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The Last Days
Episode #255
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Carole Nelson, Julie, Jennifer Wentzel
(M) Well, we turned off the tape, and Julie mentioned a comment I made off-hand the other day, and we felt like we had to come back and get this in. It’s so critical. I don’t think I comprehended how important it is. And I just said, “Well, the reason we’re on the issue of work and responsibility is because the appeal of the anti-Christ is going to be ‘I’ll take your responsibility, and you won’t have the burden’.” And the nations are perplexed and unable to solve the humungous problems we’ve got. We’re being set up for that. Ok, the anti-Christ comes in, the person of the anti-Christ is going to come in and say, “I’ll take care of it all, and I’ll solve it all, and you don’t have to do the work.” And we’re going to say, “Oh boy, good!”
(J) And, and, and say, “Peace, peace!” “Oh, I’ll give you peace.” “Oh, please, peace from responsibility.”
(M) Yes. And Carole had this insight. Oh!
(Carole) Well, immediately it just occurred to me, that is the counter-fit of Christ, because Jesus calls us to responsibility, only to take it and relieve us from that burden. And then Martha said “But the burden will be heavier when the anti-Christ takes over.”
(M) In other words, it’s a lie. We have to bear our responsibility. And really and truly, if we don’t it leads to enormous torment and mental disorder. But the issue,… It seems that, why are we on work for all of these weeks? And at some point the Lord showed me, this will be the appeal. Because we would love it! My burden is light and My yoke is easy, that is Christ, but the anti-Christ, as Carole got, will counter-fit that. So it’s a real… no wonder I’ve been under such warfare about this message.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) And I did tape another CD of the month, and I don’t know that I’ve ever had more difficulty getting the message out. I couldn’t even tell if it was coherent, because I was struggling so, and you and Jennifer had to encourage me that it did get it out. And I’ve got another message of the CD of the month to do on the same subject, so it’s, it’s… And you, as you were walking out the door you said the light is here.
(J) Absolutely, it’s beaming.
(Martha) On work.
(Julie) So you’re saying in essence, I’m asking God’s ways through, not around or outside or escaping. And uhmm, there’s just… I mean this is what I so hear you saying, that you’ll never know God unless you accept the fundamental work of the life that He designed for you, the suffering, the difficulty, the difficult relationships, the challenges. But the wonderful thing is, is that the minute we say, “ok, yes, I’ll take it, I’ll be it, I’ll, I’ll accept it, I’ll do it,” then He immediately takes it up and the performs it for us, as us. I love that part of the Gospel as you tell it.
(Martha) I remember saying something to you, Julie, years ago. You said you wanted to learn what I had learned. And I said there’s nothing I have learned that didn’t come through the ordinary day-to-day life, the work, the trauma, the difficulty. There’s nothing I know that I didn’t learn there.
(Jennifer) Anybody who asks for it, no matter what. You once said that God makes wisdom available to all who ask for it, uhmm, if they ask for wisdom. (Jennifer laughs.) And I don’t know that this is wisdom, but my thought was that He’s merciful enough, that He put this wisdom ‘out there’, ok, the idea of, of cost and consequences. Uhmm, Robert Heinlein, in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, which I’m not espousing, but it is one of the seminal sci-fi works. The big rallying cry is, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” In “The Princess Bride” you know, she says, “You mock my pain”, and he says, “Life is pain, Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is selling something.” These are obviously, you know, pop culture (Jennifer laughs) references, but it is out there, and there is I think, for those who have wisdom, even, even unbelievers who have wisdom of some kind, the Lord has, I think, given to those who are willing for it, a distrust of the idea that you can get something for absolutely nothing. You know what I mean, like everything’s gonna be just fine. This idea that, that it’s all, that there are no consequences for what you’ve done, that everything can be fixed, can be taken away from you, it can all be fine. Because my, my view of salvation and, you know, it is a gift. Salvation is absolutely a gift. But you can’t just be saved and have everything that you had before. You can’t have your ‘self’, you can’t have, or you’re not really His, you know? I don’t know, I’m not a theologian, I don’t know if there’s such a thing as punching a ticket for heaven and then going off and living your life as you want; I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to any of that. But the cross is costly. It’s a costly walk. Uhmm, the rewards, and the gifts that come the other side of that are enormous, and they’re beyond anything we deserve. But, there, there is a cost. It’s free, but it’s not free. Does that make any sense?
(J) Hmhmm.
(Jennifer) I guess, uhmm. (Someone in background says, but it’s the truth.) Yeah.
(Martha) Both are true. I learned, and I think someone said this, “Truth always comes in two’s, and those ‘two’s’ are a seeming contradiction.”
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) So what you said is true; both are true. It’s free and not free.
(J) That’s why people can say of the Word that it’s full of contradictions; well sure it is, because God is full of contradiction. And because His truths are so much grander than our wisdom, you know, that can encompass both apparent oppositions.
(M) And that’s the opposition we’re talking about. The call to work is very clear, very severe, with repercussions if you don’t. And the other call is to roll your works on the Lord, and He will cause you to be conformed to His thoughts and His will. So that’s, that’s a contradiction. The problem is if we deal logically, outside of the Spirit revealing everything, we will go from one side of that truth, and elevate that without the contradiction. But the Spirit will always lead you to the balance of knowing both sides of the truth.
(J) I wonder if the contradiction is just Him and me? If the contradiction is, the work is His work, His life, Him, the requirement is Him, and the opposition to that is me; the believing. I’m wondering if it doesn’t wrap it all up. Wherever there’s a negative and positive, I’m the negative, He’s the positive. Do you see what I’m saying?
(M) Yeah, wow.
(J) So, when He says, you know, you have to work, well, you say all the requirements of the New Testament are for Christ, not for me; and that it’s Christ within me living that, not me. So maybe every positive, every action, every affirmative is Christ; and every negative is, or… and I’m not saying negative like as a bad thing, I’m just saying…
(M) Opposite.
(J) Yeah, the, the opposite of, you know, works, faith, uhmm, that kind of thing. Do you see what I’m saying?
(M) I do. It’s amazing, yeah.
(J) Well, it would explain a whole lot. And it would also explain why one of the atheists’ arguments is, it’s full of contradiction; the Bible is full of contradictions. And well, the reason why you see it as contradiction is because you don’t have the mind of the Spirit. You have the mind of the flesh, so you’re only seeing it from one side, so of course it’s complete ‘bumk’ to you. But if you have the Spirit, He can encompass both of those things. He can tie them both together, because He says, “I’m doing in you, you are the…” Do you see what I’m saying?
(M) Hmhmm. I think that one of the secrets of relationship with the Lord is taking your… I call it bumping your head on the scriptures, where you can’t… You come to something that you can’t see, and you can’t live, such as, “My burden is light and My yoke is easy.” And I would, I said to Him, “It is not! So the problem is not You. You’re telling the truth; I’m the liar, but I don’t understand how.” And that, that question about the contradiction took me… was a question He provoked. So that the answer was, the contradiction is solved because Christ takes the burden. But when I bumped my head on it I didn’t know that. So if you take the contradiction that you experience, you, you, you are, I am often a contradiction to what He says I could be, and I take it to the Lord and He not only solves it, He gives it.
(J) And that’s what I see is the work that He does to level out the contradiction, to tie them together.
(Martha) To resolve it; there’s no contradiction in Him, because He is perfect harmony. So what, oh, that’s great, what we ended up in.
(J) It’s just, there’s, there’s light on it. And I believe that not only is there light, there’s an anointing for, uhmm, receiving and hearing.
(Martha) There’s got to be a booklet, doesn’t it?
(J) It’s going to be a what?!
(Martha) Booklet. (She laughs.)
(J) A what?
(Martha) I didn’t hear anything.
(J) I did. I can repeat it back to you.
(Martha) Oh it’s on tape.
(J) Hmm, it’s on tape now. So, so what is it again?
(Martha) A booklet.
(J) Yay.
(Martha) That… That only He can do.
(J) Absolutely. I want Him to do it, but it’s a booklet!
