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Seeing God In Worldly Places
18 May 2013
Episode #336
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Carole Nelson
(M) And John’s gonna tell a story that Carole, we went to this, they recommended this restaurant. And I cannot describe to you; this restaurant, we could look straight out to an Alp, and the restaurant was way up at the top. And they said we’re going there. I said, “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to drive up there.” So, anyway we did and it was fantastic food, and I think that was a waitress that we had great rapport. But then, then all the Austrian people come in; we go for the food which was one of the few good places, and they came to drink and dance. And it was just delightful to watch.
(Carole) And it was traditional Austrian dance.
(M) Yeah.
(Carole) That’s what it was; it wasn’t hard rock, it wasn’t any of that. And there were all people that looked like that were, what would you say, fifty and up? Oh ok, well I can’t tell.
(John speaks in background) They were well over forty-five.
(Carole) Ok well I’m gonna tell this, because Martha and I, I asked Martha to dance and we, we did the ah, ah, polka, I guess it was the polka, all over the place until I thought my heart was gonna burst out of my chest. (Carole’s laughing.)
(M) And were they ever watching us; even at our table, because we were, we were obviously Americans, and they were all the local people that go there to dance every night, and drink. And ah, so we did dance, and it was such fun. (Martha’s laughing.) Something He’d let us have, such, so many experiences like that, that were memorable. But in the end it was….
(Carole) But you know what, I can look back at that and though He was exposing, He was exposing sin, He was exposing control. I mean I really went berserk when we get to the, this town and there’s no place to go and I happened to look down at the hotwire sheet and it says, “Take train.” (Carole’s laughing.) I read that, but even in that, even in that was His love proving itself to me, that I am not alone, that everything, every detail of everything is in His hands and is taken care of even before I ask.
(J) Martha you were, you were talking about T. Austin Sparks and how you were connecting the Daniel message that you had given. You were talking about the ‘hindrances’ and uhmm; I’d like you to go into that; the two crucial things that T. Austin Sparks says to reign and rule with Christ.
(M) I was reading along the way on the iPad, “The Testimony And Its Vessel Unto The Time Of The End”, and it’s about Daniel. And Sparks says that ah, all believers really are called to rule and reign in the end times. That’s what I’ve done three conferences, if not five or… Uhm, and he goes back to the first chapter where Daniel says, “I purposed in my heart not to defile myself with the king’s dainties, or his mind. And Sparks makes the point that that represents not just food and drink necessarily, but it’s whatever, whatever flesh indulges in our life, sometimes secret, sometimes obvious. But he made the point that any connection of the flesh to the world is the back door for the devil to come in your life, and you will be paralyzed, and you’ll be defeated. And he says without this, without sacrificing everything for the Lord you cannot possible be an instrument or a vessel in the end times for His soon return. So that was the one issue, he made it a connection to the world, a love of the world, an idolatry of something that is your pleasure or your comfort or whatever. And so he, he ah, he was making that very clear. The second thing was that Daniel influenced Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and they were his Church, so to speak. And ah, he said the other key was that they gave honor to God and took no honor to themselves. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace they said King, we don’t have to give you any explanation, but just know that even if we burn up we will not worship you, we will only worship the Lord our God. And everything they did, everything that Daniel achieved, including his dreams and surviving the lions, he would never take any credit to himself, he would always say it is my God. It is not me that did this; I have a God Who reveals His secrets of the heavens. And ah, those were the two issues, having no indulgence of the flesh and being willing to sacrifice the love of the world for the Lord, and the other one is not taking any honor to yourself, not exalting yourself at all in what God does. And to me that represents, ah, two issues of human frailty, the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life, ego and flesh. And so with those two things are the downfall of man, and if either of them are operative in our lives we will not be vessels of His dominion.
(J) Well the, the amazing thing that I was seeing in this is that you’re involved in all that, you’re reading that and you’re, you’re digesting that and you’re really having resurrected a message that God had delivered back in 2004 in Vienna. And at the same time in “Get Along With God”, ah, Jennifer and I are doing ah, posts, and she’s talking about a stronghold of the flesh with the cigarettes, and I was talking about the ego and the place of going lower. I’m just, it’s like God’s tying it all in, and I think that’s really cool and kind of orchestrated divinely.
(M) I, I told the group before we started taping that God has been moving us in this direction for several years and probably the message I did on Daniel in Austria in 2005 set the Holy Spirit in motion for us, if not for anyone else. And the Holy Spirit has not forgotten that message, nor has He forgotten it in my spirit, but He has been orchestrating it through life-style restrictions and, and a number of ways that ah, we were really, we were very much in the world, but we really were not enjoying the worldliness I’ll say. We were enjoying other things that were there, the Sistine Chapel, the ah history of the paintings and so forth; we enjoyed all that we learned and the exquisite landscape of Tuscany, endlessly beautiful. Oh my goodness, I took a picture of a house, kind of run-down house and I wrote my daughter, “Here’s the house I want to re-do in Tuscany.” (Martha laughs.) And ah, it wasn’t that we were not there, but we were not, we were out of our element; out of our quiet paced peaceful little element and ah, I think it was, in the end it was God’s great dominion over us and over the whole trip, and in love.
(J) I think what I was gleaning off of was the futility of it all. We saw the history with the popes and the different dynasty’s and blah-blah-blah empires and everything like that. We were told all these things that have transpired and I just kept on looking going, the frailty of man and the futility of our efforts and our, its just blah, why? And I guess it’s, that’s losing the love of the world because you just see it’s all such meaningless, I don’t know the word but, huh? (In background Martha says: “trivia”) It is trivia, it’s complete, yeah, everybody, all of these little despots were all hailing themselves so high and you go, and what is your eternal reward, and what have you left on this earth? And it was nothing, fruitless, pointless. And so ah, I was, I was grateful to see that. I was grateful to see that all the grasping and all the struggle and the straining to, to achieve and to get was nothing. But also what I saw, it was couples with it, was that everything in God’s timing and sovereignty is perfect, everything. And you see like A-B-C as wrong, but God doesn’t say A-B-C is wrong. It’s, somehow in God’s sovereignty and God’s perfection, He’s able to take everything that transpires, that everything does serve Him, and I think everything is perfect. The further I’m going into life, the more I see that everything is perfect. And it has to be, because that’s the God I, I have to trust in, that He makes everything, everything, everything perfect, regardless of what it is. A friend of mine in art class, we were talking about how all the churches are really not churches anymore, they’re museums. And I said well if they poise themselves and position themselves as museums then I could take it, but because they didn’t and they say that they’re churches, that’s what, you know I get all wrought up about and grieved about and ‘roarrrrh’ about. But in God’s sovereignty there’s something perfect. I don’t have to strain and struggle against it; there’s something that is perfect. And in our world, in, I, I’m just seeing the perfection of God in everything that goes on. I’m seeing that there is nothing our of His control and there’s nothing that is not uhm, it’s not just His allowance, it is the way it is because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And we know, you could say oh, but this is causing this person and this peoples pain or suffering, or this is destroying this country or this is…. Everything is perfect. I want it more, I want it more, because if I could live in that I would be totally completely uninvolved with this world and I would be quite above it. I would be unaffected because I would be resting in His bosom basically, I would be dwelling there; I am, but I would be with all my being dwelling there saying He is perfect. Then governmental issues, ah, abortion pills all that, I would say God is so in control and I could let go of it. I could let go of my struggle and my strain and my anxiety towards all the things that are happening in our world. I could say God has got it! This is what I’m leaving this trip with. Because I wasn’t on a campaign, I wasn’t particularly spiritual, which bothered me, but God was working something beyond my understanding and recognition. There was a purpose that He was doing that was quite outside of my understanding and grasp. And I have to understand that this is not just this trip, it is all of history, period.
“To the pure all things are pure”. In this message we are beginning to have a clearer understanding of the difference b/w worldliness and indulgence of the flesh and the freedom that the Apostle Paul describes. It is all about the heart’s love. I absolutely LOVE the Sovereignty of God and the freedom found in Him! I love being connected to living waters!
He has given us all things to enjoy, but when the heart is sanctified there is no longer the pulling or rule of the flesh. Our longing and satisfaction are found in Him alone. During Milton Greene’s ministry on earth, he consistently spoke of overcoming the lust of the eyes, the flesh and the boastful pride of life. And I might add its futility. Good word today Shulamite.
“To the pure all things are pure”. In this message we are beginning to have a clearer understanding of the difference b/w worldliness and indulgence of the flesh and the freedom that the Apostle Paul describes. It is all about the heart’s love. I absolutely LOVE the Sovereignty of God and the freedom found in Him! I love being connected to living waters!