Episode #228 ^{_{(Click to Listen)}}

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Jennifer Wentzel

(M) And what’s so amazing is such a paradox that in the wrath came the most outlandish pouring on you of love, and into you of love. And coming out of you is love.
(Jennifer) (With deep emotion) Yeah.
(M) That’s, that is an amazing thing, to see Him as God is to love Him.
(Jennifer) (Speaking with tears) And once you’ve experienced His wrath, you can see so clearly the difference between the wrath of man and the wrath of God. And I feel like that’s the quality that I didn’t understand before. The truth is, I had a lot of fear of a lot of people, men, women, because of wrath of man that had come to me, and man’s condemnation and man’s judgment and anger. And it’s a whole different thing to be the subject of God’s wrath and God’s anger. There’s a quality to it that is missing from mans. And I don’t know the depth of it, but what I will say is God’s wrath comes and it attacks the flesh, but behind it all is a purpose. It’s not for the person who is bringing God’s wrath to you, or the situation in life that’s enveloping it.
(M) Is it to kill?
(Jennifer) (She takes a deep breath.) Well, what I was going to say is, it’s not about them, and it’s clear that it’s not. It’s for your soul.
(M) Hmhmm.
(Jennifer) It’s showing you in full Technicolor, the result of the choices you’ve made, and the further result, which is hell. And it’s like pulling a lid off that by saying look at what you’ve done, look at who you are, and here’s the wrath that’s coming because of what you’ve done, whereas a lot of time man’s wrath can have the other person all mixed up in it. You know, where they’re mad because their feelings were hurt, or they were embarrassed, or, does that make any sense?
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm.
(Jennifer) And what I found is that God’s wrath is very pure, and it is devoid of that. And it’s a complete and total piercing, and exposing and flame, but the love that’s behind it is because we are responsible for our choice, and we say yes, I choose this, and yes I know what it means, but I’ll speak for myself here, and I won’t lump anyone in this.  I’m an idiot. And the truth is, I don’t see. And I’ve been very blind and said that I know, and I don’t know. And I make these choices, and I don’t know my own heart. Do you understand?  We don’t. And the Bible says that; “is desperately wicked and it deceives us.” (Jennifer laughs) So a lot of these choices that you make, you say well, I know what the consequences are and I don’t care, that’s fine. The gift of God’s wrath to me was saying, oh yeah? You don’t care? You know what they are? You’re fine? You say, whatever? Here you go, here’s your choice, here’s the result. Still fine? And (Jennifer laughs) in the face of that, that’s where the fear comes, because no, of course not. It’s horrifying, horrifying. And yet He’s there behind it, the whole time, calling, and saying if you will get low enough, I’m right here. If you’ll say yes, if you’ll say yes to everything that I’m showing you, I’m right here. And that’s the result of God’s wrath, to me, and the difference.
(M) I think you have a view of responsibility that now you identified this morning to us, what responsibility is, and it was brilliant, divinely brilliant. Do you remember what you said?
(Jennifer) Ah.
(M) I have notes if you…
(Jennifer) Yes. What I’m trying to remember is what you were talking about, you were talking about, it was the council of the Most High, right? Or was it Zion? Or was it both?
(J) Both.
(Jennifer) Uhmm, yes, Martha was talking about a revelation and a scene that God has her in, in terms of  the council of the Most High and Zion, and how to get there, and what the Bible tells you about how to get there and what to go through. And what I saw was about the believer’s position. And what I saw was, we see positionally. I think that’s how it first came to me. We see positionally.  Everything that we see is based on where we’re standing, what our view is, what we’re even looking at, where are we standing. And what I saw was in terms of seeing God, that is,based on where we’re standing, and that our one responsibility is the free-will that’s God-given. He gives us free will, and it is our one responsibility to choose, that is what we do. So we are involved in that way, and having that responsibility. And whether we see ourselves as greater than Him, or as we truly are, which is tiny low creatures in need of salvation, entirely depends on whether or not we are willing for the responsibility of seeing who we are and what we are, and acknowledging where we stand in relation to God.
(M) Well, I think, Jennifer, when we were talking also about seeing Him. And you said, I wrote down, “The purpose of seeing Him is to know you are nothing.” And you said, “What is so crazy is when we see ourselves as equal to Him. And when we see Him and we believe we’re equal to Him, we’ve not taken the responsibility to see who we are.” That was for you, what you defined responsibility is being willing to see who I am in the Presence of the One. And you said this wonderful thing. “If you will not be responsible, then you will not see who you are and what you are, then there’s nowhere else to go but down.” And you said, “I hope that I have seen part of His foot.” Just part of His foot, because when you did see Him in His magnificence, by the experience of witnessing His wrath, His clean, pure loving wrath, you saw who you were, right?
(Jennifer) Yeah.
(M) And that’s what you were telling us. And it just struck me that you hope you’ve seen part of His foot.
(Jennifer) Yeah.
(M) That’s dear. “The gift in that is that He hung me over hell, in relation to that foot.” That’s what you said. What does that mean?
(Jennifer) I think it, it was for me, because it’s… I struggled to admit the full reality of who I am, and what I have really done. And to me that was a gift of seeing positionally who I am by just glimpsing His foot, and hoping to see just the bottom, the very bottom of Him. I can’t claim to have seen God’s face, even God’s hand, anything; I hoped that I had seen His foot. Because I did believe that I had seen a part of Him, and the gift that He gave me in that is that I could then look down and see that I was in fact hanging over hell. And it was my rebellion, and my reviling, and my, no, my worship of myself really, that had brought me there. And without seeing even a glimpse of Him, I don’t think I would have had the, the loving push to see me where I really was, and to have the courage to see that. Because you know, (Jennifer laughs) I have very much lived my life in fantasy, and it’s a big draw, to think that you’re something that you’re not, and to believe that life is anything other than what it really is. That’s the pull of my flesh and has always been was you can’t really be that bad. And yes, that glimpse of His foot enabled me to see exactly where I was, the danger I was in and the gift that He was giving in letting me see it.
(M) Hmhmm. But you were willing to get down low, to the very bottom, to see the foot. That’s what, that’s what struck me, is that you weren’t looking at Him face to face.
(Jennifer) No.
(M) You were down as low as you could get before such majesty.
(Jennifer) I don’t know, I don’t know what other people have seen. I… For me, there’s nowhere else to go. I had to be on my face. (Jennifer laughs) It’s God! And uhmm, (Jennifer laughs) I can’t, I can’t quite fathom where else I would’ve…once seeing that, I don’t know how I could have done anything else, I don’t know. It’s quite foreign to me. I’m grateful for that. My imagination is limited.
(M) The wonderful thing, the wonderful fruit of His encounter with you, is that you have freedom from yourself. And we don’t, we don’t really realize how much we’re on ourselves, (Jennifer laughs) and how we’re obsessed with ourselves, and conscious, unendingly, boringly conscious, and through this you’ve really been set free of that.
(Jennifer) And it’s a daily setting free, because the call is there daily, and the snares are there, and… Mom once read, she sent me a poem by George McDonald, and it talked about every morning delivering him from the spider snares, the spider web snares of the flesh. And ah, I would say that that is it, I would say the difference is having seen Him, I have an enormous motivation to stay in a way in where I can be in His Presence, which is to be clean, to remain clean. Because I’m not going back, I’m not doing that. I’ve, I’ve seen Him, and I’ve tasted His peace, and I know what I bring.  No. (Jennifer laughs) Whatever it takes, however painful to me, I don’t care.
(M) See, this is the, I want to say magic, of seeing Him. You cannot leave Him. If you see Him to the point where you bow, you cannot do without Him ever again.
(Jennifer) (With deep emotion) Uha-uamm.
(M) And so I was telling the group this morning, years ago I used to spend a day in the woods a week. I’d just take my Bible and a lawn chair. And the Lord said, “I want to tell you something, my people need to see Me.” And I went, see You? Of course they see You. (Martha laughs) Then I just took my Bible and started going through the scriptures of seeing Him, and I said, You’re right, that’s the problem, that’s the only problem. And sometimes when people see Him, they see Him on such an eyeball-to-eyeball level of equality, or even above Him, that they don’t benefit from having seen Him. And I question whether they’ve seen Him. But to see Him, you can never get over it, or get away from it. Even if you leave Him, you can’t bear it, you go crazy.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) And ah, so I say, Lord, let Your people see You, because that’s what really happened to you. You saw Him in that unearthly heavenly combination of His wrath and His love all as one. And there’s no part of Him that isn’t love. So, for you to see that He would let us lie down in torment as an act of love, that is radical, Jennifer.  It’s a radical seeing through the eyes of human idea of punishment. God punishes, God punishes, that’s the God I believed in, and for you to take that and completely transform it by your own vision of Him, and in your own experience, to me it’s a gift the world needs to know about. His, thank God, as you said, thank God He didn’t let you lie down in peace with your strange fire; mercy and love. So thank you, thank you for sharing it.