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with Martha Kilpatrick and John Enslow
(M) I just, I haven’t had the same ‘yes’ to Him as this. I’ve had the surrender, the times, the difficulty and the joys of surrender, but this is a ‘yes’ to everything. There is no ‘no,’ John. All of the ‘no’ is on man’s part.
(J) Hmhum.
(M) There’s no ‘no’. The scripture says there’s not a ‘no’ in Christ. And there’s not a ‘no’ in God, because He’s given His all, His best, in the Son. We were into the discovery of infinity. Mathematical science now has been able to prove infinity through the use of computers. But what was fascinating in that explanation of it, that we watched… I think it was in Nova, is that in the universe there is no subtraction. There’s only multiplication and addition, and it goes on and on and on and on, and on and on. And there is no ‘no.’ We’re the only ones. We’re the only beings that have had the audacity, the presumption, the stupidity, to say ‘No God, I’d rather do it myself, thank You. I don’t need You. And I don’t, I don’t want Your will because it’s not the best.’ So we’re the only beings that have resisted and rebelled against God as God. And I think that this ‘yes’, was the end of every form of resistance in me, to Him. And it has been… He moved it to the experience of Isaiah, in Isaiah six; and I’ll tell about that later, but “here am I, send me”. He moved it to that, and then took me to a tremendous challenge of that. But you’ve got into it and you’ve written some things, John, that I’d love to hear. Well, let me just tell this while you’re thinking. Some years ago somebody said, Martha, help me, please, to say ‘no’ to people. I don’t have the strength or the power to say ‘no’; I give in to their demands. So I didn’t answer her, but I went to be with the Lord, and He said something to me that relates to this. He said, tell her to make her ‘yes’ to Me so big that her ‘no’ is easy; that her problem is not ‘no’ to people, her problem is her ‘yes’ to Me; and that was bigger, bigger answer than I dreamed at the time. So, what have been your thoughts?
(J) Well I’m… I’ve just been writing about the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’, and the fact that I just see that literally our fibers and our being were created with that ‘yes’. It says, you know, in that scripture, that it was not yes and no, but it was a divine ‘yes’. And that means that I was created in a ‘yes’.
(M) Well John, you came back with something that I thought was awesome. You really took the ‘yes’ into your being when you said I am a ‘yes’. And you were referring to God’s creation of you, that your very existence meant a ‘yes’, do you remember?
(J) Oh yeah, absolutely. I, I am a ‘yes’, because God, the creator, is ‘yes’. He made a ‘yes’, and that ‘yes’ is me.
(M) Don’t you think John, any rejection of yourself, just even as a needy human being, any rejection of your story, your failings, whatever, is a rejection of God, to say ‘no’ to God?
(J) Absolutely. I said to you the other day… I tried to get it taped down, and I lost it. But I said that all my life that I’ve been trying to fashion myself from a ‘no’. No to sin, no to self, no to the devil, no to this, no to that. And the fact is that I’m a ‘yes’; I cannot base my life upon a ‘no’, because I am a ‘yes’. I said in this writing, “Religion teaches us a long list of no’s. We are taught to blockade ourselves amongst a plethora of no’s in an attempt to become holy. No to this temptation, no to that temptation, no to self, no to sin, no to evil desires, no to the devil, yet I am built on the premise of yes. The fibers and makeup of my body is yes, not no. My no as preeminent force is pointless, futile, and ultimately deceptive. My ‘no’ to things deludes me to think that I’ve made a choice. A choice has to always be first a ‘yes’, and then your ‘no’ will fall in line as a result.”
(M) What do you mean ‘your no as a preeminent force’? Your ‘no’ coming first?
(J) I cannot base myself on a ‘no’. I cannot base my entire life on a ‘no’, on a negative.
(M) Ok.
(J) It’s like you would say to me about the politicians. If a politician will base their campaign on a negative campaign, they usually don’t get elected. It’s the one that makes a positive campaign that gets elected.
(M) I think that’s true of Christian organizations too. If they, if they… It’s very dangerous to fight life and society and evils and so forth, with a ‘no’.
(J) Yeah, if your basis is not a ‘yes’ to God, and it’s a ‘no’, saying some negative, that you’re against something. If your whole organization is ‘an against’ something, rather than ‘for something’, then you’re done.
(M) Hmhum.
(J) Because… the reason is because our God, our Creator, has manufactured our bodies and our world in His ‘Yes.’ And our, our… To stand in a ‘no’ state, we’re lost, we’re gone.
(M) Well let me read your words, because they’re very… they were very anointed to me. “Every fiber of my being is ‘yes’ because I was created by the Yes’of God. He breathed life into me and that is a Yes’and not a ‘no’. I can’t live by ‘no’.”
(J) Hmm.
(M) You said, “Because I am alive, I am His ‘Yes’.” I think the Yes is related to the Tree of Life. It’s related to… You wrote something about ‘it is good’. I was about to say it’s related to His very creation, and the fact that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. The Lamb… In Christ the Yes is expressed.
(J) Because He was continually in a Yes position, always. He was always ‘Yes.’
(M) And the greater Yes is that God gave Him to death, and to the cross. That is the ultimate Yes to us. You can have even My own Son. Yes, I’m going to redeem you, Yes, I’m going to do everything. Christ, in Christ there is the ‘Yes and Amen.’
(J) It’s an amazing scripture.
(M) You’ve got here “The New Living Translation”, “For all God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ, with a resounding Yes. And through Christ our Amen, which means Yes, ascends to God for His glory.” 2 Cor. 1: 20. Our ‘yes’ ascends to God, our ‘yes’ brings Him His glory; just a simple ‘yes’.
(J) It’s huge, it’s enormous.
(M) It’s beyond…It’s beyond being able to speak it and really grasp what it is you’re grasping. It’s almost so big that it is…that it cannot be expressed; it’s a mystery.
(J) And He showed… the funny thing is that He showed you this whole thing in these little clay vessels, you know?
(M) Yeah, yeah, He’s so surprising. And I came to a place in it too where I could say, I understand why they have no hands. I have no hands because of my ‘yes’ to Him; He does everything. He accomplishes everything; I don’t have to. I don’t have to wring it out with my hands, I don’t have to try, I don’t have to fix, I don’t have to have power and so I have no hands. I have no feet because I must be… My ‘yes’ is to Him, I don’t have to move myself, He moves me, picks me up and move… He moved us to France for that time, and He just, He is God. So I don’t need any the typical human methods. Now, the test of this has been pretty grim, and wrenching (Martha laughs). We won’t go there yet, but I really think my universe shifted in that ‘yes’.
(J) I think, I think all the universe shifted. Your universe included me!
(M) And Carole got wonderful insight into this too. She got… In fact she was the one that was captured in it in the first place. And standing there in the garden she said, “oh I, I wished you would be here,” and she turned around and looked at me and we both realized that that had been God’s instinctive prayer in her, and He answered it, and there we were. And really John, that was the entire trip for me. Three weeks for one word, ‘Yes.’
(J) Well this is very similar of when we went to Israel.
(M) Yes. We went to Israel for three weeks, for one moment, of seeing His return. We went to… Carole and I went to Austria for one woman. Oh He’s…
(J) His economy is just outside of our realm.
(M) Yes it is, it is, because really…
(J) Well I mean really, we were looking at this trip… We had set it up before the economic crash, and then all of a sudden we’re looking at all of this stuff falling down and hearing all of the wisdom of the financiers, and wisdom of the ‘pulpit’ so to speak, and they’re all saying just don’t spend.
(M) Hmhum.
(J) And then we go do this trip that, you know? It cost nothing in comparison to what it would have cost, but still, it was money out.
(MK) Yeah, we had to go back and say, ok God, is it really Your will? We never travel like that without a purpose. We went ‘not knowing’ why we were going, other than to be with Carole while she was in school. And that was important enough.
(J) But we don’t even know what that was about.
(M) No we don’t. We really don’t. We don’t, we just don’t go like that without a destination and a purpose, and it was quite a test for us, both financially and in faith. Have you… Did You really tell us to go and we don’t know why we’re going?
(J) Right, right.
(M) But He, He did reveal it. You know John, I think if we could comprehend that He has said Yes, that Christ, everything of Christ is Yes. All the promises are Yes. If we could ever get that it would be the foundation of faith that if God gave you a promise you could say ‘yes’. Carole said something delightful the other day. She said if you have seen it, and He has said it, how could it be that it could not be! (Laughter) And there it is. To say the ‘yes’, is to see the Yes, and if you have the Yes, then you have the faith. If He brings a promise, then the promise is Yes. So I, I really want to…
(J) The thing that has really struck me with this writing here is that most of religion is structured on ‘no’, but we serve a God of Yes so we’re in counter-opposition to it.
(M) Wow. It’s the difference between law and grace. Law is ‘no’, and grace is ‘yes’. Yes is to Lazarus to be raised; Yes is to the woman caught in adultery; Yes is to the leper; Yes is to the blind man. If You can? Yes, I can. (John laughs) We believe in a ‘No’ God, don’t we?
(J) Yeah that’s our accusation of Him. It’s the one-talent servant, I knew You were a hard Master, reaping where You have not sown.
(M) So I’ll say no to You.
(J) Absolutely, in fear.
(M) Hmhum. And call it fear.
(J) And excuse myself and blame You.
(M) Yeah, for my ‘no’. I blame You for my ‘no’. Oh my goodness, this is getting…touchy…but that’s exactly what we do. We say ‘no’ and blame Him for it. Ok, read some more John.
(J) “The power of my life will always be ‘yes’. My way to the Kingdom is a path full of ‘yes’s’. Adversely, my path away from the Kingdom is also ‘yes’. Yes is the power of choice.” I’m not… I can’t say ‘no’.
(M) (laughs) Oh my goodness, I didn’t know that.
(J) We don’t say ‘no’, we say ‘yes’, because I am a Yes.
(M) You even say ‘yes’ to leave God. To leave God is saying ‘yes’.
(J) It’s all Yes, I am created a Yes. And so there is… My path away from the Kingdom is Yes. It’s not really no, it’s Yes. You know, what is that scripture, ‘the gifts of God are without repentance’?
(M) Umhum.
(J) Ok. The fact is that I have been created as a Yes, regardless of my direction and my choice; I still am a Yes. You can think of many singers, the worldly singers out there, that actually have really wonderful talent, and have charisma and can call an audience, and God allowed them to have that blessing of that talent. And then they choose not to use it for Him. But it is a ‘yes’.
(M) Yes to the wrong thing.
(J) Hmhum.
(M) I can’t wait to read the comments that people are going to give to this, that will understand it and teach us.
(J) Well this is another scripture that I have written in here. So, “Be subject to God, resist the devil, stand firm against him and he will flee from you.” Your first command in James 4:7 is “Be subject to God”, give your ‘yes’ to God, and then resisting the devil. You know, everything is ‘yes and amen’, not ‘no’ and I won’t. “I’m a positive being. Life is plus, not minus, multiplication, not division. Life begets life. To structure our life according to a ‘no’ will leave us destitute.”
(M) Well I think for the “Tape of the Month”, I’m going to talk about this in terms of Isaiah seeing the Lord high and lifted up. So it’ll be an extension of this. And you know, John, I knew that this would be challenged, and it has been. Every day there has been a ‘yes’ to say’; ‘yes’ I will do this, but, and ‘yes’ I will face this. But, and it’s been excruciating. But I think what I’m seeing in it is I have to see the need in order to see the Yes. The Yes that swallows up this horrendous need, or this emergency in somebody’s life, or this crisis in relationship; I have to see it in its fullest horror to see the Yes. It’s like the Yes has introduced me to another level of living. And it’s quite overwhelming to me. I don’t know if I make any sense, but the whole realization of what life is, is being unfolded, and it’s like the ‘yes’ to God about it. ‘Yes’, this is reality. Yes, I receive it and send me into this reality, requires that I know His Yes to that whole thing. Ok, it says, “through Christ our amen”, which in the English means Yes, “ascends to God for His glory”. Ok. I think I want to say I’m saying ‘yes’ to what is coming to this nation; and it’s really bad. And my ‘yes’ to seeing it requires His Yes to solving it.
(J) I like the second part.
(M) Which is?
(J) Him solving it.
(M) Yeah, hmhum. It necessitates a bigger faith.
