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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) And I believe what I’ve seen is, if your choices are railroaded, you have to fight yourself to demand those choices. You have the right to choose, that’s basic and inherent. Even Victor Frankel who was in Dachau, wrote his book, “Man’s Search For Meaning”, but, you know, I really understood that he spoke a lot about how you have one choice left when you’re in prison, and all choices and rights are taken from you, you have the choice of how to respond. And then, if you maintain how to respond, and what to believe about your freedom, then you have the belief that there is meaning to life. But you cannot believe in meaning unless you possess your choice. You can enter an abusive situation or relationship where the person takes over your choices, and you don’t have any choice unless they permit you to; it’s still the tyrant’s choice to let you have your choice, so you haven’t got it really. Any place where you’re not allowed to freely choose, whether you’re pressured or told. Last night someone said, now, you need to do so and so; I said, no, I do not. Well you need to do this so and so and so and so; I said I will not do that, do you understand? I will not do that. No, I don’t have to. But if you have to fight, if you are under a tyrant, this message is mostly about being under a tyrant. If your choices are taken from you, you will die; you will be paralyzed, immobilized.
(J) It could very much be a message for the tyrant though.
(M) Oh.
(J) If you see that you’re doing this, if you see that you’re trying to control, you’re trying to squelch someone else’s choice and push your choice into that, this could be a very very key message for a tyrant that’s currently trying to control.
(M) Well, I work in a number of situations of people in the midst of tyranny, and the whole objective of Satan in a person who is taking God’s place, on the tree of death. The whole agenda is to take every choice you have, down to the smallest detail, to harass you over your choices until you just give up and you’re not willing to do the suffering it takes to have your choice. There has to be such a commitment to your own choice. If your choice is taken away from you, guess what? You don’t have God, because God waits always in every aspect of our lives for our choice. If we don’t exercise it God doesn’t move. We want God to move without a choice, He will not I tell you. I know it well.
(J) Do you see that the tyrant harangues you until literally you cannot make the choice because it’s just, you know, not that you can’t, but it just wears you down.
(M) Yes. It brings you to the place where you think you have no choice, nor a right to a choice. It does wear you down. I think in many cases you will eventually die. There was a medical doctor on the news recently who said that women have more heart disease than men, and he said the research has been that a big factor in the heart disease of women is living in abusive marriages, and being so crushed. And the interviewer said, well does that mean women need to yell more? And he said absolutely; which is, you know, the human way to deal with it. No, the issue is, what happens is you believe that your choice doesn’t matter, that you have no power of choice. But you see, you can be pushed to the place, God will put the pressure on you so that when you cry out to God for freedom that is a choice. Does that make sense?
(J) Absolutely.
(M) If the pressure is great enough, as it was for Israel in Egypt, eventually they will cry out. That constitutes a choice. And then God is free to send a Moses in and miraculously rescue you out of Egypt. And so much in Christian circles, or in Christian legalism I should say, husbands believe they have the right to make all the wife’s choices, where scripture does not support that, “submit yourselves one to another”. But it is a technique of the enemy to whisper to a man that he has the right to take over the choices of his wife. God calls you to Himself, by calling you to retain your choice. Let me just get in the Word a bit. In the Old Testament choice is clear. In Exodus 32:26, “Moses stood at the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is for the Lord, come to me. And all the Levites rallied to him, but the rest of Israel did not.” And then in Deut. 30 again Moses called them to choose. Here’s what he said, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses; now choose life so that you and your children will live.” You see, John, your choice is an issue of heaven and earth.
(J) Both life and death were offered. It was the choice that made it active.
(M) Exactly, heaven and earth moves on your choice.
(J) Well you see it really clearly there in Deuteronomy, don’t you?
(M) Heaven and earth are witnesses against you, that I made the choice clear; and that’s so many times what I do with people, and I’ll tell this little bit. Years ago I said, oh God, what is my name in the heaven’s? And I thought it’d be something just real sweet; He said, “Decision”. The messages I always have evoke the obvious fact that you have a choice, don’t they John?
(J) Absolutely, yeah I witness to it very, very, very much.
(M) And very often.
(J) Yeah, true.
(M) I set before, and I don’t even know that I’m doing it, life and death. And heaven and earth witness that you’ve heard that you have a choice; and that you must deliberately make it. Well, to need God more than anything is to restore your volition. And He witnesses; and I believe that the universe shifts. There are times when I have the strangest sense the universe has shifted. The great power of the universe shifts on your choice. Well, the moment you accept the other person’s choices and maintain your own, you are free. But the demand to control goes down into the very heart of my being to overtake my will; down in there. And my one responsibility is to exercise my will to choose. I think that there’s an error of belief that makes it real easy, that once you’re born again, everything you do is ok, and you don’t have a choice. No, you will have a choice the last breath you draw.
(J) But it is very costly to have that choice is it not?
(M) Oh yes it is. You see, the Pharisees were ever intimidating Jesus because He didn’t bring His choices to them. That’s what it was with the Pharisees. They used legalism to demand control of Jesus’ choices, and He maintained absolute loyalty and freedom to choose God in every way. But if you could see behind the aggression against Him, it was all to make Him bow His will to them so that they could control Him. And that’s what comes out in the book of Galatians when Paul writes they’re seeking to get you to come after them so they can control you.
(J) I’m just starting that book this morning again. But it’s extremely costly; you will pay a high price to maintain your own choice, will you not?
(M) Oh yes you will John, because the religious will oppose it and they’ll tell you who you should be and what you should do. And sometimes to me they come at the very strengths of God that are formed in me, and say that’s wrong, and you need to do what I say and be who I say. So it’s terribly diabolical, and it’s terribly, I want to say the scheme to take over your will is too brilliant, too diabolical for man to catch on to it. I had my will run over this week, and I didn’t catch on to it until the next day and I said, this is diabolical; there was a spider’s web spun over me and in the end when I took my will back, my choice back and recognized it, I was free. But I was literally killed. It’s how I got this message.
(J) But you didn’t see it as a person doing it, when you saw it; you saw it as being so much higher than human logic and knowledge being able to devise that. I mean it was far out-reaching right?
(M) Yes, the person I think chose to make my choice for me.
(J) But how it all played out.
(M) But behind that was the diabolical scheme of how to do it. And the whole thing is to confuse what the real issue is. I mean it’s taken me a long time to unravel those two trees, and it still is unraveling, to understand it. The confusion, the smoke screen, making the issue something other than the issue, that’s what the enemy does, and that’s what we fall for. He didn’t say, give up your choice, he never comes straight at it. He said, you can’t trust God, He’s withholding from you, but you can get what you want from this other tree.
(J) He’s causes you to question.
(M) He causes you to question God’s goodness and power, and then you have a choice. And I’m not aware, but through my walk I’ve often said, I will not belong to that situation or that person, I will not. And the Lord showed me that so much of prayer is bringing to God your decisions through bringing Him your desires.
(J) Explain that.
(M) Well, He showed me early on that decision was the issue and the work. And I said ok, how am I choosing? He said, because you’re coming to Me and you’re telling Me what you want. Oh Lord, I want to be pure in heart. That was a choice. Oh Lord, your Word has awakened in me a desire to be meek. I don’t know what that is, but that was a choice you see. A choice given to Him frees Him to begin that work. But you know I really didn’t know that I had to defend and pray for the defense of my choice. That’s the core issue of humanity; if you do not have your will intact as your own, you will cease to exist in your personality, in your spirituality. You will cease to exist in everything. You’ll not be creative and you will not be who you are. If a person comes into your life and wants to change you by criticism or judgment and you give in to that you’ll lose your life and you’ll lose God.
(J) When someone comes in to control you and they start taking your choices, you know, attempting to, and you’re saying you lose your personhood, do you take on their personhood?
(M) Yes. If you don’t choose no, then it will be yes, and you will become who they say, who they want you to be.
(J) Are you becoming who they say? Or are you becoming them?
(M) Well John you’ve got it.
(J) I mean, if I’m making your choices, if I’m deciding what you’re going to do, who are you? You’re me. You may not respond like I would respond, but if I’m making all your choices, then you’re an extension of me. You’re just me; is that not right?
(M) Absolutely, brilliant John.
