Preparing the Bride of Christ For His Return By Janet Van Hierdan
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com:
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
The Spirit of Jezebel, Part 2
August 30, 2013
Good Morning!! In the same way that we began the last Coffee Break with a real story of an event which clearly marks the behavior pattern of the spirit of Jezebel, let me begin today's discussion with another story -- this one an experience that affected our family.
When we first moved to Alaska in 1944 and Dad built the first of seven different churches in the arctic and one in the Pribilof Islands (five of which I participated in building), my folks had been a part of a major denomination. When we first left Washington state for Alaska, Dad's denominational leaders had forbidden him to go to Alaska and tried to entice him to go to China or Africa instead. His response to them was, "Brethren, God didn't call me to China or Africa; He called me to Alaska, and I'm going."
The denominational leaders abandoned him and said, "You're on your own. You will go without our support or backing." It was behavior typical of the spirit of Jezebel, and it was to manifest many times in the years to come. You see, if Jezebel can't get you to do things her way, (more accurately, it's way!) this spirit will do everything in its power to put roadblocks in front of you and make you think you can't do what God has directed you to do without Jezebel's involvement.
When you act in obedience to the rhema Word from the Lord, you need not fret over Jezebel's threats; and Dad wasn't about to allow Jezebel to prevent him/us from obeying the Lord. Funny thing. Five years later, the denomination decided that because the ministry in Alaska was paying such dividends, maybe they'd been too hasty and they needed to get on board. In 1949, in response to a plea for help from Dad in purchasing a vehicle that could be used to transport folks back and forth to and from the church in minus 40-degree weather, the organization sent some financial help for the first time.
The church in Nome was the first one to be built. Barrow followed in the mid-1950's, followed by Wainwright, Kaktovik (on Barter Island), Point Hope, and then Nuiqsut and Atqasuk. In each instance, because the denominational organization seemed to have gotten fully behind my folks, despite the fact that the denomination didn't have so much as one penny of its finances invested in any of the communities, Dad had confidence that he could turn over each of the churches, the homes and the properties to the denomination; and that they would carry on the ministry in the same manner so that the Gospel would be preached until each community came to know the Lord Jesus Christ in an intimate way.
Along the way, and throughout the first 21 years of ministry, the Alaska missions organization (which was part of the denomination) had convinced Dad to serve on the state boards for the denomination in a representative capacity. Pastors throughout the state began to lobby Dad to become the state's General Superintendent for the denomination. He had just stepped away from his representative status as a General Presbyter.
When I talked to him about it, he said, "Son, what I've seen and what I've heard tell me that this organization is not the same thing I became a part of back in the 1930's. It has become nothing more than a bunch of religious politicians vying for office and power and control. I want none of it! That's not what God called me to. If they try to elect me, I will not take the office."
Despite this disgust with the politics of the denomination, Dad still had confidence in the organization as a whole and particularly with leaders whom he considered as his personal friends. That being the case, in every instance -- namely, Nome, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Hope, Kaktovik, Nuiqsut and Atqasuk -- when the church buildings were complete, along with housing for each local pastor and family, he created a title deed for the property in each community and signed it over to the denomination, free and clear.
The fact that the denomination provided no funding for any of these pioneer efforts (Dad raised the money, or earned it with his own labors) made no difference. From his perspective, it was all God's money anyway. He considered that he was simply a servant of the Lord who'd been given both the opportunity and the abilities (along with the provision) necessary for each task. Year after year my parents labored. Year after year Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts came to know the Lord as a result of their labors. Over the years, the effects of their ministry spanned the arctic from Alaska, through northern Canada, into Greenland, Iceland, and even into Siberia.
As their ministry moved to Saint Paul Island in the Pribilofs (an island group in the Bering Sea, north of the Aleutians), Dad began to see increasing evidence that the denomination was more interested in gaining title to the individual properties, the churches and parsonages, than they were in providing backup for individuals called by the Lord to each of these communities. (At one point in the past few years, five of the churches were without pastors -- all at the same time -- and some that the denomination had sent in abandoned their churches because they simply were not called and prepared by the Lord for that type of ministry.)
In the mid-eighties, Dad's health began to deteriorate. Della and I had taken my folks and her mother to Hawaii for a vacation. We were sitting on the beach at Waikiki watching Dad frolic in the water with our oldest son, Chris, when Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly and told me that Dad had two years to live, that he would be diagnosed six months before his death with inoperable cancer and told that he had six months to live. I shared it with Della. We felt to withhold it from the family and treated it as a preparatory word from the Lord.
Meanwhile, in the months that followed Della and I shut down our activities and moved out to Saint Paul Island to help my parents. While there, Dad confided in me that he did not want to sign over the property to the denomination (he had lost confidence in the spiritual integrity of the leadership), and that he really hoped we would take over that ministry in the years to come.
He went home to be with the Lord on Good Friday in 1986. Mom continued the ministry on the island until September of 2000. While she was on her death bed at the hospital, my stomach almost curdled at the sight of the denomination's leader sweet-talking Mom and getting her to sign over the Saint Paul Island property -- which was easily the biggest and nicest property of all the building efforts my folks had created -- to the organization, never mind the fact that Dad had specifically said he didn't want that to happen.
Della and I were given three weeks to clear the place of Mom and Dad's personal possessions in the supposition that a family was coming out to replace them. It didn't take place for months afterward, and then it turned out to be a couple of ladies who served more as caretakers for some short period of time. When they left, no one came to replace them, and the property fell into a state of disrepair -- a condition that exists to this day. From what we've been told, the organization made an effort to sell the property, but the sale never went through and it sits essentially abandoned.
You will appreciate the fact that the Lord really had to sit on me and quiet my spirit after what I saw take place. You can also appreciate why I speak out so strongly against the spirit of Jezebel. I'm not angry at the people in the organization; they are pawns who've been taken captive by a spirit whose principal objective is to steal, kill and destroy.
The spirit of Jezebel has a clear modus operandi, and that method of operation has been in evidence since the days of Jezebel and Ahab when Jezebel had Naboth killed off so she could take the generations-old vineyard and give it to her compliant and enabling husband, Ahab.
Notice how Jezebel did it. Let's recap this story from I Kings 21.
Ahab sees and admires the fruitful vineyard that Naboth was tending. This vineyard was old and it was producing a grape harvest which would have resulted in a fine wine. More than that it was quite close to the king's palace and easily visible.
Ahab approaches Naboth and offers him a trade for a "better vineyard." From Naboth's perspective, his vineyard represents an inheritance passed on down to him as the labor of his father, his grandfather and generations of family before him. To treat that inheritance as a mere tradeable commodity for another vineyard in which he had no personal labor or investment was unthinkable. Furthermore, from Naboth's point of view, to give up what his fathers had poured blood, sweat and tears into would be an insult to the Lord. (I could take this further in terms of the Law of Moses but it would take us off-track.)
Naboth refuses to sell the vineyard to the king – at any price. Ahab begins to pout and throws himself a hissy fit. Jezebel sees him in a blue funk and says to him, “What’s your problem?” Ahab cries on Jezzy’s shoulder, and Jezzy says, “No problem. I can fix this. I’ll personally give you Naboth’s vineyard.”
Now Jezebel commences to do something that is one of the primary tactics of that spirit in control of her, and epitomizes the manner in which it still works today. She goes hunting for two men of political repute and standing in the area – men who are easily corruptible and easily swayed by Jezebel’s position as Queen – and gets them to conspire with her against Naboth.
First things first. Set up Naboth. Let’s call a public feast, let’s send out letters of invitation to a celebration, and let’s honor a “Man of the Year” shall we? Piece of cake. Guess who the “Man of the Year” is? You got it!
Think Naboth has any clue that he’s being set up, that his pride is going to be his downfall? Nope. Neither do the overwhelming majority of Christians who fall into this same trap. They become the willing pawns of the spirit of Jezebel once their pride has been appealed to, and they think they’re being “honored.”
Honor? Some honor! Sure enough, Naboth shows up for his “honoring”, and right in the middle of the celebration, these two so-called “men of standing” (men of Belial: wicked, worthless, evil and ungodly) stand up and accuse Naboth of treasonous activity – namely, blaspheming God, AND (Horror of Horrors!) King Ahab.
There was no trial, no opportunity for Naboth to confront his accusers, and no one who stood up for him. This is something I’ve always found interesting about the spirit of Jezebel: its ability to intimidate even those who might under ordinary circumstances speak out on behalf of the righteous when falsely accused. Despite the fact that Jezebel wasn’t even an Israelite; despite the fact that Naboth had lived and spent his whole life there in Jezreel where the folks knew him, knew his family, and undoubtedly had been recipients of assistance and favors from Naboth and his family, not one single person stood up in his defense against two spokesmen whose accusations were completely fabricated out of whole cloth.
And this is the norm for folks when they’ve been intimidated by the spirit of Jezebel. The Fear of Death and the Fear of Man seal their lips shut. They stand by, keeping silence, and allow the fabrications of lying spirits to come against men and women of God. When judgment based on those lies is executed against the righteous, their silence is all the more sealed, and the spirit of Jezebel gets away with murder.
That’s exactly what happened with Naboth. Not one single person stood up in his defense. Folks who knew him as a righteous man, who knew that Naboth would rather die than blaspheme God or the king, stood by, capitulating to the spirit in Jezebel allowing him to be taken out of the town and stoned to death.
With Naboth dead and unable to defend himself or his lands, Jezebel seized his vineyard and proudly walked in to Ahab and handed him title to those lands he had coveted. Thus the spirit of Jezebel is also liar, thief, murderer, and willing conspirator to those who capitulate to its usurpation.
The obvious companion spirit to the spirit of Jezebel is what I have come to call “the spirit of Ahab.” Jezebel couldn’t have gotten away with such treachery had she not had Ahab to support and permit her activities. The spirit of Ahab, therefore, is a spirit of capitulation in the midst of Jezebel’s usurpation. In a modern sense and application, I have seen the spirit of Ahab operating in folks who were submissive or capitulative to a spirit of Jezebel, and rather than allow folks to defend the falsely accused, they move heaven and earth to see that the would-be defenders are moved somewhere else, or have no opportunity to speak out.
I want to break down for you each of the eight descriptive pictures or characteristics of the spirit of Jezebel that we referred to in the last Coffee Break, but I think I’ll wait on that until next week.
Once again, this is a pretty heavy subject and I don't want to weight folks down unnecessarily without reminding you all that there is no substitute for the presence of the Lord. In His presence comes revelation. In His presence comes deliverance. In His presence comes the kind of true authority necessary to take on evil spirits like Jezebel.
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Brides-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00BSV6HZC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1363139096&sr=8-8&keywords=A+Tale+of+Two+Brides#_
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 available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.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 remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please 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.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The Spirit of Jezebel, Part 1
August 23, 2013
OK, OK! I said we were going to begin talking this week about the Spirit and the Bride, and we will get there, but after seeing comments concerning the things shared in the series on Babylon, and then having several back-to-back phone calls this week, it became clear that I needed to switch gears and deal with this subject for now.
Some seven years ago or so I did a series of Coffee Breaks on the spirit of Jezebel and raised a lot of sand in the process. This is not a "feel-good" kind of teaching. It is rather unpleasant for some folks -- especially those who've been infected by this spirit. The common misconception is that this is a female spirit, and that it infects women more than it infects men. Not so! It just seems that way because a lot of men have a knack for camouflaging the presence of Jezebel, and most folks don't recognize it for what it is.
That said, let me begin by saying that if this teaching makes you very uncomfortable, or even very angry, sit up and take notice! This is one spirit that hates to be exposed, and it will create anger and hostility within the people in which it has taken up residence.
Earlier this week I received a phone call from a gentleman who was absolutely baffled by a series of events that had just taken place in his church, and more specifically, within the church's leadership.
This man -- for the sake of this discussion, we'll refer to him as "Fred" (not his real name) -- lives in a part of the country where there is a large Jewish concentration, the majority of whom are Orthodox Jews. The church of which he is a part had decided to launch a major evangelical thrust into the Jewish community. Sounds OK, thus far, right?
When we think "evangelism" we think the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, if we are actually doing what Jesus instructed, we are preaching "the Gospel of the Kingdom," which has distinctly larger parameters than simply preaching salvation through Jesus Christ. We won't go there today because it would take us off topic. Suffice it to say that Fred's church had proposed a major inroad with the Gospel.
Before we get too far along with this topic, let me ask you a question. Is it possible to preach the Gospel -- whether you want to preach the "Gospel of Jesus Christ" or the "Gospel of the Kingdom" -- without naming the name or the onoma, if you will, of the Lord Jesus Christ? Let's leave it there for the moment, and continue.
Weeks of preparation went into this evangelistic thrust as the associate pastor of Fred's church prepared the evangelistic team. Fred, of course, was an integral part of the preparation since, as he put it, "the Jewish people are near and dear to my heart." We now get to the final week of preparation and the associate pastor stands us and says to the people, "I want to make absolutely sure that as we go out that you NEVER mention the name of Jesus Christ."
Whaaattt??? Wait a minute! There is no "Gospel" without Jesus Christ.
He continued, "Our purpose is simply to show them the love of God. We don't want to offend anyone by mentioning Jesus to them."
Fred, being a spirit-filled Christian, was more than taken aback. He went immediately to the associate pastor and questioned him on this approach. The associate pastor became instantly defensive. He didn't modify his policy by saying, "I only mean this as a temporary stance until we win the people to ourselves first." He didn't take the time to clarify anything whatever. He simply responded with, "If you can't adhere to what I've instructed, you don't need to be a part of this."
Still looking for some understanding and not really willing to back away from the evangelical effort, Fred went to talk to the senior pastor. The senior pastor said to him, quite dismissively, "Let me make it abundantly clear! We stand behind (the associate pastor) completely and totally! The entire staff of this church stands behind him. Whatever he says goes!"
Baffled and not yet ready to accept that they could "evangelize" without the name of Jesus, Fred quoted the scripture from Matthew 10:33, "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."
He might very well have added the following verses in which Jesus makes it clear that His Gospel is neither "seeker friendly" nor comfortable: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household."
As Fred was to quickly discover, his foes were going to be those of his own church leadership. The senior pastor followed up Fred's quote by saying (and I'm paraphrasing), "If you can't abide by the instructions you've been given, then you don't need to be a part at all."
In the just-concluded Coffee Break series on the fall of Babylon, I commented that the spirit of Jezebel (which John clearly describes as sitting atop the beast -- Babylon -- and being subservient to the beast) absolutely hates and detests "with a purple passion" rebuke and reproof. Anyone who dares to rebuke or to reprove the actions and activities of those under the domination of this spirit of rebellion frequently (and increasingly in this day and time) suffers as a result.
Because this spirit is so pervasive in the church world, and more specifically, among religious denominations and religions of the world in general, it has become the dominant spirit in most of the mainline denominations. The overwhelming majority of our Presbyterian friends here in the northwest, along with their churches and church leadership, are in the process of parting ways with the PCUSA (The Presbyterian Church - USA) and becoming part of different groups because the large denomination has yielded to Jezebel as the presiding spirit and has begun ordaining homosexual ministers.
Sexual perversion, homosexual and lesbian behavior are all fundamentals of Jezebel's behavior, and are characteristics of the dominance of that spirit. I won't go into this aspect in today's discussion (we'll pick it up later), but the spirit of Jezebel only operates where there is a spirit of Ahab present, and Ahab (if you remember your Scripture) was a purveyor of compromise with false idols and utter wickedness in Israel.
Getting back to Fred's story, his disappointment knew no bounds when he learned that his pastor attended a denominational convention within the past few weeks and was lauded by the General Superintendent of that denomination as an example for all of their churches to follow.
I'm not here to roast individuals or to point fingers at anyone. I haven't spoken to this pastor in person and haven't had the opportunity to hear his reasoning, or to find out if indeed he intended this as only a first approach. Nevertheless, this is a clear picture of Jezebel's behavior. Jezebel absolutely does not want the name of Jesus. This spirit is fearful of the authority contained within the onoma of Jesus Christ.
Let's take a look for a few minutes at some historical background of Jezebel, and some of the characteristics of the spirit of Jezebel as recorded in the Word.
Some folks, by the way, have asked me why I describe this as “the spirit of Jezebel” when that term doesn’t appear anywhere in Scripture. Without taking the time today to go into all of the characteristics the Scripture DOES clearly define as being those of evil spirits and making clear that the term “evil spirit” or “demon” is not simply a metaphor but a tangible being with personality, let me simply say that it is very clear that Jezebel was not alive at the end of the first century when John was writing down the words of the vision and the Revelation given to him by the Holy Spirit.
Jezebel, the Queen of Israel, the wife of King Ahab, had lived more than a millennia previously. The daughter of an Amorite king, she became the epitome of that spirit that ruled the Amorite nation. Each of the seven nations that God commanded Israel to wipe out and destroy when they came into Canaan so as to prevent the contamination of God’s people exhibited a master spirit. That spirit was manifested in the nature, the culture, and the characteristics of each of those nations – seven master spirits in all.
An example you might more readily relate to comes in Daniel 10 where Daniel describes fasting for 21 days, after which the angel of the Lord appears to him and tells him that he was withstood by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” and delayed in coming with Daniel’s answer because of the ongoing warfare until Michael came to his assistance. He then said, “…now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.”
Quite obviously, no angel of the Lord is being withstood or battling with earthly kings or princes. He is making reference to a demonic principality (Paul uses the word, kosmokrator --world ruler of darkness, in the Greek text of Ephesians 6:12) that ruled over the region with wickedness: a demon prince whose characteristics and nature were being woven into the makeup of the people.
The Jezebel that John speaks of, therefore, is not a human entity but a demonic spirit infiltrating the body of Christ. This is an important distinction, and it gives us understanding as to the nature of the spiritual battle being waged against the people of God, and -- in this hour especially -- the Bride of Christ.
Although the Word is filled with illustrations and examples of the behavior of the spirit of Jezebel, I'd like to begin with a picture John gives us in the fourth of the seven letters that open Revelation. This letter is the letter to Thyatira and begins in Revelation 2:18:
1. “She calleth herself a prophetess.” Right. False prophet(-ess) and false prophecy. We unfortunately have a lot of wanna-be prophets in the body of Christ today pushing either comfy prophecies or doom and gloom prophecies which completely omit the victory we have in Christ Jesus.
2. “to teach and seduce my servants…” This spirit poses as a seductive teacher, promoting doctrines and teachings that lead the people of God astray. These are doctrines which sell short the price that Jesus paid on the Cross and leave Christians in a place where what Jesus did wasn't good enough; they still have to do more.
3. “to commit fornication.” This seduction is both spiritual and physical, often with sexual manifestation. There is another aspect of this as well seen recently in the so-called preaching of "Chrislam" which suggests that Christianity and Islam are compatible and that both religions "serve" the same God.
4. “and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.” Idolatry: the worship or reverence of things, or individuals, or entities other than the Lord Himself: the prioritizing of doctrines over a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The suggestion (to draw a few examples) that "Jesus paid it all" on the Cross, that we all live under grace, and that there is no Hell.
5. “I gave her space to repent of her fornication,” We'll get into this picture in due time as we progress in this series to talk about God's mercy and the opportunities presented to believers who've been contaminated by this spirit.
6. “and she repented not.” Those afflicted with this spirit generally tend to be unrepentant. They have no remorse over their sin, can’t see that what they are doing is sin, and refuse to repent when faced with exposure of their sin. They generally rise up in anger and rebellion when confronted.
7. “Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.” It’s more than just fornication: it is adultery, too. We will get into this characteristic shortly.
8. “And I will kill all her children with death.” How do you kill someone with death? This is an interesting Hebrew metaphor occurring in the Greek text that we will be exploring later in this series.
The judgment of the Lord against those who commit adultery with this spirit (and we’ll talk about that more in a second) is “great tribulation.” The Greek text uses a couple of interesting words for this phrase: megas (we get our “mega-” from this word) thlipsis.
It literally translates to: enormous pressure; great persecution, much affliction.
So what does it mean to “commit adultery with her”?
Adultery is a term applied to those who are married. In this instance, we – as members of the body of Christ – have been betrothed in marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ. Betrothal is/was a legal status indicating a state of marriage in which the marriage has yet to be consummated because the Bride-to-be was not yet ready to take on the duties and responsibilities for marriage, and in a period of preparation for the final wedding day. For one to be betrothed in marriage to a Bridegroom meant that vows of purity and chastity were in force.
For the betrothed bride to get into bed with another, even though the marriage had yet to be consummated, was the same as adultery. The picture John draws in Revelation is that of a betrothed Bride of Christ yielding to the seducing ways of the spirit of Jezebel, essentially “sleeping with” that spirit, having intercourse with Jezebel and taking on the marital characteristics of being married to Jezebel, along with all of the attendant idolatry, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment and seduction.
We'll continue with this next week.
Before I wrap up today, however, I think it is important to remind everyone that our freedom from this spirit comes in the intimate presence of the Lord. This is a pretty heavy subject, and I don't want to weight folks down unnecessarily without reminding you all that there is no substitute for the presence of the Lord. In His presence comes revelation. In His presence comes deliverance. In His presence comes the kind of true authority necessary to take on evil spirits like Jezebel.
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Brides-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00BSV6HZC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1363139096&sr=8-8&keywords=A+Tale+of+Two+Brides#_
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 available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.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 remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please 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.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Babylon is Falling Down, Part 15
August 17, 2013
THE TRUMPET HAS BEEN SET TO THE MOUTH!
There! How do you like that for an introduction? We're talking about a direct message conveyed by an angel of the Lord. I'll share it with you momentarily.
There! How do you like that for an introduction? We're talking about a direct message conveyed by an angel of the Lord. I'll share it with you momentarily.
In last week's Coffee Break, I shared the following: The lie of Mammon -- the lie of Babylon -- is that all religions are the same. Christianity -- despite the fact that major efforts have been made to treat it as such -- is about as un-religious as anything can be. True Christianity is nothing more and nothing less than an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Religion(s) on the other hand is devoid of real relationship. Religion -- and especially the humanistic religion of Babylon -- requires near-robotic behavior to a set of laws, commandments, rules, regulations, restrictions and doctrines which strip one of relationship with God while attempting to please Him through this mechanical behavior.
Babylon requires allegiance to the king of Babylon. Babylon requires uniformity of thinking and living. Babylon creates sheer slavery by forcing men and women to take the "mark of the beast" -- the king of Babylon himself -- in their right hand and live, and conduct business according to Babylon's rules. Babylon deprives men and women of free will and free choice by manipulating their thinking and the way they believe, and in the process creates a "mark in their foreheads."
The root of this kind of thinking is found in the Fear of Evil -- one of the three dominant spirits of fear that have infected the human race ever since the fall. This is something I've talked about and ministered on for more than 30 years. The Fear of Evil is the granddaddy of all evil spirits, and the progenitor of the Fear of Man, as well as the Fear of Death.
Without covering territory all over again in this Coffee Break that I've discussed on numerous times in the past, the Fear of Evil is that demonic prince which takes hold in a person when they persistently eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You may have noticed that in Revelation 2:17 one of the promises made "to him that overcometh" is "hidden manna."
People who continually and persistently eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil are barred from eating of the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life provides all of the revelation one needs to function and live a practical, day-to-day, prosperous life in Christ Jesus. The hidden manna is the peeling away of layer after layer after layer of revelation of the nature and character of the Lord Jesus Christ to which we've been (pre-)destined.
We have a destiny in Jesus Christ, a destiny of ruling and reigning, a destiny of overcoming all that is in the world and all that Satan has tried to corrupt with his lies, manipulations and deceptions. It is an unrealized destiny for a huge number of "believers" simply because they are still stuck with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil -- and the Babylonian mindset that comes as a result of eating of that tree.
There is nothing "rational" (from the perspective of one whose mind has been
corrupted by Babylon) about the faith walk available to believers. One of Babylon's most common clichés is, "God helps those who help themselves." NO HE DOESN'T!!
God helps those who totally and without reservation trust in, rely upon, and walk according to the rhema that comes from hearing, paying attention to, and obeying Holy Spirit. The cry of the Spirit in the earth today to God's people to "Come out of Babylon" is a warning for folks to cease depending on what they have learned, what they think they know, or what they are currently experiencing and instead to listen to the voice of Holy Spirit. The cry to "Come out of Babylon" is to depart entirely from one's dependence on and use of the world's economic methodologies, and to enter into a Kingdom economic system.
Babylon is totally incompatible with the Kingdom of God. For roughly 4,500 years Babylon has corrupted the thinking, the behavior, and the monetary practices of the world. For that reason, God has issued a decree against Babylon and all who subscribe to the king of Babylon's thinking and practices.
Consider for a moment a picture from Revelation 11:15-19: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
"And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail."
Obviously there is a whole lot more here than I could even begin to explore in this Coffee Break, but I want to draw your attention to a couple pieces of this prophecy.
Verse 15 opens up with, "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven...."
The Greek word used here which gets translated "sounded" is the word, salpidzo, which means: to let loose with a blast on a trumpet. It is followed with the phrase, "there were great voices in heaven." This phrase, "great voices" rather understates the context of the Greek words and could actually be expansively translated in context as: a deafening roar of voices [speaking prophetic agreement with the sound of the trumpet]. I'm amplifying things a bit, I know, but it is important to understand that the seventh angel's trumpet blast was a prophetic decree.
That decree was the beginning of a series of events which marks the end of Babylon, the king of Babylon, and the spirit of Jezebel, along with their power and influence in the earth. What was the decree?
"The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever."
During the years that Dwain McKenzie and I served at Long Beach Christian Center, we got to know John Hinkle, a Charismatic Presbyterian pastor in southern California whose influence in the Charismatic Renewal was both prophetic and profound. In the spring of 1993 John awoke one morning with the audible voice of God speaking the following rather cryptic phrase to him, "Thursday, June the 9th."
There was no explanation with it and he found it both tantalizing and puzzling. He got out of bed and went to look at his calendar. There was no Thursday, June 9th in 1993. Thumbing through the calendar for the coming year, he discovered that 1994 indeed had a Thursday, June 9th. With no other clarity from Holy Spirit, he began to spread the word among fellow ministers, and particularly those who had strong prophetic giftings. No one -- at least at the time -- could come up with any explanation other than the fact that God was apparently going to do something of great significance on that date. In the months that followed he learned of others who had a similar experience.
Thursday, June 9 of 1994 found Della and I in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada gathered with friends for some spontaneous worship gatherings. A few weeks ago I mentioned our friend, Eileen Finnman, whom the Lord has healed from cancer. One of her friends was driving from Red Deer to Edmonton. She saw a man standing alongside the highway hitchhiking. She felt prompted to stop and pick up the hitchhiker but argued within herself, saying, "Lord, you know I don't pick up hitchhikers. Not at all! It's just not safe!"
She drove on past the hitchhiker and Holy Spirit almost shouted in her ear, "I said, STOP! Go back and pick up that hitchhiker!" Nothing to do but find a place to turn around, get on the other side of the freeway and head back. A few minutes later she was back to where the hitchhiker was standing and pulled over to let him in.
As she prepared to pull back into the traffic she started to say, "Where are you headed," but before she could finish the hitchhiker said, "The trumpet has been set to the mouth" and vanished. She was more than a little shakened by the experience and when she arrived in Edmonton, she called the RCMP office to report the "incident." The officer who took her call said to her, "Lady, you are the sixth person to call in with that same report."
At the same time, people were experiencing the identical thing in many places. To the south in Lethbridge three more people called the local RCMP office with the same report. We later learned of others who'd had the same thing happen to them: an Idaho State Patrol officer, a Montana State Trooper, several drivers as well as Washington State Patrol officers in the areas around Seattle-Tacoma and Olympia.
The fact that all these people reported the identical incident at the same time in so many different places signaled the fact that the Lord was making an announcement He wanted folks to pay attention to. It was a warning that needed to be published abroad. The seventh angel was sounding! The seventh trumpet was being blown. The Spirit of the Lord was drawing attention to the fact that Babylon's day of judgment was at hand!
That same day, June 9, 1994, an earthquake measuring something on the order of 9.1 struck in the area of La Paz, Bolivia. The quake reached all the way to Toronto, Ontario. It was one of the largest quakes of the 20th century. As we began to hear about the quake, the Lord spoke to Della and quoted to her from Isaiah 5:14 and Isaiah 14:9 the prophecy regarding Satan, "Hell hath been enlarged to receive thee at thy coming."
By themselves, those events would have been enough to draw a whole lot of attention, but the Lord didn't leave it there. Consider this unique sign in the heavens. A little more than five weeks after the June 9th events, the comet, Shoemaker-Levy, collided with the planet Jupiter. The collision lasted for seven days. The comet had broken into 21 pieces. The collisions began on July 17th, 1994, shortly after 12:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It resulted in explosions on a scale never before seen in the history of astronomy.
The energy released exceeded one million megatons of TNT (that is another way of saying one trillion tons), dwarfing the power released if all of the nuclear bombs on the earth were to be exploded at the same instant.) It resulted in tunnels of fire on, and above, the surface of Jupiter as large as, or larger than, the state of Texas in diameter, and mushroom clouds above the surface of the planet larger than Earth. Shock waves were generated by these explosions creating a "sound" (inaudible low-frequency, geo-magnetic and gravitational waves) which reverberated throughout our solar system.
Was this a sign from the Lord to confirm that "the trumpet has been set to the mouth?"
The preciseness of the numbers involved, 17 (the number of the Bride), 7 (the number of the Father), 21 (3 - the number of the Godhead - once again times 7), strongly implies an act of God and suggests that we should sit up and take notice.
Consider that which John saw in Revelation 10:1-3. The context is that of the appearance of the seventh angel, who is about to blow the seventh trumpet. "And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud;.........And he placed his right foot on the sea and his left on the land; and he cried out with a loud voice as the roar of a lion: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices."
There is another aspect of this event which bears consideration. The word in the Greek text for "thunders" is brontai. This word literally means, "a fiery and destructive sound." No word could better describe that which took place 21 times in 7 days as tunnels of fire exploded forth from the surface of the planet Jupiter with accompanying geo-magnetic shock waves.
John says that when the angel cried, "seven thunders (brontai) uttered their voices." Would you believe, 21 times ( 3 X 7) in 7 days? All right! O.K.! I know that this is not the traditional explanation for the "seven thunders," but I believe that it deserves consideration in the light of the other attendant events.
What is all of this for? What is the Lord doing? What is He saying? In no uncertain terms, whether you see the events in the natural, or hear them in the Spirit, it is one and the same!
Babylon has fallen! Babylon is falling! Babylon will continue to fall!
Many people have raised the question of where all of this fits in God’s timetable. What does this mean with regard to “the end times?” Once again, I remind you that the instruction of the Lord which has been given to us repeatedly is, “Just listen! Don’t try to interpret the things you see and hear through your own computer.” Human nature desperately wants to figure God out and set timetables that will make us comfortable with what He is doing. It won’t work!
The Word of the Lord is going forth for all to hear. That Word goes forth so that we may sit up, take notice, and pay attention to the fact that the Lord is fulfilling His Word. When will the fall of Babylon be complete? None of us can answer that question, and it isn’t greatly important that we know timing. It is relevant only to the Lord as He unfolds His Plan and Purpose for His people. Once again, it is not important that we know “when.” It is only important that the Lord is revealing it to us. What is relevant is that we hear and obey the Word of the Lord.
The cry goes forth, therefore, to those people who are still caught in Babylon -- to those who are still caught in the mindset of Mammon, the structure, the organization, the politics, the need for hierarchical authority, or the need for "democratic" representation and operation in their relationship with the Lord, "Come out of her, My People, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
Next week we will embark on a somewhat different course in our discussions and talk about The Spirit and The Bride.
Once again, have the most prosperous week you've ever known or experienced!
Blessings on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709 South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Brides-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00BSV6HZC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1363139096&sr=8-8&keywords=A+Tale+of+Two+Brides#_
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