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Listen In The Times
Episode #315
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J) Ok, so, we don’t get political, ok? We have our own political views and, but we don’t get political because it’s not important. It’s not the kingdom that we are involved with. We’re just not gonna draw the line and distinctions politically. You know us; you pretty much can tell where we are politically. But I’ve never said this before on a podcast and I kind of want to say it, because this is what God said to me, and revealed to me. I was seeking Him about the temperature politically. And I was saying, God, I need to understand. I want to be on your side. I want to be in line with You and what You’re doing. I need You to speak to me because I don’t want to be going counter to what You’re doing. And so after much prayer and seeking, just looking for His will and for being on His side, and He gave me a very specific word that has brought a lot of comfort to me, and I’ve had to go back to it on a regular basis. And He said, “I have need of Obama.” And so I said, “Well Lord, I’m going to get into the camp with You, and I’m going to side with You in this whole thing.” Ok, so then I basically, I was having a real hard time. So I wanted to be on His side because I’ve looked at the way the political climate is and how there’s a huge schism, and a line drawn between one side and the next. There is a huge, huge chasm being drawn by, I feel like it’s God, and I feel like He showed me that; He said He’s splitting the left from the right. I don’t understand that either. I don’t understand what His point was to split the left from the right, but I feel like He is really, He’s doing something, pushing the two sides apart. And I said, “I need to know where do You want me to be? Where do You want my heart to be?” And He said to me, “I have need of Obama.” And I said, “Ok.” Then I really have had to stand and say I bless Obama. I bless the man and I bless the office, and I say yes, because You, in Your sovereignty, You have something that You want here. You have something that You are looking for and You have something that You are wanting to do. And I’m not saying like the King of Assyria, but I’m saying that the Assyrians were used as a sovereign tool of God to bring judgment and correction to Israel and their wayward hearts. And because their hearts were wayward, and He turned their hearts through pain and through suffering, ok. And obviously when you look at Jonah and you say there was something major here that happened to Jonah. It was either that his community, his countrymen, his family, his brothers, something, someone was very, very… something was happening that was awful in the life of Jonah that made him so completely raged. And you know something? There are people that in our country that are fuming and that have politically sided so, ‘arrrr’, vehemently against different political factions and, and forces. And to have that passion, I have no idea; something had to have happened. Something had to have happened. And I said maybe it’s like the al-Qaeda verses the America thing, that these people came into our country, and they destroyed our buildings with our planes, and killed our people. And then we went to war with them and we went against Taliban, and we went against al-Qaeda, but, I think the call was not to take sides, to be impassioned, emboldened. I think the call was to listen. What are You saying to us, Your Church, Your transcendent Church? What are you saying by these acts? What are You saying? God’s saying, “Listen, hear what I’m saying. What am I doing here? What is the purpose here?” And He has a grand, I don’t know. His sovereignty is so huge and so total and complete. It is….
(M) Over every minute detail of everything.
(J) So, I feel like when something happens, we have to say, “God, what are You doing?” And listen. Not make your judgment, and not make your opinion, and not make your immediate stand and jump in reaction. You know, we have to react. We’re children, we’re sheep, we’re going to react to whatever is going on. But the point is to stop and listen. What is He saying? What is He saying by these things? What are You doing? Look at our country. We are fundamentally changing directions. What are You saying in that? What are You doing? And then I believe once you hear what God’s doing, then you can more get on His side and in His camp with what He’s doing. And you can… It may grieve your heart, or maybe not; it may excite you where we’re going. Who knows what it is. But the fact is that we’re required to say, “God what are You doing, and what are You saying in this? And that’s the place I want to be, because that’s where I have peace and I have safety, and I am able to have His mind about things because He’s giving it to me. As a child of God, He tells His people what He’s doing. He tells us in His Word that He will tell the prophets. He will tell the people. He will tell the Church. He will tell His Bride what He is doing so that we can get on the page with Him. That is kindness. That is kindness that He does that for us. He doesn’t say, oh guess what, I got another surprise around the corner, boo! And He doesn’t do that; He just doesn’t do that. He says, ok, we’re making a right turn, ok, we’re making a left turn. But see if I’m standing in my rights and my standards and my thinking and my reasoning, if I stand in that, I’m going to bump my head and bump my elbow and bump my knee and bump my life, and…
(M) Just like Jonah did. That’s what he did exactly. He had an opinion, and he didn’t get the sovereignty of God.
(J) This is a prophet of God, in the Old Testament; this is a prophet of God. This is a man who speaks for God who had… I’ve never heard anyone say, I’ve never heard anyone say that he didn’t have the sovereignty issue going on, but you have revealed that he didn’t. It’s very clear; if you read the scripture. It’s very clear that he didn’t have the sovereignty thing going on. He was dedicated to his standard. And prophetically we can do that. Prophets can do that very easily. We’re very black and white, and we can go in our standards. It’s natural. But my petition is that we would not go according to our standards, but that we would side with God in listening to what the Father has to say and what He wants to do.
(M) I’m going to affirm what you said. The other day, I just had the thought, I’m going to go back and read the ‘red’. And so I got in Matthew, and the first words that Jesus spoke were this, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
(J) Wow.
(M) So this is what you’re saying. This was the first issue of Jesus life; the first temptation to divide Jesus from His Father, to break their relationship, which was one of conversing, listening and hearing. And that was what He built His life on, and that’s what you’re saying. You heard God say something and it was surprising. It was not what you might have expected to hear, but it settled it. And see, man shall not live by bread alone. We are sustained in every way, health-wise, spiritually, mentally, how can I say, in our life, in the world, in the time of history, we are sustained by the Voice of God, a personal, individual relational word. And this is what you got from God. So that’s what I wanted to just draw a line under. You’re saying we need to hear God, and the prophet needs to hear God. And that’s what Jesus lived by, so how can you be any different?
(J) Well, I’m gonna write something. I have a good friend of mine who has asked me a question about my listening and hearing, and I’m gonna write something for Get Along With God about the hearing of God; listening and hearing. And so, I’m real excited about this because this, this explodes to me a revelation about what not to do and what to do. And Jonah, Jonah’s life and the fruit of Jonah’s life, Christ redeemed it. Christ redeemed it and said this is the death that transpires if you stand in this place, and it’s real easy to stand in that place of refusing to hear, of having a standard, of being in your black and white.
(M) And having an offence against God.
(J) And against those that He sends to do what He wants to do in His sovereignty. Really he was offended with the sovereignty of God, was he not, to the point that he’d be willing to die. I can have a real dogmatic standard about something and believe something, but when you’re telling me that I’m willing to say ‘Pitch me over into the ocean, I don’t care. Let me sit in the belly of a whale.’
(M) And twice he said he would die. When the vine withered he said, “Let me die”.
(J) That’s commitment to your standard and to your rational.
(M) But it’s, it’s insane; you’d rather die than have God be Who He is.
(J) It is insane. So what we see in Jonah is the levels of, of man’s rebellion against God being God. That to me is… That makes me tremble, that makes my knee’s tremble, because I know, I know that I’ve had that. I know every human being that walks on this earth has at one point or another, if not currently and vehemently, has fought and resisted the will of God in Adamic rebellion. It’s… Martha, there are millions and millions of people that are marching straight to hell in a minute. Marching.
(M) Even as God wants to go and save a godless Gentile, violent, wretched nation, or city. Nineveh was one city captured by Assyria, but yeah. And all the time throughout His, all this sovereign acts of God, His intent is grace and salvation.
(J) See, in the Old Testament I see Him a lot doing wrathful things and really hard things and, but you know something? He used the Assyrians to bludgeon Israel, but then wanted to say, let Me offer them some grace, let Me give them some mercy. I know that I called them to do this. Let Me offer them some mercy. And what better vessel to do that than a prophet that stood, and one that was being abused, to offer mercy. That’s huge mercy. A third party that didn’t… ok, you know, I don’t live over there, say the French got beat up. I don’t live in France, I don’t know… But if I am a person of that country that has been annihilated and assaulted, to them to reach the hand of mercy, that’s powerful.
(John) Announcement:
Recently Martha recorded a message about Jonah, which I feel is extremely relevant to our times. Supporter’s who heard this message live have provided the funds to send out the first one hundred copies free of charge. So as a gift we would like to invite you to visit Shulamite.com and receive your copy today. You can find the disc entitled “The Sign Of Jonah” listed on the front page of Shulamite.com. We hope you’re able to take advantage of this and enjoy the message. (Crowd cheering!)
