The Spiritual Warfare to Make Us Passive

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The Spiritual Warfare to Make Us Passive
Episode #524
December 18, 2016

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow

This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #523.

(Martha) Now, John, I know when the Holy Spirit is on you, and you get fierce against the enemy, I’ve never seen anybody more aggressive than you. You will simply draw the line in the sand and tell him, “NO,” and he can’t cross it when you do that. But we’ve got to understand that we are at war, and the basic thing the enemy does, the most insidious, vicious thing he does, and he can do it, he can get us to be passive. “He’s not involved in this situation. No, it’s just people.” Don’t we just think it’s people or we think it’s us? But behind every disorder is the enemy. Behind every conflict is the enemy. Yes, behind every bush is the enemy, and I want to have the discernment that defeats him in a whole new level of faith.
(John) Well, I see that there’s two ways that he does. He either makes you passive and negligent, or he makes you aggressive and goes beyond and obsessed, where it’s almost like – the only thing I can remember is when the Sons of Sceva went out and they said, “Yeah, well we know Paul and we know Jesus, but who the heck are you?” and then beat them up. (John’s paraphrase) And because they went outside of the realm of what God was saying. You can’t do, you can’t enforce the authority without the Author of and the Lord of…
(Martha) Good point.
(John) …of it all.
(Martha) Umhmm.
(John) And you can’t go beneath it where you don’t do it at all.
(Martha) Right.
(John) And I think that Satan’s attempt is to go either extreme.
(Martha) Umhmm.
(John) But if, going back to my, you know, kind of my through line of everything that I write. It’s all about relationship. If you’re in relationship with Him for reigning and ruling, then you’re in relationship in the reigning and ruling that we’re doing on the earth.
(Martha) Umhmm. And ruling on this earth has been a passion of mine for a long time. So, the ruling would be under assault. The revelation about ruling in this life, “Those who receive the abundance of grace and righteousness shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus.” That’s in this life, and the passion. And I’ve seen it so many different ways over the years, but I have a new positive passion to rule and reign in the Spirit, in His will by bringing the Kingdom to earth, and to witness that victory over the enemy and to be the… I want us to be the vessel of the victory over the enemy. I want us to function as church at war. And we go through, we’ve gone through seasons, and there is a season for everything. And we’ve been through seasons where we looked at the preparation of…
(John) Surviving the Cut…
(Martha) Surviving the Cut, which was about the training of special forces, Navy Seals. And so, there are times when we are very aware of warfare. Then there are times when we’re not. That’s ok as the Spirit moves, so long as we’re in the Spirit. But one of my favorite writings is deep inside the archives of the website (ReadMK.com), and it’s about warfare. It’s called, Waging War. And in it I say that you’ve been conscripted to war. You were not, you had no choice. When you joined the Kingdom at your new birth, you came into a Kingdom under assault. That writing, I think, will be… I’m writing a book on warfare, and there’s one man up north who prays for that booklet to be finished, that booklet on warfare. And I appreciate – he has a vision for it and a need for it, I think. And he’s praying more than I am. I’ve been passive. Haha, I have the book on warfare? Have I prayed and prayed? No, but I’m about to.
(John) Well, I’ve had to this morning just repent for living beneath the expression, the life and the power and the glory and the grace that God has purchased with His life. And I realize, “Oh, my gosh, I really am passive about things.” I really do roll into passivity, self-fixing, self-whatever, self-medicating.
(Martha) Well, both of us have been hit physically, and it’s been a time for me of great weakness, which I’m coming up out of by God’s grace. And God willing, I’m going to be teaching on prayer again in late January or February, because I have learned so much, some exciting things I’ve learned about the Lord’s Prayer, that great treasure chest of Jesus. Ok, the central verse on warfare is this: Revelation 12:11. And this morning as John and I were sharing and repenting and taking communion and seeking the Lord and reading scripture, I realized because the third issue and the first issue is they overcame him, Satan, the accuser, by the blood of the Lamb. Verse 10 of that declares that he’s been thrown down to earth, but he’s still accusing. That’s all he can do is accuse. And if you accept the accusation, you’re defeated. You’re under him. So you come against the accusation, and the accusation is also against God. Satan continually assaults the character of God as he did with Adam and Eve. But the Blood of the Lamb overcomes. The word of our testimony, which is the word of promise, and that you love not your life unto death. And suddenly I saw that meant not just dying a martyr’s death, but it means dying to self. If you can die to self, you can die a martyr’s death. But the dying to self and receiving Christ is a daily transaction. The best writers, such as Murray, Austin-Sparks, Simpson, Stoney, all declare that everyday you must make a choice. God is new every morning. His mercies are new every morning, but every day is a choice. It will end up being a choice, whether you’re aware of it or not. And you’ll end up making choices through the day either for self or for God. But before that begins, the morning prayer is, “I choose Christ, not me. I choose the Lord, not self.” And that sets, that gets you on the right road, on the right pathway to, “the way, the truth and the life.” And so, you’re already set in your direction, and during that day you see Him and know Him. But that’s to me what it means to, “Love not your life even unto death.” That’s what it means to die daily. It means daily you give yourself to the grave and consider that your old person who’s… The old man is passive, the old man listens to the devil, the old man has all of the weakness of the fallen humanity, but that’s been solved. And we have to come to know and to reckon that we are dead. The only solution for so much that we are and do and make mistakes in, fail in, the only solution the scripture gives is, “Reckon yourselves dead.”
(John) Yeah, I was just going to say the solution, the only solution is death.
(Martha) Because there’s only… It has to die. There’s nothing salvageable about the old self. So, I’m excited because I believe that the Lord has opened a new season over us. A season, not so much of warfare, but of victory, the season of standing in the victory. And in writing about warfare, I came to see, I think it’s in the Amplified version, that, “after you’ve done all, stand.” Stand, stand in the position and in the truth and in the testimony and the blood. Stand. And so, that’s become very, a very big revelation to me. And I’ve been standing for John, but I understand now that I have to stand more aggressively in the Spirit. And early this morning I had a very loud prayer that the Holy Spirit initiated. And that’s what we need. We need to let the Holy Spirit… We don’t know how to pray as we should. It’s the Holy Spirit who gives the prayer, and it’s the Father, it’s the Father who gives the prayer to the Spirit, and the Spirit comes to us and gives us the power and energy of the prayer and the victory.
(John) Well, I’m looking at, you know, in Joshua 24 where it says, you know, “Choose this day who you will serve.” It’s like that’s our question everyday. “Choose this day, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Choose this day who you’re going to serve.” And so, it’s like that’s our ever present challenge, that basically God is saying, “Who’s today? Who’s going to reign in this world today? Who’s going to reign in your life today? Is it going to be Me or is it going to be…” You know.
(Martha) And you know, Billheimer in his book, this one about, Behold, I Give Unto You Power, he shows how powerfully God has given free choice and will not violate it. If you choose self, then God won’t fight you. He might show you. He might give you pressure, but He won’t make your choice for you. That choice must be made. And you know, John, I was thinking, the successful life is a life of consistent habits. And one thing the enemy goes after is habits. There are certain habits during these months of recovery, there are certain habits that I have lost. And I’m not only trying to do them again, such as keeping a list of the scriptures He gives me, all kinds of things I used to do, and supposed to do as a habit. And this is to be a habit, “Choose this day who you will serve. Choose.” Life flows on decision. What you have today is what you decided yesterday, whether it was good or bad. So decisions of the will make the direction of life.