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with Martha Kilpatrick and John Enslow
(J) Well Martha, we’re sitting out here on Jean Mixon’s porch. We’re enjoying the spring; we’ve got a beautiful breeze and the birds are singing and the flowers are coming out and so this is just a real enjoyable place to be doing the pod-cast. But you also have some blossoming going off in you about the new book, “The Better Blood”. It was “My Brother’s Blood, My Brother’s Keeper”, and that may end up being a sub-title. I don’t know what it’s going to be. But what’s the Lord saying to you today as you finish this manuscript and get the book ready for printing?
(M) The book started out one way, and went another. And it has ended up being about the blood of Christ. And today I was… Really it’s taken me several days to get what it is I know and to put it in words for the concluding chapters where I sum up what is sin. And I got that chapter that summed up the purpose of the book and the meaning of sin; and I was so exuberant that I couldn’t work any more on the manuscript; I couldn’t even read the page. So I went out to start walking, and the Lord began to give me a pod-cast. And we’ve been talking about choice for some weeks now, and I think in the last pod-cast I said the choice boils down to life and death. And that’s true. But as I was walking I saw that the choice practically, functionally in life, is a choice between a lie and the truth. And I saw that the sin is normal. When I boil down the sin, in the last of the book, which I won’t go into, you have to buy the book. (Laughter)
(J) More to come.
(M) But when I got down to that I realized that the sin is common to us all. We have, there is a basic bottom line sin that we really never see. In fact I’ve never heard an explanation of the sin like the Lord has shown me. But the abnormality is not the sin; the problem is… The sin has been solved. The problem now is not the sin; the problem is if we lie about the sin. And I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years, and I realized that where you get in trouble is in lying to yourself and to God. And I did a tape of the month that I just want to send out to everybody; and I rarely feel that way about my teaching. But it’s about letting God into your most common, most dark corner, and opening the door to Him in that. And when He comes in life, your choice of life or death is actually a choice of whether you will take the Lie or the Truth. Years ago, when I used to be in the King James a lot… and this I’m going to read from the New King James. This scripture was very, somehow startling to me, 2Thess. 2:9-11 “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs and lying wonders; and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the Truth that they might be saved.” You see they didn’t perish because of sin; they perished because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. That’s an encounter in your life at some point, when you see the truth about yourself. It happened to me when I was 26. And somehow the truth went to such a, the bottom of my soul, to such a level of repentance that God came in. and it translated to me, kind of unconsciously, that the truth was the way to cope, because truth would always put you in touch with God and His solution. And so I never, though He found me in unreality, what he brought me was such stark truth about myself, about humanity, about futility, that when He came in to solve it all I never again really wanted anything but the truth, because I knew the truth would set you free. It had set me free. The truth about myself had set me free and brought Him in. And I’ve always said to you, I said it on a podcast once, that even as a child you chose the love of the truth, even though it was excruciating, maddening, and frustrating, so that when the truth came in your life you could recognize it, where a lot of people miss it because they’re so in lies that they don’t see the truth when it comes. So I was brooding on the fact that what happens as you deal with life, if you go to a lie because the truth is painful, you put yourself in the realm of Satan, and death. And you go to death. Ok, so this scripture says, let me read it in the Amplified because it’s really powerful there. It brings out all the nuances. Ok, “The coming of the lawless one, the antichrist, is through the activity and working of Satan will be attended by great power and with all sorts of pretended miracles and signs and delusive marvels”. See the New King James didn’t convey what must be in the Greek; that they are not true wonders. They’re deceptive marvels, and “all of them lying wonders—And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved.” See John, the whole thing is always going to bottom out on love.
(J) Right. Right.
(M) What you love is what you will choose. I used the word desire in one of the pod-casts, but really it’s what you love. And in my twenties I learned; God presented me with the truth, and He gave me the grace to love the truth, even the truth about me. But it’s possible, when God confronts us through life, circumstances, and even in our heart… He was really confronting me in my heart, in my soul. And we can refuse the love of the truth. There are two ways to cope with life, practically on the bottom level, daily trench life. You cope with it either by lying or by the truth. And the truth is excruciating. The truth can be maddening. The truth can be shocking. The truth can be barely bearable, but it is much more bearable than the lie, because the truth takes you in so many directions toward God. It takes you to your need for God. It takes you to your desperation for God. It takes you to the protection of God, when He shows you the truth about people around you. So as I was walking back to the office I called Jean and we just had a wonderful time talking about the choice, because you know you can only solve the problem by the truth. God’s only in the truth, He’s never ever in the lie, He will never fellowship with you on the lie. But I am brutally honest with Him, brutally telling Him the truth about where I am. When I talk about being ‘human’ John, I don’t mean being in the flesh and being in ‘self’. What I mean is be natural, be truthful. To me that’s what ‘human’ is. Human is Nathaniel, the Israelite in whom was no guile, no trickery, and no mask. And so the ah….
(J) Just gut-level honesty.
(M) Yes. And you are that way about life and where you are. And that is the love of the truth no matter what the truth is. And that will always take you to God. See, Jesus said Satan is a liar and the father of lies. That means he’s the author of lies, and if he gives you a lie by which to cope with life, he has ‘you’. A lie is not simple. It’s not benign. It takes you, if you live by it, it takes you into the realm of Satan.
(J) It’s an allegiance with Satan. It’s a belief and an aligning yourself with Satan. If Satan’s the father of the lies, when we believe the lies and we foster the lies in our life, we’re aligning ourselves with him. Right?
(M) Yes, that’s the point. That’s the very point, Mr. Mr. John goes to the bottom of it. And this passage reads that “but they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved”. Well you can say this is a verse about salvation. Nee makes the point that salvation is the on-going process of being transformed into the likeness of Christ. It’s not necessarily synonymous with being born-again. So I’m using it as a general encounter with God. And the consequence of refusing the love of the truth is this, “Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false.” And we don’t really like that, that God does that. Why does He do that? Because only if He does that, will you want the truth. The lie is a torment. There are believer’s who live the lie that they’re not as bad as others, they really are not as… I’m working with two people right now that it’s coming to light that they have not believed they’re just a common low life sinner, equal to everyone, no better no worse. And if that lie, this really kind of corresponds to the tape of the month, because if they believe that lie, they will have the delusion that it’s true.
(J) Ok, so I have a question. The love of the truth, is it… ok, if you don’t have a love of the truth, then He gives you a love of the lie? Is the strong delusion a love of the lie?
(M) He doesn’t give you the love; you have the love. He gives you the delusion to believe the lie. And that’s about as much as I can explain God into it. But in John 1 it says, “they loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.”
(J) It says that if you do not love the truth, then He will send them a strong delusion that they should believe the lie. Are they revealing?.. Is His…?
(M) Let me see if I can answer it. See God comes into your life; it’s an event of intervention of God when He comes to bring you; He presents to you a love of the truth.
(J) He’s giving you the gift that you were saying.
(M) He’s giving you the gift.
(J) Here’s the gift of the love of the truth. If you refuse the gift, then you go to love the delusion and the lie.
(M) Yeah, and He sends you the delusion that you might believe the lie.
(J) But He’s supporting your love of a lie. Right?
(M) If you love the darkness, you can have it. In John 1, “they loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” See, it’s all about love. If you love darkness because you think you can hide in the darkness… Why? Their deeds were evil. They wanted to hide. They wanted to use darkness to keep from being the sinner that they are. You see the Pharisees loved the darkness because in the darkness their deeds were hidden; or so they thought. And that’s the delusion. But to refuse… To me the gift of the love of truth is an event, an intervention of God where He comes to you to tell you, “ok, this is the truth, and you can cope with life by the truth.” If at any time in your life, believer or unbeliever, I believe, you reject the love of the truth, the great passion and adventure of the truth, then you have chosen death.
