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The Carpenter
Episode #247
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) I taped a couple of series for teenagers, and I started with, We don’t know the real Gospel.” The real Gospel is more than Jesus saved us from our sins. The real Gospel is Christ came to live in us and make us different than we’ve ever been. So anyway, back to gnosticism. Gnosticism… See Satan knew the most marvelous manifestation of Christ on this earth is through our, in our bodies. That’s why the call of surrender is to surrender our body for Him to live in, use, and work in; not just speak through, but to live in all the aspects of our life. And I’ve been so excited this year because I have said I want to know You as Carpenter. I have never ever read or heard of anybody who got to know You as how You work as a Carpenter.
(J) Hmm, humhmm.
(M) That to me would be the most exciting thing. I know Him as Shepherd; I’m learning Him as Vine; I know Him as Savior. I want to know Him as Carpenter, because He spent the majority of His life…
(J) Absolutely.
(M)…in a practical work.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) And I want to read from First John, because First John is the book that goes directly against the Gnosticism of the early church; and he doesn’t call it Gnosticism, he calls it antichrist.
(J) Ouuu. Hmm.
(M) So you see when the antichrist can get us, when Satan can get us to be too spiritual to let Jesus be in our body, or to even believe that He would, then we are completely defeated; and we are the enemy. This is what, and I want to read it in a combination of The New American and The Amplified. Chapter four, First John, “Beloved do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone into the world. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus is come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” Let me read this in the Amplified.
(J) Ahhh.
(M) Do you see?
(J) Oh, absolutely.
(M) Isn’t it shocking, once you look at it that way? “By this you know, perceive, and recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges and confesses the fact that Jesus the Messiah actually has become Man, and has come in the flesh, is of God, has God as its source.” Only God can show you that Jesus came to live in the flesh, in His Body, and then came to live in our flesh. Another part of the Gnostic was that the body is not, will not be resurrected.
(J) Hmmmm.
(M) But that’s, we know that’s not true.
(J) Right.
(M) The body will be resurrected, so the body is for God; it is His vessel. Then he goes on to say, “Every spirit which does not acknowledge and confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, but would annul, destroy, sever,” cut Him up into parts…
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) …“disunite Him, is not of God….” He came to be united with humanity. That’s the Gospel. “…does not proceed from Him. This nonconfession is the spirit of antichrist…”
(J) Wow, wow.
(M) “…of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is already in the world.” And then he says, “Little children, you are of God, you belong to Him and have already defeated and overcome them, the agents of antichrist.”
(J) Hmmm.
(M) Now this is going to be our great test. You see, I didn’t understand the importance of this message, until I was attacked, and until I heard that “Gnosticism”. In the end times it is Laodicea, and Laodicea is rich and does not need God, because it has two things, knowledge and wealth.
(J) Umhmm, uhmhmm.
(M) And so they’re lukewarm. I’ve always believed that before Jesus comes again there would be the influx again of the pharisaical, Sadducee, ‘sadducean’ mentality, the religious, the legalist religious. And those are ones who really, at the bottom of it, people can say I believe Jesus came in human form, but if they don’t believe Jesus is in-dwelling, and don’t live from that in-dwelling, then they are actually in Gnosticism. If they’re living in their mind, and I know so many who’ve passed through my life, who did, who were so disconnected from their heart that they did not really feel they were wrong.
(J) Hmmm.
(M) Because they weren’t living in the reality of the heart. They were living in their head, and can restructure reality into what they want it to be using their mind. You know? You’re shaking your head like you know what I mean.
(J) I do.
(M) And so it’s uhmm, it’s so crucial to know what’s going on in your heart, because that’s where the issue really is. And the heart is part of the whole of the body, mind, will, and emotion. And so I don’t know, I just wanted to insert that in this because it is so crucial. Then First John says that these antichrist spirits proceed from the world, they think like the world.
(J) Hmm. Hmm…mm…mmm.
(M) It’s whole economy morally considered that they speak and the world listens and pays attention to them. And this verse six in First John is very, very crucial. “We are children of God. Whoever is learning to know God, progressively to perceive, recognize, and understand God by observation and experience, and to get an ever clearer knowledge of Him, listens to us.” You see how The Amplified goes into the Greek and expands what it means to know God; to know God is experience, observation, progression. “And he who is not of God does not listen or pay attention to us. By this we recognize the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error.” Which is as he’s saying, the antichrist. Now, it goes on from there, after verse six, to give the criterian for knowing Christ, and it is love.
(J) Hmm.
(M) The issue is love, whether…
(J) And love is out of the heart.
(M) Yes. And spirit, yes. And he goes on to define that if you don’t manifest love for the brethren, you are not of God, you don’t know God.
(J) Hmhmm. Hmhmm.
(M) There is no such thing as knowing God without being confronted with the issue of love.
(J) Hmm.
(M) There’s… And I don’t know, in verse seventeen it says, well, “God is love and he who dwells and continues in love, dwells and continues in God. And God dwells and continues in him. In this union and communion with Him love is brought to completion and attains perfection in us.” So love is not some cold mental thing.
(J) Hmhm.
(M) Love consumes you, body, soul and spirit. And love is the… Love goes… He goes on in this whole book and the two following it, to put love as the test that we give ourselves, and the test of others. Do they speak with love, or do they speak with arrogance? Because, one of the first verses that meant the world to me when I was in the King James, was “Knowledge puffeth up.” And I always thought that was a delightful way to put it; knowledge puffeth up, it is love that builds.
(J) Hmmm.
(M) So Gnosticism basically is the supremacy of the mind; it’s living by thoughts. And let me tell you quickly the remedy and the way to avoid this. It has to do entirely with surrender to the Holy Spirit.
(J) Hmm.
(M) The Holy Spirit will lead into all Truth. And without the Holy Spirit you won’t go; you won’t go there. You will be deceived. I remember hearing a teaching early on, and I just couldn’t, I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t take it, but I didn’t have enough foundation… And that’s what we need, John, is foundation in the scriptures by the Spirit.
(J) Hmmhmm.
(M) I’m working with someone now, and I really, I really know that she does not have foundation in the scriptures by the Spirit to know what the basis of our faith is. But in time, when I was so troubled about that, everybody else seemed to be excited but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, it didn’t hit me as the Truth. And it wasn’t. Later I learned, when I understood more, that it was actually heresy.
(J) Hmm.
(M) Heresy from the pulpit. And that’s shocking but very very prevalent all over the world. Whenever you remove the Person of Jesus, that’s coming close to antichrist, and certainly close to Gnosticism. But do you see how the enemy goes after this issue of Christ living in your body, and performing the daily tasks; not just ministry, but the practical?
(J) You know, for me, that understanding was a revelation. I didn’t… I, I just understood that because that’s what the Lord spoke to me. I didn’t understand it all out, but I knew it. And uhmm….
(M) You mean about His being…every work is holy that He does. Is that what you mean?
(J) Yeah, absolutely. He showed me that. He showed me that specifically with me, ok? He spoke to me where I am and what would connect into my mind. And usually it’s real kind of on the core line, and He just said…and I don’t remember exactly how He stated it because it’s been awhile. Because basically everything you do from cleaning the toilet to, you know, all of this can be eternal if it’s Me doing it. And I went…… You know, that just, I just sat back and just was like, wow, that is, that is an amazing, amazing thing.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) But I didn’t have any understanding of it. And so this further explains it to me, and kind of blows my mind.
(M) Well, it makes this little podcast series for me extremely important. And I want it to be clear what we’re saying. I want it to be clear what we’re not saying.
(J) Actually we’re, we’re breaking these two podcasts into a big longer message so we could explain the very beginning. And we didn’t want anybody to misunderstand what we were saying. And you’ve clearly gotten a word here about the Gnosticism and what would come against the, just the word that we initially brought, and just the beginning of it. I mean, we explain it further over the podcasts that will follow that. And I really wish we could do the entire message in one podcast, but it would have been over an hour long, and it’s just not feasible.
(M) And it’s easier to digest it if it’s in smaller doses.
(J) Right. But because this message is so uhm, antichrist coming against it, that Christ can indwell me and perform my daily tasks, not just my performance of healings and my performance of speaking and my performance of miracles, no, that He does my daily tasks of everything.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) And uhmm, that would be something that the enemy really wouldn’t want.
(M) Right, because it’s the manifestation of the eternal that you talked about, the manifestation of Christ Himself. And I know not nearly enough about it. But I know enough about that to know that something He does through you, if it’s the most mundane, has an anointing, a holiness on it that impacts people, His presence. It’s bringing His presence into manifestation. I think it’s Oswald Chambers, no, it’s Austin Sparks that says, “Christianity is the manifestation of Christ on the earth.” He’s got to be manifest in us, not just spoken about. That’s easy to do. You can speak volumes and have nothing of Christ in it.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) You can know reams, and have nothing of Christ in it. So this, I have a great passion for this little series now that I understand what it really means.
(J) So not only is the CD of the month for August, but also going to be for September will probably be this, and maybe even October.
(M) Hmhmm. Yeah, you’re saying I might do more than the next one on this subject. I think I need to hit this about Gnosticism in depth, and then the coming podcasts after this are going to be a group meeting, which was neat.
(J) Further with our group meeting, it absolutely, everybody was involved in it, and everybody was talking about it. And we spun off of the original podcast, which was “Eternal Work” which is #245 that came out on August 28th. And so, hopefully it will all iron itself out as we, as we play it.
(M) Yeah. And it’s interesting to me that when I started this I had no idea the real importance of it in terms of the manifestation of Christ. I had no, I didn’t see the bigger picture until this morning. So, it’s very exciting. We’re talking about something absolutely crucial to the Christian life that more and more I see in the New Testament, the call to go down into your real life and live Christ there, no matter what condition you’re in. Paul always calls to the practical, and he tells a lot about his own practical life.
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm.
(M) And ah, and particularly where this Gnosticism attacks, in the Corinthians and in First John, and in other epistles, especially there, the emphasis will be on the practical work, the practical relationship, the real life.
(J) It’s amazing.
(M) Yes, it is.
(J) Well next week, will be the continuation of the Body meeting that we had, and we hope you enjoy that as well.
