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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
And now the continuation of The Unprofitable Servant.
(M) You see, what we want to do is take the mystery out it. I wanted, and I’ve spoken against this, but I wanted two plus two to equal four. I wanted my investment of His Seed to equal His result. And the result is up to God. My job is a simple servant, and He is not to serve my wishes, He is not to give me… when it’s all said and done, John, everything is going to be in spite of me. I’ve always said, my children knowing God will be in spite of me, not because of me. When it says God will not share His glory, it is really a severe saying.
(J) Is the defeatedness not an unburdening? Is that not really what it is, is a gift of being unburdened from false responsibility?
(M) Yes, yes. But it is a defeat that I didn’t anticipate. I can see being defeated forever through the flesh. This is a defeat that even though I obey Him, I can do nothing to make anything happen, only God can.
(J) Well give me some example of this in the Old Testament. I know that David was a defeated man. I know that Moses was a defeated man. I know that Abraham was. How? How were they defeated?
(M) They were defeated by detachment from their own obedience. I was thinking about that this morning. Joseph was defeated by Potiphar and Potiphar’s wife. Joseph was defeated by his brothers; but the real defeat of Joseph didn’t come until he was in prison and no one he helped, he helped the…is it the baker or the cup bearer?… one of them had their head removed… and he invested his spiritual wealth in that man and said when you get out remember me, but the man didn’t. Your real defeat comes at the end of your faithfulness, where you know nobody on this earth can solve anything but God’s intervention. And God’s intervention is going to be something totally apart from your obedience. You see? Let me tell you this story. You see He’s been having me live it before He showed me what it was that was happening. There’s a dear young woman, I’ve had a tremendous love of God for. I don’t get to live near her, but she’s really I would say she’s on my heart. I am the one that carries her like Aaron’s breastplate. I found out she was very ill. I didn’t have any clue what it was, but very dangerously ill. I went to the Lord, and simply looked toward Him, and He shared His love for her with me. And I sort of just experienced that with the Lord, on a certain day, at a certain time. And I went my way. I never asked for healing, I had only the experience of His love. Then I learned that she was instantly healed, her body radically changed in that very day, possibly in that very hour, so she wrote to me, and I said I had absolutely nothing to do with it; I felt completely detached from what God did. That’s the ideal. I didn’t assume responsibility for her sickness. She believes she had colon cancer. And I had to say, I am completely removed from your healing. You cannot say I was involved. I only went to God as His servant, not her servant. I only went to God for His anointing, not anything for her. And that picture to me is the very picture. I didn’t get in His way, nor can I take any credit. I merely did what I was supposed to do; I am nothing. I’m an unprofitable servant. You see? That’s the picture. Here’s another picture. God had me lay down my life for someone, very painfully. He had me deeply invest in prayer for that one, and she seemed to see. She seemed to come through and later she would say she was born again. But there was a time when she completely sort of repudiated everything I was, not just what I said. But she seemed to repudiate everything. And I knew that I had done God’s will. I knew that I had done everything I could do; that I could no longer even reach her. I could no longer persuade her. And I didn’t even have it in me to do it. I was finished. My end of the thing was done. I seemed to be able that time to let it be. And I just said to God very passionately, I’ve done my part, now You must do yours. See the fruit is His, and He will not say ever that I produce any fruit that is visible. In just a short time she had been, she said, born again. I had nothing to do with the result.
(J) So tell me how does God’s victory equal your defeat?
(M) Because He is God, and He will not share His glory. My defeat is not so much wanting His glory, He kind of killed that in me. It wasn’t about that; I can tell you a lot about what it wasn’t. It was about sharing in His victory, and that equals His glory. I don’t know how to tell you. He struck down my unbelief. That’s what He blew up; my belief was in that if He gave me a Seed, He would produce a harvest. No, if He gave me a Seed, I’m to cast it on the waters. I’m to go back and serve Him again. And my belief was in that if He put an anointing in me, my faith was in the anointing to effect the change. And that’s what He blew up. That’s what He obliterated.
(J) That’s clear. I can utterly see that your unbelief or belief in yourself, or belief in the anointing, or belief in the very presence of God sitting in you, that I can understand, the defeat of that.
(M) Yeah, it wasn’t faith in me, that’s why it’s so difficult to explain. It’s not that. It’s my faith in Him in me. And He said Boom! You are just a speck. You’re just a tiny thread in the tapestry, and I’ll use you to the ultimate, or I’ll use you to the miniscule, either way, but I am God.
(J) Because you could have spent twenty or twenty-five years, pouring into someone, and then some TV Evangelist could come on, give a message, and it’d all click. And then that would have been the breakthrough and then…see what I’m saying?
(M) Yeah. (Laughter) It has happened. And God uses something else; that’s why it’s such a joke on me and it’s so funny, is that I believed my faithfulness to God would effect God’s result, and it doesn’t. (Laughter)
BREAK in message.
(J)We’ve go more, coming up. We’ll be right back. We, at Shulamite Ministries hope you’ve been enjoying today’s podcast and we’d like to invite your feedback on our broadcasts as a whole. You may do this by visiting us at Shulamitepodcasts.com and clicking on the comment section under the individual podcast issues or go to Itunes. Search the word Shulamite and submit your feedback and ratings, or simply e-mail us at John@Shulamite.com. we once again thank you for listening, and we hope that this podcast continues to be a blessing to your walk with the Lord.
(M) You know, my faithfulness is just my faithfulness, my obedience is just my obedience, and I’m not to even bother. It’s like He told me years and years and years ago. He’s told me this my whole walk and I just didn’t get it, because I’m just a sheep. He said you sit at the desk, you are nothing, you’re not the president, you’re just the little secretary, and you sit at your desk and if I give you something to do, do it, and if not paint your fingernails. (Laughter) All of my walk, my whole walk is about being ‘fired’, and getting out of His way by my faithfulness to Him. Oh my goodness, I probably need to apologize to my whole world. So I’m glad you understand it, John, because it’s been…Let’s see. It’s a place of rest that God is responsible. All I have to do is His will, and then the results are up to Him. I plant, you water, but it’s God that gives the increase. And I am nothing, and you are nothing. There’s only God.
