Episode #523 – We (the Church) Are in Training for Reigning

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We (the Church) Are in Training for Reigning
Episode #523
December 11, 2016

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow

(John) Well, Martha, this morning I’m writing a post for Get Along With God. It’s called, “He’ll Do What It Takes.” And I realize that literally God will orchestrate any and every circumstance so that we would know Him, and that we would increasingly know Him. And so, I invite you all to go and read that. It’s pretty wonderful. I love it. But this morning, as most mornings, He’s revealing Himself in some way in some situation. This morning you came down and you had some prayers and some scripture about a situation I’m currently in. And the amazing thing is when I realized this situation that I’m in is specifically a situation where God is wanting to reveal Himself for greater knowledge, for greater wisdom, greater Him; more Him, more Him in my life. And so, you know, what could be seen as a negative situation, God’s really blasting in, in trying to reveal Himself. And He’s willing to use it and does use it. So, you came down and you started sharing, and I want you to continue to share basically on the podcast with it. And so, Martha, what are you hearing and what are you getting?
(Martha) I was at Carole’s yesterday and I looked over on her table, and she had this book by Paul Billheimer, Behold, I Give Unto You Power (now titled Destined to Overcome.) And of course Paul Billheimer is a major influence on my life. The other day I ran across the first edition of his book, Destined for the Throne, that he gave me himself in Atlanta many years ago in the 80’s. And it’s a treasure to me because his vision and his revelation of the meaning of our life is that we are in training to rule and reign, and he calls it the universe. You can get infected with that marvelous revelation, and we need to, because it’s the culmination of every life in the history of man is when Christ returns, and the saints rule the nations. And Billheimer’s revelation of that is so definite and powerful that I’m deeply impacted by it. And I hadn’t read this book about power in a long time. It happens to not be in print. It was put out by TBN years ago. It needs to be put in print again, it’s so powerful. But it’s really about warfare. And what Billheimer says in this, is that our training is overcoming the enemy. And all of a sudden I realized that I… I just want to insert this little thing before I tell what I’m going to tell, ok? Christian people have the idea that you arrive. And they will say, “Well, I thought you knew that.” When you discover something anew, because I’ve been writing in the devotional everything is made new. Even what we know has been made all new, and yesterday is irrelevant and tomorrow is irrelevant. It’s today that He reveals Himself as you are saying, John. But there is no such thing as arrival. You will be seeing and learning in your last breath on this earth. So, you learn what you already know. You discover you didn’t know what you didn’t know. And God shows you what you never knew and never imagined. So, the process, the journey is the thing. There is no arrival. If the arrival is to know God, we will never get there through eternity. The joy and wonder will always be getting to know Him, as you’re writing about wonderfully. And you used my favorite thing, the Hebrew word, “yada,” which is intimacy with God. But I realize that I have been passive about warfare. Warfare is the least interesting thing to me of the Christian life. It’s wearying, because it’s always there. But Billheimer makes it the adventure. And I realize that I had become passive. There’s a certain reason that God solved in my life last week that opened this window of heaven for me. And through this book, picking up this book, Behold, I Give Unto You Power, he says so many fabulous things. I could highlight the whole thing in yellow. He says, he goes to Revelation 12:11, which we know well and know little about. “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death.” But he takes it as the very central secret – that’s my words, not him – of warfare and coming to understand those three elements of that warfare is what he’s writing about in this book. And he says, “We have to know what the cross is about, what happened at the cross legally,” and he writes about it brilliantly. And when we know what happened, then we can bring that before the enemy and defeat him without any problem. He says, “The church doesn’t really… the church is given the job of enforcing Calvary’s victory.” And he says the corporate church is supposed to manifest, enforce that victory. Christ has accomplished the ruling law that Satan is defeated, but it’s up to us to enforce that, and it has to be enforced, because Satan is a criminal running around claiming ownership of everything and stealing everything and murdering everything. And we can only stop him. We’re the only ones who can stop him: Believers. And when we enforce Christ’s victory on the cross and in the blood, then he’s utterly defeated.
(John) You came down and you started sharing with me, I realize that the revelation is an impartation that he has, and that it’s infectious. And then all of a sudden I realized the assault of Satan on our warfare is very, very deliberate obviously, because he wants to keep us thinking, you know, I’m the same way. I’m very passive in warfare. And then all of a sudden when I saw that it’s all about reigning and ruling, and that that is our life. That is our life. This is what we’re being… This life is literally a training for reigning and ruling, and all of a sudden I went, “Oh, my gosh, no wonder his assault would be so on that.” And it’s not like, you know, like a combat boot, you know, get your –– all that garbage.
(Martha) Right.
(John) It’s reigning and ruling is so totally different than that. But if all of this life is literally to train for reigning and ruling in the millennium and in eternity, it doesn’t really even matter what you go through here,
(Martha) Uhmmm
(John) Because it’s all a training.
(Martha) Right. Oh, oh, oh goody. Let me read it in his… I’m sorry, but I…
(John) No…
(Martha) Ok. See, for me, the goal is the marriage of the Lamb. The ruling and reigning has never appealed to me except in for far as it’s close to Jesus. But my real eternal goal is the marriage of the Lamb, and he mentions that here. Let’s see. “The church is in on the job training for co–sovereignty with Christ over His universal empire. She must learn the art of spiritual warfare, of overcoming evil forces in preparation for her assumption of the throne following the marriage supper of the Lamb. To enable her to earn the technique of overcoming God devised the scheme of prayer. To give her on the job training God delegated to her authority to enforce His will right here on earth. In order to enable her to acquire the character and the know-how, she will need a co-sovereign. He has placed upon the church the privilege, responsibility and authority to enforce God’s will and administrative decisions in the affairs of earth.” That blew me away. I have read it before. I don’t think I’ll ever comprehend it as huge as it is, but I pray to. And I pray for us all to get it, because the marriage of the Lamb – and he makes it clear – you’re being trained for your Beloved, but then you’re being trained for what your Beloved wants and that we would co-reign with Him, which follows the marriage of the Lamb. I’ve spoken deeply for many years that not everybody is going to be in the marriage. It’s clear in scripture. There are a dozen CD’s on that. And I’ve just done a series on prayer in the Dahlonega Methodist Church. I only could do eight weeks, and then I’m going to continue it. It’s not finished. There will be no finish to this series on prayer, because it’s so endless. But these words that he speaks, “God has placed upon the church the privilege, the responsibility and authority to enforce God’s will.”

We (the Church) Are in Training for Reigning – Episode #522 – Shulamite Podcast