Another Coffee Break

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: DEALING WITH FEAR, Part 7

5:54 PM | Posted by Regner Capener | | Edit Post

Another Coffee Break:

Dealing With Fear, Part 7

October 3, 2014

When we began this series, we opened up with the initiating place for the families of fear at the time of the temptation of Eve and Adam's subsequent partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the consequences that followed. In #5, we talked about David's song in Psalm 34, and his statement, "and He delivered me from all my fears." Let's consider a few more of David's songs.

One of the most significant Psalms all of us are familiar with is the 23^rd Psalm. I’ve often been a critic of preachers who use this Psalm at funerals because it is not a Psalm for dying; it is a Psalm for living. Fifteen separate statements occur in this Psalm. Each of the fifteen represent steps that describe the process through which the Lord takes His people – those that continue to respond – from the initial point of their relationship with Him (The Lord is my Shepherd) to maturity (and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever).

One of the most important steps in our overcoming and growth process is being delivered from the Fear of Evil.

David makes the statement, “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil…”

No one was more qualified than David to speak from experience with such a statement of faith. Today’s coffee break is not about the 23^rd Psalm (maybe we will get a chance to talk more about that in later coffee breaks) but about what David learned about the nature of the Fear of Evil.

We’ve already discussed in a couple previous coffee breaks the fact that the Fear of Evil is rooted in eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We’ve already mentioned that religion is one of the primary symptoms of this fear. There are a whole lot more symptoms, and David gives us some real insight.

Take a look at the 49^th Psalm. In verse 5, the KJV translators erred in translating the Hebrew aw.kabe as “heel.” It actually properly translates as “a lier in wait.” Let me therefore retranslate the verse for you like this: “Why should I fear evil in the midst of days when I am surrounded by those who lie in wait for me.”

It suddenly becomes clear that one of the usual symptoms of the Fear of Evil is focusing on whether one is surrounded by those who seek their life. I’ve got a description for this, and maybe you see it as well.

-- Conspiracy.

-- Conspiracy theories. How about the “black helicopter crowd?” How about Y2K? We can really take this to extremes, but you get the picture.

Without breaking down every single verse of the 49^th Psalm, it quickly becomes clear that some of the symptoms of the Fear of Evil are:

-- Trusting in wealth or riches. From this we can extrapolate

-- Worrying about not having enough.

-- Boasting of one’s abundance.

-- Prolonging one’s lifespan by whatever means and avoiding death. (Hence, the Fear of Death.)

-- Making sure that their names are put on monuments, buildings, plaques, carvings, statues and the like so that posterity remembers their names.

-- Leaving their wealth to foolish causes.

-- Attempting to ensure that their heirs remember the things they’ve said, no matter how foolish those sayings.

Skip back to the 41^st Psalm, and you get some more of what David saw.

Beginning in verse 5 (Amplified Bible), “My enemies speak evil of me saying, ‘When will he die and his name perish?’ And if one comes to see me, he speaks falsehood and empty words, while his heart gathers mischievous gossip [against me]; when he goes away, he tells it abroad. All who hate me whisper together about me; against me do they devise my hurt – imagining the worst for me. An evil disease, say they, is poured out upon him and cleaves fast to him; and now that he is bedfast, he will not rise again. Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted [relied on and was confident in], who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”

Once again, we see the fear of conspiracy against the one who fears evil. The list of symptoms of the Fear of Evil continues in this short passage:

-- Excessive focus on the activities of one’s enemies.

-- Worry about Gossip and whispering behind one’s back.

-- Fearing false accusations.

-- Being afraid of being cursed – particularly with diseases.

-- Fear of Betrayal.

In the 56^th Psalm, David rather humorously, but in a strong declaration of faith in God, arrests his own fear of evil like this:

“By the help of God I will praise His Word; on God I lean, rely, and confidently put my trust; I will not fear; what can man who is flesh do to me? All day long they twist my words (the Fear of Man) and trouble my affairs; all their thoughts are against me for evil and my hurt. They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they watch my steps, even as they have (expectantly) waited for my life. (Fear of Death) They think to escape with iniquity, and shall they?”

Thus we see that these fears come directly from the Fear of Evil:

-- The Fear of Conspiracy.

-- The Fear of Man.

-- The Fear of Death.

Let me break away from the Psalms, now, and take a different approach.

In a Coffee Break series published some eight years ago, I noted that in the midst of some studies on the makeup, nature and character of the seven condemned nations that occupied ancient Canaan, I discovered a direct parallel between each of the characteristics of these nations, God’s command to Israel to wipe them out, and John’s seven letters to the seven Ekklesias in Revelation 2 & 3. I won't revisit that discussion today other than very briefly in the following observations.

The seven nations that once occupied Canaan were: the Hittites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites and the Canaanites. Each of them had certain national characteristics, methodologies, military tactics and lifestyles that differed from one another. Though they shared a pretty common heathen worship of the same gods, each of these nations had distinctive characteristics that differentiated themselves from each other.

The Hittites were a fierce, militaristic, barbaric people who doted on using the Fear of Death over their people and over the enemies they subdued. The Amorites feared evil of every kind. They preferred the mountains and hills where their elevated dwelling allowed them to see any encroachment or approaching enemy. They used the Fear of Evil as a weapon against their enemies, and were a proud, arrogant, extremely religious people. The Perizzites, on the other hand, were a controlling people who parlayed a form of “democracy” as a means of ruling their populace. The Fear of Man was their hallmark. Each of the seven nations suffered from the three families of fear, but the three just named had these fears as their central identifying characteristic.

I’ve said all that to say this.

The Amorites expanded their worship of Baal, Ashteroth and a pantheon of minor false deities into an art. They played it to the hilt. Many of their kings were also high priests of Baal. One such Amorite king was Ethbaal, whose name literally meant, “living with and under the favor of Baal.” Ethbaal had a daughter whom he gave in marriage to the king of Israel in order to secure a covenant of peace between their two nations. The daughter’s name was Jezebel, and she was given to Ahab, the king of Israel. (We discussed the Spirit of Jezebel in an in-depth series about a year ago.)

Jezebel – like all of the Amorites – not only suffered from the Fear of Evil, she used it like a weapon against her husband, and against all who rose up against her. She was a usurper of authority – and particularly, the authority of God. Jezebel, more than any other person in Scripture, epitomizes the extremes to which the Fear of Evil takes people. She parlayed the Fear of Evil into deception as an art.

One of the first events we see her making use of that fear is with Naboth, the Jezreelite.

The story goes like this (see 1 Kings 21): Ahab, the king of Israel and Jezebel’s husband, sees a very fruitful vineyard that catches his eye and decides he wants to buy it for himself. He approaches Naboth to sell it, and Naboth declines to sell because it was passed on to him as an inheritance from his father. Ahab starts pouting over Naboth’s refusal to him. I mean, after all, Ahab was the KING! No one should refuse his request!

Jezebel sees her husband's pout, asks him what the problem is, and once she finds out the situation says to Ahab, “No problem, Hon! I’ve got this one taken care of. Stand by. I’ll give you this vineyard as my gift to you.”

Whereupon Jezebel sets about to conspire against Naboth. Remember what we talked about earlier – where conspiracy is a hallmark of the Fear of Evil? Anyhow, Jezebel finds a couple of citizens of good standing in the community, leaders with reputations to uphold, and persuades them to make accusation against Naboth. Meanwhile, she proclaims a fast in the city where Naboth lives.

Then she calls for a great public gathering where the city is going to honor Naboth as “Man of the Year,” or some such tommyrot. Naboth, of course, gets suckered into attending this public gathering. After all, he is going to be honored before his peers! Right?

Nope. The two men of standing in the community, who themselves had been deceived by the letters they had received from Jezebel, rose up at this public celebration and accused Naboth of treason. Well! Suddenly the Man of the Year ceremony turns into a stoning by the gathered crowd, and just like that, Naboth is dead!

See what the Fear of Evil does to a person? They get sucked into committing murder under the guise of “doing good.” Well? Wasn’t it a good thing to put a traitor to the king to death?

Having been accused and put to death for treason, Naboth’s vineyard is now available for legal seizure by the government. Jezebel, of course, takes the property and presents it as her gift to her husband, Ahab, who instantly becomes her slave for life.

See what the Fear of Evil does to a person? The picture of Jezebel as a manifestation of the Fear of Evil takes on many other dimensions, however. In II Kings 9, we have the picture of the king of Judah, Jehu, executing the judgment of God upon Jezebel. When the king of Israel, Joram, who is one of Ahab and Jezebel’s sons, sees Jehu coming, he says to Jehu, “Is it peace, Jehu?” Jehu answers him directly and says, “What peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother, Jezebel, and her witchcrafts are so many?”

That simple and direct answer of Jehu’s gives us a glimpse of a woman who took sexual perversion to such extremes as can hardly be imagined. Linked to her sexual perversion, and the idolatry she led Israel into, was the practice of witchcraft, manipulation, the casting of curses, and the putting to death of many hundreds of the prophets of God who had populated Israel as God’s representatives.

Today isn’t the time to get into the nature of witchcraft, nor the many forms of it seen in Scripture, but suffice it to say that Jezebel introduced a horrific dimension of this evil as an extension of the Fear of Evil into the life and culture of the nation of Israel – a dimension that ultimately caused Israel’s disintegration as a nation and its carrying away into captivity. The sexual perversion she brought included homosexual activity, lesbian activity, bestiality, sado-masochism, and virtually every licentious and lustful sexual act one can imagine as the fruit of fear, incorporated into the worship of Baal.

In Revelation 2, we see the Fear of Evil manifested as the spirit of Jezebel when John writes to the Ekklesia in Thyatira saying, “Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols…”

This is where this spirit affects the body of Christ terribly in this age. The Fear of Evil works hand in hand with and through the spirit of Jezebel, usurping the Word and the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in churches and fellowships in the form of preachers and teachers who lead people astray with doctrines of demons and teachings that entice them into a “comfortable” Gospel.

This spirit parades in evangelical churches, traditional churches, Pentecostal churches, home fellowships and informal gatherings – and let us not forget the cult groups and churches with the oddball doctrines – foisting itself as the authority of the Lord, often uttering prophecies that make folks’ ears tingle, and their flesh feel good – all the while leading them down the primrose path to death and destruction, and cheating them out of a genuine love-relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

John’s prophecy to Thyatira was dead on! He said that Jezebel teaches and seduces “my servants” to commit fornication. While one could easily imagine that as preachers going out and having affairs with women other than their wives, that’s probably the last possible usage of this phrase. John wasn’t talking about physical acts; he was talking about spiritual fornication: spiritual adultery.

Put very simply, spiritual fornication or adultery is the effort to force folks to live under legalism, laws and commandments – in short, the Law – while preaching Grace, Mercy and Love. One is supposedly “married” to the Lord, but living under legalistic conditions and traditions of man. In truth, one either lives in a love-relationship with the Lord, or they live under the Law. To try to do both causes one to commit adultery or fornication against the Lord.

This is the single greatest attribute or symptom of the Fear of Evil and it permeates the body of Christ today. No fear is greater than this one, and no deliverance from any evil spirit is more dramatic in the change it effects in the lives of people than to be set free from the Fear of Evil. Deliverance from the Fear of Evil is available to every single person, and it simply begins by saying, “Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I submit myself to you totally for your guidance, your direction, and your Truth. Deliver me from every symptom, and every evil and wicked spirit that comes from this family of the Fear of Evil.”

That’s the beginning place. Experiencing the freedom that follows, and walking it out, is an adventure you’ll never forget!

Again, if you are in need of healing -- especially if you have some terminal disease or prognosis of a very short time to live from the doctors -- please join our prayer conference calls on either Monday or Wednesday of each week at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#. To get into the queue for prayer, when Randy opens the call up for everyone, hit *6-1 on your keypad. Let us minister to your need for healing!

Blessings on you!

Regner

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944

Email Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org

Our book, A Tale of Two Brides, published by Destiny Image, is now available on Amazon.com as an E-book: 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.

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ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: DEALING WITH FEAR, Part 6

3:37 PM | Posted by Regner Capener | | Edit Post

Another Coffee Break:

Dealing With Fear, Part 6

September 26, 2014

The Fear of Man is one of the biggest “biggies” that infect and affect human behavior. It’s a topic that I can’t even begin to cover adequately in a few coffee break sessions like these, but it deserves more than a simple once-over.

Despite the fact that I had seen the Holy Spirit moving miraculously in my life from childhood, hearing and listening to a lifetime of criticisms and accusations from others about my supposedly being “super spiritual” created within me a need for acceptance.

So I’m odd. OK? No argument. It’s taken years for me to accept that and be joyful in the fact that the Lord has done things with me, and taken me places very few folks ever get to experience. That joy hasn’t always been there, however. Being gifted by the Lord can be a real pain if you listen to the lies that come out of the Fear of Man. And I have been gifted by the Lord – from my youth on.

Being gifted musically has sometimes made me the target of others who are jealous over the fact that I can play dozens of instruments. When I was in public school, my teachers decided I was gifted academically. I skipped half of third grade and half of fourth grade and did both years in one year. Then my seventh-grade teacher decided it was a waste of time for me to be in that class and advanced me mid-year into the eighth grade.

When I was finishing eighth grade (that same school year), my teacher decided they needed to use me as part of an experiment the state of Alaska was conducting. My folks thought it was a great idea. (The state of Alaska has since discontinued this experiment, but it lasted for something like six to ten years.) Instead of going on to high school, they put me directly into college courses with the University of Nebraska. I was getting college credit at the same time I should have been in high school. By the time I was eighteen years old, I already had four years of college – three with the University of Nebraska, and one with Southwestern Bible College in Waxahachie, Texas. The result was that I never got my high school diploma, but I was accepted at Bethany Bible College and later at Fuller Theological Seminary without that diploma.

In the years that followed, whenever I applied for some top-level job I knew I could do in my sleep, employers always asked for my college diploma. It was nothing but a miracle of the Lord that put me working for NASA with America’s top scientists and engineers at Lockheed when I didn’t even have a high school diploma, much less a college degree in engineering.

It was weird. I never had a problem with employment in those early years, but people always asked me for my certificates and diplomas. I really began to want those things. They became really important to me. The fact that the Lord always opened the doors for me seemed to escape my spiritual awareness. Not having the academic recognition and the “piece of paper” always ate at me.

The fact was, it was the Fear of Man.

In 1971, when I was “ordained” at Full Gospel Assembly in Salt Lake City, I had my first “piece of paper.” Man! That was gold! Ironically, when the ordination was taking place, among other things, Bill Christopulos – the big Greek senior pastor – said, “We can’t ordain you. The Lord has already done that. All we can do is to say that we recognize His anointing and His ordination.”

It took a long time for those words to sink into me. Years, in fact! Brother Bill was saying, “This piece of paper isn’t really worth anything as far as the real facts go. This is just our way of saying, ‘we know what the real facts are.’” I put a great deal of importance on the piece of paper for many years before I realized how shallow it was. Man’s recognition was worth squat! It was God’s recognition that really counted!

Unfortunately, I got cheated out of understanding that recognition for many years by the Fear of Man.

I still have my ordination paper. But it isn’t hanging on the wall of my office. It’s in a folder somewhere – where it deserves to be. My gifts, my callings, my skills and talents all come from the Lord. It is He that opens the doors for me. It is He that creates opportunities. It is He that flows through me. Anything that gets accomplished accrues to His credit – not mine. If I get credit for anything out of all of this, it is simply for being obedient to His Word and His Will.

If folks get impressed by what they see and hear, fine. But they need to recognize that it is the Lord doing His Will, His Word and His Work through me. Then they can be impressed by the Lord and give Him the true glory and praise for what He has done.
Sure took me a long time to learn that, though.

Over the years, I’ve had my share of experiences where I realized there were absolute barriers I could not cross – even though my ego would certainly have benefited had I done so. Go figure. At the same time, there were times when I was able to recognize the need to refuse The Fear of Man's demands.

In the summer of 1959, returning from Waxahachie, Texas where I had attended Southwestern Bible Institute, I stopped off in Portland where my mother was waiting to attend a summer camp meeting in Brooks, Oregon. The speaker for the week was J. Robert Ashcroft, John Ashcroft’s (our former U.S. Attorney General) father. As it happened, John Ashcroft – who was something like 17 years of age at the time – was at the same camp meeting. He and I joined our musical talents together to provide an atmosphere of praise and worship music. I played guitar, and John played bass. An Indian fellow from Aberdeen, Washington joined us with a second guitar, and we had a threesome for the week.

Being musicians, our talk occasionally turned to the kinds of instruments we were interested in. On my way back to Alaska from Southwestern, of course, I didn’t have my own guitar with me. The guitar I was playing was a Gretsch exactly like Chet Atkins often used, and I was having a blast. The instrument was on loan to me from a young fellow who normally played it for the camp meeting services. His dad worked at the L.D. Heater Music Company in Portland and he suggested I should go there after the camp meeting to look at a bunch of new guitars that had just come in.

You need to understand where I was musically at the time. It was in 1948, as I recall, that I heard Chet Atkins play his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Don’t forget. I was already playing the piano then – at age six – because my folks wanted me to be a pianist. Piano lessons were not my favorite thing in life at that age. Hearing Chet Atkins do the stuff he was doing on the guitar absolutely sold me. I made up my mind if he could do all that, so could I, and I eventually talked my dad into letting me take up the guitar – so long, of course, as my piano lessons continued.

I had poured myself into learning the guitar. It was hilarious. I’d wake up in the morning and go into the church so I wouldn’t wake up the family and practice until it was time to go to school. Lots of times when I got home at night, my Parki never came off before I grabbed the guitar and started practicing.

By 1959, I had become a reasonably credible musician and honed those God-given talents to a fare-thee-well – never mind the fact that I was only seventeen years of age. Following the Brooks Camp Meeting, I talked my mother into taking me to the L.D. Heater Music Company in Portland so I could “try out” some guitars.

One guitar really grabbed my attention so I picked it up, plugged it in, sat down and started playing. Like lots of musicians I know, I closed my eyes and was gone – oblivious to my surroundings, just lost in the music. (In those days, I hadn't yet come to recognize that my "getting lost" was just part of the spontaneous praise and worship that had become so much a part of me.) After some period, I opened my eyes and was surprised to find a gentleman standing there. He had been walking down the street, heard me playing, and come into the store to listen.

He nodded his approval when I caught his eye, and I kept on playing. After some 30 minutes or so – it was hard to believe he was still there – he introduced himself. (Sorry, I’ve forgotten his name.) He told me that he owned some clubs in Los Angeles, Los Vegas and Reno. “Come and play for me,” he said. “I’ll sign you to a contract for as long as you want. We’ll start you at $400 a night.”

Nahhh! Couldn’t be. It was a joke. 400 bucks a night? At seventeen years of age? I shook my head and turned back to the guitar.

This guy was persistent, though. “I’m serious, son! You’re unbelievably good on the guitar. You sound just like Chet Atkins. Come and play for me and I’ll hook you up with him. You guys can play together.”

Ouch! He sure knew how to hurt a guy! It still wasn’t real to me, though. I felt like this was all some kind of fantasy so I said to him, “No. I can’t do that. Besides, the only music I play is gospel music. I don’t play any popular music.”

He wasn’t about to let go. “Hey, I don’t care what kind of music you play. Play anything you like. Play your religious music. Just come and play for me.” Now he upped the ante. “Tell you what. You sign a contract with me and I’ll see that your folks get a new home. We’ll get you any kind of car you want to drive. Your family will be taken care of in style.”

This guy’s insistence was really beginning to get through to me. Maybe he was for real. No matter. “I’m sorry. The gifts and abilities I have come from the Lord. I promised Him a long time ago that I would use them to honor Him.” Now his frustration was beginning to show. Exasperated, he said, “Look! You name the ticket. Whatever you want, we’ll get you. Just come and sign a contract with me.”

All of a sudden, it was like I was seeing Jesus on top of the mountain being offered the kingdoms of this world by the devil. There wasn’t any way I could accept the offer. This guy might as well have been the devil for all I knew. He was trying to pull the same thing on me Jesus went through. He was offering power, prestige, material wealth – everything that folks need when they have to impress others.

“Sir, I really appreciate your offer. You need to understand that everything I have belongs to the Lord. I belong to Him. No matter what kind of offer you want to present, I just don’t see how my playing in one of your clubs so you can sell booze will be glorifying to the Lord.”

The words just came out. They weren’t planned. He scratched his head, muttered something unintelligible, turned and walked out the door, shaking his head in unbelief.

It was my first major victory over the Fear of Man. I just didn’t realize it at the time. There were lots of occasions in the years to come when the Enemy would remind me of my decision and point at my less-than-prosperous condition at the time and say, “See. Look what you missed out on!”

Fast forward to 1982. Having moved the CBN ministry to Fairbanks from Barrow had produced unexpected results. A new fellowship sprang up around the CBN operation. Many of the folks who had become counselors and people who responded to telephone calls from people in need wanted a separate fellowship. The churches they were a part of weren’t meeting their needs and they saw the potential for something new.

I wasn’t interested in competing with the local churches, so I set our meeting time for Sunday afternoon instead of the morning. I had rented a ten-bedroom home from another ministry to use as our interim headquarters. It had a pretty decent-sized living room, and folks began to congregate there on Sunday afternoons. In no time at all – a few weeks, if that – we had an average of 40 to 70 people gathering on Sunday afternoons.

Without the income from Arctic Slope Audio or North Slope Communications to fund us, I asked CBN in Virginia Beach for funds to help us get into a new operating center. It was the first time in nearly six years I’d ever asked them for anything. They responded, and we contracted with a builder to remodel a warehouse and turn it into offices and broadcast studios.

Before the place was even finished, we started moving our Sunday fellowship meetings into the main studio so we would have enough room for our gatherings. The growth of CBN’s operation and the sudden departure of a lot of folks from some of the local churches to participate or become part of our local House of Praise fellowship became an instant threat to some pastors.

It didn’t take too long for a letter-writing campaign to get under way from local church leaders as they launched attacks on me. One of the accusations was that our local ministry wasn’t answerable to anyone. It was a spurious charge, of course. We were answerable to CBN.

At an Area Directors’ conference in Virginia Beach, I asked some of the other directors how they would deal with the commotion. “Do you have a board of directors with your local ministry?” they asked. “Are you showing yourself as responsible and cooperative with the local ministerial community?” I didn’t want to appear as irresponsible and “out of submission” – never mind the fact that I had always felt that boards of directors were unscriptural. In order to please my detractors, therefore, I picked a group of people to serve as CBN-Alaska’s board.

Are you getting the picture? “In order to please my detractors…….?” Right!

Sitting in a board meeting one November Friday night with our newly formed board, I suddenly had a chill down my spine and the very real sense that I had just slammed the door on an otherwise-prospering ministry by trying to appear like everyone else. Listening to some of the new board members argue over their respective titles and positions was both disgusting and disheartening.

Funny part of it was, though, I was in the middle of teaching on the Fear of Man. The following Sunday, in the midst of teaching, I suddenly realized that I had succumbed once again to that spirit of fear in order to “please the people.” My prayer might surely have been different that day, had I realized the consequences of saying to the Lord, “tear it down, Lord! Tear it down! Don’t let this ministry simply become another clone or copy of all the other ministries that go through the motions and fail to become your voice and authority in the earth.”

Whewww!!! Better know what you’re praying and what’s going to happen when you mean it! Just six months later, CBN-Alaska closed its doors. The letter-writing campaign against us didn’t cease with the changes: they only increased. By March of 1983, things were unbelievably intense. I flew to Virginia Beach and offered to resign in order to defuse the opposition. No deal! They didn’t want my resignation.

Nevertheless, a corporate decision was made just weeks later to disband all affiliates around the country such as ours and re-centralize all CBN’s operations in Virginia Beach. Did the attacks on CBN-Alaska play a part? Perhaps. Other centers were getting some of the same opposition, though.

The decision to shut down came just as we were in the midst of dedicating CBN-Alaska’s new headquarters. From a personal standpoint, the timing couldn’t have been worse. From God’s standpoint, however, it was His mercy. He had clearly and unequivocally answered my prayer.

I have never established a board of directors for any ministry since, and have encouraged others to follow suit. There’s a big difference between having an advisory council and having a board of directors who can legislate decisions God has not directed the local shepherd or primary leader to follow. Titles are meaningless with God. They don’t impress Him one bit. The Fear of Man promotes decision-making that simply de-thrones God’s authority. It promotes titles, offices and positions that only puff up one’s ego. I’ve never regretted my prayer in spite of the consequences that followed.

Blessings on you!

Regner

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944

Email Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org

Another Coffee Break

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