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The Quiet Life – continued
Episode #191
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) One thing I noticed is that Caleb, when the two spies out of the twelve, Joshua and Caleb, and they went into the land, and the people came back, and the people were all freaked out. They were loud and complaining and unbelieving, and it says Caleb quieted the people. So really it’s faith in God’s sovereignty that quiets the people. It’s faith. It’s having your own quiet. You can’t quiet anyone else unless you have your own quiet. But I believe the times are going to be more and more chaotic, loud, and even Christianity is bombarded. You were saying this morning, looking at my bookcase, “Look at all these words, words, words.” And we leave, if we aren’t careful, we leave the simplicity. I used to read volumes of books all the time. I don’t read that much volume anymore, because when I find the essence that’s where I sit down.
(J) I wonder if the by-product of that chaos is complaining.
(M) Wow. Hmm.
(J) I wonder when you do have the masses in chaos and turmoil, if that isn’t what Caleb needed to do is to bring that peace and that stillness and that quiet and that rest, because that’s exactly what we’ll do, we go to complain.
(M) Well, that loudness and chaos makes it seem like life is unbearable, and life is too heavy, and there’s too much going on. We live such simple lives, very, very close to the earth. We just simply are about our business, and ah, our business really is to give the testimony of who Christ is, out. That has to be under gird… That testimony has to be under girded by a quiet life, by a single eye, sort of. We’re no longer really in… have a mission. And I’ve thought at times that’s a tragedy, and other times I thought that is God’s, that’s what God has done. He’s honed us down to the getting out the testimony that Christ is Lord and sovereign. And we’re all about that together. So, ah… And I think… I can think of those who have really sort of lost their way, as having, preferring the world of chaos, and keeping that world, and not being willing to give up that ambition. It’s all about ambition, see? It says, “Make it your ambition to live a quiet life.” And it’s like when my daughter got that calling, she chose it, and then God performed it in her life. It’s not that there aren’t problems. That doesn’t eliminate problems. It just means that you go about them.
(J) It doesn’t eliminate activity either.
(M) True. That’s my point about your solitude. You see, it’s a misconception that you did nothing for two years, and you were supported. Everybody thinks they would love that. They would not, because we are created for work.
(J) Hmhmm. No, no, they think that rest and peace means no activity, and sitting on your ‘duff’ with a bon-bon, you know.
(M) And it means no responsibility, because really, the old man hates responsibility. And we have a mentality in this nation to live for retirement, because then in retirement I have no decisions, I have no responsibilities. I just collect my check, and that is death.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I’ve never believed in that. I believe retirement is for being able to serve the Lord without having to think about your income.
(J) Well, they show that, like statistics show that when men retire, and they retire into nothing, they usually die within six months, because there’s no activity. The body just kind of shuts down. And that’s because that’s not how we were built; we weren’t built to lay out, and lay down, and do nothing. We were made to produce, and we were made to function, and when we don’t, we do die.
(M) Well, my son, Scott, told me once, he said, “Mom, even if you have a wheelbarrow and you don’t use it, the wheelbarrow will disintegrate faster than if you use it.” And that is a fact of the universe.
(J) Well, look at a house. If you just shut up a house, you would think that, oh well, it’ll be, you know, preserved because it… No. You have to have traffic in a house to keep a house going, to keep it viable and living and not rotting.
(M) Well, and one physicist, they were trying to explore whether it was possible to have life in other planets. And he said you don’t have to send men there to see. All you have to do is go and see if there are certain elements that are present. And the presence of certain elements means life. Our bodies produce life. We infuse our houses with the life that we have or don’t have.
(J) Hmm.
(M) Matter is infused with life. That’s what the wheelbarrow means. It is, if I am using what is here for me to use, I’m infusing it all with life. And that element, we don’t really realize our impact on each other and on, even on matter. The house doesn’t die as quickly because there’s life in the house.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) And so he said that these are the elements of life. Send a satellite, or whatever you call it…
(J) Probe.
(M) Probe. And measure that, and then you will know if life is possible. You don’t have to spend all that money to do it otherwise, because he said, life, human life, and even animal life, exudes elements of life into the atmosphere. But anyway, John, I just so appreciate how you managed those two years of solitude. You did enormous work on every ground, physical, spiritual, mental. You were always at work, and I’m astonished as I look back on it, how the Lord moved you to the very foundation of our lives here in the mountains and our ministry. He was preparing you to become an expert in computers.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) And you even, you knew about inter-net. As soon as a book was published you said, “We need a web-site.” And I said, “Who goes to the inter-net now?” (Martha laughs) I was way out of touch with reality. But you had been in it for two years. It’s like God shut you up to focus you. And you went with instinctively, that focus. And God built foundation of what we’re about today, in you. So, quiet is not the same as idle. Quiet is being about your business, and doing it, willing to work, and ah…
(J) And there wasn’t, not the emotional work too. There was a great emotional work. That was probably the most strenuous part of it, was the, just the emotions of it.
(M) Well, when you eliminate all that chaos, and all that effort to support yourself financially, what you come down to is your real stripped down self. And then you face, in solitude you face who you are and who you are not. Is that right? Is that…
(J) Absolutely. Face to face with ‘yourself’, that’s exactly it. What does the word ‘din’ mean?
(M) Did that word just come to you, John? Did you hear it?
(J) Yeah, I heard the word ‘din’, and I kind of vaguely know what it is, but I just could hear it.
(M) Well the definition is: a loud discordant confused noise; to stun with deafening noise; to instill by wearying repetition.
(J) Hmmmm.
(M) And you made a turn for me there, because where I want to go is to the internal quiet. Because, you know, not everybody can live in the quiet that we live in; and it was achieved by prayer, it was given by prayer. And when I stay and visit people in the city, the noises are very foreign to me. And if you live in the city, you can’t… or in a job in the world, there’s going to be a ‘din’.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) But really what I want to go to is the internal quiet. And first I’ll say the enemy wants to create the ‘din’ in your head, doesn’t he?
(J) Well, that’s where I think it’s most effective. If it’s in the head, if it’s in your being, it could be totally still and silent outside, and you’re still in total chaos.
(M) Hmhmm, the ‘din’ is going on in your brain. And that is what the enemy wants to do. I have known through the years that people who were, I’ll say unrepentant, disobedient lives that maybe God would call me to for awhile. They were always creating a ‘din’, and they lived in obviously, the most frantic internal arena; constant noise, accusation or defense, or whatever. Do you… is there a better way to put it than that?
(J) That’s pretty good.
(M) (Martha laughs) But it’s tragic.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Because there can be really valid people who live in internal confusion and noise of the enemy. And I’ve had… I know that we can, when we are in that state of hysteria, and really I believe that hysteria is from not surrendering to the Lord. I’m going to go there in a minute. But people bombard me with words. And they’re intended from the enemy, to weary me. And I can’t imagine the weariness that the person experiences. But… So that’s the enemy’s agenda. That’s the enemy’s intent, is to create the ‘din’. It’s a very good word, thank You Lord. (Martha laughs) But I want to talk about the peace of Jesus. And I was thinking, the angels came to announce “peace to men of good will”. It wasn’t peace to the world, because obviously the world has not received it as a system.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) But it was “peace to men of good will.” That’s the accurate translation. And that peace is harmony and complete wholeness. That’s what shalom means. We go back to that word shalom often. Do you remember exactly what that is?
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Its complete wholeness in every way. If you pronounce shalom to someone, you’re saying peace in every way. And that’s the internal peace that God wants to give, and that we are to receive. I’ve had some, how shall I say, fretting recently, wanting to be strong and so forth, and wanting to be able to do things. And I’ve been led over and over again to Jesus just before He was going to be crucified, before the disciples were going to panic, be broken-hearted, despairing, before that whole scenario of the cross, He was saying, “My peace I give to you, not the peace that the world gives, give I unto you.” But this peace in the midst, I’m going to give you this peace. And of course they had no idea what He meant, or how much they would need peace and how much they didn’t have it when He was arrested. But that’s astounding me, because what He was saying to me is, (Martha laughs) “You’re to have peace no matter what.”
(J) Hmm. Hmhmm.
(M) And I believe so much that everything is a rehearsal for tomorrow and a lesson for today for tomorrow. So, I’ve been very much on the internal peace and that… I’ve been asking the Lord for His peace. It is not the peace of the world, not human peace that He gives. It is a supernatural peace; the one, the peace that Jesus lived in, and that is what we want to live in. His dignity, His absence of fear, He was unaffected by the crowds that came upon Him except to feel compassion. He was deliberate, He was ordered, He was aware of everything. He didn’t ‘check out’ in order to have quiet. He was, He produced chaos. He produced in Nazareth a wild attempt to kill Him. He upset the temple and challenged the Pharisees, and yelled at them. And so, He produced chaos, but He Himself was in the peace of God’s will. And this is what I want to say, we are to live, in God’s will is the only agenda.
