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The Mystery Of The Two Natures
Episode #328
March 24, 2013
ShulamitePodcast.comWith Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Carole Nelson and Jennifer Wentzel
Announcement by John Enslow:
Well, this podcast starts a series of podcasts that are a spin-off of the CD of the month for April entitled, “Rival For The Throne”. Quite often after we record the message of the month, there’s a meeting after the meeting. And the meeting was so rich, and the revelations were so amazing, we decided to make them into a podcast series. It’s actually six podcasts of the meeting after the meeting. We’ve done several things recently to make “Message of the Month” more available, one of which is we made it available for download at www.livingchristianbooks.com. And I’m real excited about that because it gives everybody the opportunity to basically listen to the message immediately. It’d be great if you could listen to that message before you heard these podcasts, but I really feel like they are stand alone, and if you are unable to do that there should be no problem. Our hope and our prayer is that you really enjoy this message, that you get a lot out of it, and that the Lord touches you through it.
(Jennifer) Ok, uhmm, I’m ever hoping in the wrong thing. I’m ever hoping in me. The idea that everyday is a new day, clean slate, that was my example, it’s ‘I hope to today I don’t… whatever, pick something. I’m sure that it’s on my list. You know, I hope this for my life, I hope that He’ll do this for me, in me, but it’s always for me. It’s hoping in me, and I just, it’s just I realize the hope is in Christ. The hope is… It’s not about me, and yet my new nature, that’s the reality of my relationship with Him. Like that’s the only basis for me having any relationship with Him is in that Nature, because otherwise, I don’t know.
(M) Well, I’ve just been praying a lot in tongues, unashamedly. And I believe the interpretation always comes. And for me what happens is sometimes is enormous revelation comes, because I have this little narrow mind-set. And I told on the tape of the month that I was praying for someone, and my prayer would have been, “God give this person grace to forgive this parent, and to release this person. May that forgiveness release this person from bitterness.” That’s what I would have prayed. That was not the answer at all that came the next morning. What came next morning was this gigantic revelation of the old nature versus the new nature. And so we’ve been sitting around here, and you all are gracious enough to listen as I taped it. But the look on your faces was wonderful when I, it was shock and awe! (Laughing in background.) And so, Jennifer and Carole especially have response.
(Carole) The shock and awe that hit me was the statement that Martha made. It just kind of rolled off her tongue as she went on; was that humanity died when Adam and Eve sinned. Humanity, as God created it died, died, ended. And that was shocking to me because of my belief, and I believe, our belief that humanity did not die. It may have gotten mixed up and messed up and marred, but we can fix it. We have a chance now to fix it. And if we can’t fix it, certainly Christ can fix it. But the truth of it, and the shock of her statement was simply, it died. It’s not fixable.
(Jennifer) And I just…. I feel like this message… I have struggled and struggled to understand Roman’s five, six, seven and eight. I have gone through it over and over again, and I’ve said, ok, this time I’ve got it. Ok, and I’ve listened to Martha’s teachings on it, and they’re copious. There’s one phenomenal disc in the “Overcomers” series called “Living Dead”. And it’s marvelous. But there was some part of me that couldn’t… I just couldn’t quite grasp what that meant, what it meant that you could go back and forth. Uhmm. And at the end of this taping of the month, Martha you said, “To understand what the fight is makes us better able to win it.” And I guess that’s the, part of me, I’m just, I’m excited right now at this grasping of comprehension. And by that I mean like somehow something kind of sunk in and made sense in listening to this message, that it’s not a process of becoming more Christ-like; that our new nature is in fact intact; that the cross is the process of exposing all the places where I, I, by my choice in listening and believing have put down anchors into the old nature. It’s like the parts where I’m tethered to that thing. And, and understanding it in that respect, first of all it gives me so much love for Him in bringing the cross. It puts discipline, it puts suffering, it puts all that in a completely different light. (Jennifer’s laughing-crying.) I’m crying, I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s like all of a sudden I can see that it takes that, the cross, the death, the surgeon’s hand to come in an extricate me where I am tethered to the grave, where I’ve literally tied myself so that I can’t live, I can’t rise, I can’t ‘be.’ And I just saw it somehow for the first time really saw it. And I am just blown away by that. It just makes everything… He planted in me this understanding of His chastening and His wrath, His love, but there were parts of it… It was just in my gut, you know what I mean? I didn’t have… I couldn’t appear, I couldn’t really convey it to anyone. All I could say was it is love! Trust me on this, (she’s crying as she speaks) I’m living proof of it, but I didn’t have an actual testimony of why that would matter, of what that love was in His Hand. I feel like right now I have that, that I see that, the gift that that is. And uhm. In this message you also talked about, I’m going to call it a false gospel, because I think it’s that deadly. This idea that it’s ‘won and done’; which is true and not true at the same time; and that’s just kind of diabolical. But yes, when I was saved I was given a new creation; and that is there and it is intact and it is complete and it is finished. And what you’re talking about, like I said, all the places I’m tethered to the old that have to be separated, that is preventing me from truly accessing the resurrection life He gave me; because I’m still, like Carole’s umbilical cord, I’m still literally taking death into me, and I’m turning to death for sustenance, as source, as ‘you name it’, in all these different places, and so the cross comes. But this gospel that says once you’ve prayed the sinners prayer, you have the new creation and from that point on everything that you do, that you say, whatever, from that point on, that’s Christ. And it’s by grace, and there’s no need for further repentance. There’s no need for any of this. This idea that it’s just, you know, it’s covered. I’m forgiven. I’m forgiven. I’m forgiven. There’re no words; it’s uhm… There was a seed of that was still in me, because I’ve heard that many, many times. And so, that was part of the acute despair that I had. Now the Lord is over all of it. Because that acute despair He allowed to come in, because I was not His, in terms of surrender to His Lordship. So that had to be taken care of. “And even the wrath of man shall praise Him.” So this false gospel that was planted in me, He had a purpose for it, and it was wonderful. But even after that. That was a line that the enemy came in over again and again and again. So every single time I would sin. Every single time I would have these thoughts that were not of God. If I did, I’m somewhat clumsy sometimes, and really it’s because I don’t pay attention. So I will trip a lot, and I’ve broken several toes. (she laughs) You know. And every time something like that, I mean it only really takes something like that; some sort of physical pain that’s unexpected in my happy day, and yeah, I come spewing out, ‘God, you all, I curse you, I curse you all!’ You know and then after that I’d say, “If I was really saved I wouldn’t do that! I wouldn’t do that.” They say that you’re completely new, utterly transformed, and that’s it. That’s the end. That’s the all. And so that line of accusation would come in and say, “That’s right! It should be completely finished. This is not the rage you’re looking for.” It was like somehow my life was gonna be ‘zen’ from now on, kind of a ‘ouuu-ouuum’, and there would be no… But do you know what I mean? I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m really not trying to be ‘mocky’ or anything. I don’t know how to get to it, but it was this… It said, ‘He didn’t save you; you’re not different!’ You’re not…” And it’s this insidious lie, but it’s a line open, that false gospel, that horrible thing that says, ‘you should be perfect’. And it is a complete and total, horrifying misreading of what that is. And of the true miracle of what God does. It’s not ‘hocus-pocus’, you know? If it was this magic-wand snap, then the world would look like a very different place, and our relationship with God would be vastly different. And frankly, it would be lessoned. It would be… It would not be remotely miraculous. There would be nothing in that would that would be worth of the sacrifice of Jesus and what He did, and the true battle that’s there, that fight that’s there every day. And I just, I am so glad to renounce that and say ‘get out!’ Get out of my heart. No, no! You’re not the gospel. That’s not Jesus. That’s not the life He gave me. That’s not Who He is with me on a daily basis. I am His! And the cross is real! And I’m so sorry that it’s not ‘abracadabra’ and I’m all done. That’s, you know what? If it was supposed to be, then it would’ve been. And if I could believe it, like you say Martha, yes, I could get there. But guess what? I can’t. And He knows that, and He’s fine. So no, no to that.
(J) Well, if it was that way there would be a complete diminishing of the relationship with God. You wouldn’t need Him. There again, if He gave you the key, and you were able to take the key and run with it, it’s the exact same thing as he says, oh well, and Adam and Eve, I don’t need You anymore, I’m really fine. So it’s… so the fact that we’re tied to something that we have to say no and that’s dead is actually a wonderful thing because it continually calls us back to relationship. It does. It calls us back. It literally, you know, says, ‘you still need Me. You still need me to show you.’
(Jennifer) I will need Him until I die. I am tied to Him until I die. And I can’t tell you how comforting that is to me. That is… I’m really grateful for that. But now I get why that other gospel’s so popular. That’s it exactly, John. (Jennifer is laughing.) No wonder it spreads like wildfire. It says you’re done. You’re good to go. Anything you do now you can put the label of Christ on it; be free people.
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