them from approaching to God. They knew that an overfed stomach would hinder their spirit of prayer, and so they prepared themselves to meet God. Oh, my Father, my heart perfect toward God.

What will God do for me when he finds my heart perfect toward him? Well, I tell you something, there's a very, very, very great difference in the heart. We may think we're tough, and God thinks differently.

God looks into the heart, but one thing is very, very hopeful, Philippians 2 .13, where he says, it is God who worketh in you. Oh, that's what prayer means. It isn't me working, but it's God working. God, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God’s Work in the Believer’s Salvation

Just think, God, though being in the form of God, humbled himself, became sin for me, rose from the dead, received gifts from the Father. Now he wants the authority in my life. Now he wants to be the one to work out in me his own salvation.

How very wonderful. If I had to do it, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't get any place, but God does it, thank God. And that's the objective we ought to have at the beginning of this week. God is here. God is here now.

God looks upon my heart now. God sees through me now. Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. He knows my need before I tell him about it. Not only that, but he has provided so much more bountifully than I could even tell him.

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Oh, the wonderful salvation God holds in store for me. Why is it that we don't advance faster? Well, it's our attitude toward God. How often is our attitude in prayer one of laziness?

The devil will see to that if I don't awaken unto God. That's why he says, watch unto prayer. Oh, blessed is the man that knows and is conscious of the fact that his heart must be perfect toward God. In the Old Testament, we read again and again of men who prepared their hearts unto the Lord their God to seek by prayer and fasting in sackcloth and ashes.

How did it happen? Well, they had an objective. They had a promise from God. And they were not going to miss that promise of God. No matter what anybody else did, they were going to be perfect toward God.

They were going to give God a chance to work out his great plan in their hearts. And if my objective is that, oh, God has given me his word and his wonderful promise. Where are the hearts? I found a man after my own heart who shall do all my will.

Oh, no wonder Billy Sunday says God stopped making worlds when he found a man like that. They were so few and so far between that if God can find one in a generation, he's doing pretty well. But shouldn't he find our hearts like that when we know all this?

The Pentecostal Objective: Seeking More Than an Initial Experience

Dr. Gray was here. We discussed this thing. And he said, you know, Pentecost has lost its objective. It doesn't have an objective anymore. One time we had an objective when we sought the baptism according to Acts 2 .4.

We knew that God would fill us with the Holy Ghost according to Acts 2 .4. And so we sought him earnestly until he baptized us according to Acts 2 .4. I've seen people, as soon as they stammered a few words in tongues, get up from prayer and then never again show themselves as the author.

They had obtained their objective. That's what they were after, speaking in tongues. They had it. Oh, there's a multitude of Pentecostal people like that. Why, they've got it now. And there's a multitude of preachers that teach that, too.

I saw a little girl in Switzerland get the baptism, a very wonderful baptism. And in the following meeting, the power of God came upon her and made her a real blessing. She had real intercession in the meeting.

But the minister didn't like it. He went and shut her up. He says, now you must be still. You've got it now. Very strange. You've purchased an automobile, now put it in the garage. You've got it now. Don't use it.

That's the wisdom of the flesh. But, beloved, we have an objective, or don't we? To know Him. Oh, that I might win Christ. That I might be found in Him. Oh, that Christ might dwell in my heart by faith.

Prayer as Spiritual Warfare and Perseverance

The reason we stop seeking is because we don't understand the process. You seek a while, and God empties you. You wanted to get filled with good feelings, and you don't get them. The fight starts. Prayer is a fight.

And unless your heart is perfect toward God, and you view the objective, and you see the promise of Pharaoh, and you're persuaded of it, and you're going to set your faith unto the Lord your God, to have that promise, you're most likely going to quit.

That's why he tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Oh, for a prayer meeting like that, where every heart fears to miss. Fears to miss God's bet. How many have missed it, and God never saw fit to return to them.

But what am I expecting from my God today? Why, I feel the current moving on the line. And you know, the first thing God has to do for me is to change my heart and my attitude. Oh, these hearts of ours are so calloused sometimes, so dark, so filled with cobwebs, thistles and thorns in our hearts.

Why, people confess this. They have an awful time keeping their minds on Jesus right now. You watch, as soon as that door squeaks, a dozen heads will turn, like on a hinge. You watch now. It'll happen as sure as the sun rises tomorrow morning.

That's our hearts. Our hearts are deceitful above all things, but they wouldn't be if God got a chance. They certainly wouldn't. God would transform them. God would change them. He would strengthen us with might by his Spirit in the inner man.

Oh, we pay so much attention to the outer man that we have no time for God to pay attention to the inner man. But what will two weeks of prayer like this mean in your life? It depends what God can do for you.

That's what it is. And what can, well, God tells me what he will do. If I look into the Bible, he will transform me on the inside. By the power of the Spirit, he will strengthen me with might by his Spirit in the inner man.

He'll get hold of your thoughts. Thou knowest my thoughts afar off. Oh, how many people have never consecrated their thought life to God. They want God to be king, but not there, not in the heart. Guard thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

Unless I turn my heart and my mind over to God, it won't happen. But it will happen when I do. God will renew my mind, thank God. Oh, the wonders that he has promised in the New Testament are unspeakable.

They're out of this world. He says, I have not seen and ear have not heard. Neither have entered into the heart of man. The wisdom of man and the learning of man won't do it. They're eliminated. There has to be a different source of wisdom and knowledge.

And in him are hid all the treasures. Of wisdom and knowledge. Why is not my heart perfect towards so wonderful a God? So wonderful a lover. So wonderful a God who loves me all the time. Who works for me all the time.

Who proposes to give himself and his own wisdom and his own knowledge to me. I tell you something, a talk like this may seem very simple. But do you know that it brings more wisdom to you than you can get in a university of learning in a whole year's time?

It will if you get it, if you take it. Oh, that's what's the matter. We don't believe our God. But when my heart is perfect toward him, it will not waver. God has spoken to us by his son. And what did he speak?

Christ’s Poverty, Christian Riches, and Being Rooted in Love

Why his new testament, he that was rich became poor for our sakes. That we through his poverty might be rich. And how rich? Why rooted and grounded in love. Do you want to be like that? Would you like to be rooted and grounded in love?

Well, then you can't be a snob anymore. You can't judge people anymore like you have been doing. You can't show the cold shoulder to anybody. You cannot exercise your own opinions anymore. Oh, these views, these opinions, how quickly we judge somebody else.

And we're satisfied to do that and to keep a heart that is divided toward God. But to let Jesus Christ reign is a very different matter. I ought to see to it with fear and trembling that Jesus takes his great power and reigns.

And two weeks alone with God ought to make such a change in my life. And it will if there are two weeks with God. If God can have his way with me. If God, oh, the light that will come to my soul. I was interested in a word the Lord spoke some time ago.

He said, oh, if Jesus could only find people that are willing to be alone with him all the time. There would be wonderful sight. Wonderful sight. Do you know that's what we need? Sight by the Holy Ghost.

Receiving Wisdom and Revelation from God

It doesn't come intellectually, else the princes of this world would have known it. But they didn't know him. They didn't understand the prophets. They wrote books about prophecy and fulfillment of prophecy.

And they do that today. But the Bible says they knew him not. Oh, it takes the spirit of wisdom and revelation. And that spirit is here this morning. Waiting to give you wisdom. He says through Solomon, turn in hither, ye simple ones.

That means you dumb ones. Come to me if you're dumb. If you're not smart enough. I'll make you smart. I will pour out my spirit unto you. Oh, wonder of wonders. Jesus Christ is made unto me wisdom from God.

And no matter how stupid I am, if I but give God a chance, I sit an infant at his feet. Where moments teach me more than all the sages. All the books of all the ages whore. There lie my books. For all I sought, my heart possesses now.

The words are sweet that tell thy love. But love itself art thou. And all the love itself comes to me. Father comes to me. Father, that's what prayer means. When ye pray, don't pray like the scribes and Pharisees.

Who think they shall be heard for their much speaking. Enter into your closet. That means your own heart. And shut the door. Alone with God. The world forbidden. Alone with God. Have you ever been alone with God?

Oh, tell me. Oh, yes, we get alone with God and then the telephone rings. And then some duty presses upon us. And then some friend calls. And then the flesh gets into power. And oh, God has to say their God is their belly.

Jesus as the Christian’s Objective and the Coming Resurrection

I am not their God. Oh, beloved, we have an objective. God has given it to us. The question only is have I accepted God's objective. It's Jesus. Jesus is that objective. One thing I do for getting the things that are behind.

And reaching for the things that are before. I press toward them. Oh, how God desires us to get hold of this thing. Because there will not be a rapture until God finds a people that want Jesus like that.

There will not be a resurrection from the dead until we follow the apostle Paul. That's in the Bible. Why do they develop such strange doctrines about his work that I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead?

When a woman in Switzerland, Jumper Trudel, who had a gift of faith or a gift of healing died, some dupes went there and dug her up again. They wanted to prove that she had been resurrected. She was. The hunchback lady was still there in the grave.

I mean her corpse. Oh, beloved, when Paul says, If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead, he sets the objective before you and before me. He has no other objective than we have.

It's the objective before the church. I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. That's why he calls upon us to fight this fight. It's a fight. And no man that waters entangles himself.

And if a man also fight for mastery, he is not crowned. Oh, that's the crown of life of which the apostle Paul speaks. It's laid up for him and for all them also that love his appearing. Oh, when you think of his appearing.

Think of his appearing. It ought to fill our hearts with a wholesome fear. Shouldn't it? People talk glibly about the coming of the Lord and are not getting ready at all, are not doing anything at all.

God Working in His People and the Example of Joseph

Beloved, I can't do anything about it, but give myself to God so that he can work in me to will and to do. And he proposes to do that. It's very different. When God works to will, that's conviction. That's conviction that sticks.

When God works in you to will, it's because he has chosen you to be a son of God without rebuke. And he's not going to let you get by with a superficial experience or a vain profession. He won't. He will not.

He won't allow you to waste your time either. Through desire, a man having separated himself, intermediates with all wisdom. When I talk like this, there always looms up before me a picture of a young man, Joseph one and mother, who came into the faith home in Zion at a time when God kept this objective before the people all the time.

And I remember the time he came. He got saved. And I remember how people were proud of being at the faith home and hearing from heaven. They told me what wonderful people they were. One minister told me what a wonderful man he was.

What a wonderful call he had. Why he had a wonderful call. The Lord had spoken to him about it and spoken to him by the hour about it. And then he spoke deridingly about Joseph. But the difference was this, that Joseph didn't think of any being a great man.

But he took the message and he went to seeking the Lord. And though he was very weak, I remember times when he'd fast for two weeks. He'd pray. He was so weak he had to stay in bed to pray. But he prayed.

Oh, how he prayed. It was my privilege to pray with him. He had an objective. He wanted to find God. He found God. And though he had no eloquence, he couldn't preach like these other great men. Yet he went way beyond them.

The others are today broken vessels. They're no place. Talking about it won't do it. Priding yourself of having a call won't do it. But acting upon it will. And Joseph acted upon it. He prayed. He set his faith unto the Lord, his God.

He sought God. God came to him. God changed him. Today his name shines, not only in this country, but in Europe as well. He's unique. He's one in 10 ,000. How did he become that way? Well, he didn't seek to be great, but he sought to do the will of God.

For instance, he sought to live a life of love. Oh, beloved, what are we doing? God's calling you. God's calling me today, this morning, now, this very moment. Is my heart awake? If it isn't, I ought to wake it up.

Do you know how? And I envy those who are young, very young in this place. You know, when you get older, you get kind of flabby. But when you're young, you have path. You've got energy. That energy ought to be given to God.

Oh, how blessed it is to hear the voice of God. Give me, my son, thy heart. Seek now the Lord thy Creator in the days of thy youth. That's the time to seek the Lord. But most young people think that's the time to have a good time.

They can always seek the Lord. One day passes, another day passes, a week, a month, a year passes. Well, we're still young. That's not having a heart perfect toward God. Oh, God calls upon us, and I trust that in this assembly God will find hearts that are perfect toward Him.