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Peace In The Rest
Episode #266
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Julie and Carole Nelson
(Julie) I don’t know if you realize it, and others, I don’t know if you all will bear witness with this, but He is increasingly in rest in you; and I mean really since your illness several years ago, and it’s like you’re speaking more and more out of that rest. And it’s such an assurance. I mean it just struck me, it’s almost like I realized that like a little child, I’m watching Him in you. And if my Daddy’s not disturbed, then I don’t have to be disturbed. And that is, that is communicating such a deep peace. I mean even His growing us backwards to become more and more ‘little children’, which to our human logic would be crazy, because we would think we need to become more and more adult, and more and more prepared, but it’s, it’s the opposite. It’s like as He’s making us more and more needy, and more and more dependent, then we can receive all of our assurance simply from gazing on Him and realizing He’s not disturbed. And so I just praise Him for that, because I just realized as you said that, that’s coming from you like a light of His countenance. He’s, He’s not disturbed. More and more and more, you remain in such… it’s maybe you’re John 15, Him answering that, I don’t know, but out of your abiding more and more and more there is such a, a confidence of Christ kind of.
(M) I’m not aware of that, Julie. So that is so… that is what I would want to be, more and more in rest. So thank you, oh, that makes me go to just amazement and wonder. I feel like to some degree, the worst has happened to me already, in many ways I’ve already been through the worst things. And there’s nothing that He doesn’t transcend.
(Julie) You promised us all years ago, something that I have held onto as a promise from Him. That when those days come, whatever they are and however they are, we will only find out how much He did make us ready. And I have clung to that more than anything. Uhmm, even as we’ve followed Him, as He’s kind of told us different things to walk in obedience, I’ve clung to at the core of everything, you’ve promised us we will find out He made us ready.
(M) I had a prayer time for one in our midst the other morning where I just realized… He has worked in my life so that I know I have an Abba. I know I have a Father, perfect, Who is intimately aware of me, and intimately providing. I was just crying out to Him the other day for one, one to know Him, know that there is an Abba. We who ah, I think I did a tape at some point that we are all ‘fatherless’, because none of us have had a father who is God, who is perfect, who didn’t disappoint, abuse, or neglect, whatever, whatever, and to be free of that earthly father so that you can know the real Father. And I think, I think was speaking about the prodigal story, but it’s not about the prodigal, it’s about the Father. It’s about Who the real Father is, and that His rejoicing is not in our ability, but in our dependence. It’s not in our capabilities, but our need. That’s what He delights and has a party is, that we need Him. And I so want us all to know the Abba; that the Spirit in us could cry out Abba. And I have had that experience a number of times, that the Holy Spirit cried out Abba in me and assured me of the sonship that you mentioned earlier, Julie. I think Jesus’ whole purpose, His delight is to take us to the Father. I descend… I ascend to My Father and your Father. And He made it possible for us to be God’s child. And so I long for all of us to know Him as Abba, Daddy, perfect. That, I think is what takes you very much to the citizenship in the heavens, is your relationship with God, and your severance from the earth. See, to miss the cross is to be absolutely without any hope of getting through. The cross is what takes you, because the cross severs you from the world, from yourself, from your family, from your dependencies, from your idols as John says, from your hopes in the government, your hopes in whatever, the church, whatever. More and more as, as I go, He causes me to know I can depend on no one and nothing, and nothing here on this earth. There is nothing here; it’s all in heaven. And that’s the work of… I love the cross. I feel utterly inadequate to even verbalize the power of the cross to set us free and take us to the heavens, and to take us to Him. We have to experience the cross or we will not experience God. So anybody who will not die, or release, or give, or surrender what God comes after, is going to lose their life. They’re going to lose their destiny. And it will be a horrible thing. I know some of you that have come into your inheritance, because you have been willing to die, only that. That’s the difference. The cross is the difference in every life. How you deal with the cross, and how you even recognize that it is the cross. Oh, we bind and rebuke the devil and we think that it’s the devil. We don’t stop to ask God is this You? Are You attacking me? Are You coming to cut my legs off and my roots out of this world? Yes. And sometimes I think even if it is the enemy, behind it is God. And He is such a faithful Father that He wants to fit us to be citizens of heaven, and get us there. I think it’s just like holiness, we can’t even, we can’t even enter that citizenship or see it or believe it or comprehend it. But more and more I believe I am believing ‘what is that to me? I’m not of this world’. And because He prayed, His last recorded prayer was that we would be kept in the world, but not of the world. That has to be, if we’re willing, if we’re willing to be kept and willing to have a Father, and willing to let go of the father that we so focus on. It’s irrelevant. Every, every, I’m sorry, every, every parent is both irrelevant, and oh, how shall I say, irrelevant to my being and my destiny, and powerless in the ability to keep me from it. I’m the only one that can keep me from it. But He wants children. He wants children, because He wants to be a Father. He calls Himself Father, and He wants to ‘Father’ us. That’s what your, your word for me was about; I am the Father, I am the government, I am the day.
(J) And I call it good.
(M) Yes, because, it’s good because He is in charge, and it’s going to look less and less like it. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but the one thing in all the universe that cannot be shaken… The universe will be shaken, the world will be shaken, the stars will be shaken, everything in the heavens will be shaken, but one thing will not be shaken; that’s the Kingdom, which is His government in heaven. The Kingdom lives in heaven, and to get into it we have to be in touch with that. Let’s pray that.
(J) The unshakeable Kingdom.
(M) The unshakeable Kingdom. We know now that even this great United States can be shaken. I really think I thought it was unshakeable, twenty years ago. Nothing could defeat us, nothing could shake us, and it was our god. You remember the story I’ve told about the Gulf War, when I set myself to pray over the Gulf War, the Lord said, “Whose side are you on, Mine or America?” And I said, “Is there a difference?” (Laughter.) And it was quite a death when I said, “I am on Your side. If You want to destroy us, go ahead.” I think that decision has made me have a lot of peace during these times.
(J) I think He’s about doing it right now.
(M) He’s able.
(J) And He is.
(M) Hmhmm. And we deserve it.
(J) Sure, hmhmm.
(M) As a nation, we have abused His blessings, denied His Name, silenced His voice, and killed His children, and felt we had the right to murder; it’s unspeakable. But I’m not a citizen here. I’m not, I’m a… I love my country, but I am not a citizen of this country. That may get me jailed one day. But it was settled then, and it was not settled lightly or easily. I am on Your side, even if You are against this nation, I am on Your side. And then prayer took us through that war with almost biblical miracles. Not so, lately. And I have had no confidence in biblical miracles for these battles. Well, we went, we went a lot of places I didn’t anticipate. We’ve been around the world and back again. He is in charge.
(Carole) I was just going to reiterate, because while Martha’s been talking I just keep going back to that one statement she made in hearing the Lion roar, and my question is, has the Lion roared? And, over this nation? And knowing Christ as the Lion is to live in the safety of fearing God, and that is where our safety is going to be during these times that are coming, is it not? And so, is He preparing us? As His call to this holiness, is He not preparing us through that to fear only Him, and to live in His safety?
(M) That is what your word is to alleviate. We are, we have, we are to have no fear of tyrants, fools, leaders, dictators. We are to have no fear. They have no power over me. I could end up as John the Baptist, but still they have no power over me. And that’s, that is what He’s preparing, that is what He’s dealing with, our fear of the wrong things, so that we will fear Him Who is holy, and Him Who is in charge. And ah… I think we’ll see days that will be unbelievable in their wonder and in His provision. I really believe… We have seen nothing of God’s care that we’re going to see. And it’s, it’s exciting.
(J) We’ve not needed it.
(M) Exactly… Exactly.
(Julie) I don’t know where this will fit in, but after you read that, Isaiah 41 came to mind, and at the beginning of Isaiah 41 God’s telling them, basically, I’m about to release Cyrus who’s going to just absolutely demolish everything in his path. Verse four says, this is just such an awesome statement of Who God is, He asked, the Lord asked the question through the prophet, “Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth the generations from the beginning, I the Lord am the first, and with the last, I am He.”
