ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: ISRAEL’S LEGAL STATUS
Greetings and Salutations! OK, and Blessings, too!
Somehow or another, folks seemed to derive the opinion from my last Coffee Break that I’m a hater of Palestinians. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout the years I’ve had several friends who were Palestinian in origin. My opposition is not to the Palestinian people per se but to the terrorists (they call themselves “the Palestinian Authority”) who want to make life hell on earth for the Palestinians AND Israel.
My compassion for the Palestinian people is unbridled but that compassion does not by any stretch of the imagination extend to the demonic idea that they should have a homeland within Israel’s boundaries – especially when they already have a homeland within Jordan, and the Jordanian king has invited them to participate in a democratic government with him. Prior to the formation of the PLO, the overwhelming majority of Arabs and non-Jews living in Israel were very happy to live in a Jewish state under Jewish governance. Their living conditions and circumstances were far better and more prosperous than anything they’d ever known under Arab governance.
The Internet abounds with photographs and stories of Palestinian children who are being brainwashed with hatred for anyone and anything Jewish. The myth of all the “starving people” within Gaza because of the “terrible things the Israelis are doing to them” is demonstrated to be an out and out lie when you actually see photos of the overwhelming majority of living conditions within Gaza. Are there some places where the conditions are deplorable? Sure, but let’s be clear about it and point our fingers at the real culprits: Hamas!
Anyway, enough of that! Let’s get right to the subject of today’s Coffee Break. Before we start talking about the San Remo Accord, be sure you have your cup of Java on hand. Pull up a chair and set a spell! (Grin)
Let me begin with a portion of the text of the San Remo Accord before we get into our discussion on this document and its legal implications. The San Remo Conference decided on April 24, 1920 to assign the Mandate [for Palestine] under the League of Nations to Britain. The terms of the Mandate were also discussed with the United States which was not a member of the League. An agreed text was confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and it came into operation in September 1923. Here is the portion germane to our discussion today:
The Council of the League of Nations:
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire, within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and
Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connexion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;
and
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine; and
Whereas the mandate in respect of Palestine has been formulated in the following terms and submitted to the Council of the League for approval; and
Whereas His Britannic Majesty has accepted the mandate in respect of Palestine and undertaken to exercise it on behalf of the League of Nations in conformity with the following provisions; and
Whereas by the aforementioned Article 22 (paragraph 8), it is provided that the degree of authority, control or administration to be exercised by the Mandatory, not having been previously agreed upon by the Members of the League, shall be explicitly defined by the Council of the League of Nations;
Confirming the said Mandate, defines its terms as follows:
Article 1.
The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate.
Article 2.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
Article 3.
The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.
Article 4.
An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, subject always to the control of the Administration, to assist and take part in the development of the country.
The Zionist Organization, so long as its organization and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate shall be recognized as such agency. It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the Jewish national home.
Article 5.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power.
(Note: Britain then gave Transjordanian Palestine - about 70% of Palestine - to King Abdullah and called it Transjordan. It is now called Jordan. This is not to say that that the Jews were promised that they could settle in all of Palestine. Palestine was a loose regional term in those days and even included Damascus!)
Article 6.
The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
Article 7.
The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enacting a nationality law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine.
Article 8.
The privileges and immunities of foreigners, including the benefits of consular jurisdiction and protection as formerly enjoyed by Capitulation or usage in the Ottoman Empire, shall not be applicable in Palestine.
Unless the Powers whose nationals enjoyed the aforementioned privileges and immunities on August 1st, 1914, shall have previously renounced the right to their re-establishment, or shall have agreed to their non-application for a specified period, these privileges and immunities shall, at the expiration of the mandate, be immediately re-established in their entirety or with such modifications as may have been agreed upon between the Powers concerned.
Article 9.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that the judicial system established in Palestine shall assure to foreigners, as well as to natives, a complete guarantee of their rights.
Respect for the personal status of the various peoples and communities and for their religious interests shall be fully guaranteed. In particular, the control and administration of Waqfs shall be exercised in accordance with religious law and the dispositions of the founders.
Article 10.
Pending the making of special extradition agreements relating to Palestine, the extradition treaties in force between the Mandatory and other foreign Powers shall apply to Palestine.
Article 11.
The Administration of Palestine shall take all necessary measures to safeguard the interests of the community in connection with the development of the country, and, subject to any international obligations accepted by the Mandatory, shall have full power to provide for public ownership or control of any of the natural resources of the country or of the public works, services and utilities established or to be established therein. It shall introduce a land system appropriate to the needs of the country having regard, among other things, to the desirability of promoting the close settlement and intensive cultivation of the land.
The Administration may arrange with the Jewish agency mentioned in Article 4 to construct or operate, upon fair and equitable terms, any public works, services and utilities, and to develop any of the natural resources of the country, in so far as these matters are not directly undertaken by the Administration. Any such arrangements shall provide that no profits distributed by such agency, directly or indirectly, shall exceed a reasonable rate of interest on the capital, and any further profits shall be utilized by it for the benefit of the country in a manner approved by the Administration.
Article 12.
The Mandatory shall be entrusted with the control of the foreign relations of Palestine, and the right to issue exequaturs to consuls appointed by foreign Powers. He shall also be entitled to afford diplomatic and consular protection to citizens of Palestine when outside its territorial limits.
Article 25.
In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.
(Note: (Palestine originally included land in what is now Jordan.)
Well, this has taken a lot more time and space than I originally envisioned. I’ve only listed the first 12, along with Article 25, of 28 articles in the San Remo Accord because it would make this Coffee Break incredibly long, but suffice it to say that this agreement, which was signed onto by every Arab nation in the region, established a fairly comprehensive territory for the purpose of establishing a Jewish state and nation. The objective of the San Remo Accord was born out of Lord Arthur James Balfour’s “Balfour Declaration.” The Balfour Declaration was nothing more than a short letter to Lord Rothschild which reads like this:
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild:
I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment of Palestine as the national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object,
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours,
Arthur James Balfour
All I’ve really done today is to lay out the fundamentals of how Israel began to be reestablished as the Jewish homeland. However, an even cursory read of the above articles makes abundantly clear that this accord, ratified by the British government – along with a total of 51 governments, only envisioned the creation of a permanent home for the Jews. Nowhere in any of the articles is there any mention of a “Palestinian state” nor the creation of a separate region for “Palestinians” apart from Jordan, which was known for a time as Trans-Jordan. Quite the contrary.
Jordan was and always has been the national home of the so-called “Palestinians.” As already noted the Palestinians are not a homogenous or even indigenous group of people who’ve occupied the region throughout the centuries as a national homeland. There never has been a nation or state called Palestine since the beginning of time, but there has been a nation and people of Israel for more than four millennia – a people who’ve been persecuted, dispossessed and scattered abroad across the face of the earth for a variety of reasons we won’t take time to get into now.
We’ll continue this discussion for at least one more Coffee Break in a few days. Meanwhile, let me refer you to a legal argument for the San Remo Accord at the following link: http://www.think-israel.org/green.sanremo.html. Here is a video presentation by CBN News: http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.aspx?s=/vod/CMI222v1_WS in which the San Remo Accord is referred to as Israel’s Magna Carta.
See you in a few days.
As Christians we have a mandate from the Lord to bless Israel. More than that, the cry of the Lord through Isaiah is to “give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth!”
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: ISRAEL OR PALESTINE, OR BOTH?
ISRAEL OR PALESTINE: OR BOTH?
Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning!
Please accept my apologies in advance if you were expecting the continuation of our series on Heaven today. We will continue with that series shortly, but because of the fact that Israel is so much in the news today, and Israel plays such an important in America’s existence, and defense in the Middle East, I wanted to take a break and do a piece or two on this nation. Obama’s speech yesterday has really triggered a huge outcry internationally, as well as among the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Back in February of 2005, I published an article (not a part of the Coffee Break series) with the same name as this Coffee Break article in response to a note from one of my readers questioning why the U.S. has continually supported Israel since its reemergence as a state in May 1948. Following is an updated and amplified version of that response.
One reason our nation has been such a strong supporter of Israel is because of scriptures like Psalm 122:6: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee." David later sang (Psalm 137:5-6), “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
There are a multitude of other scriptures that are similar to this, but the theme is the same: those who bless, who pray for, who support Israel will likewise prosper and receive the blessings of God.
Our nation has long recognized that it has a responsibility to be an undergirding for Israel. America was founded upon the fundamental freedom to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, to honor Him, and to be obedient to His word and will. Because the support of Israel is such a recurring theme throughout Scripture, God's people have long recognized their responsibilities. Our nation's leaders have historically supported Israel.
I know there are those who believe that our support of Israel and our generous financial assistance is a violation of our Constitution, but this is a case where a higher law prevails than that of the Constitution. I am – by just about every rule one can muster – a Constitutionalist. I genuinely believe our nation needs to return to its Constitutional foundations.
There is a higher law, however, that our forefathers all recognized when this nation was founded: God's Law. That Law will and must always be the ultimate force that guides this nation's policies, and if some believe that it conflicts with our nation's Constitution, then the higher law must prevail. I'm not talking about religion or the mythical separation of church and state. I'm talking about the universal laws that God has set in place that no nation can disregard without consequences. That said, let me get on with this discussion.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, they have always had a land of their own. (Note: I use the term, “Palestinians,” really only for reference’s sake in this article since they’ve never been known that way historically.) They simply chose to abandon it and lay claim to Israel. Look at the history of the Palestinians. They have for centuries lived in Jordan, occupying a majority of that country. Never has there been a mandate from God to take the land of Israel away from the Jews and give it to the Palestinians. The fact that the Jews were carried away into captivity because of their disobedience to God did not somehow change God's mind concerning the land. In fact, through His prophets, He promised the Jews that He would return them to their homeland and restore all of it to them.
If you study the history of many of the Palestinians, they are descended from the Philistines, the Amorites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, etc.: nations who lost their birthright and land because of God's judgment upon them. They have no spiritual, moral, ethical or legal right to claim lands and territories in this present day under the premise that they lived there before Israel was once again declared a nation. They were interlopers, squatters who seized and occupied lands and territories they were never entitled to. They got away with it for a long time, too, because there was no one to challenge their occupancy.
For the sake of a little current history, let me take a minute to quote a portion of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint-session of both houses of Congress, scheduled for next Monday. (I am pleased to have an advance copy of that speech as it has appeared in Arutz Sheva, the Israeli National News.)
"On November 2, 1917, Lord Arthur James Balfour, Foreign Secretary and past Prime Minister of Great Britain, issued the famous Balfour Declaration, that posits the founding of a national home for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. Its authors were referring to the Biblical borders of Israel, with whose boundaries the English people were familiar from studying the Holy Book, that land which lay on both sides of the Jordan River, extending from the northernmost Golan Heights to Aqaba in the south, close to 116 thousand square kilometers.
In 1920, the San Remo International Conference confirmed the Balfour Declaration and gave Britain the mandate over both sides of the Jordan River. King Feisal of Iraq, in the name of the Arab delegation to the 1919 peace conference after WWI, wrote: “Our delegation here in Paris are fully aware of the suggestions the Zionist Federation made to the peace conference. In our eyes they are modest and fitting, and we will do our best to have them accepted. We will welcome the Jews warmly when they come home.
Two years later, the eastern bank of the Jordan, an area of about 90,000 square kilometers, was separated and closed to Jewish immigration. What remained for the Jews was the west bank of the Jordan, an area of only 26,000 square kilometers. The decision to hand over the land east of the Jordan to the head of the Saudi royal family was decided on by Great Britain for political ends.
The plan to partition the land of Israel west of the Jordan River, as suggested by the Peel Committee in 1936, was called “a midget-sized Jewish country”, by revisionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, in his 1937 speech before Parliament. The heads of Jewish settlement in Israel declared that even if the Jews are forced to accept the partition against their will, they see it as a temporary solution. Chaim Weizmann, later Israel’s first president, said: “This is an arrangement that can last 25-30 years”, and David Ben Gurion, later to be Israel’s first Prime Minister, reacted: “I see our future as cancelling the partition, once we have become secure in our state”.
In 1947, the United Nations Assembly ratified the Partition Plan, a decision that led to the declaration of the state of Israel on the tiny bit of land left for the Jewish homeland. Our capital, Jerusalem, was divided in two, and her heart, the site of our Holy Temples, was outside our borders. All the parts of Israel that had been clearly promised to us by God were also outside these borders.
The Arabs never accepted the Partition Plan and, led by Amin El Huseini continued their terror attacks against the Jewish people. Huseini met with Hitler in Berlin at the height of WWII in order to plan the extermination of the Jews in Israel and the east.
Immediately after the declaration of Israel’s independence on May 15, 1948, the armies of 7 Arab states invaded the fledgling country to attempt to murder all its Jewish residents. For the next 19 years, we lived while paying for our existence in unending bloodshed. In the War of Independence alone, 6000 soldiers and civilians were killed, that was 1% of the population at the time. God helped us defeat our enemies and we succeeded in building a wonderful country despite its narrow borders and their limitations.
Then began the infamous announcements of President Nasser of Egypt in 1967, who, together with Syria’s ruler Hafez el Assad, and Jordan’s King Hussein, decided to invade tiny Israel and wipe it off the map. Israel’s boundaries were the indefensible Green Line, called “Auschwitz Borders” by then-Foreign Minister Abba Eban. In the June 1967 war that ensued, the state of Israel and its heroic soldiers, defeated Egypt in six days and freed the remaining sections of Israel on the west of the Jordan River."
Prime Minister Netanyahu very clearly enunciates a fair portion of Israel’s modern history in his speech as he lays the groundwork for explaining why Israel cannot, must not and will not ever return to its pre-1967 borders.
There are emotional human issues here, of course. Palestinian squatters who had occupied the land prior to Israel’s statehood in 1948 (I’ll discuss this issue in our next Coffee Break) fled to Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia under false promises by Arab leaders that they would one day be given “the right of return” to their previous homes “when the Zionists are eradicated.” Those leaders had no legal mandate for such promises and created an unrealistic expectancy among the “refugees.”
So what do you do with the families who left? From a political standpoint one cannot simply displace the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have continued to live in Israel and those who scattered throughout the region. That doesn't mean they need to be granted separate statehood. They can choose to live under the democratic rule of Israel, prosper and live in peace, or they can choose to return to Jordan where their forebears have lived in throughout many past generations – a very real option. Jordan’s King Abdullah said in a recent speech, “We are Palestine!” During the uprisings of the last couple of months, he extended an offer to PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to join him in a shared government. Abbas refused, sticking to his demand for a separate Palestinian state at the cost of Israel’s existence.
Historically, the present-day Palestinians are an amalgamation of many tribes scattered throughout the region. There never has been a political entity –a state, if you will – recognized by the world as the nation of Palestine. Israel and much of the region was called Palestine for a time under British occupation, but there was no nation or state of Palestine as such. Click on the following link to take a look at the modern history of the area as it appeared under British Occupation from 1882 - 1914):
http://www.omegaletter.com/images/articles/2010/mainmap_ottoman.gif
Palestine was so called under a British mandate in or around 1900 and consisted of most of the historical land of Israel. In 1922, changes were implemented by the League of Nations which declared a “land of Israel” encompassing all of the land west of the Jordan River, the Negev, all of the Golan and southern portions of what have since become Syria. A UN resolution took more land in 1947, and in 1948 -- less than 50 years after the British mandate, the United Nations agreed that Israel should once again become a sovereign nation.
To be sure, many of the Palestinians who occupied the land saw their homes and properties taken away from them and destroyed by the incoming Jews who were Holocaust survivors. It isn't hard to feel compassion for them and to want to do something to redress their grievances. That said, however, it still remains that they were the interlopers, occupying land that they would one day have to leave. That day has come.
Palestinians have the opportunity to live within an Israeli state (my opinion), vote and become democratic citizens of that nation and enjoy the benefits of democracy, or they can continue to shout their spurious claims of their rights to the land, continue to commit murder and ultimately be destroyed as a people. The creation of a Palestinian state is a political decision, but it is one that cannot last. The so-called Palestinian people have been at war with the Jews for 3500 years, and to think they will suddenly live in peace and harmony as neighbors in the 21st century simply by having their own state is a demonic fantasy.
It isn't hard to applaud those who want to try and make it work, but unless there is radical change in the spirit of the people and the spirit of the land, we will ultimately see a battle to the finish and the extinction of the Palestinians. Psalm 83 is a perfect picture of the end of this conflict. I won’t take the time today to fully explore the prophecy contained in this Psalm; but briefly, you have a description of ten neighboring nations or tribes who make a decision against Israel saying, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”
The prayer of Asaph ends like this: “Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that Thou, whose Name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth.”
We know from the prophetic utterances of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah (and many others) that the promise of God is the elevation of Israel in the earth and the restoration of its entire homeland – that same homeland that God promised to Abraham!
Consider the portion of the covenant that God made with Abraham concerning the land He would give to the covenant-seed of Abraham:
“In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21)
See that? “From the river of Egypt (the Nile River) unto the great river, the river Euphrates!” Wow!! Stop and think about what that encompasses. That takes in a good chunk of what today is eastern Egypt, the entire Sinai Peninsula, all (of course) of modern Israel (including all of the “West Bank”), the Gaza, the southern portion of Lebanon, much of eastern Syria, and a large portion of western Jordan (which is 70% occupied by people who call themselves “Palestinians.”)
Not since the days of David and Solomon has Israel occupied the majority of the land God promised to them “for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). Their sin against God caused them to be carried away into captivity, and they never have fully occupied their promised possession. However, God’s promises don’t go away, and the promise of this land to Abraham’s seed still stands. Furthermore, with Israel going in captivity, the Lord sent Jeremiah to them to say:
“They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.”
Prophecies abound throughout the O.T. in which the Lord promises to restore Israel to her inheritance. Even before Israel first entered into the Promised Land, the Lord warned them what would happen to them as a nation if they departed from His commandments. Yet in the warning also came the mercy of God as He promised that He would return them to their promised heritage. (See Deuteronomy 30:4-8)
“If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the LORD thy God will put all these curses (See Deuteronomy 28:15-68) upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.”
That, folks, is the future of Israel and the future of all their enemies. Israel will – whether it happens this year, next year or even a few years from now – most certainly occupy the whole land of its inheritance. Those nations which have determined the eradication of Israel from the map already have a curse upon them, and their doom has already been prepared by the Lord as a part of the justice and judgment under His covenant with Abraham. If the Palestinians continue to choose a path of destruction against Israel, they as a nation and a people (if we can call them that) will be obliterated from the face of the earth.
A word of caution, however! There are folks classified as “Palestinian” who absolutely love the Lord. There are Palestinians – a huge number, in fact – who prefer to live as Israelis and Israeli citizens in the peace and prosperity Israel has granted. They have chosen to bless Israel rather than curse it, and for that reason, they are exempt from the destruction and curses to come upon those who have set themselves against God’s covenant.
There’s a lot more to say on this topic; and I can’t really do justice to this in a single Coffee Break. In our next discussion, let’s take up ISRAEL’S LEGAL STATUS, granted to it under the 1922 League of Nations charter.
See you in a few days.
As Christians we have a mandate from the Lord to bless Israel. More than that, the cry of the Lord through Isaiah is to “give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth!”
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning!
Please accept my apologies in advance if you were expecting the continuation of our series on Heaven today. We will continue with that series shortly, but because of the fact that Israel is so much in the news today, and Israel plays such an important in America’s existence, and defense in the Middle East, I wanted to take a break and do a piece or two on this nation. Obama’s speech yesterday has really triggered a huge outcry internationally, as well as among the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Back in February of 2005, I published an article (not a part of the Coffee Break series) with the same name as this Coffee Break article in response to a note from one of my readers questioning why the U.S. has continually supported Israel since its reemergence as a state in May 1948. Following is an updated and amplified version of that response.
One reason our nation has been such a strong supporter of Israel is because of scriptures like Psalm 122:6: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee." David later sang (Psalm 137:5-6), “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
There are a multitude of other scriptures that are similar to this, but the theme is the same: those who bless, who pray for, who support Israel will likewise prosper and receive the blessings of God.
Our nation has long recognized that it has a responsibility to be an undergirding for Israel. America was founded upon the fundamental freedom to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, to honor Him, and to be obedient to His word and will. Because the support of Israel is such a recurring theme throughout Scripture, God's people have long recognized their responsibilities. Our nation's leaders have historically supported Israel.
I know there are those who believe that our support of Israel and our generous financial assistance is a violation of our Constitution, but this is a case where a higher law prevails than that of the Constitution. I am – by just about every rule one can muster – a Constitutionalist. I genuinely believe our nation needs to return to its Constitutional foundations.
There is a higher law, however, that our forefathers all recognized when this nation was founded: God's Law. That Law will and must always be the ultimate force that guides this nation's policies, and if some believe that it conflicts with our nation's Constitution, then the higher law must prevail. I'm not talking about religion or the mythical separation of church and state. I'm talking about the universal laws that God has set in place that no nation can disregard without consequences. That said, let me get on with this discussion.
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, they have always had a land of their own. (Note: I use the term, “Palestinians,” really only for reference’s sake in this article since they’ve never been known that way historically.) They simply chose to abandon it and lay claim to Israel. Look at the history of the Palestinians. They have for centuries lived in Jordan, occupying a majority of that country. Never has there been a mandate from God to take the land of Israel away from the Jews and give it to the Palestinians. The fact that the Jews were carried away into captivity because of their disobedience to God did not somehow change God's mind concerning the land. In fact, through His prophets, He promised the Jews that He would return them to their homeland and restore all of it to them.
If you study the history of many of the Palestinians, they are descended from the Philistines, the Amorites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, etc.: nations who lost their birthright and land because of God's judgment upon them. They have no spiritual, moral, ethical or legal right to claim lands and territories in this present day under the premise that they lived there before Israel was once again declared a nation. They were interlopers, squatters who seized and occupied lands and territories they were never entitled to. They got away with it for a long time, too, because there was no one to challenge their occupancy.
For the sake of a little current history, let me take a minute to quote a portion of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint-session of both houses of Congress, scheduled for next Monday. (I am pleased to have an advance copy of that speech as it has appeared in Arutz Sheva, the Israeli National News.)
"On November 2, 1917, Lord Arthur James Balfour, Foreign Secretary and past Prime Minister of Great Britain, issued the famous Balfour Declaration, that posits the founding of a national home for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. Its authors were referring to the Biblical borders of Israel, with whose boundaries the English people were familiar from studying the Holy Book, that land which lay on both sides of the Jordan River, extending from the northernmost Golan Heights to Aqaba in the south, close to 116 thousand square kilometers.
In 1920, the San Remo International Conference confirmed the Balfour Declaration and gave Britain the mandate over both sides of the Jordan River. King Feisal of Iraq, in the name of the Arab delegation to the 1919 peace conference after WWI, wrote: “Our delegation here in Paris are fully aware of the suggestions the Zionist Federation made to the peace conference. In our eyes they are modest and fitting, and we will do our best to have them accepted. We will welcome the Jews warmly when they come home.
Two years later, the eastern bank of the Jordan, an area of about 90,000 square kilometers, was separated and closed to Jewish immigration. What remained for the Jews was the west bank of the Jordan, an area of only 26,000 square kilometers. The decision to hand over the land east of the Jordan to the head of the Saudi royal family was decided on by Great Britain for political ends.
The plan to partition the land of Israel west of the Jordan River, as suggested by the Peel Committee in 1936, was called “a midget-sized Jewish country”, by revisionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, in his 1937 speech before Parliament. The heads of Jewish settlement in Israel declared that even if the Jews are forced to accept the partition against their will, they see it as a temporary solution. Chaim Weizmann, later Israel’s first president, said: “This is an arrangement that can last 25-30 years”, and David Ben Gurion, later to be Israel’s first Prime Minister, reacted: “I see our future as cancelling the partition, once we have become secure in our state”.
In 1947, the United Nations Assembly ratified the Partition Plan, a decision that led to the declaration of the state of Israel on the tiny bit of land left for the Jewish homeland. Our capital, Jerusalem, was divided in two, and her heart, the site of our Holy Temples, was outside our borders. All the parts of Israel that had been clearly promised to us by God were also outside these borders.
The Arabs never accepted the Partition Plan and, led by Amin El Huseini continued their terror attacks against the Jewish people. Huseini met with Hitler in Berlin at the height of WWII in order to plan the extermination of the Jews in Israel and the east.
Immediately after the declaration of Israel’s independence on May 15, 1948, the armies of 7 Arab states invaded the fledgling country to attempt to murder all its Jewish residents. For the next 19 years, we lived while paying for our existence in unending bloodshed. In the War of Independence alone, 6000 soldiers and civilians were killed, that was 1% of the population at the time. God helped us defeat our enemies and we succeeded in building a wonderful country despite its narrow borders and their limitations.
Then began the infamous announcements of President Nasser of Egypt in 1967, who, together with Syria’s ruler Hafez el Assad, and Jordan’s King Hussein, decided to invade tiny Israel and wipe it off the map. Israel’s boundaries were the indefensible Green Line, called “Auschwitz Borders” by then-Foreign Minister Abba Eban. In the June 1967 war that ensued, the state of Israel and its heroic soldiers, defeated Egypt in six days and freed the remaining sections of Israel on the west of the Jordan River."
Prime Minister Netanyahu very clearly enunciates a fair portion of Israel’s modern history in his speech as he lays the groundwork for explaining why Israel cannot, must not and will not ever return to its pre-1967 borders.
There are emotional human issues here, of course. Palestinian squatters who had occupied the land prior to Israel’s statehood in 1948 (I’ll discuss this issue in our next Coffee Break) fled to Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia under false promises by Arab leaders that they would one day be given “the right of return” to their previous homes “when the Zionists are eradicated.” Those leaders had no legal mandate for such promises and created an unrealistic expectancy among the “refugees.”
So what do you do with the families who left? From a political standpoint one cannot simply displace the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have continued to live in Israel and those who scattered throughout the region. That doesn't mean they need to be granted separate statehood. They can choose to live under the democratic rule of Israel, prosper and live in peace, or they can choose to return to Jordan where their forebears have lived in throughout many past generations – a very real option. Jordan’s King Abdullah said in a recent speech, “We are Palestine!” During the uprisings of the last couple of months, he extended an offer to PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to join him in a shared government. Abbas refused, sticking to his demand for a separate Palestinian state at the cost of Israel’s existence.
Historically, the present-day Palestinians are an amalgamation of many tribes scattered throughout the region. There never has been a political entity –a state, if you will – recognized by the world as the nation of Palestine. Israel and much of the region was called Palestine for a time under British occupation, but there was no nation or state of Palestine as such. Click on the following link to take a look at the modern history of the area as it appeared under British Occupation from 1882 - 1914):
http://www.omegaletter.com/images/articles/2010/mainmap_ottoman.gif
Palestine was so called under a British mandate in or around 1900 and consisted of most of the historical land of Israel. In 1922, changes were implemented by the League of Nations which declared a “land of Israel” encompassing all of the land west of the Jordan River, the Negev, all of the Golan and southern portions of what have since become Syria. A UN resolution took more land in 1947, and in 1948 -- less than 50 years after the British mandate, the United Nations agreed that Israel should once again become a sovereign nation.
To be sure, many of the Palestinians who occupied the land saw their homes and properties taken away from them and destroyed by the incoming Jews who were Holocaust survivors. It isn't hard to feel compassion for them and to want to do something to redress their grievances. That said, however, it still remains that they were the interlopers, occupying land that they would one day have to leave. That day has come.
Palestinians have the opportunity to live within an Israeli state (my opinion), vote and become democratic citizens of that nation and enjoy the benefits of democracy, or they can continue to shout their spurious claims of their rights to the land, continue to commit murder and ultimately be destroyed as a people. The creation of a Palestinian state is a political decision, but it is one that cannot last. The so-called Palestinian people have been at war with the Jews for 3500 years, and to think they will suddenly live in peace and harmony as neighbors in the 21st century simply by having their own state is a demonic fantasy.
It isn't hard to applaud those who want to try and make it work, but unless there is radical change in the spirit of the people and the spirit of the land, we will ultimately see a battle to the finish and the extinction of the Palestinians. Psalm 83 is a perfect picture of the end of this conflict. I won’t take the time today to fully explore the prophecy contained in this Psalm; but briefly, you have a description of ten neighboring nations or tribes who make a decision against Israel saying, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”
The prayer of Asaph ends like this: “Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: That men may know that Thou, whose Name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High over all the earth.”
We know from the prophetic utterances of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah (and many others) that the promise of God is the elevation of Israel in the earth and the restoration of its entire homeland – that same homeland that God promised to Abraham!
Consider the portion of the covenant that God made with Abraham concerning the land He would give to the covenant-seed of Abraham:
“In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21)
See that? “From the river of Egypt (the Nile River) unto the great river, the river Euphrates!” Wow!! Stop and think about what that encompasses. That takes in a good chunk of what today is eastern Egypt, the entire Sinai Peninsula, all (of course) of modern Israel (including all of the “West Bank”), the Gaza, the southern portion of Lebanon, much of eastern Syria, and a large portion of western Jordan (which is 70% occupied by people who call themselves “Palestinians.”)
Not since the days of David and Solomon has Israel occupied the majority of the land God promised to them “for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). Their sin against God caused them to be carried away into captivity, and they never have fully occupied their promised possession. However, God’s promises don’t go away, and the promise of this land to Abraham’s seed still stands. Furthermore, with Israel going in captivity, the Lord sent Jeremiah to them to say:
“They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.”
Prophecies abound throughout the O.T. in which the Lord promises to restore Israel to her inheritance. Even before Israel first entered into the Promised Land, the Lord warned them what would happen to them as a nation if they departed from His commandments. Yet in the warning also came the mercy of God as He promised that He would return them to their promised heritage. (See Deuteronomy 30:4-8)
“If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the LORD thy God will put all these curses (See Deuteronomy 28:15-68) upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.”
That, folks, is the future of Israel and the future of all their enemies. Israel will – whether it happens this year, next year or even a few years from now – most certainly occupy the whole land of its inheritance. Those nations which have determined the eradication of Israel from the map already have a curse upon them, and their doom has already been prepared by the Lord as a part of the justice and judgment under His covenant with Abraham. If the Palestinians continue to choose a path of destruction against Israel, they as a nation and a people (if we can call them that) will be obliterated from the face of the earth.
A word of caution, however! There are folks classified as “Palestinian” who absolutely love the Lord. There are Palestinians – a huge number, in fact – who prefer to live as Israelis and Israeli citizens in the peace and prosperity Israel has granted. They have chosen to bless Israel rather than curse it, and for that reason, they are exempt from the destruction and curses to come upon those who have set themselves against God’s covenant.
There’s a lot more to say on this topic; and I can’t really do justice to this in a single Coffee Break. In our next discussion, let’s take up ISRAEL’S LEGAL STATUS, granted to it under the 1922 League of Nations charter.
See you in a few days.
As Christians we have a mandate from the Lord to bless Israel. More than that, the cry of the Lord through Isaiah is to “give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth!”
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Monday, May 16, 2011
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: HEAVEN XV: Daniel
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: Heaven XV: Daniel
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the body of Christ. All of our reference points are changing, and they are changing drastically!
But it isn’t just within the body of Christ. Changes within the body are essential in order to deal with the changes that are happening in society and in the world around us. The world’s economic system, which is based in the Babylonian mindset (Jesus referred to it as “Mammon”), is literally shaking at its roots. The instability of money and financial markets has reached global proportions.
The earth itself is rocking and reeling under the weight of sin – to the point where (as the apostle Paul prophesied), “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” (Romans 8:19-22 NASB)
The massive earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions that we’ve seen in the past couple of years really just portend the events to come in the months ahead. There have been a number of prominent prophetic voices telling us that the quake that decimated northern Japan with its subsequent tsunami was a forerunner to a massive quake to hit the northwestern coasts of the US and Canada. Even geologists who have no connection to the prophetic voices who are speaking are telling us that the northwestern coast of the US is way overdue for a quake of spectacular proportions.
There is a critical necessity, therefore, that believers pay close attention to the voice of the Holy Spirit. So long as God’s people are listening and heeding what the Lord is saying they can absolutely trust in and rely on God’s faithfulness in the midst of chaos.
Proverbs 1 is a strong Word of Counsel to all of us, and the 33rd verse tells us, “But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.”
Tremendous opportunities are being given to many to invest in the Gospel of the Kingdom. Those who hear the Word of the Lord and obey every command to invest with their seed sowing and their abundant giving will see their finances multiply greatly. This great transfer of wealth into the hands of God’s people, however, is not so they can build a collection of mansions, Rolls Royces or Bentleys (and it’s not that God objects to His people having these things!); the purpose for this great wealth transfer is to capitalize on the moment so that the Kingdom of God expands and multiplies in the earth. Our first priority as believers is to extend the boundaries of the rulership of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.
We are shortly to begin a thousand-year warm-up period of training and preparation for ruling and reigning with Christ throughout eternity. I had an extraordinary experience some time ago in which an Angel of the Lord visited me to amplify the picture drawn in Revelation 20:1-3.
That passage reads like this:
“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”
In this experience, the Angel of the Lord picked me up and literally flew me around the globe. In city after city, town after town, countryside after countryside, in the midst of every conceivable situation and circumstance I watched the Holy Spirit whisper into the ears of those people in active pursuit of His presence a command to be ready to speak two words.
You understand, of course, that this was not a whisper to Christians in the general sense of the word, but rather those who were attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. There is a huge difference between what we call “the Church” and “The Bride of Christ.” Not all Christians are members of the Bride of Christ. Witness, for example, Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-12. All were believers. All were Christians. All were dressed in white. All were expecting the Bridegroom’s return. But only five made it into the bridal chamber because they kept their anointing fresh and continually did whatever it took to ensure that they would never be caught off guard when the Bridegroom came.
But, I digress.
As we traveled the globe, I saw the Holy Spirit whispering into the ears of people driving their cars, some at work, some at play, some in bed and awakened by the Holy Spirit’s alert, some sitting at the breakfast or dinner table – in other words He was speaking to those whose spirits were attuned to Him.
We returned back to our starting place. Time zipped past in a flash. I have no idea how much time had elapsed other than having the sense that it was a relatively short period. Again I was picked up in the Spirit and taken above the earth by an Angel of the Lord. This time it was as if I was watching various places and people through a telescope or a huge magnifying glass – the same folks who had been alerted by the Holy Spirit to be ready to speak these two critically important words. The command from the Holy Spirit went forth.
I watched as the command of the Holy Spirit was released into the hearts and spirits of those on alert. The Bride was ready!
With one voice and one sound I heard the two words spoken around the earth, all at the same time, in every nation and tribe, in every city and town, in every conceivable situation and circumstance. It was a prophecy, and the decree of the Lord, “Be Bound!!!”
The words reverberated throughout the earth and the atmosphere. The angel who held the key to the bottomless pit had been awaiting the release of the command to do so, and in a split second Satan was bound and cast into the pit, chained and restrained for the next thousand years to come. It was absolutely dazzling! It was also very humbling, and yet there was a clear sense of ecstasy over the fact that the Lord had used His Bride – the very people whom Satan had tormented, tempted and tried throughout the years, the very people who had overcome him – to put Satan under their feet. He was taken out of commission and locked away, prevented from tempting another soul for the next thousand years to come.
Get ready, people of God! Get ready, Bride! Get the cobwebs out of your soul and your spirit! Be ready to respond in an instant to prophesy, to decree, to declare the Word of the Lord as He directs. That day is upon us!
WOW! Kind of got long-winded there in my introduction today. Anyway, GOOD MORNING! Ready for a break? Then pour yourself a good cup of this really dark brew, grab a “vitamin” or two and let’s get back to our narrative on Heaven.
Though not as young perhaps as was Jeremiah and Ezekiel when the Word of the Lord first came to them, Daniel was still a teenager when He first began to receive dreams and visions and prophetic instruction from the Lord. Daniel’s life, and the challenges he faced intrigued me from the moment I first began to read His narrative in the Word.
My conversations with him centered on the following topics: (1) His relationship to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego), and what he saw and experienced when they were thrown into the fiery furnace; (2) the prayer life he led which resulted in him being cast into the den of lions, and what he experienced there; (3) his life as Prime Minister during the reigns of numerous kings and monarchs; (4) his fasting; and (5) his 70-week prophecy of the Messiah.
Maybe the Lord intended it that way in order to make an impression in my spirit, and maybe that’s just the way he normally appeared but when I was introduced to Daniel, he was dressed in the exquisitely-made robes of someone you would expect to see in a royal court. Had he worn a crown one would easily take him for being the King instead of the Prime Minister, so regal was his bearing.
Daniel was primed for our conversation, obviously readied by the Lord for this moment because of the power and impact his sharing would have on me, and the degree to which his counsel would affect me in the years to come.
After being introduced to him, I asked, “Would you tell me about your relationship to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and what unfolded when they rejected the king’s orders to bow down and worship him? I know that they were cast into the fiery furnace, but it is hard to really get that picture in my mind because of all the events the Bible records surrounding it.”
If there was anyone I met in Heaven who was really good at weaving stories in such a way as to implant strong visual images, it was Daniel. He first drew a picture of his three companions in such a way that I was able to see them visually – holographically, if you will – as they appeared in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar. They – like Daniel – exuded the presence of the Lord. Their mannerisms, their bearing, their bold stance (at first when they, along with Daniel, declined to eat the king’s meat, choosing instead a vegetable diet; and later when they refused to bow before the king’s golden image) and the spirit they radiated displayed an unwavering confidence and trust in the Lord.
“My companions and I,” Daniel began, “were each one of the house of David. We were all considered and treated as part of Judah’s royal family and given that accord once we were in Babylon. We had all applied ourselves to the learning of the Law and living it with strict observance. It was not a legalistic observance, however. Each of us had developed a love for the Lord God that knew no bounds. Furthermore, we each had personal experiences – experiments, if you will – in which we saw God demonstrate His Word to and through us.
“It is my personal conviction that it was the presence of the Lord upon us which resulted in the favor we were given in Nebuchadnezzar’s courts, as well as that which we received with later rulers. Even though Nebuchadnezzar didn’t at first realize what he was seeing with us (and didn’t until later) the presence of the love of God created a kind of magnetic attraction that drew out his favor.
“That favor rapidly dissipated like a mist heated with the morning sun for Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah when the command was given to bow down to the king’s image, and they refused.”
I interrupted Daniel to ask, “What happened to you? Why weren’t you there to respond to the king’s command? If it applied to your companions, wouldn’t it have applied to you?”
“That’s a good and logical question,” he answered. “Had I been with them at the time, I certainly would have been counted with them because I could not and would not have bowed down to the king’s image. You must understand, however, that the king revered me as much as he did the Lord God. Though he didn’t understand and serve God – and in fact worshiped many false gods – because I’d been able to not only interpret his dream of the great image but also bring that dream in its entirety back to his memory, it was a supernatural event.
“The king knew that I had a special relationship with God, and that put me – at least in his thinking – on a level above him. Were the people to regard him as a god and worship him, he felt that it would elevate his stature as something that, while not attaining to the relationship I had, would at least put him on the same level as the other gods of the kingdom. In any case, because of his fear and reverence for me and my relationship with the Lord, I was exempt from his command.
“Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were my fellow-companions within Nebuchadnezzar’s court, and while they held special status as magi within the ranks of his counselors and advisors, he still considered them inferior to his god-status and therefore subject to the same command as the rest of the people.”
Again I interrupted Daniel. “What is that term, magi?” I asked. That same term appears in the New Testament referring to the wise men who brought gifts to Jesus after they had seen His star in the heavens.”
He grinned and nodded his head. “The term “magi” has come to refer to a special class of representatives and counselors to the king (or kings) of the east – in part because of the wisdom of God imparted to them, and also because they became a part of what developed as a prophetic school among the Jews in captivity. Throughout the years and in the generations to follow they became a special, elite class of royal representatives.
"In modern language, you would call them ambassadors. Magi, however, were more than just ambassadors. In many cases they became the alter ego of the king to represent him and his interests. They had prophetic insight given to them by the Lord and were able to act with a level of insight and authority that ordinary counselors and advisors lacked.”
That answer prompted another question on my part.
“My father says that you were responsible for this school of the prophets, and that the magi of your era grew up under your training. He says he believes that the magi who visited Jesus knew the prophetic words you had delivered as well as those of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, and that you established the foundation for their training and preparation; that they were looking for the coming of the Messiah-King because of their schooling in those prophecies.”
Daniel’s answer was a bit of a revelation to me.
“Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were really the first of that school, and their miraculous deliverance in the midst of the fiery furnace laid the foundations for all who desired to know the Lord God whom we served. When they stood up to the king and boldly declared that they would not bow to his image and he threatened them with the furnace, they made a statement of faith that would ring as truth throughout the centuries that followed.
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” (See Daniel 3:16-18)
“Their bold declaration of faith in the Lord God, and confidence that He would deliver them from the fiery furnace, and even if He didn’t, they wouldn’t bow was something no one of that generation had ever heard. The deliverance of the Lord marked my companions as having access to something supernatural. It stirred the minds and hearts of those who saw – and in successive generations, those who heard about – their walking about in the furnace of fire with the Lord, untouched and unharmed. A fair number of people decided they wanted to follow in their footsteps and learn what they knew of the Lord.
“That really is how the school of the prophets got its start. My primary objective is sharing with them and training them was to get them to focus on the prophecies of the coming Messiah. Our nation was in captivity. There was going to come a day when many of our people would be living in our homeland, and they needed to be alert to see and recognize Messiah when He came. We focused on the prophecies of David, of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Those prophecies became second nature to many within that school and there grew up a small group within that school who watched for the signs of His coming.
“As God continued to unfold for me more prophetic understanding of Messiah’s coming, I was able to impart that understanding to those within the school of prophets. They began to understand that the heavens would declare the glory of the Lord, the heavens would clearly show the coming of Messiah. The magi who came to see Jesus after His birth were watching carefully for those signs, and they saw them. They knew that indeed, the Messiah, the King of Kings had been born into the world, and they came to give honor – not only because of what they knew, but because the kings whom they served as counselors wanted to pay honor and recognize Him as being THE King over all the earth.”
I’ve run of out of time today. In our next Coffee Break, we’ll go into the discussions in which Daniel describes his life of prayer and intercession, and why – even with the threat of the lion’s den – he wasn’t about to compromise his prayer life.
Next: HEAVEN XVI: Daniel, The Intercessor.
A paradigm shift is taking place in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit has been preparing the Bride to show forth the greater works that Jesus promised. We are in the midst of a huge transition. That which God is about to reveal will shake and shatter the religious foundations of the calcified church!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the body of Christ. All of our reference points are changing, and they are changing drastically!
But it isn’t just within the body of Christ. Changes within the body are essential in order to deal with the changes that are happening in society and in the world around us. The world’s economic system, which is based in the Babylonian mindset (Jesus referred to it as “Mammon”), is literally shaking at its roots. The instability of money and financial markets has reached global proportions.
The earth itself is rocking and reeling under the weight of sin – to the point where (as the apostle Paul prophesied), “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” (Romans 8:19-22 NASB)
The massive earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions that we’ve seen in the past couple of years really just portend the events to come in the months ahead. There have been a number of prominent prophetic voices telling us that the quake that decimated northern Japan with its subsequent tsunami was a forerunner to a massive quake to hit the northwestern coasts of the US and Canada. Even geologists who have no connection to the prophetic voices who are speaking are telling us that the northwestern coast of the US is way overdue for a quake of spectacular proportions.
There is a critical necessity, therefore, that believers pay close attention to the voice of the Holy Spirit. So long as God’s people are listening and heeding what the Lord is saying they can absolutely trust in and rely on God’s faithfulness in the midst of chaos.
Proverbs 1 is a strong Word of Counsel to all of us, and the 33rd verse tells us, “But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.”
Tremendous opportunities are being given to many to invest in the Gospel of the Kingdom. Those who hear the Word of the Lord and obey every command to invest with their seed sowing and their abundant giving will see their finances multiply greatly. This great transfer of wealth into the hands of God’s people, however, is not so they can build a collection of mansions, Rolls Royces or Bentleys (and it’s not that God objects to His people having these things!); the purpose for this great wealth transfer is to capitalize on the moment so that the Kingdom of God expands and multiplies in the earth. Our first priority as believers is to extend the boundaries of the rulership of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.
We are shortly to begin a thousand-year warm-up period of training and preparation for ruling and reigning with Christ throughout eternity. I had an extraordinary experience some time ago in which an Angel of the Lord visited me to amplify the picture drawn in Revelation 20:1-3.
That passage reads like this:
“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”
In this experience, the Angel of the Lord picked me up and literally flew me around the globe. In city after city, town after town, countryside after countryside, in the midst of every conceivable situation and circumstance I watched the Holy Spirit whisper into the ears of those people in active pursuit of His presence a command to be ready to speak two words.
You understand, of course, that this was not a whisper to Christians in the general sense of the word, but rather those who were attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. There is a huge difference between what we call “the Church” and “The Bride of Christ.” Not all Christians are members of the Bride of Christ. Witness, for example, Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-12. All were believers. All were Christians. All were dressed in white. All were expecting the Bridegroom’s return. But only five made it into the bridal chamber because they kept their anointing fresh and continually did whatever it took to ensure that they would never be caught off guard when the Bridegroom came.
But, I digress.
As we traveled the globe, I saw the Holy Spirit whispering into the ears of people driving their cars, some at work, some at play, some in bed and awakened by the Holy Spirit’s alert, some sitting at the breakfast or dinner table – in other words He was speaking to those whose spirits were attuned to Him.
We returned back to our starting place. Time zipped past in a flash. I have no idea how much time had elapsed other than having the sense that it was a relatively short period. Again I was picked up in the Spirit and taken above the earth by an Angel of the Lord. This time it was as if I was watching various places and people through a telescope or a huge magnifying glass – the same folks who had been alerted by the Holy Spirit to be ready to speak these two critically important words. The command from the Holy Spirit went forth.
I watched as the command of the Holy Spirit was released into the hearts and spirits of those on alert. The Bride was ready!
With one voice and one sound I heard the two words spoken around the earth, all at the same time, in every nation and tribe, in every city and town, in every conceivable situation and circumstance. It was a prophecy, and the decree of the Lord, “Be Bound!!!”
The words reverberated throughout the earth and the atmosphere. The angel who held the key to the bottomless pit had been awaiting the release of the command to do so, and in a split second Satan was bound and cast into the pit, chained and restrained for the next thousand years to come. It was absolutely dazzling! It was also very humbling, and yet there was a clear sense of ecstasy over the fact that the Lord had used His Bride – the very people whom Satan had tormented, tempted and tried throughout the years, the very people who had overcome him – to put Satan under their feet. He was taken out of commission and locked away, prevented from tempting another soul for the next thousand years to come.
Get ready, people of God! Get ready, Bride! Get the cobwebs out of your soul and your spirit! Be ready to respond in an instant to prophesy, to decree, to declare the Word of the Lord as He directs. That day is upon us!
WOW! Kind of got long-winded there in my introduction today. Anyway, GOOD MORNING! Ready for a break? Then pour yourself a good cup of this really dark brew, grab a “vitamin” or two and let’s get back to our narrative on Heaven.
Though not as young perhaps as was Jeremiah and Ezekiel when the Word of the Lord first came to them, Daniel was still a teenager when He first began to receive dreams and visions and prophetic instruction from the Lord. Daniel’s life, and the challenges he faced intrigued me from the moment I first began to read His narrative in the Word.
My conversations with him centered on the following topics: (1) His relationship to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego), and what he saw and experienced when they were thrown into the fiery furnace; (2) the prayer life he led which resulted in him being cast into the den of lions, and what he experienced there; (3) his life as Prime Minister during the reigns of numerous kings and monarchs; (4) his fasting; and (5) his 70-week prophecy of the Messiah.
Maybe the Lord intended it that way in order to make an impression in my spirit, and maybe that’s just the way he normally appeared but when I was introduced to Daniel, he was dressed in the exquisitely-made robes of someone you would expect to see in a royal court. Had he worn a crown one would easily take him for being the King instead of the Prime Minister, so regal was his bearing.
Daniel was primed for our conversation, obviously readied by the Lord for this moment because of the power and impact his sharing would have on me, and the degree to which his counsel would affect me in the years to come.
After being introduced to him, I asked, “Would you tell me about your relationship to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and what unfolded when they rejected the king’s orders to bow down and worship him? I know that they were cast into the fiery furnace, but it is hard to really get that picture in my mind because of all the events the Bible records surrounding it.”
If there was anyone I met in Heaven who was really good at weaving stories in such a way as to implant strong visual images, it was Daniel. He first drew a picture of his three companions in such a way that I was able to see them visually – holographically, if you will – as they appeared in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar. They – like Daniel – exuded the presence of the Lord. Their mannerisms, their bearing, their bold stance (at first when they, along with Daniel, declined to eat the king’s meat, choosing instead a vegetable diet; and later when they refused to bow before the king’s golden image) and the spirit they radiated displayed an unwavering confidence and trust in the Lord.
“My companions and I,” Daniel began, “were each one of the house of David. We were all considered and treated as part of Judah’s royal family and given that accord once we were in Babylon. We had all applied ourselves to the learning of the Law and living it with strict observance. It was not a legalistic observance, however. Each of us had developed a love for the Lord God that knew no bounds. Furthermore, we each had personal experiences – experiments, if you will – in which we saw God demonstrate His Word to and through us.
“It is my personal conviction that it was the presence of the Lord upon us which resulted in the favor we were given in Nebuchadnezzar’s courts, as well as that which we received with later rulers. Even though Nebuchadnezzar didn’t at first realize what he was seeing with us (and didn’t until later) the presence of the love of God created a kind of magnetic attraction that drew out his favor.
“That favor rapidly dissipated like a mist heated with the morning sun for Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah when the command was given to bow down to the king’s image, and they refused.”
I interrupted Daniel to ask, “What happened to you? Why weren’t you there to respond to the king’s command? If it applied to your companions, wouldn’t it have applied to you?”
“That’s a good and logical question,” he answered. “Had I been with them at the time, I certainly would have been counted with them because I could not and would not have bowed down to the king’s image. You must understand, however, that the king revered me as much as he did the Lord God. Though he didn’t understand and serve God – and in fact worshiped many false gods – because I’d been able to not only interpret his dream of the great image but also bring that dream in its entirety back to his memory, it was a supernatural event.
“The king knew that I had a special relationship with God, and that put me – at least in his thinking – on a level above him. Were the people to regard him as a god and worship him, he felt that it would elevate his stature as something that, while not attaining to the relationship I had, would at least put him on the same level as the other gods of the kingdom. In any case, because of his fear and reverence for me and my relationship with the Lord, I was exempt from his command.
“Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were my fellow-companions within Nebuchadnezzar’s court, and while they held special status as magi within the ranks of his counselors and advisors, he still considered them inferior to his god-status and therefore subject to the same command as the rest of the people.”
Again I interrupted Daniel. “What is that term, magi?” I asked. That same term appears in the New Testament referring to the wise men who brought gifts to Jesus after they had seen His star in the heavens.”
He grinned and nodded his head. “The term “magi” has come to refer to a special class of representatives and counselors to the king (or kings) of the east – in part because of the wisdom of God imparted to them, and also because they became a part of what developed as a prophetic school among the Jews in captivity. Throughout the years and in the generations to follow they became a special, elite class of royal representatives.
"In modern language, you would call them ambassadors. Magi, however, were more than just ambassadors. In many cases they became the alter ego of the king to represent him and his interests. They had prophetic insight given to them by the Lord and were able to act with a level of insight and authority that ordinary counselors and advisors lacked.”
That answer prompted another question on my part.
“My father says that you were responsible for this school of the prophets, and that the magi of your era grew up under your training. He says he believes that the magi who visited Jesus knew the prophetic words you had delivered as well as those of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, and that you established the foundation for their training and preparation; that they were looking for the coming of the Messiah-King because of their schooling in those prophecies.”
Daniel’s answer was a bit of a revelation to me.
“Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were really the first of that school, and their miraculous deliverance in the midst of the fiery furnace laid the foundations for all who desired to know the Lord God whom we served. When they stood up to the king and boldly declared that they would not bow to his image and he threatened them with the furnace, they made a statement of faith that would ring as truth throughout the centuries that followed.
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” (See Daniel 3:16-18)
“Their bold declaration of faith in the Lord God, and confidence that He would deliver them from the fiery furnace, and even if He didn’t, they wouldn’t bow was something no one of that generation had ever heard. The deliverance of the Lord marked my companions as having access to something supernatural. It stirred the minds and hearts of those who saw – and in successive generations, those who heard about – their walking about in the furnace of fire with the Lord, untouched and unharmed. A fair number of people decided they wanted to follow in their footsteps and learn what they knew of the Lord.
“That really is how the school of the prophets got its start. My primary objective is sharing with them and training them was to get them to focus on the prophecies of the coming Messiah. Our nation was in captivity. There was going to come a day when many of our people would be living in our homeland, and they needed to be alert to see and recognize Messiah when He came. We focused on the prophecies of David, of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Those prophecies became second nature to many within that school and there grew up a small group within that school who watched for the signs of His coming.
“As God continued to unfold for me more prophetic understanding of Messiah’s coming, I was able to impart that understanding to those within the school of prophets. They began to understand that the heavens would declare the glory of the Lord, the heavens would clearly show the coming of Messiah. The magi who came to see Jesus after His birth were watching carefully for those signs, and they saw them. They knew that indeed, the Messiah, the King of Kings had been born into the world, and they came to give honor – not only because of what they knew, but because the kings whom they served as counselors wanted to pay honor and recognize Him as being THE King over all the earth.”
I’ve run of out of time today. In our next Coffee Break, we’ll go into the discussions in which Daniel describes his life of prayer and intercession, and why – even with the threat of the lion’s den – he wasn’t about to compromise his prayer life.
Next: HEAVEN XVI: Daniel, The Intercessor.
A paradigm shift is taking place in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit has been preparing the Bride to show forth the greater works that Jesus promised. We are in the midst of a huge transition. That which God is about to reveal will shake and shatter the religious foundations of the calcified church!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: HEAVEN XIV: Ezekiel, the Prophetic Musician
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: HEAVEN XIV: Ezekiel, The Prophetic Musician
Barrow, Alaska is the farthest north inhabited place in North America and (to the best of my knowledge) either the farthest north or second farthest north continuously inhabited place in the world.
It is a community where I spent 13 years of my life, both helping my father to build and establish a church and subsequently pastoring in the community years later. It is a place where the sun never sets in the summer for 86 days, and never rises in the winter for 66 days. With a summer temperature average (as judged by the calendar and not the actual summer that takes place) of 39 degrees F, and a winter average temperature of -25 degrees F, Barrow isn’t exactly the tropics. Nevertheless it does have a summer of about six weeks (sometimes longer) with temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s (and on rare occasions and high holidays, in the 70’s).
As I’ve already noted in these Coffee Breaks, Della and I are making preparation to return to the arctic for ministry in Barrow, as well as in Wainwright, Point Hope, Nuiqsut, Atqasuk, Kaktovik (on Barter Island), Kotzebue and Nome – just to name some of the coastal communities. Back in the late 1950’s, my father took Howard Andersen, a Swedish Evangelist, with him and they traveled the arctic coast of Alaska beginning at Kotzebue in a 16-foot open fiberglass boat, conducting evangelistic meetings in every village, community and summer campsite all the way to Barter Island on the arctic Canadian border.
That’s an adventure story worth retelling all by itself one of these days, but that’s not where I’m going today. What the Holy Spirit has put in our hearts is to revisit those communities and to build upon some spiritual foundations that are already laid. At the same time, we have a television producer interested in accompanying us in our travels and working with us to produce a documentary that will tell the story and share the testimonies of some of the folks who are still around whose lives had those spiritual foundations established.
There was a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit that took place across the arctic in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and generations of families were impacted by that outpouring. In the spring of 1980 while in Barrow, the Lord showed me a new move of His Spirit that would result in people literally falling on their faces in the streets crying out in repentance and turning to the Lord. Roughly 20 years later, Dwain McKenzie (a lifetime brother in the Lord and fellow pastor) was ministering in Barrow and he called me on the phone (Della and I were in Texas at the time) to report that vision coming true as a reality.
Because of the day in which we live and the nearness of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we feel impelled to impart the urgency of the hour and to ensure that folks understand the necessity for the Bride of Christ to “make herself ready” for His coming.
We are looking towards putting together – or more accurately, seeing the Lord put together -- ministry teams to work with us in ministering in these communities scattered throughout the arctic and throughout the Aleutian chain. I’m hoping to meet with a pilot in a couple of weeks who will fly us from village to village and town to town. When Jesus sent forth His disciples, He always sent them at least two by two. They never ministered by themselves. There was good reason for that.
There is simply no substitute for the power of agreement. When you have brethren ministering together who are in harmony with each other, who know each other in the Spirit and not just after the flesh, and know how to operate with an ear to what the Holy Spirit is saying for any and every given situation, what you get are the signs and wonders that Jesus promised. (See Mark 16:17)
You’ll remember what Jesus said in Matthew 18:19: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”
That word “agree” does not by any stretch of the imagination mean “mental assent” nor does it convey the idea of being in agreement on some issue or another. The Greek word in the original text is sumphoneo – the same word which is the root of our English “symphony.” In a musical sense, this word draws a picture of intertwining notes, always being close to each other, always being in harmony, always flowing together. It denotes perfect accord, united objective and purpose, and the ability to always support the others, flowing, functioning and completing as one.
We have the perfect picture of sumphoneo in Father, Son and Holy Spirit – perfect harmony, perfect purpose, different functions and positions but always working as One.
THAT is what I believe God wants for us as we travel and minister in the villages and communities, and that is what we see the Lord putting together as team ministry.
Hmmmm… I sort of got going there in my introduction. Anyway, Greetings and Salutations! Grab yourself a good cup of some French-Roasted coffee, have a donut or a roll and pull up a chair. Let’s get back to Ezekiel.
Guess I’ve commented on this fact before, but once again I still find it amazing when I think back on my conversations to realize that I was being spoken with like an adult instead of a nine- or ten-year-old. If that fact alone did anything for my understanding it was that in the realm of the Spirit, there is no such thing as “age.”
In Heaven, I was not nine or ten years old. This was something that – while it was as tangible as anything I could see, hear, taste, touch or smell in the flesh – was taking place in the eternal dimension: the Spirit!
You’ll recall the scriptures I quoted in earlier posts such as the one where the Lord speaks to Jeremiah and says, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified (or set you apart) you and ordained you to be a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
Then there was the revelation that came to David. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days of my life were written, before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:16)
Thus, when I was born, the Lord already knew me and had already placed His call and His ordination into my DNA. I had pre-existed with the Lord in Heaven, just as all of us had. So you’ll excuse me if I tell you that my 69 years here on Earth are a fraction of my existence in the realm of the Spirit. When Ezekiel (and all the others) carried on their conversations with me, therefore, they were conversing with someone whose spirit knew no time and was far older than 9 or 10 years. That revelation still really grips me periodically!
Even so, when Ezekiel was sharing (as noted in the previous post) about things that were going to unfold in my life and warning me not to become reactionary but to hold things steady, he was speaking to me as one who would return to this time-space-based existence out of eternity and have to function throughout the years in time as a representative and voice of the Lord.
This brought our conversation to something I had seen in the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel. God was speaking to him and saying, “Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the LORD. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.
"And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:30-33)
“Would I be right in thinking,” I asked, “that the Lord was identifying you in the same manner as one of sons of Asaph, Heman or Jeduthun whom David appointed to prophesy musically with their instruments?”
“You would be absolutely correct,” Ezekiel answered. “Although the Scriptures do not dwell on this point – and it probably was not necessary – my family was Levitical. Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun were all Levites. When you follow their lineage throughout the Word, you find those families always involved in prophetic ministry, and always a part of what God was saying to His people. Their heritage was my heritage. Invariably, they would sing the Word and play skillfully on their instruments. That anointing made the message they were sent to deliver something that would remain in the minds and spirits of the hearers.
“God’s Word – all by itself – has an eternal staying power to it, but setting that Word to the music that His Spirit would cause to rise up made it stick in the memories of those who would hear it. The melody that went with that Word would continually rehearse in the minds and spirits of people and cause the Word of the Lord to come back over and over and over. The music gave it a declarative force that people just couldn’t evade.”
Ezekiel paused for a moment in his narrative before becoming more personal.
“My father, like his father before him, and his father before him throughout the generations, was both priest and prophet. He was part of the same thread of singing prophets woven throughout our Levitical heritage beginning with Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. My father’s name was Buzi. In Hebrew that means “to scorn” or “to be despised.” His name all by itself was a prophetic picture. It was a picture of the state to which Israel had fallen. He was scorned in the same way that Israel and Judah scorned the Law. They scorned and despised the Word of the Lord, and they ridiculed and made light of our acts as priests in the offering of burnt sacrifices for sin.
“Growing up in that environment where I saw what my father endured somewhat prepared me for the role God called me to. I knew the power that could be exercised with music. I knew that the Word could be made extremely effective if it was sung or played on an instrument. It was an easy resolution in my youth, therefore, to apply myself to learning to play various instruments.
“In his day, David developed what we called the “psaltery” – an early predecessor to the guitar you now play. It became my favorite instrument to play and I practiced until my fingers were so sore they could hardly stand to touch the strings. But I stayed with it. Throughout the years, I became skilled at the psaltery and harp so that I could pick one of them up, close my eyes, and just get lost in the reverie of the presence of the Lord.
“As the prophetic ministry began to unfold that God called me to and His Word began to flood my being, it became a cry in my spirit. I literally felt His disappointment at Israel’s backslidings. That cry began to come out of me in songs of tender love and mercy as the Spirit of God yearned for His people’s repentance and return to Him.
“Jeremiah and I prophesied to Israel and Judah during much the same time. What Jeremiah preached and prophesied as declarations and decrees came out of me as songs. Although he and I never actually appeared together in our declarations of the Word God was speaking, it was always clear that we had been sent to Israel and Judah as a prophetic team. We often spoke nearly the same prophetic utterances although we never once compared notes with each other prior to prophesying.
“Sometimes his declarations and decrees were – in my opinion at the time – the more explosive and impacting than those I was commanded to deliver. It seemed that because of my nature and my ability and inclination to impart and convey the Word as a song or as a psalm it lacked the dynamism of Jeremiah’s delivery; and yet I knew that God was using my prophetic methodology and delivery to reinforce that same Word to the people.”
Ezekiel paused in his sharing and I seized the moment to ask him the following:
“As you sang and played on your instruments delivering the Word of the Lord to the people, did you ever feel like it was the Lord who was doing the singing or playing? Did you ever have the sense that you were nothing more than the instrument He was playing?
“Maybe I can put it like this. Did you ever have the sensation that you were hearing the words come out of your mouth but it wasn’t you actually speaking? Did you ever feel that when you plucked the strings of your psaltery or harp that you were watching your fingers perform in a way you knew you couldn’t – that the music coming forth was being supernaturally created? There! That’s what I’m trying to ask! Did you ever feel like your voice was His voice, or that your fingers or hands were His fingers or hands?”
“In a word, Yes,” he responded. “But that response really doesn’t do justice to what I saw, felt and heard. One of my contemporaries, along with Jeremiah, was a young prophet by the name of Zephaniah. He gave forth a short but powerful Word that I think expresses it better than any other way. After uttering an edict of woe, here’s what Zephaniah prophesied:
“For the Lord your God [who is] in the midst of you is mighty; He will save, He will rescue, He will avenge you and get the victory; after which He will rest in silent satisfaction in what His love for you has done. Then He will shout over you with songs of joy and exultation!” (See Zephaniah 3:17 – expanded)
“When Zephaniah let loose with that Word, I honestly could hardly contain myself! He was describing and declaring that the Lord Himself was singing! I knew he had captured the essence of what was happening inside my being when I almost felt like an onlooker to what was happening – even though it was my voice speaking and my fingers strumming and plucking the strings. He was confirming for me what was happening as I sang the prophecies. Those times when I had the 3rd person onlooker sensation were real! It WAS the Lord singing and playing through me and He Himself was crying out to His people.”
Now Ezekiel had me going! I couldn’t resist the next question.
“What I don’t understand is, if the Lord Himself was doing the singing or the playing, and He was pleading with Israel, why didn’t they listen and pay attention? It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone could actually resist the direct voice of the Lord like that!”
His answer was instantaneous. “Let me take you back to the Word that the Lord spoke to me, even in the midst of my singing and prophesying. Remember this?
"As for you, son of man, your people who talk of you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, say one to another, every one to his brother, Come and hear what the Word is that comes forth from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear the words you say, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after and is set on their idolatrous greed for gain.
“Lo, you are to them as a very lovely love song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear your words but do not do them. When this comes to pass – for lo, it will come! – then shall they know, understand and realize that a prophet has been among them.”
“Now you understand, don’t you? The people had shut their hearts off to receive the truth! They listened to the words coming forth, but they heard it as music, as entertainment to please their ears and their souls – NOT as the Word of the Lord. Never mind the fact that they came to listen supposedly to hear what the Lord was speaking, it didn’t fit with their mindset, their personal agenda; and so they ignored it!”
Ezekiel finished his conversation with me like this:
“Your next conversation is with Daniel and he will add to what I’m about to tell you. You may not remember these words and they may disappear from your conscious memory for many years, but the Spirit of the Lord will bring them back to you at the appropriate time. The cry of the Lord in your being has been birthed, but it has yet to come to maturity. In the years to come, you too will begin to prophesy with instruments and declare the Word of the Lord to another generation.
“You too will experience the frustration of people not paying attention or heeding the Word of the Lord and you will cry out for answers. The Spirit of the Lord will bring you back to the same Word that He spoke to me about folks hearing you sing and play and considering you a fine musician, but they will not hear the words that come out of your mouth until they actually begin to see them come to pass.”
He was right! I completely forgot this Word and put it out of my mind until the Holy Spirit brought it back to me at age 33 when I was ministering at Long Beach Christian Center. The Lord reminded me of that Word during a period of extended fasting and prayer and crying out to the Lord for answers. It was during that same time frame when the Holy Spirit brought back Jeremiah’s instruction to me and the prophetic Word God had used him to implant in my spirit.
Next: HEAVEN XV: Daniel.
A paradigm shift is taking place in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit has been preparing the Bride to show forth the greater works that Jesus promised. We are in the midst of a huge transition. That which God is about to reveal will shake and shatter the religious foundations of the calcified church!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Barrow, Alaska is the farthest north inhabited place in North America and (to the best of my knowledge) either the farthest north or second farthest north continuously inhabited place in the world.
It is a community where I spent 13 years of my life, both helping my father to build and establish a church and subsequently pastoring in the community years later. It is a place where the sun never sets in the summer for 86 days, and never rises in the winter for 66 days. With a summer temperature average (as judged by the calendar and not the actual summer that takes place) of 39 degrees F, and a winter average temperature of -25 degrees F, Barrow isn’t exactly the tropics. Nevertheless it does have a summer of about six weeks (sometimes longer) with temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s (and on rare occasions and high holidays, in the 70’s).
As I’ve already noted in these Coffee Breaks, Della and I are making preparation to return to the arctic for ministry in Barrow, as well as in Wainwright, Point Hope, Nuiqsut, Atqasuk, Kaktovik (on Barter Island), Kotzebue and Nome – just to name some of the coastal communities. Back in the late 1950’s, my father took Howard Andersen, a Swedish Evangelist, with him and they traveled the arctic coast of Alaska beginning at Kotzebue in a 16-foot open fiberglass boat, conducting evangelistic meetings in every village, community and summer campsite all the way to Barter Island on the arctic Canadian border.
That’s an adventure story worth retelling all by itself one of these days, but that’s not where I’m going today. What the Holy Spirit has put in our hearts is to revisit those communities and to build upon some spiritual foundations that are already laid. At the same time, we have a television producer interested in accompanying us in our travels and working with us to produce a documentary that will tell the story and share the testimonies of some of the folks who are still around whose lives had those spiritual foundations established.
There was a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit that took place across the arctic in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and generations of families were impacted by that outpouring. In the spring of 1980 while in Barrow, the Lord showed me a new move of His Spirit that would result in people literally falling on their faces in the streets crying out in repentance and turning to the Lord. Roughly 20 years later, Dwain McKenzie (a lifetime brother in the Lord and fellow pastor) was ministering in Barrow and he called me on the phone (Della and I were in Texas at the time) to report that vision coming true as a reality.
Because of the day in which we live and the nearness of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we feel impelled to impart the urgency of the hour and to ensure that folks understand the necessity for the Bride of Christ to “make herself ready” for His coming.
We are looking towards putting together – or more accurately, seeing the Lord put together -- ministry teams to work with us in ministering in these communities scattered throughout the arctic and throughout the Aleutian chain. I’m hoping to meet with a pilot in a couple of weeks who will fly us from village to village and town to town. When Jesus sent forth His disciples, He always sent them at least two by two. They never ministered by themselves. There was good reason for that.
There is simply no substitute for the power of agreement. When you have brethren ministering together who are in harmony with each other, who know each other in the Spirit and not just after the flesh, and know how to operate with an ear to what the Holy Spirit is saying for any and every given situation, what you get are the signs and wonders that Jesus promised. (See Mark 16:17)
You’ll remember what Jesus said in Matthew 18:19: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”
That word “agree” does not by any stretch of the imagination mean “mental assent” nor does it convey the idea of being in agreement on some issue or another. The Greek word in the original text is sumphoneo – the same word which is the root of our English “symphony.” In a musical sense, this word draws a picture of intertwining notes, always being close to each other, always being in harmony, always flowing together. It denotes perfect accord, united objective and purpose, and the ability to always support the others, flowing, functioning and completing as one.
We have the perfect picture of sumphoneo in Father, Son and Holy Spirit – perfect harmony, perfect purpose, different functions and positions but always working as One.
THAT is what I believe God wants for us as we travel and minister in the villages and communities, and that is what we see the Lord putting together as team ministry.
Hmmmm… I sort of got going there in my introduction. Anyway, Greetings and Salutations! Grab yourself a good cup of some French-Roasted coffee, have a donut or a roll and pull up a chair. Let’s get back to Ezekiel.
Guess I’ve commented on this fact before, but once again I still find it amazing when I think back on my conversations to realize that I was being spoken with like an adult instead of a nine- or ten-year-old. If that fact alone did anything for my understanding it was that in the realm of the Spirit, there is no such thing as “age.”
In Heaven, I was not nine or ten years old. This was something that – while it was as tangible as anything I could see, hear, taste, touch or smell in the flesh – was taking place in the eternal dimension: the Spirit!
You’ll recall the scriptures I quoted in earlier posts such as the one where the Lord speaks to Jeremiah and says, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified (or set you apart) you and ordained you to be a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
Then there was the revelation that came to David. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days of my life were written, before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:16)
Thus, when I was born, the Lord already knew me and had already placed His call and His ordination into my DNA. I had pre-existed with the Lord in Heaven, just as all of us had. So you’ll excuse me if I tell you that my 69 years here on Earth are a fraction of my existence in the realm of the Spirit. When Ezekiel (and all the others) carried on their conversations with me, therefore, they were conversing with someone whose spirit knew no time and was far older than 9 or 10 years. That revelation still really grips me periodically!
Even so, when Ezekiel was sharing (as noted in the previous post) about things that were going to unfold in my life and warning me not to become reactionary but to hold things steady, he was speaking to me as one who would return to this time-space-based existence out of eternity and have to function throughout the years in time as a representative and voice of the Lord.
This brought our conversation to something I had seen in the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel. God was speaking to him and saying, “Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the LORD. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.
"And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:30-33)
“Would I be right in thinking,” I asked, “that the Lord was identifying you in the same manner as one of sons of Asaph, Heman or Jeduthun whom David appointed to prophesy musically with their instruments?”
“You would be absolutely correct,” Ezekiel answered. “Although the Scriptures do not dwell on this point – and it probably was not necessary – my family was Levitical. Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun were all Levites. When you follow their lineage throughout the Word, you find those families always involved in prophetic ministry, and always a part of what God was saying to His people. Their heritage was my heritage. Invariably, they would sing the Word and play skillfully on their instruments. That anointing made the message they were sent to deliver something that would remain in the minds and spirits of the hearers.
“God’s Word – all by itself – has an eternal staying power to it, but setting that Word to the music that His Spirit would cause to rise up made it stick in the memories of those who would hear it. The melody that went with that Word would continually rehearse in the minds and spirits of people and cause the Word of the Lord to come back over and over and over. The music gave it a declarative force that people just couldn’t evade.”
Ezekiel paused for a moment in his narrative before becoming more personal.
“My father, like his father before him, and his father before him throughout the generations, was both priest and prophet. He was part of the same thread of singing prophets woven throughout our Levitical heritage beginning with Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. My father’s name was Buzi. In Hebrew that means “to scorn” or “to be despised.” His name all by itself was a prophetic picture. It was a picture of the state to which Israel had fallen. He was scorned in the same way that Israel and Judah scorned the Law. They scorned and despised the Word of the Lord, and they ridiculed and made light of our acts as priests in the offering of burnt sacrifices for sin.
“Growing up in that environment where I saw what my father endured somewhat prepared me for the role God called me to. I knew the power that could be exercised with music. I knew that the Word could be made extremely effective if it was sung or played on an instrument. It was an easy resolution in my youth, therefore, to apply myself to learning to play various instruments.
“In his day, David developed what we called the “psaltery” – an early predecessor to the guitar you now play. It became my favorite instrument to play and I practiced until my fingers were so sore they could hardly stand to touch the strings. But I stayed with it. Throughout the years, I became skilled at the psaltery and harp so that I could pick one of them up, close my eyes, and just get lost in the reverie of the presence of the Lord.
“As the prophetic ministry began to unfold that God called me to and His Word began to flood my being, it became a cry in my spirit. I literally felt His disappointment at Israel’s backslidings. That cry began to come out of me in songs of tender love and mercy as the Spirit of God yearned for His people’s repentance and return to Him.
“Jeremiah and I prophesied to Israel and Judah during much the same time. What Jeremiah preached and prophesied as declarations and decrees came out of me as songs. Although he and I never actually appeared together in our declarations of the Word God was speaking, it was always clear that we had been sent to Israel and Judah as a prophetic team. We often spoke nearly the same prophetic utterances although we never once compared notes with each other prior to prophesying.
“Sometimes his declarations and decrees were – in my opinion at the time – the more explosive and impacting than those I was commanded to deliver. It seemed that because of my nature and my ability and inclination to impart and convey the Word as a song or as a psalm it lacked the dynamism of Jeremiah’s delivery; and yet I knew that God was using my prophetic methodology and delivery to reinforce that same Word to the people.”
Ezekiel paused in his sharing and I seized the moment to ask him the following:
“As you sang and played on your instruments delivering the Word of the Lord to the people, did you ever feel like it was the Lord who was doing the singing or playing? Did you ever have the sense that you were nothing more than the instrument He was playing?
“Maybe I can put it like this. Did you ever have the sensation that you were hearing the words come out of your mouth but it wasn’t you actually speaking? Did you ever feel that when you plucked the strings of your psaltery or harp that you were watching your fingers perform in a way you knew you couldn’t – that the music coming forth was being supernaturally created? There! That’s what I’m trying to ask! Did you ever feel like your voice was His voice, or that your fingers or hands were His fingers or hands?”
“In a word, Yes,” he responded. “But that response really doesn’t do justice to what I saw, felt and heard. One of my contemporaries, along with Jeremiah, was a young prophet by the name of Zephaniah. He gave forth a short but powerful Word that I think expresses it better than any other way. After uttering an edict of woe, here’s what Zephaniah prophesied:
“For the Lord your God [who is] in the midst of you is mighty; He will save, He will rescue, He will avenge you and get the victory; after which He will rest in silent satisfaction in what His love for you has done. Then He will shout over you with songs of joy and exultation!” (See Zephaniah 3:17 – expanded)
“When Zephaniah let loose with that Word, I honestly could hardly contain myself! He was describing and declaring that the Lord Himself was singing! I knew he had captured the essence of what was happening inside my being when I almost felt like an onlooker to what was happening – even though it was my voice speaking and my fingers strumming and plucking the strings. He was confirming for me what was happening as I sang the prophecies. Those times when I had the 3rd person onlooker sensation were real! It WAS the Lord singing and playing through me and He Himself was crying out to His people.”
Now Ezekiel had me going! I couldn’t resist the next question.
“What I don’t understand is, if the Lord Himself was doing the singing or the playing, and He was pleading with Israel, why didn’t they listen and pay attention? It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone could actually resist the direct voice of the Lord like that!”
His answer was instantaneous. “Let me take you back to the Word that the Lord spoke to me, even in the midst of my singing and prophesying. Remember this?
"As for you, son of man, your people who talk of you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, say one to another, every one to his brother, Come and hear what the Word is that comes forth from the Lord. And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear the words you say, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after and is set on their idolatrous greed for gain.
“Lo, you are to them as a very lovely love song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear your words but do not do them. When this comes to pass – for lo, it will come! – then shall they know, understand and realize that a prophet has been among them.”
“Now you understand, don’t you? The people had shut their hearts off to receive the truth! They listened to the words coming forth, but they heard it as music, as entertainment to please their ears and their souls – NOT as the Word of the Lord. Never mind the fact that they came to listen supposedly to hear what the Lord was speaking, it didn’t fit with their mindset, their personal agenda; and so they ignored it!”
Ezekiel finished his conversation with me like this:
“Your next conversation is with Daniel and he will add to what I’m about to tell you. You may not remember these words and they may disappear from your conscious memory for many years, but the Spirit of the Lord will bring them back to you at the appropriate time. The cry of the Lord in your being has been birthed, but it has yet to come to maturity. In the years to come, you too will begin to prophesy with instruments and declare the Word of the Lord to another generation.
“You too will experience the frustration of people not paying attention or heeding the Word of the Lord and you will cry out for answers. The Spirit of the Lord will bring you back to the same Word that He spoke to me about folks hearing you sing and play and considering you a fine musician, but they will not hear the words that come out of your mouth until they actually begin to see them come to pass.”
He was right! I completely forgot this Word and put it out of my mind until the Holy Spirit brought it back to me at age 33 when I was ministering at Long Beach Christian Center. The Lord reminded me of that Word during a period of extended fasting and prayer and crying out to the Lord for answers. It was during that same time frame when the Holy Spirit brought back Jeremiah’s instruction to me and the prophetic Word God had used him to implant in my spirit.
Next: HEAVEN XV: Daniel.
A paradigm shift is taking place in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit has been preparing the Bride to show forth the greater works that Jesus promised. We are in the midst of a huge transition. That which God is about to reveal will shake and shatter the religious foundations of the calcified church!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
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ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: HEAVEN XIII: Ezekiel
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: HEAVEN XIII: Ezekiel
And Another Good Day to You! (Or is that supposed to be “G’Day?)
Sorry. I have lots of Aussie friends – and even a few relatives – but my ability to duplicate their accent is a bit missing.
As something of a follow-up to my last commentary concerning the “flushing” out of the poison in our mouths, Jesse Duplantis recently had one of the best analogies I’ve heard. (Don’t mean to just be quoting Jesse in case it seems that way, but he’s had some rather spectacular and anointed sharing of late that’s worth repeating.) I’ll try to quote or paraphrase him as closely as possible.
“The reason that folks jump all over what they call the ‘Word of Faith’ movement or the ‘Prosperity Doctrine’ is because there are some preachers out there who grab hold of part of the revelation and just focus on that part instead of waiting to get the entire revelation. That places an imbalance on what they teach and causes resulting error.”
Jesse is right! Just because there are preachers and teachers who are labeled “Word of Faith” or “Prosperity” doesn’t mean they have the whole revelation. Their lack of balance, however, does not invalidate the truth of the Word of Faith, nor does it mean that teaching prosperity is heresy. Let’s face it, folks. If a person speaks out against the Word of Faith (and I don’t just mean the so-called ‘movement’) they are speaking contrary to what the Word of God very specifically says!
Hebrews 11:6 very clearly states, “Without faith, it is impossible (see that word, ‘impossible’?) to please God.” The corollary to this is that faith MUST be in our mouths as a part of our normal ordinary speech. It is an incontrovertible truth that you cannot have what you speak against. There’s another side to this, too. Nowhere in the Word are we instructed to call those things that are as though they weren’t! It is fair to say that most things that are exist because someone spoke them into existence one way or another.
Let me give you an example.
A certain person said to me – not once but several times throughout the years – “I’ll probably have or get cancer. It runs in our family, so I guess that means I’ll have cancer.” Sure enough the man came down with cancer. He got exactly what he confessed. He brought into being a disease he didn’t need to have because he spoke unbelief. Meanwhile he was made aware of the promises in the Word concerning healing. With only a partial understanding of the Word of Faith, he began to call his cancer nonexistent.
I understand what he was trying to do, but that was not an exercise of the Word of Faith. He was trying to call those things that are as though they weren’t – and it didn’t work. He should have spoken the truth and said, “I have been diagnosed with cancer but the Word says that Jesus paid the price for my healing – that by His stripes I’ve been healed. Therefore I lay claim to the covenant that I have with the Lord Jesus Christ. I accept and receive healing from cancer by and through the blood of Jesus and in His Name!”
See the difference? The first confession gets you nowhere because it simply isn’t truth. It is nothing more than unbelief masquerading as faith. The second confession acknowledges that you have been afflicted but that Jesus paid the price so that you could be healed of the affliction. That’s the truth, and that’s what you have to walk in.
Unbelief, incidentally, is not a lack of believing. Unbelief actively believes something which is contrary to what God is saying, or what He has said before. For many people, unbelief is far more powerful in their lives than having faith and declaring and decreeing agreement with what The Word Himself says. Unbelief challenges the promises that Jesus made. Unbelief essentially says, “I don’t believe that Jesus will keep His Word to me. Maybe he’ll do it for somebody else but not me.”
Just as faith gives rise to a creative confession, unbelief always gives vent to a negative and (ultimately) destructive confession. That confession declares and decrees a thing in the life of the decreer. What it decrees is exactly what a person believes – even if what a person believes violates the Word of God.
When someone says to me, “I don’t believe that,” or, “I don’t believe that applies to me” they are unequivocally saying that they’ve chosen to actively disbelieve what God says, thus placing their “belief system” above that of the Lord. When someone says to me, “I don’t believe in the idea of Christians living in prosperity,” they are without question denying the very efficacy of the Word and the multitude of promises of the Lord. Deuteronomy 28 – all by itself – should be sufficient to quash that unbelief.
When someone says, “Speaking in tongues is of the Devil,” they blaspheme the Holy Spirit by attributing His work and ministry to Satan. They actively disbelieve Acts 2:39 and dismiss it as not relevant to the present time. They place themselves in grave danger of severe judgment.
Let me get back on track. We don’t know it all yet. In case you hadn’t already figured it out (grin), I’ve made some serious mistakes, errors in judgment and errors in teaching. I was very sincere years ago when I taught against the laws of tithing – and I was sincerely wrong! The problem was that I didn’t have revelation by the Holy Spirit and so I taught from humanly acquired and (very!) erroneous reasoning. Were it not for the grace and mercy of the Lord I would still be caught in that error.
That said, I’d hate for someone to take something I taught 10, 15 or 20 years ago from an incomplete place of understanding and suggest that I currently preach and teach that same error.
(Unfortunately, folks who condemn many of the so-called “Word of Faith” and “Prosperity Teachers” do exactly that, taking things they said as many as 20 or 30 years ago and repeating them as current doctrine when in fact they have grown in their understanding and areas of teaching as the Holy Spirit has continued to unfold revelation from the Word.)
Thank the Lord for His instruction and correction. Thank God for His patience with me in my stupidity and His grace to bring me out of error. I’m still learning and still growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
OK. Enough of that. Let’s move on.
Ezekiel has long been one of my favorite prophets. It didn’t used to be that way, but when I began to have some of the same experiences and same visions he had, it changed my perspective and gave me a real appreciation for him. Little did I realize when I was talking to him that less than two years later I would experience his “wheel in the middle of the wheel” in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Ezekiel was a Levitical priest who when he was introduced to me appeared in priestly garments. I’d have guessed him to be roughly 5’10” or 5’11” tall, and “lean and mean” if you get the metaphor. He was no spindly-looking guy, however. He had soft facial features – the look of someone who has spent a lifetime in the presence of the Lord.
Here again was someone whose appearance belied the mental images which came from seeing all the “stuff” he went through, and the requests the Lord made of him in order to become a literal prophecy himself to the nation. Stop and think about it!
What do you think a guy would look like to whom the Lord first said, “Take this roll (scroll) and eat it?” OK, how about this one:
“Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.”
Then the Lord follows that one up with, “And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.”
Got the picture? Ezekiel is commanded to lie on his left side for 390 days as a sign to Israel. Next he’s commanded to lie on his right side for 40 days. Each of those acts becomes a prophecy to Israel.
But wait. It gets even stranger yet!
“And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.”
So Ezekiel is commanded to shave his head and his beard and use the hair in four different ways to prophesy. Do you think this might look strange?
Try this one on!
“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”
Say what?
“And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.”
Wheww!!! Yecchh! “Prepare thy bread (with dung)?” Think you could do that? Somehow I doubt it! And we think some of God’s people today are strange! And this was just a sampling of the very unusual things God required of him as he became the prophetic Word of the Lord to Israel.
Now you begin to get the idea why I began my questions with Ezekiel like this: “Did you think you’d lost your mind, or maybe that you were hearing things, when the Lord asked you to do all that strange stuff? I mean, WOW! I know you were supposed to represent a prophetic picture to the people, but I don’t remember anyone else ever being asked to do such odd things, ‘cept maybe Isaiah once or twice.”
It seems that my questions often provoked laughter on the part of the individuals being questioned, and Ezekiel was no exception. Put in the perspective that I had just shared, he couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, it caught his “funny bone” to the point where he almost doubled over laughing.
“I guess I’d never thought of it cumulatively like that,” he responded, “but I see what you’re driving at. As you’ve just pointed out, Isaiah was required to walk about for three years naked and barefoot in order to become a prophetic message to Egypt and Ethiopia.
“When the Lord first began to instruct me in this strange behavior, He warned me that Israel was extremely rebellious and that they would react vehemently to the Word I was sent to deliver. If you remember how He spoke to Jeremiah, He instructed him not to pay attention to the reactions of the people. He told Jeremiah that they would fight against him and try to take his life. He repeated Himself several times to Jeremiah when He said, “Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee.”
“What God said to me was, “And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.”
“The parallel was identical. God was letting me know that these people were like poisonous scorpions and that they would try to sting me and infect me with their poison. I knew in my spirit that I was going to be an illustrated prophetic Word of the Lord – one that would be so graphic the people would not be able to get the picture out of their minds. The Lord was so serious about them receiving this message that He was making me into something that was pretty extreme in order to get His Word engraved in their spirits.
“That didn’t mean the people were going to hear and obey the Word. In fact, He said to me, “For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.”
Ezekiel paused and said, “Are you understanding this?”
I nodded my head. “That’s pretty extreme! Obviously it is very important that God’s people hear the warning because of the things that are going to happen.”
“There’s more, but before we continue there are some things I need to share with you, young man. The Lord Jesus arranged this trip for you because there are some things that need to be planted in your spirit. He has some important assignments for you – just as He had for me, for Isaiah and for Jeremiah. Much of what I’m about to share with you will fade from your conscious memory for several years because the timing of what I have to say is for a day that awaits you.
He continued. “A day will come when you will cry out to the Lord asking Him concerning the events that will be unfolding at that time. The Spirit of the Lord will bring this conversation back to you and remind you of your calling and purpose. He will time it in such a way that your purposes in God will begin to flower and mature.”
Now my curiosity was piqued! I stood up straight and waited to see what Ezekiel was going to say.
“I’ve just told you what the Lord spoke to me when He first called me. I wasn’t being sent to other nations and other peoples. I was being sent to the House of Israel. Though there will come moments in time when you will address people who are not of the house and family of God – and you will see them quickly and readily respond to the Word of the Lord – God is sending you primarily to His people.
“When He sent me to the houses of Judah and Israel, He specifically warned me that I would be addressing a very stubborn and rebellious people who did not want to hear the Word I was speaking. The same is true for you. In the years to come you will find yourself delivering the Word of the Lord to people who call themselves believers, members of the body of Christ … Christians. But they will be locked into doctrines, teachings and mindsets that have blinded them to the calling and purposes of God in their lives.
“Many will rebel against the Word of the Lord that you speak. You will be despised, rejected, regarded as heretical, spoken evil of, conspired against, thrown out of places, and some of them will even try to kill you. Do not, for a moment, allow any of that to affect you. Do not in any way compromise or water down the Word of the Lord which He gives you to speak. Their lives and their spiritual futures depend on your faithfulness to deliver God’s Word.
“That doesn’t mean all of them will reject the Word. You will certainly see results, and God’s Word will certainly come to pass. But be prepared, young man! There will be times when your obedience to the Word of the Lord will cost you everything. Never fear. There is a day of harvest and a day of reward and you will see and experience it. Don’t be intimidated by the long wait. Do not, under any circumstances, allow what seem to be interminable delays and the rejections you will certainly experience cause you to quit and give up. You’ll never regret enduring and persisting in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.”
My conversation with Ezekiel still had a little ways to go, and I’m running long today, so let’s hold it for our next Coffee Break.
Next: HEAVEN XIV: Ezekiel, the Prophetic Musician.
A shaking is going on the midst of God’s people! Jesus is coming back for a Bride without spot or wrinkle. It is imperative that we as His people yield to the fire of the Holy Spirit and the purification processes He is bringing us to. The fire is not for our destruction, it is to get rid of the bondages that keep us from reaching His destiny for us!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifor 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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
And Another Good Day to You! (Or is that supposed to be “G’Day?)
Sorry. I have lots of Aussie friends – and even a few relatives – but my ability to duplicate their accent is a bit missing.
As something of a follow-up to my last commentary concerning the “flushing” out of the poison in our mouths, Jesse Duplantis recently had one of the best analogies I’ve heard. (Don’t mean to just be quoting Jesse in case it seems that way, but he’s had some rather spectacular and anointed sharing of late that’s worth repeating.) I’ll try to quote or paraphrase him as closely as possible.
“The reason that folks jump all over what they call the ‘Word of Faith’ movement or the ‘Prosperity Doctrine’ is because there are some preachers out there who grab hold of part of the revelation and just focus on that part instead of waiting to get the entire revelation. That places an imbalance on what they teach and causes resulting error.”
Jesse is right! Just because there are preachers and teachers who are labeled “Word of Faith” or “Prosperity” doesn’t mean they have the whole revelation. Their lack of balance, however, does not invalidate the truth of the Word of Faith, nor does it mean that teaching prosperity is heresy. Let’s face it, folks. If a person speaks out against the Word of Faith (and I don’t just mean the so-called ‘movement’) they are speaking contrary to what the Word of God very specifically says!
Hebrews 11:6 very clearly states, “Without faith, it is impossible (see that word, ‘impossible’?) to please God.” The corollary to this is that faith MUST be in our mouths as a part of our normal ordinary speech. It is an incontrovertible truth that you cannot have what you speak against. There’s another side to this, too. Nowhere in the Word are we instructed to call those things that are as though they weren’t! It is fair to say that most things that are exist because someone spoke them into existence one way or another.
Let me give you an example.
A certain person said to me – not once but several times throughout the years – “I’ll probably have or get cancer. It runs in our family, so I guess that means I’ll have cancer.” Sure enough the man came down with cancer. He got exactly what he confessed. He brought into being a disease he didn’t need to have because he spoke unbelief. Meanwhile he was made aware of the promises in the Word concerning healing. With only a partial understanding of the Word of Faith, he began to call his cancer nonexistent.
I understand what he was trying to do, but that was not an exercise of the Word of Faith. He was trying to call those things that are as though they weren’t – and it didn’t work. He should have spoken the truth and said, “I have been diagnosed with cancer but the Word says that Jesus paid the price for my healing – that by His stripes I’ve been healed. Therefore I lay claim to the covenant that I have with the Lord Jesus Christ. I accept and receive healing from cancer by and through the blood of Jesus and in His Name!”
See the difference? The first confession gets you nowhere because it simply isn’t truth. It is nothing more than unbelief masquerading as faith. The second confession acknowledges that you have been afflicted but that Jesus paid the price so that you could be healed of the affliction. That’s the truth, and that’s what you have to walk in.
Unbelief, incidentally, is not a lack of believing. Unbelief actively believes something which is contrary to what God is saying, or what He has said before. For many people, unbelief is far more powerful in their lives than having faith and declaring and decreeing agreement with what The Word Himself says. Unbelief challenges the promises that Jesus made. Unbelief essentially says, “I don’t believe that Jesus will keep His Word to me. Maybe he’ll do it for somebody else but not me.”
Just as faith gives rise to a creative confession, unbelief always gives vent to a negative and (ultimately) destructive confession. That confession declares and decrees a thing in the life of the decreer. What it decrees is exactly what a person believes – even if what a person believes violates the Word of God.
When someone says to me, “I don’t believe that,” or, “I don’t believe that applies to me” they are unequivocally saying that they’ve chosen to actively disbelieve what God says, thus placing their “belief system” above that of the Lord. When someone says to me, “I don’t believe in the idea of Christians living in prosperity,” they are without question denying the very efficacy of the Word and the multitude of promises of the Lord. Deuteronomy 28 – all by itself – should be sufficient to quash that unbelief.
When someone says, “Speaking in tongues is of the Devil,” they blaspheme the Holy Spirit by attributing His work and ministry to Satan. They actively disbelieve Acts 2:39 and dismiss it as not relevant to the present time. They place themselves in grave danger of severe judgment.
Let me get back on track. We don’t know it all yet. In case you hadn’t already figured it out (grin), I’ve made some serious mistakes, errors in judgment and errors in teaching. I was very sincere years ago when I taught against the laws of tithing – and I was sincerely wrong! The problem was that I didn’t have revelation by the Holy Spirit and so I taught from humanly acquired and (very!) erroneous reasoning. Were it not for the grace and mercy of the Lord I would still be caught in that error.
That said, I’d hate for someone to take something I taught 10, 15 or 20 years ago from an incomplete place of understanding and suggest that I currently preach and teach that same error.
(Unfortunately, folks who condemn many of the so-called “Word of Faith” and “Prosperity Teachers” do exactly that, taking things they said as many as 20 or 30 years ago and repeating them as current doctrine when in fact they have grown in their understanding and areas of teaching as the Holy Spirit has continued to unfold revelation from the Word.)
Thank the Lord for His instruction and correction. Thank God for His patience with me in my stupidity and His grace to bring me out of error. I’m still learning and still growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
OK. Enough of that. Let’s move on.
Ezekiel has long been one of my favorite prophets. It didn’t used to be that way, but when I began to have some of the same experiences and same visions he had, it changed my perspective and gave me a real appreciation for him. Little did I realize when I was talking to him that less than two years later I would experience his “wheel in the middle of the wheel” in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Ezekiel was a Levitical priest who when he was introduced to me appeared in priestly garments. I’d have guessed him to be roughly 5’10” or 5’11” tall, and “lean and mean” if you get the metaphor. He was no spindly-looking guy, however. He had soft facial features – the look of someone who has spent a lifetime in the presence of the Lord.
Here again was someone whose appearance belied the mental images which came from seeing all the “stuff” he went through, and the requests the Lord made of him in order to become a literal prophecy himself to the nation. Stop and think about it!
What do you think a guy would look like to whom the Lord first said, “Take this roll (scroll) and eat it?” OK, how about this one:
“Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.”
Then the Lord follows that one up with, “And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.”
Got the picture? Ezekiel is commanded to lie on his left side for 390 days as a sign to Israel. Next he’s commanded to lie on his right side for 40 days. Each of those acts becomes a prophecy to Israel.
But wait. It gets even stranger yet!
“And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.”
So Ezekiel is commanded to shave his head and his beard and use the hair in four different ways to prophesy. Do you think this might look strange?
Try this one on!
“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.”
Say what?
“And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.”
Wheww!!! Yecchh! “Prepare thy bread (with dung)?” Think you could do that? Somehow I doubt it! And we think some of God’s people today are strange! And this was just a sampling of the very unusual things God required of him as he became the prophetic Word of the Lord to Israel.
Now you begin to get the idea why I began my questions with Ezekiel like this: “Did you think you’d lost your mind, or maybe that you were hearing things, when the Lord asked you to do all that strange stuff? I mean, WOW! I know you were supposed to represent a prophetic picture to the people, but I don’t remember anyone else ever being asked to do such odd things, ‘cept maybe Isaiah once or twice.”
It seems that my questions often provoked laughter on the part of the individuals being questioned, and Ezekiel was no exception. Put in the perspective that I had just shared, he couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, it caught his “funny bone” to the point where he almost doubled over laughing.
“I guess I’d never thought of it cumulatively like that,” he responded, “but I see what you’re driving at. As you’ve just pointed out, Isaiah was required to walk about for three years naked and barefoot in order to become a prophetic message to Egypt and Ethiopia.
“When the Lord first began to instruct me in this strange behavior, He warned me that Israel was extremely rebellious and that they would react vehemently to the Word I was sent to deliver. If you remember how He spoke to Jeremiah, He instructed him not to pay attention to the reactions of the people. He told Jeremiah that they would fight against him and try to take his life. He repeated Himself several times to Jeremiah when He said, “Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee.”
“What God said to me was, “And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.”
“The parallel was identical. God was letting me know that these people were like poisonous scorpions and that they would try to sting me and infect me with their poison. I knew in my spirit that I was going to be an illustrated prophetic Word of the Lord – one that would be so graphic the people would not be able to get the picture out of their minds. The Lord was so serious about them receiving this message that He was making me into something that was pretty extreme in order to get His Word engraved in their spirits.
“That didn’t mean the people were going to hear and obey the Word. In fact, He said to me, “For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.”
Ezekiel paused and said, “Are you understanding this?”
I nodded my head. “That’s pretty extreme! Obviously it is very important that God’s people hear the warning because of the things that are going to happen.”
“There’s more, but before we continue there are some things I need to share with you, young man. The Lord Jesus arranged this trip for you because there are some things that need to be planted in your spirit. He has some important assignments for you – just as He had for me, for Isaiah and for Jeremiah. Much of what I’m about to share with you will fade from your conscious memory for several years because the timing of what I have to say is for a day that awaits you.
He continued. “A day will come when you will cry out to the Lord asking Him concerning the events that will be unfolding at that time. The Spirit of the Lord will bring this conversation back to you and remind you of your calling and purpose. He will time it in such a way that your purposes in God will begin to flower and mature.”
Now my curiosity was piqued! I stood up straight and waited to see what Ezekiel was going to say.
“I’ve just told you what the Lord spoke to me when He first called me. I wasn’t being sent to other nations and other peoples. I was being sent to the House of Israel. Though there will come moments in time when you will address people who are not of the house and family of God – and you will see them quickly and readily respond to the Word of the Lord – God is sending you primarily to His people.
“When He sent me to the houses of Judah and Israel, He specifically warned me that I would be addressing a very stubborn and rebellious people who did not want to hear the Word I was speaking. The same is true for you. In the years to come you will find yourself delivering the Word of the Lord to people who call themselves believers, members of the body of Christ … Christians. But they will be locked into doctrines, teachings and mindsets that have blinded them to the calling and purposes of God in their lives.
“Many will rebel against the Word of the Lord that you speak. You will be despised, rejected, regarded as heretical, spoken evil of, conspired against, thrown out of places, and some of them will even try to kill you. Do not, for a moment, allow any of that to affect you. Do not in any way compromise or water down the Word of the Lord which He gives you to speak. Their lives and their spiritual futures depend on your faithfulness to deliver God’s Word.
“That doesn’t mean all of them will reject the Word. You will certainly see results, and God’s Word will certainly come to pass. But be prepared, young man! There will be times when your obedience to the Word of the Lord will cost you everything. Never fear. There is a day of harvest and a day of reward and you will see and experience it. Don’t be intimidated by the long wait. Do not, under any circumstances, allow what seem to be interminable delays and the rejections you will certainly experience cause you to quit and give up. You’ll never regret enduring and persisting in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.”
My conversation with Ezekiel still had a little ways to go, and I’m running long today, so let’s hold it for our next Coffee Break.
Next: HEAVEN XIV: Ezekiel, the Prophetic Musician.
A shaking is going on the midst of God’s people! Jesus is coming back for a Bride without spot or wrinkle. It is imperative that we as His people yield to the fire of the Holy Spirit and the purification processes He is bringing us to. The fire is not for our destruction, it is to get rid of the bondages that keep us from reaching His destiny for us!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifor 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.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
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