Episode #413 – Holiness and Freedom

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Holiness and Freedom
November 2, 2014
Episode #413

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests:Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson

(M) This is 1st Corinthians. You can start early in 26, chapter one. “Consider your own calling that not many wise, not many in influential, not many high and noble birth, what to the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and God deliberately chose what is in the world low born, insignificant, branded, treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing.” And what He is bringing us to is so much that we are nothing. We have nothing. And in this repentance I have realized much, even more than ever that I have never done anything. He has done it all.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) I have never affected anybody. He has affected anybody that is affected.
“So that no mortal man should have pretense of glorying and boast in the presence of God. You have your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, revealed to us the knowledge of the divine plan, our righteousness, consecration, making us pure and holy in our redemption.” And He is our holiness, and we have to be holy. It is necessary to be holy. We’ve talked about the Blood that the Blood has to cover everything when we go into the presence of God.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) We are lacking the presence of God, not because we are so bad, but because we haven’t received and believed the holiness that is the gift of Jesus. He in me is holiness, and I experienced it, and whoosh! The Holy Spirit came in and He began to heal me powerfully through that holiness. Holiness was the door that God could come in and commune, and I so wanted to share that because I’ve never seen it quite that way, that holiness is essential. It’s essential that we repent, but there’s an end to the repentance, and it is holiness.
(J) And it’s all for the glory of God.
(M) Yeah.
(J) That’s where it goes.
(M) Right.
(J) Holiness isn’t the end of it either.
(M) Ohh.
(J) Glory is the end.
(M) Wow.
(J) So, I mean, that’s just the path. You repent, you have the Blood. The Blood makes you clean so that you’re holy. You’re holy so that you can enter into the glory.
(M) Well, that’s verse 31. “So then as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, proudly rejoice and glory in the Lord.” And so my healing is a testimony of His glory. But He had to bring the holiness in first, so He could come in.
(J) That’s why He has to, you know, pull all of that’s in the way…
(M) Yes.
(J) I mean, you know, we want to not deal with the things that are impeding His holiness. And that just prevents His glory, prevents His life, prevents all kinds of stuff.
(M) All that He’s given.
(J) All that He’s given. But if we’ll deal with, in the repentance as He brings it, which is awful. I mean, straight up. It’s just awful.
(M) Yeah.
(J) And then you have to take the Blood, which again is awful because it completely levels all your pride to think that you can do anything. But then He comes in, but then you have to receive. So there’s another awful. You have to receive the holiness.
(M) And it’s all the Spirit. You see, the Spirit brings… oh, and I said to someone, “Repentance can’t go up. Repentance has to come down.
(J) Umhmm. Umhmmm
(M) And it means that I can’t tell God what my sin is. I can tell Him some of the obvious things, but God tells me what the sin is. And it has to come down from Him. It’s, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I am seeing the profound impact of that prayer. And when we pray it and mean it, one of the things He does is come down in repentance. Then He came down in holiness. Then He came down in healing. And I wasn’t… I was amazed by it all. But repentance is simply clearing the path so He can come, so He can come in and be and give all that He’s given. You had something that was on a tape. I read your writing, and you said; if you can remember, repeat it today. You said that you surrendered but you didn’t die.
(J) Are you talking about the “Not Shamed” writing? Hang on a second. I have it here.
(M) Well, I think it’s… You were witnessing to a mistake that we make, because in this season of repentance we’ve died.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) We’ve… many things have just died. And somehow you got on this CD, where I was reading one of your writings.
(J) Hmhmm. Hmhmm.
(M) So if you can find it…
(J) I have it right here. “Without going to the cross you have no exchange of life. At the cross where you surrender your life to death is where you make the transaction of exchange. You cannot exchange bar going to the cross. You cannot be free from your old Adamic life unless you go to the cross with Christ. The legitimate transaction is performed only on the cross. I have attempted to surrender with the avoidance of death. I thought the surrender was the death. There is a surrender that effects no immediate change. It is the surrender that is made in choice only. A choice? How can you choose to bow and not die? I have! Peter made the choice, “Even if I must die with you,” but the cross had not yet hit the Peter life. I believed in submission and surrender to the Spirit without embracing the cross. It is impossible. You cannot have His life without losing yours. I believed that a bowed will was what He required, a submitted self to the process, yet I got up after each surrender and lived. How could I do this, because if you believe in your old life, if you see it as a yielded entity without the actual death, which is performed on the cross, you deceive yourself. Yet if the choice is truly made, it is heard by God, and He is committed to take you to the further step, which embraces the cross to the losing of your own life.”
(M) I think that’s wonderful. We do not know how to die.
(J) Well, I really did… I thought that the surrender was the death, and I was missing the actual death. I mean, surrender is painful. There’s a pain in it, and…
(M) I think we consent to die, but I really believe the Holy Spirit has to effect it within us. But if you don’t know, if you’re not conscious that you really have to die…
(J) Well, I think it’s evidence there with Peter. Peter had the commitment to die. He had the surrender to it. “I would die with you.” But he didn’t have the cross-life lay on top of Peter life and kill him.
(M) Umhmm, Right.
(J) Until that happened… But then after that happened, he got up, and he could literally correct and chastise people for doing the very thing that he had done. You remember when they, he come basically after he had denied Christ and after Christ came and asked him the three questions? Shortly after there he comes and he confronts. You all know what I’m talking about?
(M) Come on.
(J) Where is it? He literally comes back and it’s like, “Really, Mr. Boldness?” But he could, because the cross-life had hit his life.
(Jennifer) Ah, Ah, yes! It’s Acts 3, starting in 11. “While he was holding on to Peter and John, all the people greatly amazed ran toward them in what is called Solomon’s colonnade. When Peter saw this, he addressed the people, ‘Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our Fathers, has glorified His servant, Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in the presence of Pilot, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you. And you killed the source of life whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in His name, His name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Him has given him this perfect health in front of you all.”
(J) See, that’s the… After he had done the death, after he had gone through the process of dying, and the Spirit came and brought resurrection life out, he could literally convict, he could bring the conviction and the…
(M) I have never seen that. Have you?
(Jennifer) Huh-uh. It just now occurred to me that you used the word denied, which was the very thing – he denied Christ three times, and he used the word denied. I don’t know if it’s just this translation, but it popped out at me just now; the connection between the two, the literal denial is how he put it.
(J) Yeah, I’m like, “bold man.” You were just doing it. I mean, you just did it.
(M) Oh, that’s rich.
(Carole) It is rich.
(M) He was totally forgiven and he totally understood.
(J) But see, the cross had hit him. He was dead. It was no longer he that lived, but Christ that lived in him. He could come with the correction of the people because it was the resurrected life that was coming. It wasn’t his life anymore. It wasn’t his commitment to surrender. It was the resurrected life to effect change, actual change of Jesus. Absolutely. So that’s, that to me, that’s amazing, because…
(Jennifer) He was a man forged in the fires of grace himself. He was not unfamiliar whatsoever. He was corrected by the Son of God, himself. How fitting then that He let the Son of God in him correct these people.
(All) Wow, oh, Jennifer!
(Jennifer) How perfect is that, that he would extend to them the same gift that he, himself received?
(Carole) That is the true reality of the exchanged life, and I’m thinking. So repentance isn’t about really surrender. It’s surrendering to die. I know that just, I know we’ve just said that, but that is… There is a depth there. The whole purpose of, the whole purpose of exposure by the Holy Spirit, the whole purpose of conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit is to bring us to repentance to see who we are, so that we hate it, and we know we have to die. It isn’t just surrendering to the Lord. It is, it goes beyond that, and I’m seeing that that’s what Peter did. He died, and then he was brand new, and the Son of God was in Him! Living! No?
(M) Yes! Amen, Carole. But see, if you go through repentance, if you’re really familiar with repentance like some of us are. Some of us are really schooled in repentance. When you repent, you can be instantly liberated. It’s not right to go on and on in grief over what you’ve done. It’s not necessary. When you come to repentance the Holy Spirit will give you the joy of the freedom, and that means you have died.
(J) See, Peter couldn’t have done that if was in shame. It would have been impossible for him to turn around and say to them and bring correction to them if he had been in shame. If he still carried the baggage of his sin and wasn’t freed from it, he couldn’t have done that.
(M) Oh, you pointed the mike at me, and I’m speechless.
(J) Well, the whole thing… Yet if this choice is truly made, it is heard by God, and He is committed to take you to the further step, which is the embracing of the cross to losing your life. See, Peter made the commitment and surrendered and then the life of God and the life of the Spirit came in and effected. He said, “Ok, I take that. I take You and up the anti. I up Your anti, and I say let’s go, let’s go all the way.” So He took his surrender, his choice and his surrender, and then He infused His own life to take him to a cross life, and then annihilated him, killed him. Does that make sense?
(M) Umhmm. Yes, oh yes. It’s Pentecost. When Jesus died, Peter’s heart was broken, and all of the disciples were. And I don’t know. It’s just Pentecost changed them. The infilling of the Holy Spirit was the infilling of Christ’s life, and they were different men. But they died first. That’s what your point is, isn’t it? They died.
(J) He was annihilated. He was killed. His whole, “Guess I’ll die with You,” was a choice. But then he had to come and deny Him, and then have the cock crow three times; and I can’t imagine the pain that he would have felt that night, because he loved Him. He loved Him dearly. And his choice and his love wasn’t able to take him the distance. But his choice and his love were able to bring entrance to God to bring him the distance. And then he was annihilated, and then the Spirit of God came.
(M) Umhmm.
(J) And the resurrection life came and said he did want to die.
(M) He was dead, so he could be without shame. He was dead. That’s incredible, John. I’ve never… We’re all incredulous. We’ve never, I’ve never seen that. I’ve never connected his denial with his accusation that they denied Him. That’s amazing.

Holiness and Freedom – Episode #413 -Shulamite Podcast