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Christ As Husband
Episode #211
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J) Ok, well this is not uncharacteristic of podcast life with Martha. She’s come down, and she’s said, “I want to do a podcast”. And I said, “Ok, great.” And I said, “What’s it on?” And she said, “It’s a surprise.” And so, usually she says that I pull the fast ones on her in the middle of it, but I now have proof by this podcast that she pulls the fast ones, because I have no idea where we’re going, but she has a podcast this morning, So..
(Martha chuckles in the background as John speaks.)
(M) Well, the Lord told me this morning to be in John four. And I’d already been in the Psalms and so forth, but… I read it, and it’s about the woman at the well. And I know well, that when He tells me a scripture that I think I know, or have taught on, that there’s something that I don’t see.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) So, I kept reading it and saying, oh Lord what it is it? And I read it in the Amplified. But then somehow I wandered back to John 2:24, which is “Jesus on His own part did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He knew what was in man.” And I started searching that word ‘entrust’, and it means: to put confidence in; you can’t put confidence in anybody. Dependence; can’t do that; reliance on, expectations, or to give responsibility to someone else. So that, that verse has always been His call to me, and I have really never been able to do it. I trust, mostly. But that is a life verse that He’s given me. And ah… So then I went back to the woman at the well. And I was reading it in the Amplified, which says, “The Father seeks those to worship Him in spirit and truth, which is reality.” Not just facts that are eternal, but in reality; we have to worship Him in reality. And I just kept kind of going back to it and asking the Lord what it was. And all of a sudden I saw. But let me first go back two or three days. We have had a friend from Columbia, who came to our conference last May, Fabula Hernandez. And she was with us for a week. And one of the things she shared was that she began to see in the book of John how Christ introduced Himself as Husband. And what she said about the woman at the well was, He came to say, you’ve had five husbands, and the one you’re with is not your husband, which makes six. And He never said it outright, but what He was saying was, I am the Husband. And it was just precious, all that she saw. So that was my foundation. And as I was looking at it, suddenly I realized that I have never associated myself with the woman at the well. (Martha laughs) Which is just ludicrous. Now I can associate myself with Gomer, because of her idolatry, and she believed that her wine and oil came from man. And I have understood the spirit of harlotry, of having idols, and sources. And I’ve wept over the song, Gomer, and so it’s not that I’m not aware of idolatry is spiritual adultery. I’ve taught on that. But suddenly I realized that I have had six thousand husbands. Oh yeah, ah, ah, gardens, food, chocolate, ah, coffee, used to be those things. Let’s see, travel, luggage, and people yes. I had to call my prayer partner this morning and say, the Lord has divorced us, forgive me for making you my ‘husband’. Because she was so supportive that I often would look for her to be a source for me; and I never dreamed, that it was to be a ‘husband’. And we laughed and laughed, because she said, ok, I forgive you, and you forgive me for making you my ‘husband’. And an hour ago it was real funny John; right now it’s not quite as funny. But we laughed and laughed. And she said, “Don’t you remember when you told me I’d have to divorce my children? Because I looked to them to be ‘husband’.” And I said, “Oh yeah, oh yeah, I did.” I understood spiritual adultery, but I really didn’t get what God was saying to Israel through Hosea, I am your Husband! And Husband means source, protector, supplier, giver, comforter, everything. And when we look for anything of those, expecting it of others, then we’ve made them a ‘husband’; and we have a ‘husband’ then in them. And I never saw it this way; maybe everybody else has but me. And like I say, it was real funny, we laughed and laughed. And then she reminded me of this poem that I have mentioned before, by John Donne. And this also takes on a new meaning.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I’ve had it in the messages, and I’ve had it on the website. But it’s:
“Batter my heart, three-personed God, for
As You yet knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, overthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like a usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit You, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captive, and proves weak or untrue.”
(M) In other words, my mind should condemn me.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) But it doesn’t, it defends me.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) “Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”
(M) And this is about Christ as Husband; Husband. Here I am, the friend of the Bridegroom, and the basic element of the book of John, as she saw it, was He was introducing Himself as ‘The Husband’ to all of us. Isn’t that astounding? Are you, you’re not laughing either.
(J) It’ not funny, ha, ha, ha. I kind of wanted to say, giggle-giggle, not really.
(M) Well, it is quite sobering. Once I got… The reason I laughed is that it’s, it was the ultimate pride, to think you’re not the woman at the well. And I taught it in Capernaum on our trip to Israel, and wept on that bench, that God would seek such as me, to worship Him. But I never related it to have a source, a thousand sources, people, one after, things, situations, everything, even pets can be; that’s not my particular ‘husband’, but that’s rampant today, because we need Christ, and we go to something cuddly. Anything for comfort is a ‘husband’.
(J) Uh-huh.
(M) And I laughed because it was ludicrous for me not to ‘get it’.
(J) No, I get the reason for the laughter. But it’s not very funny right now.
(M) Well, see I’ve had one husband, and I have adored him with all my being. And so I didn’t see myself as a woman with many husbands. And you I hold, John, so, in such an open hand constantly, that I really pray not to depend on you, even though I can. And when I was sick, I realized that I really didn’t have expectations that you all would be my source. My need was too great…
(J) Umhmm.
(M) …For even a group of people, I really didn’t expect you to solve it. And my needs were met before I could even call anybody. So I didn’t… I keep you people in this little church, and you especially, I keep that with an open hand that you are not my ‘source’. I was aware of that, but not of a whole lot of other things as being ‘husband’. And I didn’t even see that with you all I was deliberately making sure that you all as a group, were not my ‘husband’. So I saw myself as a woman who adored her husband, and had one husband. (Martha laughs) But when it went to the ‘husband’ as a source of comfort, love, understanding, listening, all those things, then it blew it up for me into that I am the woman at the well, and we all are. All of us are. She is the New Testament Gomer, and it’s why Jesus revealed His identity to her. And this is the one the Father seeks to worship Him.
(J) Hmhm.
(M) And to receive Jesus as Husband.
