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Christ the Head and the Tree of the Knowledge
Episode #719
09/13/2020

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Diving into the topic of Christ being the Head of His church and the temptation to think apart from Jesus, which is The Tree of the Knowledge.

John:
You know the other day you came down and, and you were just kind of lit of fire with a message about Christ the Head and I told you that, that original message, the source of that message that I heard first from you was from The Spirit and the Wind messages and the CD series from that which is, they are so dynamic and they, they have so impacted me.

But Christ the Head is an amazing, amazing message and at the time when I listened to it in the 90’s you completely validated everything that I had heard through Gene Edwards and about the…All of a sudden everything made this grand connection and I was so excited because all of a sudden I said, “That’s it!” She put it in, in a succinct way and she brought all these sources and tied them up in a pretty nice little bow and, you know, not knowing that that’s what the Lord had been developing and showing me. And I was so excited because I finally had something that clarified and spoke it real clear to me what I believed and what had in my spirit but I had not completely verbalized and, and formulated what I, what I thought.

So anyway, that CD series is amazing. But you the other day came down to the office. I was working and you came down to the office and you, you, you had…I, I mean I could see you. Your eyes were on fire. And so I said, “Let’s tape this.” And so I just recorded on my iPhone and I was thinking, “How can I use this? Where can I put this because this is amazing?”  And I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.

You know, the podcast and everything in the ministry post Covid is kind of changing where we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to proceed. We’re listening to the Lord and how we’re going to proceed in everything.

And so there maybe some changes coming. We don’t know. We don’t know what He’s going to do but we don’t know who’s going to be doing it because of, specifically because of what you’re about to say and where you’re going and, about Christ being the Head. And if Christ is the Head, then what we do is under the Head and, and that being under the Head, He’ll be directing it. And so we’re just open to whatever He’s doing.

So…that all said you came down and, and we needed a podcast for next weekend and I said, “Let’s go! Let’s do something” and you wanted to do it on this, which I’m excited about because I have the first part of that message in, in my iPhone. Again I don’t know what I’m going to do with that but I could do something fun with it. I think I’m going to do something fun with it. I’m going to do something different with it. I, I got an idea. Ok, anyway I’m tempting people to think what it’s going to be…

But anyway, so give me what passion came down the stairs this morning.

Martha:
This morning I’m on the church. And back in 19, what, 90’s?

John:
Yeah, you did it in 90, I believe 96.

Martha:
I saw it back then but I don’t think I’ve, I’ve spoken about it in some time. But we don’t…We’ve got to understand what the church consist of. And easy to think it’s a demonization, that’s the church. I’ve no objection to the organized church. God found me in one and they will serve Him on His terms.

But the real church is something we need to grasp because it’s going to make a difference in how we think and deal with God and with others because the church is…

I want to go back to the Garden of Eden, John.

John:
That’s a good place to start.

Martha:
Because it all starts there and in, of course, everybody knows that God gave two trees in the Garden one they could have endlessly and the other one they could not have. The tree that they could not have was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which is death.

Now that’s…It’s taken a long time for me to really grasp what that meant and I see that most of Christianity does not grasp it.

Knowledge belongs, is God’s prerogative. It’s God’s only…The only possessor of knowledge is God. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge rest now in Christ. But we do not, we are not a source of knowledge. And what that means is that if you begin to think your way to reality, you will fail. If you think you can think apart from God, you will be lost. And the, the serpent tempted Adam and Eve to go ahead and eat of that tree. I, I said I love this because I discovered it in, in doing a tape of the month for September, no, August (Soul and Spirit) and September (The Powers of God), that Eve reasoned her way into taking the forbidden fruit. She thought about it. It was attractive, it was, looked good to eat and she would be made into god. The enemy promised her that she would become a god. A god is one in that circumstance as one who is independently in power. That was a lie. She, she did not become god, she became a fallen creature separated from God.

So the temptation to think is that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil where we decide things in categories.

I’ve talked about that tree for twenty-five years and it’s always going to be standing before us as a temptation to be independent of God and think we know. And I learned to be aware of people who say, “I know. Yes, I know that, I know that. I know!” What do we, when do we ever really know?

And so Eve persuaded Adam and he fell for the same ambition. Ambition makes you think you can think.

But the issue is that all knowledge, truth, and reality is in God. He will share it with us to no end of magnificent generosity. But knowledge belongs to God.

The definition of flesh, in the book of Romans in the Amplified says flesh is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit. You see all sin originates in the mind. We think sins rest in the body. No, it doesn’t. It rests in the mind. Here’s why: because the mind, the way the mind goes is the way the body goes.

So Satan conquered by inserting thoughts to Eve and then to Adam. So, and the battle…There’s so many books written about the battlefield of, of the Believer is the mind. The battle is in the mind of thoughts and words.

So God made that forbidden. It was like saying, “This tree will kill you. You, you think on your own apart from God and you’ll be so deluded that you will die.” He was perfectly honest with them and perfectly cared for the two children in the Garden.

John:
I was looking down at Colossians 2 and 3 and you mentioned this and it’s awesome.

“Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

That scripture, this is awesome, I want to go back to the Tree of Knowledge real quick, that scripture ends, that scripture ends the pursuit of knowledge because it tells you where the KNOWLEDGE is. So we have sought for, you know, our entire history, we’ve sought knowledge, we’ve lusted after knowledge. We’ve wanted to know outside of God. We’ve been in a madness to know outside of God…

Martha:
Within ourselves.

John:
…within ourselves. We wanted to, we, we wanted the POWER.

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
That a…I means that’s really what it was. It wasn’t just so you could eat from that tree you wanted the power that that tree could give you.

And so the amazing thing in this scripture it says basically I going to, you know, reverse it, it says, “All treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ”. And you said that and I immediately looked up the scripture and I was like going, “That’s it!” That’s the end that He literally said, “I’m going to show you the end of it all. In Me is found all your wisdom and knowledge. Yes, I understand you’re always going to want knowledge and always going to want wisdom. But you’re going to find it in Me and if you don’t go to Me, you’re not going to find it because I am the tree of life.”

Martha:
Um hmm.

John:
“And that tree of life that I prevented you from in the Garden…” After they fell He prevented them from eating from that tree because then they would be like god. They would be forever and forever and forever. There would be no end to man. And so He put the angle there to block. Ok, He said, “No more will you eat from the tree of life because you’re not going forever. You’re not, you’re not going to become a god unto yourself. You chose that other tree…” (see Genesis 3:24)

And so He prevented them with the angle and now He says, “Now you have to come to Me, come through me to get that same life. I, I was always the Tree of Life. But now you’re going to come through Me to get that. In Me you’ll get both of them. You get both the wisdom and the knowledge and the Life.” You get the whole package if you go through and in to Christ.

Martha:
And Christ is the…The wisdom is Christ and knowledge is Christ. It’s a person. You have to deal with a person. You are right.

John:
Both, both, both fruits of those trees are both found in Christ.

So I don’t know. I was…That just…All of a sudden I saw that and I said, “Oh, my gosh, He solved it. He solved it in that scripture.” He says, “Your long time pursuit, your lust, your, your deep passion to find wisdom and knowledge is now found in Me.” I’m, I’m sorry just…I…That, when I saw that I just was so excited.

Martha:
That’s terrific, John. That’s, oh, that’s, that’s terrific.

Christ the Head and the Tree of the Knowledge  – Episode #719 – Shulamite Podcast

All treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ. We are constantly tempted to seek independence of God and to think we know. This is clearly the path leading to The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

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