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Real Life Reigning
Episode #279
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Jennifer Wentzel
(M) Hey John, I want to ask you, what is the definition of authority?
(J) This is the Oprah show, (Martha laughs) and ah, (John laughs).
(M) We just had an experience of authority. But the definition of authority is not what people think. It’s not dominion, it’s not power, its responsibility.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) And we’ve had a vivid experience of the power of authority. When God gives you a responsibility, He gives you the spiritual, physical authority to do it.
(J) I have a visual picture of that, would you like to hear about that?
(M) Yes.
(J) Ok, well, we have chickens, (roosters crow in the background) and I had always done the chickens.
(M) You built the pen, you constructed the thing, you built the roost yourself.
(J) Bought the chickens, got everything set up, yeah. So I for years have really have the authority, and it has been my responsibility to do the chickens. And though, you know, other people could help me when I travel, or whatever. For years it was my responsibility and I did it. And then, all of a sudden, we’ve been experiencing this wonderful Body-life. (John laughs.) And I said, ahhh, Body-life, and everybody took a day. Well, it was amazing because all of a sudden now this full responsibility was a seventh responsibility. And so I was just responsible for my day. But spiritually there was a bigger picture there. And spiritually I let down my authority, let down my guard, and I just said, wow, I’m free from it. (A rooster crows in the background.) I mean it’s been awhile that this has happened, and so the repercussions of my not standing in my God-given responsibility and authority, and letting it go, was death and destruction. So what we saw was first the chickens started getting wiped out, and we were going what is wrong here? And we had to basically take a chicken to… a couple chickens actually to an extension lab in Gainesville.
(M) Under the state of Georgia.
(J) Yeah, the state of Georgia agriculture, and their poultry division, and they did an autopsy to see what was going on and found out that we had cholera. And fowl cholera is a bacterial infection that happens with rats. Basically they come in and eat and they do their business in the food, and they contaminate the food and then they get that bacteria. Well, it’s really gross. The chickens start getting twitches, and their brains kind of get eaten up with this thing, and their bodies falling apart and they die, and the other chickens will ah, you know…
(M) Never mind.
(J) Ok. And then, so, ah, (John and Martha laugh, the roosters crows.) And then we had a number of new chickens that came in, and one night when we left them out the first time, literally, half of them were slaughtered. And, I’m not talking about like, you know, two or three or five chickens. I’m talking about like thirty-five chickens were just slaughtered. And ah, so I’m going what is, you know, happening? And then egg production went from, you know, dozens of eggs a day, to one egg a day, two eggs a day. After that there was a chicken a day. Were there ever two chickens? Yeah, there were a couple of times there were two chickens. But it would be a chicken a day. The ladies would go in there to get the eggs, and there would be a deceased chicken.
(M) Beheaded.
(J) Beheaded.
(M) Disemboweled.
(J) Yeah. It was a horrible thing. It became cannibalism. So, yuk-yuk, gross-gross, and this went on for weeks. (Rooster crows.) And ah, actually the longer it went the more discouraged I got. Between my back having issues and having to bend down to get the eggs, and move the feed and stuff like that… And between that and all the chickens dying and molting and looking awful and, I just kind of gave up. I just kind of just gave up. Well, what happened is the enemy turned it right back around and just brought devastation in there. So Jen basically went in there one day and just completely lost it. And ah, I mean she called me screaming and crying and freaking out. And so it just was a complete meltdown, and she said, “It’s enough! It’s enough!” And I said ok, ok. So I started working on trying to figure out what the issue was. And I had thought it was just, basically it’d been the cholera. I thought the cholera had hit them and that it was the older chickens that were just dying from the cholera, but it wasn’t. It was actually the younger chickens that were dying as well. So I went through and started to work. I spent hours in the cold wind and just putting the pen right.
(M) You spent a lot of your own money.
(J) Yeah, I spent some of my own money, bought, you know, all kinds of stuff. Got that all situated and, and ah, I actually bought camera’s, hunter’s camera’s to… they basically are infrared, and they see the motion and then they’ll turn on and take pictures or several pictures or videos or whatever. So I was doing videos. Well, what we found is that the chickens were being slaughtered by raccoons. They were coming over the eave’s, and they were coming in and slaughtering the chickens. They would behead them and eat them. So I had to now focus on getting rid of the ‘coons, making sure… I mean we thought it was weasel’s we thought it a whole bunch of stuff. And it took a lot of work, basically to stop this. And one night I caught one of the ‘coons, and that was real exciting. But there were still dead chickens happening, and so it actually was more than one. And they were very big ‘coons because they were well fed on chickens. And so, all of a sudden I realized that this was about authority. I could just see, ok, and it was just God just really showed it to me that this was all about authority, that I had been given the authority and responsibility to do this. I had laid it down and now there was just death. After doing work and work and work on getting it correct, and taking the authority and I would go in there and pray. I would literally just start taking authority and pray. I would bless the chickens, I’d bless the food, I’d bless the barn, I blessed everything. And I just, and I took the authority and all of a sudden there was no more death. The cameras still showed that there was one very large ‘coon that was getting in.
(M) And you told all; there were either six or seven families getting the eggs, and you told us that you do the whole work in February so you could keep an eye on them. So really you took over everything into your hands, and you began to solve it then.
(J)I basically did, in the morning I went to turn off the cameras and make sure everything was ok. And then I would at night, you know, go and set everything up. So I was going there twice a day, and then plus the work that I was doing to secure the pen. So the death stopped, but there was still a ‘coon that was still coming in. And ah, I saw him on the camera. But for whatever reason, this was the weirdest thing. I was walking out of the chicken pen, it is not clean, ok? This chicken pen is dusty, and there’s cobwebs with dust on the cobwebs, it’s not a clean pen; it’s a chicken pen. That’s the way they are, they’re just dirty. (Roosters crowing in background.) And, but I was walking out of the pen and I said, “it’s clean, it’s clean.” And it took weeks really before that ever happened, but I said, “it’s clean”, and I didn’t know what it meant. But we’ve never had another death since it’s been clean, since I saw it. It was a visual seeing, and I believe the reason I saw it was because I had the the authority and the responsibility. When you have the authority and the responsibility you also have the vision of how to fix things, you have the vision of how, what the condition of the thing is. I was the only one that could see it; because I’m the authority. I should see it. God gives insight, He gives wisdom, He gives all kinds of stuff. Just, He’s so full of Himself to impart into you…
(M) To support what He gave you to do.
(J) Absolutely.
(M) To supply everything.
(J) And He supplied it.
(M) And He gave you the idea of the cameras.
(J) Yeah.
(M) He gave you the idea of several different things that you did. One of the ways you fixed the pen, which we won’t go into, but He gave you a lot of ideas, which you’ve not had before.
(J) I’d never had it. And ah, I mean the pen kind of thing is neat because I basically made it a reverse prison, you know, with barbwire going out, you know. So, I had the vision, I had the insight, and I had the knowledge of how to deal with it. And then God also said, because you’ve taken it back up, you’ve taken your responsibility and you’ve taken your authority, now I’m going to show the clean, which you cannot see clean in a chicken pen. It’s just not possible. (Martha laughs.) But it was clean. And even after that another ‘coon…you know, we hadn’t caught the last ‘coon, but he was in there, but still didn’t kill. And so, the principle to me is just amazing. It’s rather shocking, that when you don’t take your responsibility and your authority, that literally Satan will use it to just bring devastation. It seems so insignificant about the fact that it would be a chicken pen. Who cares? It’s a chicken. I mean I can, right now, currently I can go to the store and get eggs any day I want.
(M) It’s easier.
(J) Much easier. And I can go get chicken, and buy chicken, and it’s prepared, already cleaned, everything. But ah, what you said, and what I really appreciate the insight that you brought was that it was training for reigning and ruling. And that changed the whole thing, it became, ah, oh, this isn’t about chickens and eggs. This isn’t about a barn. This isn’t about ‘coons. This is about something eternal. This is about my Father calling out me, to say, “Come on let’s go, let’s reign and rule over this area so that you can reign and rule in heaven.” So, it didn’t matter. The whole lesson was worth it. It doesn’t matter what died. We didn’t have people dying, thank You, Jesus, it was just chickens. (Martha chuckles.) But it’s an eternal lesson for me, and ah, I’m very grateful.
(M) He’s so practical. He is down in the practical to teach us the eternal. But I want you to tell about the number of eggs.
(J) So now we’ve gone from one or two eggs to ah, I think we got thirty last night. And so it’s every night there’s, you know, two dozen or more and it’ll just increase, so.
(M) And that’s with less chickens than we ever, than we’ve had before.
(J) Yeah, that’s with all the…
(M) We had so many dead, that’s phenomenal, coming from the number of chickens we’ve got left because mostly our new hens, fresh young hens were slaughtered.
(J) Yeah, absolutely. So, so, every hen is getting ready to be laying an egg a day, if not more, and ah, which is unbelievable.
(M) Especially in real cold weather.
(J) Exactly. I mean now’s really not the time. You know, maybe a month or two months would be better, you know, for them to go, but they’re doing it right now. And my cup runneth over with all the eggs, and I’m like going ok, I’ll pick up the eggs, I’ll wash the eggs, but please come and get your eggs because I have no room in my refrigerator for food.
(M) Well, I think it’s a great story. I hope people will appreciate the practical lesson, because it’s a huge eternal principle. When God gives you the privilege of a responsibility, He gives you all the help if you’ll take it on as an authority issue.
(Jennifer) Well, I just, I suddenly saw also the reverse of that which is when we have not been given the responsibility and therefore the authority in a particular area for a particular task, whatever, it becomes some sort of 1920’s farce. I mean everything that can go wrong will go wrong; it’s ridiculous. And I started thinking about all the times in my life when things would go very, very wrong, and now I wonder if the Lord will give me a different perspective and if I would see how many times I had stepped over into things that I had no authority to be doing. I had no right to offer to do them maybe? I had no right to take up somebody else’s responsibility. I was neglecting my own for doing something else; I mean there are a thousand and one ways. But actually, John has a particular wisdom of discernment over authority, and in this case it was my dog. (Dog barking in background.) Remember Beauty? Ok, my dog loves to run. She is a rescue, and she’s a bit of a pip. And I took off her collar to keep her penned and safe, to change out the battery and she ran because I didn’t prepare. And I thought, well, she’ll be fine, and it was my irresponsibility. Well, she got attacked by a bear, and she was mauled; she was hurt very, very badly. Ah, and I only say that to say that the care that needed to be given in the follow-up was pretty intense, and it was a dropper of stuff that had to be shot through and wounds flushed and all sorts of real gross things that I am not ok with. So I got her home from the vet and was just kind of a mess. There’s no way I can do this, she’s not going to stand still for me, and it’s just going to be awful. So I called John, because John is a master of animals, and he has a menagerie. And you know, John’s my boss and my friend. And I was like John will know, John, John can help, it’ll be fine, it’ll be great.
(M) John will do it. (Martha laughs.)
(Jennifer) Well basically, yes. I was like, John knows these things, it’ll be fine. John can do it, he’ll keep me calm. He’ll keep her calm, like basically John was the answer. So John came over because he’s willing and kind. And he was just going to hold Beauty; that’s the name of my dog. (Barking.) It was like trying to catch a greased pig (banjo playing), it was the worst experience, I within two minutes was just apologizing to John, saying what is happening. (Jennifer laughs.) It was awful; I couldn’t believe she could actually move like that being as hurt as she was. And of course John is just looking in complete and total disgust because fluids are just spraying and it’s just awful, it’s just, I can’t even tell you because it’ll gross so many of you out, but awful. So I apologized profusely. And John as he leaves, he just says real matter of factly, and almost with a chuckle, “I just didn’t have the authority. I didn’t have any authority over her.” And so I’m like ok, you know, but not really, I’m still freaking out over what happened. (The banjo plays on.) You know I started thinking, I’m like wait a minute, that means I have the authority and I tried to, ahhhhh. So I caused this horrible nightmare for John, and for my dog, and for me, just this awful situation, for me trying to put my responsibility on somebody else who has no authority over it because it’s not his responsibility. And this I will say, alright, bucking bronco fifteen minutes, awful. Just remember that, awful, awful, awful, John?
(J) Awful.
(Jennifer) Awful. Next day, two minutes in and out, my dog sat, she didn’t move, she let me do things that no dog should be comfortable with having done, you know, a little bit painful, certainly uncomfortable for them. It was nothing. I was so easy. It was ridiculous. There was no John, it was just me. It was just me saying ok, you’re my dog, you’re my responsibility, I’m going to do this. And it was completely fine because I had the authority. And I only say all of this because John was also involved in that one, (Jennifer laughs) but that was the flip-side of that, which is, (Martha interjects: very good.) you know me trying to give somebody else authority that’s not their’s. The responsibility’s not theirs, nothing. (The rooster crows, the dog barks.)
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