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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J)Today, we’re going to talk with Martha, and we’re going to further lay foundation for this message. And so Martha, what is the foundation of the heart issues?
(M) Well, John, we’re sitting here. This is truly a fireside chat. We’re sitting here on a cold winter day, in front of the fireplace. I wanted to just point out some things from Joan’s podcast of last time. I think it was the third, called the Capture of the Heart. Joan said several things I want to very clearly point out. And I’m very pleased she viewed it in the way she did. First of all, she said I gave my heart willingly. She assumed responsibility. And even at that young age, she chose her Aunt over her Mother. She chose to belong to one who demanded that she belong to them. And she used a very courageous definition of it. She said that the motive of it was that her Aunt wanted to be worshipped. Not just a companion, but her Aunt wanted to be the center of Joan’s world, and that is the evil of the ambition. But Joan assumed complete responsibility for it. Then she said one other thing. She said that the Lord had told her over and over again that this was the issue of her trouble. And she freely admitted, very responsibly, that if she had listened to the Lord she would have been free before. Those things are the core of her testimony: that she assumed responsibility, that she was completely at fault to do so, that she was capable of choosing even at that young age, and choosing to be captured.
The thing I want to bring to you today is the foundation issue of the heart is that we are completely responsible. Jesus taught something in Matt. 15 that I puzzled over for years, and it began with Him rebuking the Pharisees for tithing mint and rue, which is a ludicrous thing because mint and rue are an invasive plant. And the tithing would be a ludicrous activity. Jesus was addressing the issue of Father and Mother. He said you don’t honor your Father and Mother, you say, you give an excuse that all you have belongs to God, and you don’t have anything for them. Then He called the crowd, after He said this to the Pharisees, then He called the crowd to Him and He said, “Hear and understand, it’s not what enters the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. The disciples came to Him and said, do You not know that You offended the Pharisees? Jesus said, every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted; leave them alone, they are blind guides of the blind. So Peter said, explain the parable to us. And Jesus said, are you still lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated; but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. And those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witnesses, slanders, these are the things that defile the man.” And what I came to understand was, that Jesus was saying nothing that happens to you, causes you to be unclean. Nothing that happens to you defiles you. And I’ve often taught this, but it is the most difficult concept for American Christians to somehow get; that nothing that happens to me, causes me to be anything or do anything. Whatever happens to me exposes what’s in my heart. I am responsible for my response. Thefts, murders, false witness etc., all that is a response to circumstance, and that is what we are responsible for. What Jesus was saying was very profound, and it had to do with parents. And apparently it’s not new today to blame your parents for your problems. It was around in Jesus day. You know why, because it was there in the garden. The first thing people do when they sin is to blame someone else for their sin. When God approached Adam and Eve in the garden to confront them and He said what have you done, Eve said the serpent deceived me and I ate. Adam said the woman you gave me, she caused me to eat. And the first thing we do about sin is that we blame. I think maybe that blame made the possibility of reconciling with God there in the garden absolutely impossible. And it’s in every human being that has ever been born of Adam and Eve’s lineage, to blame someone for their sin. And it’s in our counseling today, rampant in secular counseling, and it has invaded the church, that my problem is what happened to me. And it means I’m not responsible for what came out of my heart, and that is the most dangerous, deceptive, irresponsibility; we will give account for every thought, word and deed done in the body. We will give and account; the account we’ll give is, John wrote this in John 3:19 “This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil”. The judgment is what you do with the light, and light falls on who I am, and what I’ve done out of who I am. And so to be free, I’ve often said the key to total freedom is total responsibility.
(J) Martha, isn’t it that they actually just blamed God?
(M) Absolutely. It was God who gave him the woman,’ the woman You gave me, she caused me to sin’. The Lord allowed the serpent in the garden. Ultimately we blame God for what we do, and that’s the ultimate irresponsibility. I think repentance is simply assuming responsibility for who you are, and what you’ve done, without any excuse. But ever when we have an excuse, or when we have someone to blame, ultimately we’re saying, God if you hadn’t let this happen to me I wouldn’t have sinned. So ultimately we’re saying we didn’t sin.
(J) So you’re saying that in tying this back to Joan’s testimony, are you saying that she took responsibility for being captured, not giving a blame for capture, and because she did that, that gave her the door out? Basically that gave her the way out.
(M) When the light comes you have to assume responsibility or you will have chosen darkness. Just briefly, I want to say that the typical place of blame is in our parents. I am the way I am, because of my Father or Mother. If they weren’t there I still blame them. I blame them for my isolation and loneliness, because they weren’t there. There’s an endless little labyrinth of thought in which we blame the parent. And I believe that in this parable, the ultimate lesson, the underlying secret lesson that Jesus is giving, its that you honor your parents when you cease to blame them for what you’ve done and who you are.
(J) Because it relates back here that Jesus says it’s not what’s done to a man, it’s what comes out of a man that defiles him. So this is the exact thing. God says you in your innate self, you in just yourself are the reason why you sin. If somebody did nothing to you you’d still sin, but I mean is that it?
(M) I think the Christian life is learning, a process of learning what is your responsibility, and what is not. Of learning what you’re not assuming that is your responsibility, and what you’re picking up that’s someone else’s. It’s a sorting out and obedience is simply assuming responsibility for what is yours. The wonderful thing is that when you assume responsibility for what is yours, God will pick up the load and He will carry the yoke.
(J) So you’re still holding the person, the offender, whatever, accountable, but you’re taking your responsibility for your part.
(M) Good, John. That’s what Joan did that was so brilliant and godly. She held the woman accountable. David said in Psalm 15, the one who dwells in Gods presence is the one who swears to his own hurt and does not retract it. That’s one of the great gaps in Christianity today, is that we don’t acknowledge our hurt. So Joan not only understood what the woman did to her, and held her accountable for the sin, she divided the woman’s responsibility from her own. And though there was an evil done to her, Joan assumed responsibility for her sin. And that’s the marvelous thing about her testimony.
(J) Well that’s one thing I noticed about her testimony, is that usually it’s about I’m sorry, whaaa, whaaa, this has been done, and there’s not a taking of responsibility. I’ve been amazed out of all the testimonies I’ve heard throughout my, all my years, I’ve never heard anyone really saying I am this, I am this, I am this, yes this was done, but I am this, I am this. It’s predominantly blame, and it seems that our whole culture is there too, all about blaming, you know, what did your father and mother do to you. Ok, granted we need to see what they did, because to come out of it you need to know that there was an offence. But you also have to know what you did in response to that offence, and how you’re culpable. Is that correct?
(M) Yes, and it’s a wonderful amazing thing, that when you assume responsibility for yourself, you are literally free. Irresponsibility is the bondage. What we fear is to see really, who we are, and what we’ve done. But that irresponsibility really issues in a trap of Satan. It brings you into deception. To blame brings you into deception.
(J) What you’re saying is, Martha, are you saying that deception comes from irresponsibility?
(M) Yes, I’ve come to believe it does. That when you stay in the light the light has a healing properties, and exposing properties, and you can be free in it. In 2 Timothy 2, Paul is advising Timothy, and he says, perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. Irresponsibility is the failure to repent for what you’ve done, and who you are; and it leads to deception so that you are captured by Satan. Oswald Chambers had a statement today that was awesome. In the devotional for Jan. 9th, he said, those who are obtuse in sin cease to be conscious of sin. I always have to look up that word obtuse, it means dull, blunt, sort of insensitive. Those who sin and don’t mind it then become not able to be conscious of the blatant sins they are doing. And that irresponsibility leads them to being blind to their own sin and responsibility. And then you’ve messed up your whole life because you’re not doing the will of God by the power of God.
(J) Well Martha, I want to thank you for clarifying this; this is really good, and this has really helped me out a whole lot to see the responsibility end of it, because it really is the way into His presence. And so I really thank you for sharing that with us today.
(M) I want to say one more thing John, before we close. And that is, the blood of Christ is so sufficient, for everything we are, and for everything we’ve done, that to fail to accept responsibility for your sin is so foolish. There is nothing to fear, it is covered and paid for. And to avoid it is really the most stupid thing. I’m sorry, to avoid accepting responsibility ruins your life and destiny. And the blood of Christ waits for the repentance of saying nobody harmed me, I harmed myself.
(J) Well during the next Podcast we’re actually going into explaining further my testimony, and how your surprise question, your little volley ball match with me, your surprise question to me, and we’re going to go a little bit deeper in that. Because I’m working with a man currently who has a, I’ve just seen incredible things in my life as well as in his life, that I think will bring a lot of light to the whole heart of man, and why man won’t embrace his heart.
