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Celebrating Church
April 27, 2014
Episode #3856
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Carole Nelson
(M) You know, if you take the Bible always explains itself, and I am so prone to take a verse out, but the whole context of any scripture is the explanation of that scripture, if you get it. Before this in Matthew 18, verse 12, it begins with recovery of the child.
“Whoso receives one such child in My name, receives me.” Then it goes, the ninety-nine, He leaves the ninety-nine and goes to search for the one who is straying. And He rejoices more over that one that’s lost than the ninety-nine that have not gone astray. So it’s dealing from the get-go about how to become a member of the flock. You have to bring the child in. The child is the member of the flock. Give me someone who is determined to be independent and adult and they will not be in the flock. And they ostensibly, actually are a goat. And so, the Lord goes to look for the lost sheep inside the goat, but the goat has no part in Body life. Now, I remember not just one but a number of people would come in to my life. I bring them into this Body and they would say to me privately, “Martha, I’m with you, but I’m not with your Body.” And I would say, “Sorry, I come with a Body.” I’m not independent. I come with a Body. And I’ve told before how alone I was and loved it, and then God began to call me to teach and to disciple, and that brought in a complete cost of His, I thought, of time with Him. But actually it was an expansion of knowing Him, because it goes on to say, “If your brother sins go on and tell him. Then if he doesn’t hear you, you take two or three witnesses.” You take the flock to the brother. And we’ve done this many times over the years, and if they don’t hear you, then you tell the church. It says don’t tell the world. You tell the church. You warn the church against this person. You have, the obligation to your heart is for the church, and I’ve been reluctant to do this because of my southern upbringing, which is a big stumbling block. “But if he refuses to listen, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and tax collector.” That means a sinner, unclean. Getiles’s unclean; a tax collector is a thief. That’s who that person… and we have it. There’s someone in my life right now I consider a gentile and a tax collector, had more witnesses than anybody I’ve ever seen. That person was wrong and will not be anything but a victim. So, I’m…that’s whew! Get away from me! Then is says, “What ever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and what you loose shall have been loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you if two of you agree on earth about anything they may ask, it shall be done for them” providing they’ve heard it from heaven. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” And I have been wanting the Lord to explain this to me for years. First thing is, it’s two or more. God deals with us individually. He takes the lamb and the sheep apart. He knows that one of His flock, and He deals with that one. But He intends for that sheep to be part of a group. Now maybe somebody hasn’t heard this, but I kind of despaired over church. My husband and I at one point felt we just had to leave the church, and we didn’t go to church for a long time. And I prayed for eight years before I left that church and afterward I prayed for eight years, “Lord, I want to see You build, You said You’d build church. I see men build church. I’m done with it. I want to see; before I die I want to see a church You built that the gates of hell will not prevail.” And I prayed it without telling a living soul. I begged for it. “You said You would do it. I’m expecting You to do it.” And He did it by beginning, small beginning, just a Bible study until it evolved into this group, some of whom we’ve been together a long time and others rather new. But the process of His building church was not just to get together a group of people that love Jesus. It was to bring holiness, purity and excellence and, oh, how shall I say, a transcendent life together. And most people won’t take it. There’s the enemies of the cross. And I think it’s Nee that says you can be a friend of Jesus but an enemy of the cross. And that’s what we’ve met over and over. That the cross is in the flock, and if you are going to be healthy, you have to make sure everybody else is healthy. And if they won’t be healthy; like we have a sheep that had worms so badly that it was infectious. And we had to, John had to take it out and shoot it, and we had to at some point drag it because it was so heavy. But we had to get rid of that diseased sheep. So there cannot be a diseased sheep in the church.
(J) Just so people will know, it wasn’t just that she had worms that we shot her. It wasn’t like that. She was dying, and she was so infected with the worms that the worms literally she had anemia. I mean, her low gums were white because she was so… they were sucking her blood. And at a certain point she couldn’t even get up. And I looked at her gums. If I had treated her for the worms at that point, she would have bled to death, because they would have died and all the little places they were eating, she would have bled to death. So literally, I put her down. I didn’t just, I didn’t just shoot her, because she had worms. So, I just want to make sure that people know that. And John just grabbed that sheep that had worms and shot her! (laughing)
(Martha) Well, thank you, shepherd. (All laughing) I just remember how awful, how sad it was. We both about wept.
(J) Well, I loved her. Her name was Ruby, and she was really, actually the only one that had a name. Everybody else had the name of their collar – the color, so blue and black and pink, you know? But Ruby an actual Ruby name, and she was a very Ruby kind of sheep. But, you know, she definitely had that. I put her down because she would have died. It was mercy. (laughing) You have worms, Pow!
(M) Thank you. That’s not like God either, is it? Ok.
(Carole) I think, I think it was. I mean, you just said it was mercy and that’s what God’s love is. It’s mercy when we’re diseased to, in effect, put us down. Right?
(M) Because I came through a long years, like two years of absolute solitude, more years of very little contact with Christians. But then I experienced Body life when the Holy Spirit came to our Episcopal church. And I used to warn them, “You don’t live from Wednesday to Wednesday. You cannot do that or God will disperse this flock. He will not have you worship the Body of Christ. He will not have you substitute what we get here, which was vibrant and living.” And I warned them and warned them. “You have to live from morning to morning with Jesus alone. You cannot live for Wednesday.” And sure enough, He did. A wolf came in in the pulpit, ravaged the sheep. The sheep were dispersed all over the place. We left, and that was another church experience.
(J) Do you why I think that is?
(M) What?
(J) I think the reason why that is is because if you’re living from Wednesday to Wednesday, you’re coming to get. You’re coming to extract something for yourself. But if you are building it day by day, you’re coming to give. You’re an outlet of Christ’s life, rather than a suck from the life. And so if you’re doing… The Body life is not about simply taking. Now there’s a season of taking. There’s a season of infilling. That’s fine. But ultimate Body life if not about me, me, me, me, me, because the Body isn’t focused me, me, me, me, me. If my liver only focused on me, me, me, me, me, it would, it would suck the life out of the other organs, you know? So, is that a good analogy? Does that make sense? And so when I, when I come… You literally used to say, “You come here filled up. You’re not coming here to receive.” Now, that doesn’t mean you may have a bad week, and you’re saying I’m trashed. You know? That’s not what that’s about either. But it isn’t your supply. It’s a source to impart what you’ve been given. You do that. You have a relationship with Christ, Carole, and when you come to the Body, you’re saying what, you’re giving what He has given you. Then it’s a celebration. And then the Body life is a celebration of what Christ has done throughout the week. And then it’s increased, because you’re giving it away. Then it’s increased.
(M) And you have the feed back of those who get revelation from your revelation it just gets bigger and bigger and better and better.
(J) See, even what you’re doing right now, you have a revelation about the Body. Well now, we’re all able to join in and jump in and expand this thing through our own experiences and everything like that.
(Carole) We’ve seen the idolatry of Body life, rather than the worship of God in the Body. And it’s sick and the Body becomes the focus and the god rather than God.
(M) Rather than the vessel for God. When the Lord called me to teach, that was fine. I could go teach and go home. But when He called me disciple and it was such a clear and strong calling, “Go and make disciples of all nations, and lo, I’m with you always even til the end of the age.” And I knew that was a completely different life than I had, and it was going to be costly. I died to say yes to that, but I threw myself into it, and He began to form Body life. And in the early years it was more giving than receiving, but literally the Lord let me know you can’t make it alone. You simply cannot. There are many people out there that say we are their church, but I long for those to come to Body life too of their own. And then let’s be bodies together. Let’s be entities together. And we see it forming.
Thank you brethren for posting these wonderful truths about Body Life! May I add a little to what John said about coming together filled up because of what He’s given you through-out the week and it’s a Celebration. In says in Proverbs 3: 9-10: “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thy increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with New Wine.” Also in Deuteronomy 16, there’s a wonderful picture of Body Life and the Celebration that comes with it. This is illustrated in the Feast of Tabernacles or “The Ingathering,” with a 7 feasts in all. The word feast here means, “moving in a circle,” dancing together as children celebrating what their Great God and Redeemer has done! We here in Florida celebrate with you and are blessed to be in the same company with you: “The Father’s Flock!!