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The Pivot Of Life
Episode #320
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Announcement by John:
Well the message you’re about to listen to actually started out as a podcast and then became a ‘CD of the Month’. The continuation of this message is called, “The Pivot Of Life”. We hope you’ll be able to take advantage of that. If you’re not a ‘CD of the Month’ subscriber you can go to Shulamite.com and do that, or you can order this individual CD. But the message is just absolutely perfect for the New Year, and I feel like it’s so apropos. We taped this message the day before Don’s passing, and I’m really grateful that we were able to get it taped. Neither Martha or I felt good, and you’ll hear that in our voices, but that minimize the tremendousness of the message. And so I hope you really enjoy it; I hope you’re able to share with us in a revelation about “The Pivot Of Life”. Most people look for the meaning of life; this is the pivot of life. I believe personally that this is the fulcrum place where life pivot’s. So thank you for listening to this podcast. I pray that it touches you and that you are impacted by the message behind it, as well as the Spirit Who brought it forth. I did want to say one other thing. Over the week’s to come, you’ll hear the final podcast’s where Don was taped. Because of the events, and because of how we had taped things, and messages that were taking precedence over other messages, we still have several weeks of messages where Don is present. And I wrote in Facebook, this comment: “Actually Don’s voice will be around on the podcasts for a few months, with the painful reminder of his empty chair, but also a tremendous joy to hear his voice and revelations. Certainly a bittersweet, but I am grateful everyone can hear from our brother for a bit longer. Thank you for all your prayers, thank you for all your support, for all the cards, and for all the love that has come forth. We surely have felt upheld by your prayers, and by your love. And we thank God for each of your inputs on this wonderful journey called life.
(J) Well this morning, Martha and I are both here, (they both laugh) looking like ‘itchy’ and ‘scratchy’, we’re just, we’re so, we’ve got the ah holiday bug whatever it is. And I’m, I’m achy and icky and we’ve just been struggling. But regardless, God is still on the throne and God is able to pull forth revelation. And so ah, we were talking about something this morning, and I don’t want to miss it; I don’t want to not get it just because I don’t feel good. Because I feel like what we’re talking about is really the crux of the human condition. So if you would say, not what’s the meaning of life, but what does the entire human condition pivot upon, I would say that this would be the issue. And the Word brings it out quite fully, and it’s all boiled down in Roman’s one. And I’ve always heard about Roman’s one; I’ve experienced Roman’s one, I’ve lived Roman’s one, and the revelation that comes out of Roman’s one is just amazing, because it really is what God says: this is your issue. Now I know that you say that all sin stems from one thing, failure to love God. But I think that this is the same thing; it’s just how it manifests. So tell me, if you can, (Martha laughs) what we’re talking about, and ah, let’, let’s unveil this amazing secret that’s very, very transparent.
(M) It’s so very simple and eternal. I was thinking this morning, and I heard this one phrase: all of life is a response to God, whether you know it consciously or unconsciously, whether you realize it or don’t, from the womb on everything in life evokes a response to God. We think we’re responding to a person or a situation or ourselves; but we’re not, we’re responding to God. And our response to God brings a result that goes on and on and on. And Roman’s one is the list of the result. Being a fool, ah, worshiping idols or people or birds or animals, ah shameful things, vile, ah, believing lies and God abandons us to our shameful desires. It goes into immorality and impurity, and then finally it goes to a reprobate mind, which is extreme mental illness. And see, I really believe so much of the violence that we see now, could be medical, could be, but they’re looking for all the wrong ways to find the right answer. The right answer is so very simple that we can’t imagine it would be that powerful. The response to life and, is this. Paul establishes in Roman’s that we can see God, there’s no excuse, He’s in creation, this fantastic, beautiful creation is the evidence of God. And even science now…. Oh I have to get into physic’s a minute. Now they’re discovering that there’s no such thing as empty space; that space is filled with an energy so great that that energy if it went in a direction would destroy the whole universe, not just one planet, not our little earth. It would destroy the entire universe if that energy were not kept. They don’t know what keeps it; they’re trying to figure out what keeps it, but we know its Jesus, “all things are held together by Him”. But you see, we’re without excuse. We know there’s a God. You take an atheist and put him in a, a painful situation and he’ll cry out, God. Ok, here is the secret. “They can clearly see His invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature.” So they have no excuse whatever for not knowing God. “They knew God, but they wouldn’t worship His as God, or even give Him thanks.” In other words, it’s sovereignty and gratitude. Every now and then I come around to it, and I do a tape of the month, I’ve done it more than once on giving thanks in all things. And everything else, if we aren’t grateful for what He gives and doesn’t give, we start down this long list of decline, down into a reprobate mind, which is mental illness. And so we’ve been on for sometime, giving praise and thanks in all things. And I’ve been through something that’s been very difficult to do that. But I’ve done it, and I’ve come to see how perfectly God’s sovereignty ordained that suffering for my freedom.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) He orchestrates everything. Just as like we’ve been through in Jonah, how God sovereignly orchestrated everything, from the vine to the whale. And Jonah was perpetually ungrateful. And he didn’t acknowledge God as God. And so he didn’t fear Him, he wasn’t afraid to run from Him. That’s, that’s one aspect of this revelation He’s giving us. It is that your life, you said it, your life turns on whether you understand God is God, really to the ultimate, ‘ninth’ degree, to the deepest and the highest and the lowest, God is in control. And number two, everything He does for you, for me, is perfect; so I give Him thanks not knowing, needing, or how it’s going to end or why it could possibly help me.
(J) Jonah knew something about God that a lot of people don’t know about God, that He is loving and faithful, and that He is long in mercy. And though He does have His judgments, He says, right in Jonah four, he knows something that a lot of people don’t even know about God. I’ve known many a Christian who wince, fearing His disapproval, and fearing His anger and wrath more than acknowledging His love. But this man, who did know it, he says, “Didn’t I say before I left home that You would do this Lord? That is why I ran to Tarshish, I knew that You were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with loving kindness; I knew how easily You would cancel Your plans for destroying these people.” And see, he knew a loving and compassionate God in the Old Testament, which is fascinating to me. Because you know, we accuse Him of being so wrathful in the Old Testament, and clearly He displayed His wrath on a regular basis. But the fact is that Jonah, this man, knew that God was completely compassionate and loving and unfailing love, even to this, he knew it would even go to the Gentile’s. It wasn’t just boiled down to the Jews; He would do it to those Gentiles’s. And he knew it, uhm, those vile creatures would get that same love, because that’s Who God is; it’s His character. So Jonah knew the character of God. So now going back to Roman’s one, we have to literally, no matter how old we are, whether we’re seventy-two, forty-five, thirty-three, sixteen or five, we have to put a stop sign in our life and we have to look at it and say that God is good for what He has allowed, for what He has designed. And you can’t just go down your Santa Claus checklist and say oh I thank You for this wonderful house I have and this beautiful wife I have and these beautiful children I have and this wonderful job I have and this wonderful country I live in. No, no, that’s not where He’s asking you to do that. That is, you have to be grateful for that, but who can’t be grateful for their blessings. (John laughs.)
(M) Well, He says, “Give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It is a command to the born-again believer. And if we don’t give thanks in everything, and have gratitude, you know what John? A real secret is this. You will only give thanks if you’re humble enough to know that you deserve nothing. The problem really is pride.
(J) ‘Ouuu-eee’. I deserve, or deserved, something better than God gave me. And Martha, does it not always go to the parent?
(M) I think that’s where it begins. It begins with childhood, whatever that most consists of mostly; ninety percent of it is parents. Can I tell the story about the woman Sue, from Alabama? Again?
(J) Sure.
(M) I’ve told it through the years. An army wife came to see me, from Alabama. I don’t know how she found out about me; I’ve forgotten that. She told me her story; it’s terrible. That she, her Father’s an alcoholic, and he used their food money to drink. And they often, she said they often didn’t have food. She had to wear used, too big hand-me-down clothes to go to school. And I was learning back then, this issue of gratitude. Because God had so implanted it deeply in my life in an inner healing. It’s written about in “All And Only” many years ago. So I said, “Sue, as for Martha Kilpatrick, I weep for you. And I did, when she told the story I wept for her because it was great suffering. But I said, “It appears that you’re alive. Did you have food enough to live and survive?” And she said, “Yes.” I said, “Did it ever occur to you to thank God for the food you did have instead of accusing Him for the food you didn’t have?” She said, “No, it never occurred to me.” And I said, “Well, it wouldn’t have occurred to me either.” That’s just human. And then I said, “And you didn’t go to school naked. That would be the most horrible childhood experience. Apparently you had something to wear. Did you ever thank God for what you did have to wear, and that you didn’t to go to school naked?” And she said, “No, it never occurred to me.” (Martha laughs.) I said, “Don’t worry, it would’ve never occurred to me either, but that is the solution.” This transformed that woman’s life, and she was going to the mission field ultimately. That’s my favorite story of gratitude, because it is just as Adam and Eve, the problem in the garden was ingratitude for what God had given, and it made them take what God had forbidden them to have. And that’s what we do, we take what God has forbidden, because we’re not faithful, for what God has allowed and given. We take, we want more than what God has given, assuming that what He withheld is wrong; and we accuse Him of what He didn’t give, and judge Him for what He withheld instead of saying, thank You, I’ve got this. Only a born-again believer can do this.
(J) I would totally agree with that. I think that if we’ll just sit down and we’ll say, God I thank You for it all. You, You devised it, You set it forth as a plan, and I right now submit and surrender to it. I think that a lot of mental illness, sin hindrance, would be resolved. That Christ… I think that this is the wall that prevents us from accessing a lot of the wonderful gifts God has given us, that He’s paid for with His blood, a tremendous amount of victory and freedom and adventure and awesomeness. And I feel like this is a wall that God wants to deal with, obviously, He wants to deal with it because He wants us to go through this so that we can experience what He’s paid for. We’re preventing Him from giving us things that would make our life, and make us victorious. And I think a lot of Christians walk around lame and crippled and sick, because of the fact that we won’t go back to the original issues and take it all the way out and thank God for how He did it, and see Him as sovereign, and thank Him for the plans. If we’ll just sit down and do a dealing with Him and say, ‘I don’t care, ok, it hurt me, yes, it wasn’t what I thought I should have or needed or deserved, but God I thank You for it all. I thank You and surrender and submit to it. Yes, it’s only a work of the Spirit that can truly do it, but I believe that if we would go through this process… I can see things with my life currently, that if I would just say, ok God, You didn’t make it how I wanted it, and it never will be that way; but I surrender, I surrender, and I thank You for how You did make it, because it’s made me who I am today.
(M) Hmhmm.
