Podcast: Download (11.0MB)
Subscribe: RSS
The Cross Is Letting Go
Episode #225
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) But I want to read you something that came from Austin Sparks. It is just astonishing. It’s from his writing called “The Last Adam”. And he’s talking… Remember how I’ve always said… I’m not letting you talk; do you have anything to say?
(J) This, this is testimony time. (Martha and John laugh)
(M) Yeah. When you pick up the ‘rock’ of any human invention, you will ultimately find death under there. There’s a lot of inventions that came from God’s idea, that are not ending in death, but when man dreams up to immense pride, the ultimate end of it is death. And he’s talking about that in essence here, about the mess of the world; that we should be in a place where everything is available, and we should be at peace and happy. And we’re less so than ever. And he said, “This state of things in development intensification, discovery, invention, is most pronounced, but you have the most awful strength of human will against God. Is not that true? It is soul strength; a strength of human soul.” And we fail to see that this is history. He said, ah, “The greater man seems to be, the less he is able to cope with his own dreams,” meaning the result. He has a dream. He gets the dream by soul strength, and then he can’t even cope with what has happened. “He has wrought it out, but now he is a mere puppet, a play-thing of his own greatness.”
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Ok, well that is the way of history, he says, past, present, future. But then he says, “There is no other word to explain it than this, the greatness is cancerous. What is cancer? Well, I cannot answer all the research on the matter, but I will tell you what is known, that cancer exists because of the loss of one central governing and regulating authority. It is something that has broken away from authority and ignores controlling and regulating authority in the organism, and becomes an authority in itself, becomes some thing that is something in itself, and has absolutely refused that central authority regulating and governing within the organism. It has taken things into its own hands. It is cancer, the scourge. This greatness of man is like that. Look at it, it has broken right away from the great controlling authority of God and God’s will. The result is the scourge on humanity.
(J) The cancer has become a law unto itself.
(M) Yes, exactly, it’s lawlessness, coming from the desire to ‘be God’, and to control. So you see John, the cross above all else is the relinquishment of control. And it is very, it’s very deadly. I’ve been, as you know, with several parents to their deathbed. And one of them I realized at one point, I’ve told this before, but it’s still… In the light of this it’s quite staggering. I saw one of those parents face the certainty of death, but instead of letting go, that one began to crunch, hold on and control, and use the sickness to control. And I pondered it, and I thought, you know the skill of learning to live, is learning to die.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) It’s not learning how to keep, keep life; it’s learning how to let go. You’re listening to…
(J) “The Art Of Letting Go”.
(M) “The Art Of Letting Go”, and so, in all three cases that I mentioned, it was really a call to ‘let go’. And the “Yes” woman, (Martha laughs), apparently had let go to a large extent. She’d even let go to accept the cancer and trust God with it. And so she came out of it, in essence, healed of it. So, I share that because it’s so crucial these days. Because the plague… you mentioned the plague is divorce. And I wanted to go with you there to say divorce is on every ground, and divorce is leaving God. Divorce is not about marriage, John, it’s about somebody or both have left God, and they have become cancerous because of being independent.
(J) Wow.
(M) We don’t understand that independence is cancer.
(J) Hmhmm. Wow.
(M) And God showed me once some years ago, that everybody who would come under both God’s authority, and delegated assigned spiritual authority, would not have cancer. And I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand on what ground He could say that. And, of course I believe that I was healed of cancer six, seven years ago when I had a mass. And another… I’ve told this story before. I’ve never told these three stories before, but I’ll tell this one. A young, beautiful, beautiful, precious young woman, that I just had such an anointing for, I just loved her to pieces, became very dangerously sick, and with very bad symptoms and she believed it was cancer. And all I did was look at the Lord, I’ll say at three o’clock on a Tuesday in the afternoon. I looked at the Lord and just adored Him for her, and just was soaked in His love for her, and she was radically healed that moment. (Martha laughs) So it’s all… But see how much more difficult it is to, for someone to receive healing, who has control of their body, and control of their world. This is, this issue of the cross literally is life or death. You will choose to die for Christ, or you’ll choose to die for Satan. And I realized one time, many years ago, oh well I’m going to die one way or the other.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I’d rather die for Christ. But I will die; we will die.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Death is in ascendancy with the soul of humanity. Death conquers us, if we don’t conquer it by dying.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) The only…
(J) Isn’t that the…
(M) It’s a paradox.
(J) Ironic.
(M) It is a divine, spiritual paradox that you only conquer your own death by dying first. I’ll die first. I will give up, let go, relinquish. You know, I didn’t get over my mother’s death at fourteen, for twenty-five years. You know why? I didn’t let go of her. She was gone. But I didn’t let go of her. I kept saying I will too have a mother. I will independently say to You, God, You’ll not take my mother. So I looked for other mothers, and they about killed me, because they were supposed to.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I finally had to accept the loss, and accept that I didn’t have a mother from the age of fourteen, and that I was in many ways very damaged by that. So I accepted it. So be it. It’s God’s way, God’s will, God’s purpose. He healed me by saying to me, “I, God, hold the keys to hell and death. Now, thank Me.” And I did, and it was over. But it was relinquishing control. We want to control things, people, or God, and that’s the temptation of the wilderness. ‘Ooo-oou’. Ok. And I just, I feel like it’s too important a message, too vital a testimony. Cancer is our scourge. And the promise to those who take refuge in Him, and let Him be all, that promise in psalm 91 is that the plague will not come near you. So, oh, I’m sending this out to exalt the cross of Jesus Christ and say, come to the cross, and ‘let go’ of what God is taking, asking for, or has already taken. And I learned, you know, from watching people in the last fifteen years, I have learned to let go when God says ‘let go’. Not without tears, not without agony, but I’ve learned to ‘let go’, to not own anything. So…
(J) And have anything own you.
(M) Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Wow. So, that’s the core of my life. So your question, how do you get to ‘the bliss’? You die your way into it.
(J) Hmmm.
(M) And it is worth every… I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I wouldn’t change my life on any ground. Everything has been the cross, to take me to Him alone, everything. And I’m sort of like Paul, I have, I’ve suffered the loss of all things and gained everything.
(J) Hm, hm, hm.
