DEATH CANCELLATION
Greetings, Salutations and Solutions!
Continuing with the pattern of beginning the past three Coffee Breaks, there is an urgent matter of prayer for believers worldwide on September 25th.
Not too long ago I became aware of what is known as the Ministers Prayer Network -- a now-international prayer movement that originally began in Nigeria in 1995 and began to spread around the globe. This is a non-denominational, trans-denominational group of ministers and church leaders spanning virtually every type of Christian ministry who come together without walls and divisions for the purpose of growing the Kingdom of God.
As founding pastor, Mosy U. Madugba, notes: "The aims and objectives of MPN are to create a forum for prayers and biblical leadership development, devoid of any ostensive, ceremonial and religious atmosphere. The later only breeds religious growth without deep convictions and commitment to God. MPN was therefore born to provide an avenue where ministers of the gospel can come together and speak the bare truth to themselves, and in sincerity and simplicity, rebuke, exhort and pray for one another, basically as a family of brothers and sisters, without any religious stratifications or classifications."
This past week, Pastor Madugba sent out the following notice: "On September 25th there will be a national prayer gathering of Muslims on the west front of the U.S. Capitol Building. They are expecting at least 50,000 to attend from mosques all across America. They say that they want America to see how they pray! A permit for this gathering was issued by Capitol Hill Police on July 28th. They will gather to pray from 4:00 AM until 7:00 PM.
“The gathering will take place by the site where U.S. Presidents have been inaugurated since 1981. The organizers say that it was Obama's inauguration speech in January and his speech broadcast from Egypt in June that gave them the idea for this prayer gathering on Capitol Hill. Please fix a fast to start 12 midnight a day before and go on till 7pm when they stop. It is warfare time. Do not joke with this. If Christians fail to frustrate this game plan in the spirit, you will regret the outcome."
Please don't just wave this off thinking this is no big deal! When you begin to realize that the "Allah" the Muslims pray to is nothing more than a modern incarnation of the ancient Baal/Marduk, you begin to understand that the purpose of this prayer is to release demonic spirits over the nation's capital and to seize spiritual control of America.
If Christians stand by and do nothing, God will hold them accountable. I heartily agree with Pastor Madugba's recommendation for believers to fast for that whole day and take the spiritual authority Jesus has released to us.
America was founded specifically as a covenant nation with the Lord Jesus Christ -- as an anchor for the Gospel, a place from which the Good News of Jesus Christ could be spread worldwide. We are not -- and must never be -- a nation under Islam! Should you desire to check out Islam's goals for this nation, simply visit http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com. It will chill your blood.
Will you join Della and me in united prayer and fasting on September 25th? Together we will turn back this flood of wickedness and evil. Together we will -- through and by the Spirit of the Lord -- raise up the standard Isaiah prophesies of in Isaiah 59:19:
"So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him."
OK. On with today's discussion.
In Hebrews 9:27 Paul makes the following statement, and it is one I grew up hearing -- and misunderstanding.
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
I always read this as referring to the Great Judgment Day we would have to experience after death. We all have to die, do we not? There are two things certain in life (according to the quipsters): death and taxes.
Bahh, Humbug! What we miss is the rest of the sentence (verse 28).
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
Get it? Paul is saying, "Although it is appointed unto man once to die -- and after this the judgment -- Jesus kept that appointment with death and was offered up as the sacrifice for our sins -- the same sins that carry that penalty of death."
Remember what Jesus said to the crowds that followed Him after He fed the 5,000?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ......... Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:47-51, 53)
Let's backtrack a little. What was it that God spoke to Adam when He set him in the Garden of Eden?
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17)
There's a lot of commentary I could make on this event, but I'll hold off on it -- at least for now. The point here is that Adam and Eve did eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The partaking of that fruit introduced death into the human race. Adam and Eve were never designed to die. They were designed to live forever -- just like God! They had no appointment with death at all! The command to NOT eat of that tree was a warning that their lives would have a termination point if they did eat.
Every human being born from that day (the day they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) forward had an appointment with death. It became part of the human genome. It was a curse that came upon the human race; and it was part of the curse of the Law -- the law of sin and death.
Writing to the Romans Paul said, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)
This is a real revelation from the Holy Spirit. If you aren't seeing it yet, ask the Holy Spirit to unfold this to you. It will change your entire perspective of what happened at the Cross.
Jesus kept our appointment with death, folks! This is a part of the revelation of the Table of the Lord. When we eat of the Table we eat of the Lord; and Jesus made it clear that when we eat of Him, we eat eternal life. Let's see if I can explain it like this.
Every disease, every infirmity, every sickness, every virus, every weakness that comes into or upon our flesh is a product of some part of our body -- some cell or set of cells -- dying. As we've already said, Adam wasn't designed to die. Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought upon mankind the HIV of the human spirit. That HIV of the spirit resulted in an immediate reaction within human flesh.
Why? How?
When Paul was writing to the Ekklesia in Thessalonica, he said, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Thessalonians 5:23)
Notice the way he phrased this: "your whole spirit and soul and body." We are first and foremost spirit beings. Our spirits never die. We are secondarily soul. Our soul is our identity, our thought processes, our mind, our character and personality. We are lastly physical bodies. If our spirit becomes contaminated it affects our soul. If our soul is affected, it alters the way we think, and the way we speak. Whatever we speak -- because we are primarily spirit beings dwelling in shells of flesh and blood -- it has a direct bearing our physical well being.
Proverbs 23:7 tells us that "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he."
When we allow the Spirit of God to superintend our spirit, there is a natural -- and spiritually logical (if I can express it like that) chain of circumstances that follows. When we trust our knowledge and wisdom and understanding over and above what God has said and is saying, there are spiritual consequences that follow.
Follow me down a spiritual path for a minute.
It takes faith to accept and receive our salvation through Jesus Christ. When we trust in, rely on and believe that Jesus paid the price for our sin with His suffering, His death, and His resurrection, our spirits respond to that faith. Faith works by love -- agape love. It was the agape love of Jesus that brought Him to earth and impelled Him to redeem us from the curse.
But redemption from the curse was inclusive of a whole lot more than salvation from sin. "Salvation" has been sold down the river and cheapened into only "saved from sin" when in fact "saved" is only a tiny part of what Jesus accomplished.
We get our word "saved" from the Greek sozo (pronounced sodzo), which means: to save, to heal, to deliver, to make whole, to protect, to preserve, to restore to completeness. One Greek commentator put it like this: "to return to the state or condition that existed (in the Garden of Eden) before the fall of man."
Jesus' very name in the Hebrew, "Yeshua," means: salvation, deliverance, aid, victory, prosperity, health, welfare, wholeness.
So what was Adam's condition in the Garden before the fall? He was in perfect health. There was no death in him of any kind. He wasn't designed to die. After all, he was made in the image of God -- and as we know, God never dies. He always was, He is, and He will always be. He is the personification of eternity.
That's how Adam was created. [In our next Coffee Break, I'll try to demonstrate for you from Scripture that Adam lived in the Garden, walking and talking with God for some 2,000 years prior to the fall.] Whether you accept that argument -- or simply believe that Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on the third 24-hour day of his existence and then lived for 930 years, dying slowly until death took him -- doesn't really matter.
Adam -- and all the generations that lived prior to the Flood -- lived for the better part of a thousand years after the fall! Sin corrupted the whole environment of the earth and shortened man's lifespan in such a way that, with a few exceptions, most people never even made it to a hundred years of age.
Redemption from sin also included redemption from death, sickness, dying, weakness and infirmity; and -- for those that die, resurrection to eternal life. This is a phenomenal revelation if you can grasp it. Redemption from the curse also incorporates -- for women -- redemption from pain in childbearing; and Della and I know a number of women who have been able to receive this revelation by faith and take advantage of it. Redemption, as well, provides redemption from poverty and the restoration of prosperity. Once again, this is a revelation that folks must grasp and receive by faith in order to walk in.
Are you beginning to get the picture? "Salvation" is a huge package! For folks who limit it to redemption from the penalty for sin, they miss out on living a dimension of life here and now that Jesus intended so that the Father would receive glory. Cancellation of death -- in the here and now -- is part of the package. This is a revelation that many folks are just beginning to get a handle on.
Let me ask you something. It takes faith to accept and receive the salvation that Jesus provided -- and provides -- by His grace. Fact is, the faith that gets activated when one receives salvation from the penalty for sin is Jesus' faith.
When you read Mark 11:22 in the Greek text (rather than the KJV or other English translations) it renders more accurately to "Have [or possess] the faith of God." Or, we can read it, "Have God's faith."
The apostle Paul affirms this in Ephesians 2:8 when he writes, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."
Because of the way this comes out in the majority of our English translations, one tends to read it that Paul is saying that grace is the gift of God, but when you read it in Greek it is obvious that both grace and faith -- together -- are God's gift to us. We cannot receive God's grace without faith -- His faith -- and correspondingly, we cannot receive God's faith without having His grace. The two are inseparably linked together because of agape love.
Writing to the Ekklesia in Galatia, Paul notes that faith is energized (worketh, KJV), empowered and made effective by agape. (See Galatians 5:6)
That is the kind of faith which must be operational for us to receive the revelation of death cancellation. It's the same kind of faith that operates when we receive our healing. It's the same kind of faith that functions when we receive deliverance from evil spirits. It's the same kind of faith that works when we leave the poverty mindset and begin to think abundance.
Jesus came to bring us abundant LIFE! He came to keep our appointment with death so that we don't have to die! Are you seeing it yet?
That's where we'll quit for today. There's more to this revelation, and I'll share it with you in our next Coffee Break.
See you soon.
The Lord has set a table before us that is fit for kings and priests -- and we are both in Him! We have a feast set before us designed to help us function as kings who rule and reign, and priests who worship and come before God's presence in boldness and joy.
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.CapenerMinistries.com.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE TABLE OF THE LORD III
THE TABLE OF THE LORD III
The Original Covenant of the Table, Part 3
And a Great Gettin' Up Mornin' to you this fine day! I may sound like a broken record sometimes, but this IS the Best Day of Your Life!
Yup! It really is!
As we've already commented in the previous posts, Della and I have been actively praying and interceding over the nation with other brothers and sisters in the Lord each morning, and of course, over this region in which we live. During the past week, the emphasis in prayer has been in the nation's educational system. We have been lifting educators (school principals, superintendents, teachers, college and university professors, school boards, etc.) before the Lord in prayer, asking God to move with the wind of His Spirit to bring change -- real change, Godly change! Twice during the past week, we have received visions of remarkable events happening in our schools.
As many of you well know, the ACLU has been actively warring in our courts against educators and schools where the name of the Lord Jesus Christ -- or even simply Scriptures -- are mentioned or named. This is a spiritual battle that has been being waged. We don't waste our time praying against individuals or naming them in our prayers. Rather, we target the demonic forces and principalities, the rulers of the darkness that pervades our education system. When attorneys who work for the ACLU or other similar organizations become involved in lawsuits against teachers -- and even more recently some students -- these attorneys are nothing more than puppets whose strings are being pulled by wicked spirits out to remove every vestige of the Word of God or the name of Jesus from public education and the public conversation.
It is silliness run amuck to pray against these attorneys because they are not the driving force behind this effort. If you want to deal with a problem you go to the causal force and remove it. The rest of the problem will go away when you deal with the cause. Our problems are not with people: they are with demonic forces that deceive people, making those people nothing more than pawns.
That said, I had a waking vision one morning last week in which I saw a group of young children -- perhaps second or third-graders -- in a courtroom sitting behind their teacher who was on trial for quoting Scripture and mentioning the name of the Lord Jesus in class. The ACLU attorney who was pushing this case was standing behind his desk ranting and raving about the "unconstitutionality" and the "danger to the minds" of the young students. This attorney was really worked up, in a sweat, and waving his hands. A young girl of perhaps seven or eight years of age quietly got up out of her seat some two or three rows back and walked through the swinging doors of the barrier between the attorneys and the folks in the courtroom. This young girl was so filled with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that she carried the peace of God with each step.
The attorney was oblivious to her and didn't realize what was happening until she quietly touched him on the back. The power of God hit that man and he stopped mid-sentence and began to weep. The young girl just looked up at him and said, "It's OK, Sir. You just didn't know Jesus!" The court proceedings stopped instantly, and within short order the case was dismissed.
This morning a second vision took place. This time I was given a peek into different public schools -- primary, middle, secondary and even post-secondary institutions -- where students filled the halls. They were praying for each other, miracles of healing and deliverance were taking place, teachers were being saved and the Holy Spirit was literally blowing through the classrooms and hallways with the winds of change and deliverance.
These were visions, of course, but they gave real impetus and direction to our intercession. The Holy Spirit gives us these visions in order to direct our prayers and intercession. If God's people will wake up and begin to pray in agreement with the heart of the Lord as the Holy Spirit is showing us, the day will shortly come when we won't have to fight battles in courtrooms. We won't have to face off against specious arguments that are spiritual at their core. The catch is that believers are going to have to understand that -- as Jesus made clear -- "All authority in heaven and in earth" has been given to us by the commissioning from the Lord. We simply have to use that authority in agreement with what the Holy Spirit is directing at the moment. When Jesus commanded us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven," this is exactly what He meant.
Understand? Good! Then let's refocus our prayers and begin to target the real enemy -- NOT people!
Coffee's on. Pour yourself a cup and pull up a chair. Della made some cinnamon buns (vitamins, you know!) on Saturday, and they go great with this dark-roasted Columbian.
In Part 1 of this series we mentioned Melchizedek's visit to Abraham following his spectacular military victory over the armies of Chedorlaomer, Amraphel, Arioch and Tidal. It is recorded like this in Genesis 14:
"And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all."
Ever wonder why Melchizedek came out with bread and wine? Why do we not see this picture earlier in Scripture? The quick and simple answer is that this is the first time we see God making a covenant with a man. We do have an earlier covenant mentioned, but it was a covenant with the human race (See Genesis 9:8-17) not to ever destroy the earth again by a flood. That was different entirely in nature. Whenever a covenant was struck or "cut" (as the term goes in Hebrew: beriyth) that term -- to "cut covenant" -- always denoted a cutting of the flesh (almost always the right hand) so that blood would run. It therefore became a "blood covenant." The blood of both parties to the covenant would be mingled together making them "blood brothers."
Not until the Nephilim appeared on the earth (the seed of the fallen angels mingled with the human race) (This is a topic for future discussion, but one we won't get into in this series.) contaminating the Law of God, which was written in the hearts of men, do we see any evidence of covenants where men would drink each other's blood mingled with wine. God's people were forever forbidden to drink blood. Consider first the command given to Israel under the Mosaic Law, and then we will look a a prophetic word that Jacob gave concerning the coming Messiah.
"And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off." (Leviticus 17:10-14)
Notice two things in this passage: First, the command NOT to eat (or drink) blood is based on the fact that "the life of the flesh is in the blood." Secondly, the command is predicated on the Law of God that "it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." We'll come back to this picture in a minute, but let's take a look at Jacob's prophecy.
"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." (Genesis 49:10-12)
Because of the way the Hebrew often translates into English, it isn't immediately apparent -- at least in the KJV -- but this is a prophecy concerning Jesus shedding His blood. The very fact that the cup at Jesus' table (when He ate the Last Supper with His disciples) was wine became a fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus fulfilled every single element of Jacob's prophecy. The part, however, that I'm focusing on in this instance is the wine, and the covenant nature of the cup.
There are two things we should remember concerning Melchizedek's visit to Abraham. The first is that a divine covenant was being established. The seed of Abraham would be the people of covenant. God would establish His covenant with Abraham, then make that same covenant with Isaac, and then repeat it for the third time with Jacob. This was the "threefold cord" Solomon describes in Ecclesiastes 4:12. The picture Solomon draws in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 is that of covenant, and that was the covenant God was establishing with Abraham.
The second is that which Paul describes in writing to the Hebrews. "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Hebrews 6:13-20)
If Jesus was a High Priest forever after the order and succession (taxis in the Greek text) of Melchizedek, then He was following the same pattern that Melchizedek established when he brought bread and wine to Abraham to signify the covenant God was making with him. Let's not forget that the apostle Paul also reminds us that,
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise." (Galatians 3:13-18)
One more Scripture will fill in the missing link to these passages.
"And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." (I Corinthians 11:24-26 NASB)
Now are you seeing it? The Covenant was established with Abraham, confirmed in Isaac, and tripled in Jacob. The Covenant began with bread and wine through Melchizedek. Although natural Israel broke the Covenant, Jesus reinstated it, but made it available to the whole human race for "whosoever will." Paul makes abundantly clear that Jesus took the curse that came with the breaking of the Covenant so that the blessing of Abraham could be restored. Jesus became our High Priest after the arrangement and succession of Melchizedek, and at the same time offered the Covenant bread and wine as the proof that the Blessing and Covenant were again available to those who would enter into that Covenant with Jesus.
This picture gets even larger and more amplified when you see just what happened in the context of the Abrahamic Covenant through Jesus' death and resurrection, and how specifically it relates to the Table of the Lord. That'll wait for our next Coffee Break.
Before we wrap up today, however, there is one more thing you need to see. This is the primary connection between the Covenant and the Cup.
Luke 24:39 tells us what Jesus said when He appeared before His disciples following His resurrection. Pay close attention to the precise wording of what Jesus says. "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Think about this!
What was Jesus when He went to the Cross? He was flesh and blood. We know from Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:"
When Jesus rose from the dead, the life that was in Him was not blood: it was Spirit -- that same Spirit that God initially breathed into Adam when he became a living, speaking spirit. What was it that Paul said to the Galatians about Jesus' taking the curse?
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: ......... that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
See it? The Cup was the promise of the Spirit. The wine was representative of the life of the Spirit. Paul says that as often as we "eat this bread and drink this cup" we demonstrate, declare, show and preach Jesus' death -- and thereby new life in the Spirit -- until He comes.
That's where I have to stop today. Meditate on this picture. Cogitate. And wait until you see what else Jesus accomplished and why the Table is so important to us as believers.
See you soon.
The Lord has set a table before us that is fit for kings and priests -- and we are both in Him! We have a feast set before us designed to help us function as kings who rule and reign, and priests who worship and come before God's presence in boldness and joy.
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are now available at http://regnersrangers.multiply.com/journal/ and are being slowly added at http://www.AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.CapenerMinistries.com.
The Original Covenant of the Table, Part 3
And a Great Gettin' Up Mornin' to you this fine day! I may sound like a broken record sometimes, but this IS the Best Day of Your Life!
Yup! It really is!
As we've already commented in the previous posts, Della and I have been actively praying and interceding over the nation with other brothers and sisters in the Lord each morning, and of course, over this region in which we live. During the past week, the emphasis in prayer has been in the nation's educational system. We have been lifting educators (school principals, superintendents, teachers, college and university professors, school boards, etc.) before the Lord in prayer, asking God to move with the wind of His Spirit to bring change -- real change, Godly change! Twice during the past week, we have received visions of remarkable events happening in our schools.
As many of you well know, the ACLU has been actively warring in our courts against educators and schools where the name of the Lord Jesus Christ -- or even simply Scriptures -- are mentioned or named. This is a spiritual battle that has been being waged. We don't waste our time praying against individuals or naming them in our prayers. Rather, we target the demonic forces and principalities, the rulers of the darkness that pervades our education system. When attorneys who work for the ACLU or other similar organizations become involved in lawsuits against teachers -- and even more recently some students -- these attorneys are nothing more than puppets whose strings are being pulled by wicked spirits out to remove every vestige of the Word of God or the name of Jesus from public education and the public conversation.
It is silliness run amuck to pray against these attorneys because they are not the driving force behind this effort. If you want to deal with a problem you go to the causal force and remove it. The rest of the problem will go away when you deal with the cause. Our problems are not with people: they are with demonic forces that deceive people, making those people nothing more than pawns.
That said, I had a waking vision one morning last week in which I saw a group of young children -- perhaps second or third-graders -- in a courtroom sitting behind their teacher who was on trial for quoting Scripture and mentioning the name of the Lord Jesus in class. The ACLU attorney who was pushing this case was standing behind his desk ranting and raving about the "unconstitutionality" and the "danger to the minds" of the young students. This attorney was really worked up, in a sweat, and waving his hands. A young girl of perhaps seven or eight years of age quietly got up out of her seat some two or three rows back and walked through the swinging doors of the barrier between the attorneys and the folks in the courtroom. This young girl was so filled with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that she carried the peace of God with each step.
The attorney was oblivious to her and didn't realize what was happening until she quietly touched him on the back. The power of God hit that man and he stopped mid-sentence and began to weep. The young girl just looked up at him and said, "It's OK, Sir. You just didn't know Jesus!" The court proceedings stopped instantly, and within short order the case was dismissed.
This morning a second vision took place. This time I was given a peek into different public schools -- primary, middle, secondary and even post-secondary institutions -- where students filled the halls. They were praying for each other, miracles of healing and deliverance were taking place, teachers were being saved and the Holy Spirit was literally blowing through the classrooms and hallways with the winds of change and deliverance.
These were visions, of course, but they gave real impetus and direction to our intercession. The Holy Spirit gives us these visions in order to direct our prayers and intercession. If God's people will wake up and begin to pray in agreement with the heart of the Lord as the Holy Spirit is showing us, the day will shortly come when we won't have to fight battles in courtrooms. We won't have to face off against specious arguments that are spiritual at their core. The catch is that believers are going to have to understand that -- as Jesus made clear -- "All authority in heaven and in earth" has been given to us by the commissioning from the Lord. We simply have to use that authority in agreement with what the Holy Spirit is directing at the moment. When Jesus commanded us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven," this is exactly what He meant.
Understand? Good! Then let's refocus our prayers and begin to target the real enemy -- NOT people!
Coffee's on. Pour yourself a cup and pull up a chair. Della made some cinnamon buns (vitamins, you know!) on Saturday, and they go great with this dark-roasted Columbian.
In Part 1 of this series we mentioned Melchizedek's visit to Abraham following his spectacular military victory over the armies of Chedorlaomer, Amraphel, Arioch and Tidal. It is recorded like this in Genesis 14:
"And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all."
Ever wonder why Melchizedek came out with bread and wine? Why do we not see this picture earlier in Scripture? The quick and simple answer is that this is the first time we see God making a covenant with a man. We do have an earlier covenant mentioned, but it was a covenant with the human race (See Genesis 9:8-17) not to ever destroy the earth again by a flood. That was different entirely in nature. Whenever a covenant was struck or "cut" (as the term goes in Hebrew: beriyth) that term -- to "cut covenant" -- always denoted a cutting of the flesh (almost always the right hand) so that blood would run. It therefore became a "blood covenant." The blood of both parties to the covenant would be mingled together making them "blood brothers."
Not until the Nephilim appeared on the earth (the seed of the fallen angels mingled with the human race) (This is a topic for future discussion, but one we won't get into in this series.) contaminating the Law of God, which was written in the hearts of men, do we see any evidence of covenants where men would drink each other's blood mingled with wine. God's people were forever forbidden to drink blood. Consider first the command given to Israel under the Mosaic Law, and then we will look a a prophetic word that Jacob gave concerning the coming Messiah.
"And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off." (Leviticus 17:10-14)
Notice two things in this passage: First, the command NOT to eat (or drink) blood is based on the fact that "the life of the flesh is in the blood." Secondly, the command is predicated on the Law of God that "it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." We'll come back to this picture in a minute, but let's take a look at Jacob's prophecy.
"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." (Genesis 49:10-12)
Because of the way the Hebrew often translates into English, it isn't immediately apparent -- at least in the KJV -- but this is a prophecy concerning Jesus shedding His blood. The very fact that the cup at Jesus' table (when He ate the Last Supper with His disciples) was wine became a fulfillment of prophecy. Jesus fulfilled every single element of Jacob's prophecy. The part, however, that I'm focusing on in this instance is the wine, and the covenant nature of the cup.
There are two things we should remember concerning Melchizedek's visit to Abraham. The first is that a divine covenant was being established. The seed of Abraham would be the people of covenant. God would establish His covenant with Abraham, then make that same covenant with Isaac, and then repeat it for the third time with Jacob. This was the "threefold cord" Solomon describes in Ecclesiastes 4:12. The picture Solomon draws in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 is that of covenant, and that was the covenant God was establishing with Abraham.
The second is that which Paul describes in writing to the Hebrews. "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Hebrews 6:13-20)
If Jesus was a High Priest forever after the order and succession (taxis in the Greek text) of Melchizedek, then He was following the same pattern that Melchizedek established when he brought bread and wine to Abraham to signify the covenant God was making with him. Let's not forget that the apostle Paul also reminds us that,
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise." (Galatians 3:13-18)
One more Scripture will fill in the missing link to these passages.
"And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." (I Corinthians 11:24-26 NASB)
Now are you seeing it? The Covenant was established with Abraham, confirmed in Isaac, and tripled in Jacob. The Covenant began with bread and wine through Melchizedek. Although natural Israel broke the Covenant, Jesus reinstated it, but made it available to the whole human race for "whosoever will." Paul makes abundantly clear that Jesus took the curse that came with the breaking of the Covenant so that the blessing of Abraham could be restored. Jesus became our High Priest after the arrangement and succession of Melchizedek, and at the same time offered the Covenant bread and wine as the proof that the Blessing and Covenant were again available to those who would enter into that Covenant with Jesus.
This picture gets even larger and more amplified when you see just what happened in the context of the Abrahamic Covenant through Jesus' death and resurrection, and how specifically it relates to the Table of the Lord. That'll wait for our next Coffee Break.
Before we wrap up today, however, there is one more thing you need to see. This is the primary connection between the Covenant and the Cup.
Luke 24:39 tells us what Jesus said when He appeared before His disciples following His resurrection. Pay close attention to the precise wording of what Jesus says. "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." Think about this!
What was Jesus when He went to the Cross? He was flesh and blood. We know from Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls:"
When Jesus rose from the dead, the life that was in Him was not blood: it was Spirit -- that same Spirit that God initially breathed into Adam when he became a living, speaking spirit. What was it that Paul said to the Galatians about Jesus' taking the curse?
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: ......... that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
See it? The Cup was the promise of the Spirit. The wine was representative of the life of the Spirit. Paul says that as often as we "eat this bread and drink this cup" we demonstrate, declare, show and preach Jesus' death -- and thereby new life in the Spirit -- until He comes.
That's where I have to stop today. Meditate on this picture. Cogitate. And wait until you see what else Jesus accomplished and why the Table is so important to us as believers.
See you soon.
The Lord has set a table before us that is fit for kings and priests -- and we are both in Him! We have a feast set before us designed to help us function as kings who rule and reign, and priests who worship and come before God's presence in boldness and joy.
Be blessed!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
455 North River Road
Prosser, Washington 99350-6554
(509) 781-6099
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