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The Call to Us All: Empathy, Travail, and Revival
Episode #576
12-17-2017
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #573.
The grief of empathy can lead to the Spirit’s own passionate travail for revival. In this agony, we follow Christ’s heart to God’s will and glorious plan!
(Jennifer) John, when you said that about, um, we’re all one body and we affect each other, and what occurs to me with that is— I’m so sorry, I’m drawing a blank on everything except for (and it’s probably going to be paraphrased) in this scripture when Jesus said, “What you do to the least of these, you do to Me” (paraphrased). And I’ve never seen before what a statement of His heart and empathy that is. That is was not just— I always took that as a warning. You know, you don’t get to do things with impunity. “It is Me you are doing things to.” And of course I think that’s there. But in light of this, if we are vessels for Jesus Christ, then what is done to the least is done to us. It is, it’s also a call somehow. I’m seeing it right now. This is to share in His sufferings; it’s not just about persecution. It’s not just about these things. It is agonizing to empathize with, especially because the world is becoming… It’s not even callous, it’s so creative in its hellscape. This man (the Sutherland Springs shooter) was walking up and down the aisles, and when a baby cried, he stopped, went to the baby, and killed it. This is not you’re— This is beyond Bonnie and Clyde. This is beyond the previous evils we have known. This IS the stuff of the Nazi regime. This is how they treated children. This is, ah, a deep evil.
(John hands her the scripture reference she was trying to remember.)
Oh, thank you, John. This is Matthew 25:40. And 39. “Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?” And the king will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” And in that sense, John, as we’re all one body and we affect each other, and Carole, you saying we’re being driven to revival, and Martha, you having that explosion of passionate travail for revival… Dylan Roof was the first that comes to mind anyway in terms of the church shooting, but it was only a month ago that there was the shooting at the church in Tennessee. And now this church here. And, uh, and I would even say Las Vegas. They weren’t a church, but they were a group of people that typically includes a high majority of churchgoers – country music lovers. That is a pretty well known fact about that demographic. But it leads me to ask, inasmuch as I’m having a ministry of tears of sorts, of intercession, as you said, of crying out – and I’ve prayed over each one of these people as He brings them to me, as I read something about them. I have prayed for their families, but I am willing, I think if we are willing to go to the personal and to receive Jesus’ agony of empathy for His children, for His people, that maybe then we are trusted to be given an assignment that goes even beyond that. To receive more of His heart for where He wants to go, for what we are to pray in, for where we are right now as His Bride, the Church. In the United States, in the world, you know, there are things that we are meant to be praying in, that we are meant to be… The Kingdom come to earth. And, um, I hadn’t even gotten that far until you said that, John. And then I just, you know, I just kind of assumed this was where I was going to be, on the people. But I think if we are willing to go there, then we don’t know where He might take us next. But if we’re not even willing to go there, then it’s a moot point.
(Martha) I’ve been brooding on something, and it is that everything living, everything that is God doing a new thing is, has to be birthed. Because we talked about the birth of our book (Altogether Forgiven), and we all travailed in a sense but since we’re into this, and you see it so clearly, Carole, that empathy is prayer and intercession and travail and I mentioned the prayer… I have waited months, and my only prayer was, “Holy Spirit, come and pray for revival in me.” Because the Holy Spirit knows what to pray (Romans 8). And we don’t know what to pray, or how to pray. And so all I’ve done is wait and pray and ask for prayer and show up and be there. And I was not in church when that travail came on me but I’ve been saying, “God, I have to have travail. We have to have travail.” And this revival has to be birthed and it’s going to be birthed by being with God and conceiving the vision. And then when you have the vision, then it grows within you. And then there comes the travail and agony to bring it about. Paul said, “I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you.” Paul knew travail. And travail is the agony and pain and weeping of birthing. So there’s a death that takes place before there is a life. And we’ve been in that but there’s a kind of death pall over it. And I believe that that’s part of it. You have to wait to be able to intercede with power, because it has to come from God Himself, not from me. The empathy is God’s within me and I have to wait and pray for that to come, because when He has the feeling for His people’s suffering, and for… And also what He has is the passion for His Son to have the Bride. That’s His passion. (crosstalk) The last great revival. And so your point is well taken, Carole, but it’s not my empathy, even from God. It’s HIS. It’s being the vessel of His empathy and that is way beyond what I’m even capable of contributing to. It’s a passion.
(Carole) We are the Body of Christ, and we have been shot. We’ve been shot, we’ve been maimed, we’ve been injured. And unless we are willing to open our hearts to that empathy, we don’t even know it. And we remain cold. And I believe God is waking up His Body, His Church, even through this, to even make us aware of the fact that we are under attack by the enemy. We have been shot as His Body. How can we not feel it?! Unless we’ve become so dead. And that’s why the, as Jen, you said the revival comes to us first, to His Body first. He is trying to revive His Body.
(Martha) And think about this. That the martyrs who died, died for the revival. Perhaps. The last great revival. Perhaps they died for that. There is always a death and this is a major death. And now you are provoked by it, you are affected by it. We are affected by it. And profoundly looking at it and getting in it. I said this off tap but I want to say it on tape that what travail is, you asked, Carole, if it was empathy. Travail is God’s empathy using my body to express it in prayer. By the Holy Spirit. And that’s what we want. He is provoking us to become available to His empathy and His heart.
(Jennifer) Before you could possibly be a vessel for His own empathy, you have got to be a ready vessel for empathy period. Period! And so if you’re not even willing to go there, willing or able to go there, then you are… Are you even a suckling baby? I don’t know.
The grief of empathy can lead to the Spirit’s own passionate travail for revival. In this agony, we follow Christ’s heart to God’s will and glorious plan!
The Call to Us All: Empathy, Travail, and Revival – Episode #576 – Shulamite Podcast
There is a holy connection from empathy and travail to revival. The tears and grief born of empathy can lead to the Spirit’s own passionate travail for revival. The agony of empathy doesn’t stand alone; we follow Christ’s heart to God’s will and glorious plan!
