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Grace In the Blood of Jesus
Episode #167
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jacquelyn, Jennifer and Julie
(M) When we were in the conference, and it was really rather crucial, John was really stricken in a way you’d go to the emergency room, normally. And I could not get concerned. I absolutely could not. I could not, enter any kind of fear or worry about it. And so we went through the conference and John functioned, and it was extremely difficult. And I couldn’t even remember his state, because for me it was not an emergency. And so that’s how we treated it. And then as he was led of the Lord, it was very simply and beautifully led by grace. Even in his self-punishment he was led by grace, as you were Jacquelyn. Grace is, astonishing and shocking.
(J) It was very gracious for Him to do it that way, and to teach me a lesson even in it; and say, “Ok, in keeping with your idolatry of ‘self’, in keeping like Ezekiel 14, in keeping with your idolatry of ‘self’, I am going to lead you.” What does that scripture say? Is it 14:4?
(M) Well, this is a scripture that many years ago we had a revelation about. It’s Ezekiel 14; you could start at 4 and 5. What it really means is that God comes to you through your idols. He comes to what’s in your heart, in that very place, and captures you in the middle of your idols. That’s what we got out of it. It says, “Speak to them and say, Thus says the Lord God: Anyone of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart, and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are estranged from Me through their idols.”
(J) The end of verse four, “I will answer him according to his many idols.” And then verse five says, “So that I may take hold of the house of Israel by their hearts.” Because that’s where their hearts were, is with their idols. So He, in order to get their hearts, He went into their great idolatry and in keeping with their idolatry, and where their hearts were laid, He went into that. And that’s the graciousness of God. That’s just so gracious, that He, in my self-hatred, and in your self-hatred, He brought about the gracious revelation of Himself, and was able to use it after our repentance and after our dealing.
(Jacquelyn) Before He gave me the verse in Corinthians, He gave me Is. 41, which is about idolatry. And in verse 10, He said to me, “Fear not, there is nothing to fear for I am with you. Do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My victorious right hand of rightness and justice.” So it’s His rightness and justice. And then it says, “Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded.” Well that was me, I was enraged and inflamed against myself. But even with that, He gave me the hope that He would hold me up and retain me with His victorious right hand.
(M) Jennifer said something the other day, so powerful along this line, and I asked her if she would share.
(Jennifer) I was speaking out of something the Lord has shown me about myself. And that is uhmm, I think that I, me, Jennifer, that God created, creation of God, , that God dreamed, is a gremlin. And by that of course I mean a tiny scabby little monster. And I believe that the person, persona, personality that I create for myself to be loved, to present to the world, that ‘that’ is acceptable, and that is worthy of love. And that of course, you know, it’s the exact opposite. And when I’m in the Spirit with Him, and I look out and I’m seeing another believer, and I see them, the creation of Him, and that is what moves me and moves the Spirit in me to love them. And it was one of those things that just kind of exploded in me, and He said, “Right, but this is what you do;” this is what we all do. We think that we are, are monstrous and unlovable. And He created us, and we are His creation; so basically what we’re saying is that we can create something better than God. That what He created is ‘a gremlin’. And that somehow we, better than God, can create a gorgeous mask, or some sort of person; that we can create anything really, but we, we decorate ourselves, and that’s what is, you know, actually monstrous and rings false with people and … You know, it’s the ‘gremlin’ if you will (Jennifer laughs), that He wants, because that’s who we really are. And it’s, I don’t know. For me it was getting down to that blasphemy, the very bottom of that, which is that I held bitterness because I said that, you know, You did not create something good. I’m not good. And I’m going to have to work on that, Lord, because You failed. That’s what I mean by ‘gremlin’.
(Jacquelyn) He just, He wants us so to have His victory. (Jacquelyn speaks with deep emotion) I just see His arms, just ohhh, just reaching, reaching, reaching, for us to have it: for us to have it all, all.
(Julie) Just for the sake of sharing with the group, confessing before we take communion this morning, Ahmm, I really don’t have words to say this in any way that’s going to be eloquent or whatever. I just have need to confess, in a sense, because I need your witness with me to receive the Blood for specifically the sins I’ve committed against this group. I’ve had trouble… I realize I’ve had trouble receiving the Blood for what I’ve done in this group. And, and Martha has warned me, and I’ve really taken her warning to heart, that that is the place, that is the danger, kind of at this point, that after having… I mean, there is so much Light, and when it all comes out in Light, she warned me that the danger would be that if I didn’t take the Blood I would withdraw. And ah, I’m just kind of in that battle right now, you know? And I didn’t realize it is a, it feels like a peculiar kind of Gethsemane even. It’s a real dying to self to let it go, you know, and just to accept that the Blood, as she says over and over, the Blood is the only Solution. It’s the only way out. It’s the only way that I can walk away from this point forward. And anything less, I know I am going to withdraw. But I’ve, I’ve struggled with it. And ah, and ah, even ah, ah; just with everything that I’ve been, it’s just, I don’t know. I’ve just struggled to receive the Blood, to just really accept that it’s done, and it’s over. And ah, but I know I need to, I know I need to. So it’s kind of like, I guess… And I don’t even know if this is valid, but I want to say it before the group. I want your witness that today I do receive the Blood, specifically for my sins in this group, and so that I can go on. It’s not His way to let us ‘go off and hide’ after we’ve sinned. And I’ve felt like, I’ve felt like a little child that had had a bad horse accident, and He’s forcing me to get back, forcing me to face it and forcing me… Not forcing in a harsh way at all. It’s loving, it is Him bringing the Blood, beseeching, like Jacquelyn said, reaching, going I’ve made provision for you. It’s ok; I’ve made provision for you. (Spoken with tears.) But I also realize there’s a part of it that is a real walking out choice, a real dying to ‘self’, a real laying down of, of pride. It is a wonderful, wonderful solution to pride because it’s coming to the acceptance that there is, there is no ‘other’ provision. I need no other provision. I have to choose it, and I have to walk it out and live it out, and…
(M) Earlier this week when we took communion, one person said, after I’d shared my own experience and revelation of the Blood. One person said, “I never knew it ended at the communion table.” And what I said to them was, this is your ceremony of remembering His real Blood, and His real Flesh, and this is the stake where you lay it down, and you walk away clean. And I said this on the March “Tape of the Month”, which not everybody hears this will get. But I said, when God called me to write “Cain and Able”, I thought, “Why would You want any book about Cain and Able?” (Martha laughs.) And then He changed the title to “The Better Blood”, and I stopped working on that manuscript because I said, “You are entrusting me to speak of the Blood? You are giving this assignment to me? I would never ever presume to know anything, or speak anything about the Blood. So, You have to show me what it is I know; I don’t know what I know about the Blood, I don’t know what I’ve got to say.” And He has been sort of bringing that out. And what I learned about myself, that I know, is from those early days that I counted on the communion table. I counted on that as the symbol of my complete forgiveness, and restoration to His Life. And that was so simple and basic a thing for me that that’s how I functioned for these years. Now I see the Blood in much greater revelation. But it was enough for years to end it at the communion table as my ceremony, visible, actual, ceremony of taking the Blood of Christ into my very being, into every cell of my body; taking His Life in the Bread, to live in a different Life than the one I had lived in sin. And it actually… I just want to say simply, it works; it works to clear your conscience and change your very ‘being’. And I didn’t know that that wasn’t everybody’s experience or faith. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know to tell that. And when one of our group said I didn’t know it ended at the communion table… That is it. That was so beautifully put.
(J) I’ve recognized that in going to communion that I bring, I bring it all back to the table every time. I come to communion and I say, ok, well here I am again, remember me? And all that’s behind me? Yeah, well here I am again. I don’t come as clean from that last communion to the next communion; I bring the entire lot of it back.
(M) Which means you never accepted the Blood.
(J) That’s, that’s right.
(M) And so you’re without the Life.
(J) That’s, that’s right.
(Julie) So is that… I was thinking about this scripture. I think it’s somewhere in Hebrews where it talks about that it’s only the blood of Christ that can cleanse the conscience. So is it true then that wherever I continue to remain in a guilty conscience, then I haven’t received the Blood? Is that right?
(M) Yes. Yes, but you receive it by faith. And the symbol is drinking the wine or the grape juice, whatever you choose; the symbol is that. But the faith is what He says about the Blood, not what I understand about the Blood. What He says about the Blood is the issue. And many years ago how He trained me in this is, He said, “The Blood is enough for me, why is it not enough for you?”
