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Judgment Brings Life
Episode #299
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Julie, Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson
(M) Ah, there are times when God sends His judgment in this life; it’s all through the scriptures, He sends judgment. I just read it in Psalm 55 and 56, that God will judge the wicked, and in this life. That’s to save us from the future judgment. And I think everybody at one time or another is under the judgment of God, where He shuts down your life on top of you. And ah, and it’s love. Carole has real insight that it’s love. There’s a book by Watchman Nee called “The Spirit of Judgment”. It’s a wonderful, I’ve never read any other work on that subject than that. But that judgment is redemptive and it is… He ever is moving, it’s so incredible; He’s ever moving to save us from ourselves, if we will allow Him to. He has every means in place. He does not want anybody to perish, but we have the choice. Julie had a, what did you tell me the other day you said He told you?
(Julie) Well in being able to see this from the perspective of multiple generations it was just redemptive for me, because at first my discipleship experience with Martha was tremendous correction for years; and it, and it, it just seemed like it was, it was just on going. And, and I’m, and I’m sure the Lord was probably flushing out a complaint I’d had against Him along the way at times of saying why, why are You always so hard on me? And, and He said back to me at that point, He said very plainly, and I’ll just say the word as I heard it, “Compassion never delivered you from anything, accountability did.” And He showed me how there had been people along the way in my life who had had ‘quote, unquote’ compassion or pity, or whatever for me, for whatever reason, and it did not bring me out of my sin. It did not bring me into any new place of life at all. And I saw how the accountability that He brought to me through Martha, the unrelenting accountability was the thing that brought me out and actually delivered me. So it just completely changed my appreciation of His ways.
(Carole) That pity, or, that pity or compassion that Julie’s talking about really doesn’t do anything but stroke your flesh, and the judgment of God is clear about the flesh, (background laughter) death. (Background: hmm, umhmm.)
(Julie) I just see that, there’s times where pity can encourage; pity only encourages my irresponsibility.
(M) I had to learn the hard way that to pity a person for what they’ve gone through is to side with the devil against God, because He’s never done anything wrong, and never allowed anything other than what He permitted. So any pity is encouraging a person to have bitterness with God.
(J) Hmmm.
(M) And as I say, I learned that the hard way, the long deep hard way, that there is no place for pity of any human being. Great sorrow with them and compassion, yes, yes. Mercy and tears with suffering, but never, never the, never siding against God and causing that person to be more deeply embittered.
(J) Do you think that we entangle, ah, empathy and sympathy, with pity? Because I can empathize with where you’ve been and the suffering, and I can sympathize with it.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) But somehow pity is, somehow pity is tied in there that trying to, it’s probably a snake that’s trying to tie into it to say ‘this is compassion, this is empathy, this is sympathy’.
(Julie) I think it has to do with, from the discipler’s standpoint whether or not you’re on the side of God. Because what I see with Martha is that she was steadily on God’s side, uhmm, insistent to bring me out the only way that I could come out, by, she defended God’s goodness in my life. And it was only, I realize now it was only ever my flesh that would cry out ‘You’ve been too hard on me’, and that was a lie. So I’m so grateful now that she never moved from being on His side to bring me to see it from His side; that was my deliverance.
(M) I’m glad you came along late in my life Julie, (Martha laughs) because I’ve certainly done it the, the wrong way before; and I’m glad you didn’t have to go through that. Because I, I did believe in victimization, that, that ah, a reason, the blame, pity is blaming God and accepting the person’s blame of something else for their sinful attitude, so.
(J) Pity is the, the outcropping of saying God’s not good. Ok so then that’s, that’s the difference, if you say God is good and have compassion for a person who has had suffering, that’s empathizing with them, and sympathizing with them, and that’s giving in, into it and saying that does hurt. But when you pity you say, yeah truly God really isn’t good. Pity is a negative and forceful thing.
(Jennifer) As you’re talking about it, the, the love of discipline, uhmm, you can cut this is you want, it might be revealing too much. When I was under God’s judgment and wrath in massive confrontation, uhmm, John spoke a word to me and he said, “You are outside the camp, unto Him, so that He can personally minister to you, in that respect.” And the, the strongholds that I think are, they’re, they’re all ah, infectious, and we talked so much about defilement and, and contagion and, and, and those sorts of things. And God is, is the Master Physician, and to not uhmm, put a ‘typhoid Mary’ outside the camp is to not care enough about everyone else in the camp is, you’re basically murdering them, in a way, because you’re exposing them ah, to this deadly infection, to this deadly disease; uhmm, and I know bitterness and self-pity, all those things, they, they awaken that in us, they spread, they, they ferment, they are gross. And they get so infected. And this idea of John’s word to me was just so incredible, and it gave me such a, I don’t know, it somehow opened enough in me to say oh, I am, I am so sick right now and I’m so diseased, and I require such drastic treatment, uhmm. And that’s God’s love that put me outside the camp so that He could literally, uhmm, do the enormous cuts and incisions and, and medicating and healing of me that needed to be done. And uhmm, otherwise He would have been ‘not good’, He would have been responsible for letting me infect His children and kill them. And I just…
(M) Well John was referring to Miriam, and how when she spoke against Moses and criticized him, who was the God appointed leader, she became leprous. And leprosy is hideously infectious. And ah, so she was put outside the camp seven days, which means completely, until she was completely dealt with. Ah, seven is the number of perfection. And they, Moses interceded for her and she was healed. And so that’s a perfect picture. Thank you Jennifer. That brings in the perfect picture of His healing judgment, and that’s, we’ve known that God in our midst.
(J) But you know it was days, it was days for you and for Miriam, it was days, because you weren’t left to perpetuate it and foster it in, in the Body, it was something that could be dealt with not over years. And, and it would be a disservice and an abuse of you not to facilitate that, because then all you would be doing, not only infecting people, but you would be getting worse, you would be deteriorating in that. So, I, I don’t want it to be a, an excuse for people to go into isolation. (Background: no, no.) Which is also a fostering of the same exact thing.
(Julie) Well, what, what, what reminded me of that word you gave me was I was reading Hebrews in Hebrews twelve, you know where it talks about the Lord disciplining those whom He loves, and that’s what makes you a son. And 12-13 it says, “Therefore strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.” And I thought about dislocated, and I could be misunderstanding it, but so what is lame, starting out as, as ‘off’, as lame, ah, dislocated to me meant cut off completely, so maybe amputated is, is kind of how I read it. So we’re all sick, and that discipline comes in and says well you can either be healed, or you can be cut off and thrown out completely, which do you prefer? Discipline? Or isolation forever because you wouldn’t subject, you wouldn’t go to the doctor. Because you wouldn’t see that your hands and feet are, are purple and swollen and pussy and you say everything’s fine. And it’s something that can be healed, and if you won’t be healed, then you’ll be cut off, and, and thrown out, like you have to do with gangrene or something. I don’t know. I hope I’m not…
(J) I think gangrene’s a, a perfect example of it.
(M) But the issue with these two, who are testifying, Jennifer and Julie, and those of the rest of us in the room, were willing to stand in that Light. Jennifer did a lot of work on her face. She got on her face before God and, and He met her beautifully, transformingly, perfectly. And, but they went to the Light instead of to hurt feelings. And they did the work. They took responsibility to seek God for that discipline.
