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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J) OK, Well, here we go with our second episode of the Shulamite Podcast. We’ve had a number of responses to the podcasts and how people have really enjoyed it. You know, the funny thing is that most people have tagged on to all their positive comments how they’ve enjoyed Martha saying, “That was fun,” at the very end of the podcast. It was fun to do, so we just are going to start here today, and Martha wanted to talk about the heart, about the pure heart, and we’ve had actually requests from people that are listening to the podcasts to talk about different things, which is kind of neat. So one of them is the whole issue of warfare that she was touching in on the Manna. And then another person really wanted to hear about the heart. So we’re going to enter into the heart and it’s where the Lord is moving and the Spirit is going today. So Martha what is on your heart about the heart?
(M) Well it’s where the Lord has directed me recently, and praying for a couple of different people, He’s shown me in one case that their heart was captured; and that was the reason for such a paralysis in their spiritual growth. And it sort of surprised me, and He took me back to Absolam and how Absolam stole the hearts of the people from David, and he actually could take away their affections. But I’ve for a long time known in the scriptures that the whole thread of what God wants with us in relationship is that He wants our heart. First command of the Lord really reveals that He wants our heart. We get distracted into things and doing and projects, and the Lord wants our heart. Everything that He asks of us is focused in the heart. The first thing that the Lord began to be displeased about after the fall of man was, He said, the heart of man, the thoughts of man in his heart lean toward evil continually, and it grieved the Lord’s heart. The Bible is really a work of God conveying His value of the heart. So the heart is the issue. God wants to relate to us heart to heart. That’s His desire for intimacy with us is the heart. And we give our hearts to other things, other places. And actually what God searches, He said through Jeremiah I search the heart to give to every man according to his deeds. We judge a person externally, and we view things by their words, and what they do, but God doesn’t do that. He searches the heart. And the deeds in fact, it’s true about Cain, God didn’t judge him necessarily based on his deeds, but on his heart. And his heart was not with God and for God, so God did not accept his deeds. So it’s all about the heart. And we all know and can spout the verse that says, “Keep the heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life”. And the Amplified Version of that, I think it’s Proverbs 23, says, “Guard and keep your heart first and foremost, for out of it are the wellsprings of life”. So all that we are, all that we do, all that we say, really comes from the heart.
(J) Well how does someone capture your heart? How does that happen?
(M) I think when a person comes in and demands to control you. And if the parent comes in to control you and demand your affection so that you don’t have a choice; or in Absolams case he would flatter the people and he would meet them at the gate and he would talk against David, and take their affections to himself. People can take over your heart by lies, by oppression, and I don’t really know that I know the whole secret of that. I just know that what God showed me in this case was that the persons heart had been captured by ownership. It’s actually when a person wants to own your emotions and demand that your emotions be for them. It has to do with the heart. We are the heart. That’s who we are.
(J) So do you have possession of that area, or do you have it separated from yourself? Are you able to hold onto that part, or is it just totally out of your control? Have you chosen to give it over?
(M) You choose to give it over. You choose to give a person control. It can be done as a child. In this case the mother had taken the child’s heart. And he had never been able to gain it back for himself. I know that know that in dysfunctional families and alcoholic situations, where there’s oppression or control or overbearing, or even neglect, that the heart of a child can be damaged and compromised. And God’s work is to restore the heart fully to the person so the person can give their heart fully to God. He wants all the heart; He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart”.
(J) Ok Martha so tell us, what exactly is the heart?
(M) To me the heart is the meeting place; your heart is your emotions, your spirit, your mind and thinking, your identity come together and meet with your will; And your will chooses who you’ll be, the direction you go, who you follow and who you love. So the heart is the real core of your being as a human; it’s who you are. If any part of that, if your thinking is oppressed and you’re not free to think your thoughts, then that’s part of your heart that’s gone. If you are emotionally stifled, if you are oppressed or repressed as a child and not allowed to cry or be silly or laugh or grieve or love, then that part of your heart is inoperative.
(J) Ok, if it’s inoperative, do you have possession of it, or do you not have possession of that area?
(M) You have given possession of it away; and God has to move in your heart and with your heart to regain the full possession your heart so that all of it belongs to God. I think as I was considering this, I thought about Samson and his consecration to God. But Samson gave his heart away to an evil woman and so he lost his relationship with God, and his destiny. He eventually fulfilled his destiny, but certainly not in the place of victory. So Delilah and her Philistine people captured his heart and took him from the Lord. And it was his choice to be taken. So the heart is the crucial issue. It’s why the warning of wisdom is keep your heart, guard your heart, watch your heart, be aware of your heart. And I think today, I don’t know if it’s been true of other era’s, probably so, but we’re not in touch with our heart. We don’t know what’s going on in there. God is always interested in motive and source and motive and source come from the heart. And you have to know what you’re about in your heart, and you have to know what’s going on in your heart, so that you have the integrity of honesty. When David talked about being in the presence of God, and knowing the presence of God, he said in Psalm 15,“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, who shall abide in His temple?” And he said, I think the correct translation is in the Amplified, “He whose speaks and tells the truth to himself in his heart”. It is absolutely essential in walking with God and in living life to know what’s going on in your heart. So in working with believers so many times I’ll be aware that they do not know what’s going on in their heart. So they’re not aware of the core of their being. They’re not guarding and tending the issues of the heart because they’re disconnected. Some people go and live in the mind and aren’t aware of the internal responses to life. Sometimes children are taught to be false, and so they don’t respond out of an honest heart. They decide how they should be or how they should think, and they go there, rather than what really is in the heart. It’d be better to be raw in your heart than to be a liar to man. Jesus so commended Nathaniel; and that’s always one of my favorite encounters of Jesus because Nathaniel was cynical. He was what it was. He was in touch with his despair somehow of life and with people. And when his brother came and said we’ve found Messiah, he said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And when he came to meet Jesus, Jesus said, “Behold an Israelite in whom there is no guile”. An Israelite indeed, a true Israelite Jesus was saying, and a true Israelite was one who was in touch with his heart, apparently. So He commended this man, powerfully, and singled him out. And then He gave him a great promise, He said, “You think this is great that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see the heaven’s open and the angels descend and ascend on the Son of Man”. And to me that’s the promise of an open heaven to an open heart. And the moment Nathaniel met Jesus he fell on his face and worshipped Him. Because he was in touch with the cynicism of his heart and with the wounds of his heart, he could recognize the Savior fully. And so I think so many of the people who missed recognizing Jesus were people with either a wounded heart, a closed heart, a hardened heart, but who were not living that wide open guileless way of being in touch with your heart, and being there.
(J) How can something so simple be so difficult? I mean, you know, you’ve got the heart and it sounds so simple, but how can it be so complex and so convoluted and how do we get all wrapped and tied into that?
(M) Well, I hadn’t thought about that John, but it takes me back to the garden. And I know that if God wants the heart, then the enemy wants to interfere with that. I think that’s what he did with he did with Eve. He took her, he told a lie about God that made Eve’s heart doubt God; and she turned her heart away from Him. You have to turn your heart away from God, and I think the enemy’s very key in that. Also I think that suffering in life is a crisis of heart. When John the Baptist was in prison, and suspecting he’d probably die there, he sent to Jesus, are you the Messiah? And the answer was, “The lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and blessed is he who is not offended in Me”. I have purposed so many times in my life, I will not be offended with You Lord in this situation; I refuse to be offended with You; because that would be removing my heart from Him, and not giving Him all that’s in my heart.
(J) Right. Well you did the series “The Heart Of The Matter”, and it always pierces me, and I’m amazed at what you do say in that series, the circumcision of the heart, the heart of flesh…
(M) Well that series came about as I was working with a brother who developed questionable heart condition. It seemed that he might have a heart condition. And I was so in prayer over that, and so exercised in my own heart with it, that I was able to say to this brother, if you don’t live from your heart, your heart will die. And while the anguish of the heart is in life, it’s very difficult to live with; the heart is made, the heart is created to live and pulse and feel and agonize. And if the heart isn’t allowed to live for what it’s purpose is then the heart begins to die. And I felt that he was in a great crisis, because I knew he was not living from his heart. I knew him well enough to know that his heart was closed; he had closed himself to his heart.
(J) Well I have a question about salvation and how that is connected to the heart. And how I know many a man and woman, that I have felt was disconnected from the heart. I personally have been disconnected from my heart. How does salvation relate to the heart matter?
(M) Salvation takes place in the heart. I have to go back to the scripture that says, “If you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth you will be saved”. I think a lot of salvation today is intellectual assent; agreement in thought that Jesus is the Son of God; but that doesn’t constitute salvation I don’t think. Unless the heart is involved in it, I don’t think its salvation.
(J) Oh, wow, ok.
(M) Many people make a decision to receive Christ; some speak from the heart and they’re born again; some speak from the mind and they’re not born again. Only God knows the heart. The evidence comes in time; it becomes clear. I think the man who stands for the heart in the Old Testament has got to be David.
(J) Absolutely.
(M) The Psalms to me are the expression of a heart. And when I can’t find my emotions and put words to them I can go to the Psalms and meet David’s heart, which must have been totally wide open to the Lord. And God’s remembrance of him was that he was a man after His own heart. And David was just in touch with his heart, and his heart would wander, and his heart would fear, and he would seem to always bring it back and deal with God from the heart. I think that’s where you have to deal with, I think that’s where God wants to deal with us, is from the deepest part of our being, from our deepest thoughts and responses.
(J) So is the process of disconnecting yourself from your heart just really a self-protection from your pains?
(M) That’s a good point. I think it is, yeah, self-protection and selfish ambition. See Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then God hardened it. So God has control of the heart to a degree. I was reading this morning that David prayed twice, David had a perfect heart and that means a heart that’s fully committed. God views us by the direction we’re going, not so much by our stumblings,
(J) Jesus…
(M)and I was reading this morning that David prayed twice that God would give Solomon a perfect heart. Well I thought, Solomon didn’t have a perfect heart, he had a much less perfect heart than David did. He ended up not believing in the after-life. So he did not keep his heart for God. And I thought is that a valid prayer? Well, in the final analysis, we give our heart where we choose to. And David, though he wandered around and made mistakes, he would come back and give his heart to God, fully, and totally. So I think that I’ve been going through studying the kings, looking for a certain matter among the kings. And what I’ve found is that the kings are rated, not so much on what they achieved, but on their heart. And this one’s heart would be fully for the Lord, and this one’s heart would not be fully for the Lord, and this man’s heart would be considered perfect. And so in Revelation, at the end, it’s what’s in our heart that God’s going to weigh and know and judge. It’s so fascinating how Jesus dealt with people because He answered their heart, not their questions. I was looking at a scripture that said, I think it was in Matthew, “He knew the thoughts of their heart and so He answered them according to that.” He didn’t always answer their question with an answer that related to the question. In another place it said he knew their thoughts. He would answer according to His knowledge of their heart. And that’s a picture of how God relates to us. We’re on one agenda, we’re on one thing, and God is saying yes, but what’s in your heart? What’s down in the secret place of where you think and feel and what you want? The heart is the source of desires, and you set the direction of your heart. David prayed that God would give Solomon a perfect heart. But I think perhaps the thing to do is to make that issue clear to your children, that it is who you give your heart to, where you give your heart, that determines the outcome of your life. David’s mistakes did not deter him from fulfilling his destiny, because he kept and guarded his heart, for out of it are the issues of life.
(J) I was reading this morning in John, where Jesus said He did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew where their hearts were.
(M) Yeah. “The heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked; who can know it?” And that’s one reason why Jesus said thieves and prostitutes and sinners will go into the Kingdom first. At least they know what’s in their heart. And anything short of that is going to be a lie. So Jesus’ heart belonged totally and fully to the Father, He did not trust Himself into other men, because He knew, the basic human heart is corrupt now. That’s one of the wonderful things that comes in salvation is that you get a new heart, if you’ll use it and connect with that, then you have access to the wonderful heart of God. Well, the heart is the home of what you love, it’s the seat of what you love. The whole universe is for love and about love. And what God wants of us first and foremost is that all our affection would be with Him. And I remember reading Watchman Nee, and he said give the Lord your heart entirely, just tell Him that you give it to Him, and He will take it and possess it, and then He will turn it where He wants it to go. And I found that to be true and very effective; the Lord wants the heart, because that’s the place where we love, where we choose to love what we choose to love. One of the things David said in the Psalms is “My heart is steadfast oh God, my heart is steadfast, I will sing and make melody”. He had such a possession of his own heart, and could so give it to God, and he remained steadfast with God in his heart. It’s the only place we have to be steadfast is in who possesses our heart, and who we give it to. And God says, “You will search for Me and you will find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart”. He wants all your heart. Ok John, I have a question for you.
(J) Ok.
(M) Why is it hard for a man to give his whole heart to God?
(J) (Laughter) Ok, volleyball that’s what this is, that’s a spike! I believe that we men are at our core, fearful. And we’re fearful most of our…
(M) Passion?
(J) We’re fearful of our passion, but I think we’re more afraid of our exposure first. And to have your heart splayed open and to be full throttle like Peter, you have to utterly and completely splay yourself.
(M) And be vulnerable to God, or to yourself.?
(J) I think it’s everything. You’re just wide-open vulnerable to the entire thing.
(M) So does it take courage?
(J) It takes incredible courage because it’s like you lay open your soft underbelly. If you possess all your passions and you let them go, a man is a really passionate creature, if he will be in his passions, and they scare him, because we feel like we’re just going to go whishhhhhhh, and go out all over the place. And to expose yourself to God and to the world, you’re so vulnerable.
(M) Is a man afraid of his violence as well?
(J) I believe he’s afraid of his violence, I believe he’s afraid of his love, I believe he’s afraid of his passions and his own power, his own desires, be it sexual desires, be it just passion anywhere, we’re afraid of that. We can keep it caged in, but the second we say ok, we’re gong to go live like Peter, just wide-open, just throw the doors.
(M) Well he was considered foolish, to this day.
(J) Right, and that’s what I was trying to say and I couldn’t think of it, and I still can’t think of it. When you expose your heart to that degree and that fully, you’re a target to any ridicule, because other men don’t want other men to stand up and have a heart, because when they do, it proves that it can be done. That’s what I believe, that’s just my beliefs. I believe that if just one man rises up and just throws open the doors of his passions other men will try to squelch him as quickly as they possibly can. It’s like the exposing of the Moose Lodge kind of thing, oh don’t let them see that that’s where we can go. Don’t let that fling go that high, that much.
(M) Yet that’s what God made you to be, and that’s what God loves. Is that what God wants?
(J) It’s absolutely what God wants, but I feel like the fear is so intense that we’re willing to trade even our destiny. It’s just so tragic. We, ah, are so panic stricken to be in that place, and we don’t know what it’s going to look like because most of us men have never seen a man in full possession of his passions.
(M) Like Peter.
(J) We haven’t seen that.
(M) There’s no model?
(J) (John speaks with deep emotion here.) There’s no model; and we don’t know where it will go, and where it will take us. And sure a lot of us are sure it’ll take us straight to hell, it’ll take us away from God, and we really don’t trust God with our passions. We think He won’t hold us, He won’t keep us; but He’s calling us out to do it. He says, come with Me, follow Me, and that’s what He continually says in the Gospels, that’s what He says, come follow Me. And I think that we really just don’t trust Him that He’ll hold our passions in check, in His check. We put our opinions on it and we keep ourselves in check. And I think that the check we keep ourselves in is a prison; and I hate it, I’ve been in prison, and I express my emotions quite readily; but I’ve been in prison. I don’t want it to go any further than my limit, and I don’t fling it to God and say here we go, and You better hold me because I’m going give it to You. I’m going to ‘here I go’ I’m going to live life; I don’t do that, I don’t want to do that.
(M) So a man holds his heart back from God.
(J) I think he holds it back from God, I think he holds it back from his children, I think he holds it back from his wife, I think he holds it back from himself. It’s a tragedy, because we will lose our destiny’s because of it, and we miss life, we miss our children, we miss our wives, we miss our God who died for us; we miss the whole thing.
(M) So what is your prayer and desire, for God to do about this?
(J) Well first I suppose I would like to see it in myself. I’d like to be one of those men who rise up and accept the scorn and the ridicule if it comes, and say I don’t care; I’m going to live my life and I’m going to have my destiny. I know that there have been men throughout history that have fully engaged their passions, and fully engaged their God. And I know David was one of them.
(M) Paul.
(J) Paul was one, and Peter definitely, obviously, and Christ Himself.
(M) I think about His turning over the money tables at the beginning of His ministry and at the end. And we don’t quite comprehend that kind of masculinity with God.
(J)I watched it this morning in The Gospel Of John, and that’s the only depiction that seems like it will not end. Most of it is a couple tables and a couple animals, and it’s done. This goes on for many minutes, and for the cinema, five minutes is a century. And they first start and they zoom in to His eyes, and He is just with passion to, He’s consumed with it, and then it just keeps going on and on; and you think where it would stop, it would stop, but it doesn’t and they do more things. So I saw that this morning and I was just amazed at the passion. I’m sure, I’m sure that only He can live that kind of passion.
(M) Umhummm, in righteousness.
(J) Yeah right.
(M) T. Austin Sparks was writing about that and he made the point that John put that in at the beginning of His ministry, and the other Gospels showed that it was repeated once again at the end of His ministry, and the whole message there was that Jesus entire passion was for the Holiness of God to be maintained by man. And His heart and His zeal was so for that, that was the entire purpose of His life. And He exposed that intense zeal. And it’s a violence that we really skirt around it; the commentaries kind of skirt around it, because it’s so shocking what He did. Well John, last time and this time I said it was fun, because it was unrehearsed. And you last time you jumped in the Spirit and I had to catch up with you. And it was fun to do that. And I thank you for opening your heart for the sake of other men, and for the courage that you have to live this life, and to go through. A lot of your suffering is inherent in your walking with me, in our travels and in our experiences.
(J) I just thought of something, what are the movies that men like? Men like “Braveheart” and like “Gladiator”, and I think the reason why we do is because we really do want to follow a man in complete possession of his passions.
(M) His heart.
(J) And his heart. I know that ultimately it is Christ that had that. But I think that we men really long for it; we will scorn it, and they did, they scorned, and Braveheart, they killed him. And “Gladiator”, they killed him and they killed his family. A man in touch with his passions, his heart, and those are just Hollywood displays of that, which is so beneath what Christ was, what David was. This is just the highest of what this generation has had. But I think we men want to see someone make it, we do. Though we’ll try to do the whole crab thing where we try to pull them down back into the bucket, I think we really do want to see a man rise up in his full passion.
(M) I don’t think it’s ever struck me that the man was called Brave Heart.
(J) That’s right.
(M) I appreciate your bravery and courage, and thank you for opening your heart, and may it reach out. I know that God’s heart is for men to give Him their whole heart. It is the cry of His heart, especially in this day.
(J) I’ve heard it to me, I’ve heard His passion, and I’ve seen His passion through you coming at me. And I’ve seen His continual desire for me not to go and leave my heart, but to give it fully to Him. And there’s a long road between the choice and the actual living it out. And I’ve had to go and gain back possession where I’ve given it away to many.
(M) Your intention is that He would possess all He wants of your heart. That’s what you want.
(J) That’s right.
(M) That’s your intention.
(J) That’s right, and that’s what He looked at in Peter. He said, I look at that man, and I see his intention, his intention said, I’m going the distance and I’m going to die for You, and he did.
(M) And I wonder if He took those three men, specifically because He knew their heart, up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and showed them the great majesty and splendor of the Son of God. It was The Man who became what God wanted a man to be in front of them.
(J) Glowing.
(M) Yes, white. I think that John and Peter, I don’t know so much about James, but John and Peter.
(J) We know about James in Foxes Book of Martyrs, how he said, when he was taken to the cross, remember how he said, “Oh how I’ve longed to embrace Thee”?
(M) Oh wow, that’s a heart fully for God. But John was unashamed in his adoration of Christ, and Peter was unashamed of his passion.
(J) To the point of jumping out of a boat, and laying on His breast, and saying to all the other men, hey, whatever.
(M) Well may the Lord take this little conversation that’s gone in God’s own direction and God’s own way, and may He take it and bless His people with it and bring glory to His Son. Thank you John.
(J)Well, this completes episode number 2, and we hope that you will continue to listen to the podcasts through Itunes, and there are several other means of listening to podcasts. We’ve put a number of things on the web on how to do that. If you don’t have Itunes or.. There are different ways of catching podcasts other than Itunes. Last time I said that it was the way I knew best. It is the way I know best, but I have found that there are other means and other ways of doing this. It just seems to me that Itunes is the easiest, the most user friendly way. But, anyway, this is the end of episode number 2, and we look forward to hearing what the Lord is going to say and do in episode number 3, and we thank you for joining us and look forward to speaking with you again in episode 3.
