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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J) Well, Martha, today I wanted to interview you about just some revelations that you’re getting and you’re sharing with us, and I said, you know something? We need to go and we need to do a podcast on this. So here we are doing a podcast on it; so I would like you to expound on the revelations you’re getting.
(M) Well John, you want me to share this and I don’t know how I can. You’re going to have to pull it out of me, and we’re going to have to work it through, because it’s just the revelation I had the other day that was, as always, God teaches us like children and He gives pictures, and He gives us a word here and a word there. There’s a Jewish saying, “you are nothing, and I am nothing. There’s only God”. Yesterday I read something by Austin Sparks. He said, “The true servant of God is always a defeated person.” And I began to laugh because I am utterly defeated. There’s nothing I can do in this situation. But it was a huge revelation of God, and I really couldn’t get it into words, and I tried to. I think you got it, John. I called you and tried to tell you, and you got it. You understood it. But I tried to share it and some have helped me understand it. Most of it though is no, it’s not that. I am defeated, but it doesn’t mean that He’s defeated me in my flesh. It’s not about flesh. It’s not about death to self. It’s not about putting aside the old man. It’s I am defeated, because it has to do…. It’s not about my independence. It’s not about rebellion. It’s not failure. It’s a funny bazaar revelation, that there’s only God. I’m nothing, you’re nothing, there’s only God.
(J) Well all I said yesterday when you started saying this was, I know people that are defeated by Satan, and I know people that are defeated by God. And we’re going to be defeated one way or the other, and that’s our choice. Do you want to be defeated by God or defeated by Satan? But we are going to be defeated. But really, with people that believe they’re victorious in Christ, and that’s what we’re supposed to be, explain to me the defeated. Why are we defeated?
(M) I’m only dealing with why I am defeated. And if I were really honest I think I’d say it’s one more time in my life when God says you’re fired, ‘Cookie’. But ironically it’s in a place I never dreamed it would be, because I know that I have only His Life, and as I manifest His Life, in others, I think what I expected is results. And some of the places I’ve sown the most seed, have yielded the least harvest. I think what He has defeated me in is having any expectation of people, or even of God, for specific results. Now I know that when I share this, there are going to be people that misunderstand it, people who say ‘duh’, of course. But I really don’t care, because it has set me free of something that’s very hard to define. It’s like God has taken my little universe of God..has been big. It’s been God has manifested Himself in the little universe of my life; and He has taken that little universe and blown to smithereens. Because what I’m defeated in is that even though I can be anointed, indwelt by the Life of Christ, manifesting His very identity, even in that I have no power to make it bring results.
(J) In 1Cor.3:6-7 it talks about one planting, one watering, but the increase comes from God. Is this what you’re talking about?
(M) That’s exactly what I’m talking about. And that was Paul talking about everybody’s part in it. It’s the verse where Jesus said, the farmer plants the seed, he goes to sleep, it grows, he does not know how; but when the harvest comes he goes out and reaps. And it’s just taken me awhile to wade through what it is that I have seen that is so huge.
(J) So, is it this is releasing you from a false responsibility? I mean are you really sensing that there’s the responsibility to have a harvest, or to have an increase, is really now on God?
(M) I think that’s exactly it John. I don’t need to go any further than that statement. I want to read a verse in John 17:10, that’s always been a life verse for me. The apostles said to the Lord, “increase our faith, and the Lord said, if you have faith like a grain of a mustard seed, you’ll say to this mulberry tree being pulled up and be planted in the sea.” OK. And then He talks about the servant in Luke 17. It starts out by saying if your brother sins rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him. Then He says if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can move a mulberry tree and let it be planted in the sea. And then He gives the way that this is done. This is the way He gives to His disciples. “Suppose you have a servant plowing or looking after the sheep, would he say to the servant, when he comes in from the field, come and sit down and eat supper? Would he not rather say, prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink. Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.” And I learned this in the King James Version, which says, “When you’ve done all you should do, say, I am an unprofitable servant; I’ve only done what I should have done.” And what he’s saying is, the master requires the service, the master doesn’t serve the servant. Oh, that is a solid eternal principal. And what I am seeing is that my entire duty is just to do His will. And when I’ve done it to say, there’s no profit I’m looking for; and I didn’t look for the profit for me, that died awhile back. I wasn’t looking for that profit. I was looking for profit for the Lord. But that’s not my business, or my problem. My only duty is to serve the Master, day and night, unendingly. The Master is not to serve me or have me sit down. And our whole concept is that God exists to serve us; that’s a dangerous wrong theology in the Body of Christ. That’s no exactly what I’m talking about; it’s so difficult to convey it. I sowed and I wanted to see the Lord reap. And as I said, in some places I sowed the most, there was the least reaping; and my expectations of the result is what God has obliterated; the result is not my problem.
(J) So He’s really set you free, utterly, completely free.
(M) Yeah, that’s exactly true. I’m a little bit giddy. I’m exuberant. I went for a walk with Jean this morning and I was telling her and she understood it. I said, You’ll have to forgive my exuberance but this is absolutely divine; my God has blown up my concept of my God! He is more sovereign than I have ever seen. He is sovereign over His own seed. If He puts a seed in me to plant in another person, it’s none of my business when it comes up, who else waters it, who else causes it to grow. But I have assumed responsibility. I tend toward responsibility and the arrogance of that. Yes, it is arrogance, but I assumed the responsibility for the result. If I sowed in someone, and there was no coming through, then I would say, what have I done wrong, what have I failed to do, and what have I done wrong? And I would strive over the fruit. That is unnatural.
(J) Or I didn’t pray enough, I didn’t say the right thing. I didn’t confront when I should have confronted. I didn’t love where I should have loved, or whatever.
(M) I am free of the results. I am nothing! (Laughter) And you are nothing. There’s only God! And God’s the only One that can capture us, the only One that can show it to us. And I’ve always said I’m like, instead of letting the rich young ruler go, I’m always running after him. And I used to say well let me explain it to you one more time, but do I really think I could wrestle him down to the ground? I’d say I know you can see this, because I know that I can show you because I can see it. (Laughter) So I have been an obstacle to God in so many places. And it’s just hilarious, because it’s not that I had it wrong. I didn’t have it wrong. I was carrying His Seed. I had the harvest wrong. And I am defeated, because I had sown in some places and my world was absolutely unmoved. And I just had to laugh at the Lord and say You win, You win, You are God, and You win; You are the only One who is God. I am the teeniest little miniscule speck, and nothing I can do am I to to look for the result, I cannot expect you to move in a certain way. And someone said, Martha that reduces you to prayer, and I said yes, we pray, but you don’t know what He’s going to do, or if He’s going to do it, or when He’s going to do it, or how He’s going to do. You can have your heart engaged and yes, I’m to pray and I’m to believe, but I don’t know how He’s going to do it, or where He’s going to do it, He’s so huge. And one of the factors in this… there were many factors that led me to this; one of them is that our sister Jean up here said a physicist said “I know that God exists. I cannot prove it’. But he also said, ‘I can tell you this. We do not know who He is’. And I was stuck on a verse in Micah that says, “They do not know My thoughts, and they do not know My plans and purposes”. And for all that we know, as much as we can know Him, we do not know Him. As much as we can experience Him, it is so extremely miniscule, that He is just absolutely always inscrutable, unknowable, unfathomable, and He is always to be discovered, and we are always to be surprised. And I don’t even know that this conveys it, but He has absolutely blown up… I don’t even know what, but He is vast, and He is huge.
(J) Sounds like to me that He’s set you free. This is what I have. I mean you sound set free.
(M) You know it is John. As I said, I error on the side of responsibility, and when God gives me a burden for someone, and He gives me the way to express it, then I am impassioned with His passion. And yet my job is simply to do His will, and then go home.
BREAK in message
(J)We at Shulamite Ministries hope you’ve been enjoying today’s podcast., and we’d like to invite your feedback on our broadcasts as a whole. You may do this by visiting us at Shulamitepodcasts.com and clicking on the comment section under the individual podcast issues or go to Itunes. Search the word Shulamite and submit your feedback and ratings, or simply e-mail us at John@Shulamite.com. we want to thank you again for listening, and we hope that this podcast continues to be a blessing to your walk with the Lord.
End of break
(J) Don’t you see this in Jesus’ life? He didn’t take personal responsibility for what was another person’s response, but He did only what was obedience.
(M) I think that is exactly what I’m seeing this morning, is that oh, this is how You lived. You simply did what You saw the Father doing. And there’s a sense in which, John, He was both unsuccessful and defeated; because sovereignly God chose Judas; it’s all about the absolute sovereignty of God that has exploded. I wrote a book about the sovereignty of God, and yet I knew when I wrote it that I didn’t have the biggest possible revelation of His sovereignty.
(J) It’s bold to call Jesus ‘defeated’, and I know you’re not saying He was defeated, and unvictorious, but I think you’re exactly right.
(M) It appears He was defeated, but God orchestrated everything. God was sovereign over everything. There’s even a verse, an obscure verse, that says there were those who will perish because they were destined to perish. You see, what we want to do is take the mystery out of it. I wanted, and I’ve spoken against this, but I wanted two plus two to equal four. I wanted my investment of His Seed to equal His result. And the result is up to God. My job is a simple servant, and He is not to serve my wishes, He is not to give me… when it’s all said and done, John, everything is going to be in spite of me. I’ve always said, my children knowing God will be inspired in spite of me, not because of me. When it says God will not share His glory, it is really a severe saying.