Dec 11, '08 9:12 PM

Part 1: INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT

Great getting' up mornin' to ye, Folks!  Blessin's on Ye!

There, how's that for a good morning greeting.  Awwww, well... Anyway...grab that fresh cup of coffee from your French Press coffee maker, or that cup of super hot Expresso.

Maybe you've been wondering when we're going to finish the discussion on Kingdom Economics -- and really, I thought I'd get back to it before this -- but it looks like it will wait and resume after the first of the year.

It was nearly four years ago that I published a series of Coffee Breaks titled, "The Science and Spirit of Sound."  That Coffee Break series was predicated in large part on an earlier OPEN LETTER TO THE EKKLESIA I had written and distributed back in the mid-1990's in which I dealt with the significance of sound and the spiritual force behind it.

Many of you know that I've had a long background in engineering and research, and -- for a period of several years -- in the field of audio research.  Got to thinking about it this morning and realized that I was probably around seventeen years of age when I first began seriously experimenting in the field of acoustics, playing with loudspeaker cabinet design and acoustic-wave theory.

My audio research continued on through some of my college years and beyond, and in the mid-to-late 1960's a former college buddy, Allen Parker, and I formed an acoustic research company -- Alpac Audio.  We developed together what we referred to as "3-Dimensional Sound" -- an early predecessor to today's Dolby Surround -- and traveled around the country introducing the concept to various manufacturers.

"3-Dimensional Sound" was actually achieved with only two, albeit perfectly balanced and accurately phased loudspeakers.  We were able to create a soundstage far wider than the speaker placement and reproduce the sounds which appeared to be coming out of thin air where no speakers existed.  I won't get into the technical issues or specs on the system because that's not what this Coffee Break is about.  I simply share this as a foundation for where I want to take this (and perhaps one or more additional Coffee Breaks) discussion and to perhaps establish a basis in both scientific fact and spiritual law.

As a lifelong musician and recording engineer, sound has been an integral part of my life.  At least nine out of every ten mornings, I will a waken with the sound of Heaven flowing through my spirit with new music.  It is and has been perhaps the most actively creative part of my life.  (Some people think it is my writing, but that's just because they haven't been around me much.  (Grin.)

Della is likewise creative when it comes to music.  There are many times when she sits down at the synthesizer keyboard, closes her eyes, and just begins to worship as the Spirit of the Lord flows through her with new sounds and new words.  We flow together this way.  But there is purpose and direction in the sound that comes forth.  Between the two of us, the Holy Spirit has given hundreds of new songs -- Psalms (set to new music), Hymns, and Spiritual Songs -- more than a few of which have become part of the repertoire of praise and worship in churches around the world.

We understand that literally everything God ever created began with the sound of His voice.  We also understand that we've been created in His image and likeness and imbued with His same creative ability.

Our world today has so corrupted and contaminated sound that we've lost sight -- and in large part, the creative use -- of the ability God gave us.  We are surrounded with so much sound it has become cacophonous.  It is nothing but destructive noise!

We turn on the television and get bombarded with every kind of sound -- most of it (as noted in previous Coffee Breaks) designed to entice, persuade and manipulate us into believing things that are not true, have no life, and deceive us into committing sin, buying something we don't need or want, or wasting time in unproductive endeavors.

Why is this?  What has happened to the human race?  More than that, what has happened that the Body of Christ has so lost sight (and use) of the gift of God He has made available to us through Jesus Christ?

I've shared this personal translation of the Greek text of II Corinthians 10:3-5 before but let me refresh you.

"For though we live, deport and comport ourselves by that which we see, hear, taste, smell and touch, we do not contend with, war after and execute military strategies [against Satan] by that which we see and hear, know intellectually, or have opinions of:For the weapons and instruments of our war and executed actions [against Satan] do not have their origins and [weak, impotent] operation in natural flesh and human abilities, but they are skillful, potent and powerful – like dynamite – through God to the demolition and extinction of all fortified and guarded places of opinions in opposition,

"Bringing down violently and demolishing (to total extinction) all mental reasonings and thought processes, and every mental barrier or arrogant and self-elevated attitude that justifies itself in opposition to the knowledge of God; bringing into captivity and making a prisoner every perception of the intellect and every mental purpose or determination to the compliance and submission of Christ and His anointing [in the same way that He complied with the will and desire of the Father]."

Now, let's put that together with Ephesians 6:12.  The KJV reads like this: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

 The phrase, "we wrestle not" is an extraordinary phrase in the Greek text.  The Greek uses a musical term -- or more accurately, a conjunctive word which denotes "sound," esti-pale (from its root, pallo).  This word more literally translates: to vibrate; and it draws a picture of two sounds in opposition to each other.  The wrestling, literally, is the opposition of the sounds of Satan against the sound of the Lord.  (We'll come back to this, momentarily.)

From a purely scientific perspective, all energy beginning at 0 cycles per second (or hertz) and increasing in frequency through the audio spectrum, the sub-RF and RF spectrums, electro-magnetic energy, HF, VHF, UHF, Microwave and beyond into the realm of visible and invisible light -- all of it -- is sound-based.  If we had ears that could hear at those frequencies, we could hear light.

I was just thinking back to a discussion I had with a Canadian astrophysicist in 1994 when the comet, Shoemaker-Levy, after breaking apart, struck the planet Jupiter 21 times over a period of seven days.  He noted that -- were it possible for sound to travel in space -- this event created a series of low-frequency electro-magnetic shock waves equivalent to sound that spread throughout our galaxy.  Though our ears didn't hear it the earth did, and there were both tidal and weather phenomena that followed in the months thereafter.

Sound, whether we hear it or not, is an integral part of our existence.  Sound holds things together.  Here's how the apostle Paul put it.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding                   all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."  (Hebrews 1:1-3)

Did you catch that?  He is "upholding all things (the Greek word used here is phero: meaning to energize and hold together cohesively) by the word (rhema: sound of His word, the speaking forth) of His power (dunamis:force, might, miraculous power)."  He energizes and holds everything together cohesively by the sound of His Word going forth.  Because He is God, it is the sound of His power, not the other way around.

Most folks think of it as the power of His Word, but that's not the way Paul phrases it.  It is the Word, the Sound of His Word of the power inherent in His very being.  Thus we exist because of sound -- the Sound of the Lord.

When you stop to consider, this is how creation began.  With sound.  The sound of His Word went forth, "Light BE!"  And light was.  Everything about the creation of this world and all that is therein (with the exception of man -- and we'll get to that) began with sound going forth -- the sound of His Word.

Light, therefore, began with sound.  Maybe you think I'm wearing this issue thin, but bear with me.  There is a point to this.

Jesus put it like this, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth after me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."  (John 8:12)

Again He said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."  (John 9:5)

Now, juxtapose those statements with the way John began his Gospel.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made."

Then John puts sound and light together.

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men."

Are you seeing it?  Sound.  Light.  Life.  They are inseparable.  They go together.  You can't have one without the other.  Light exists because of sound.  Sound exists with light.  Life is both light and sound.

Ever notice the difference at Creation between the way God made the earth, the universe, and all that is therein, and the way He made man?  Genesis 2:7 tells us that God "formed" (the Hebrew word is yatsar: to mold, to squeeze into shape, to fashion with determined purpose) man.  It is the first time during the entire creation sequence that God departs from the declarative commands to "BE" in order to accomplish His creative design.

Thus God took particular care and purpose in man's creation.  After all, the entire creative operation was intended to create an environment for man in the first place.  Man was not simply a generic part of creation; he was the reason.  And the objective for man's creation is revealed in Genesis 1:26-28.

First of all, Father, Son and Holy Spirit took counsel together in this.  It was the unified decision that a species of being would come into existence who would be exactly like God, functioning in three dimensions simultaneously and having the power of creative speech and creative sound -- just like God!

Thus, man's existence came into being first by God taking deliberate and specific care in creating him.and molding him.  Then He breathed into man His own breath -- that same breath with which He generated the commanding sounds of Creation.  (See Genesis 2:7)  And the very first thing man heard was the sound of the Lord's Voice creating in him the empowerment to do what God did: create with His voice.

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28)

Do you see it?  The very first thing God did was to bless them -- to declare and decree in them the empowerment to prosper, to accomplish everything they desired.  The second thing God did was to declare and decree dominion in them -- His authority -- to rule over every living thing upon the earth (except man, of course, and that's an important distinction we'll get into later).

Next the Lord says to them, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.  And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat:" (Verses 29 & 30)  And He finishes it off by confirming, "and it was so."

Thus God confirmed the decrees of blessing He had imparted with the sound of His Voice into man.

In our next Coffee Break, we will expand on this concept and show the relationship between the sound that comes forth from us and the creative power of God that operates in and through us.

See you again shortly.

Things are not what they seem to be: they're what God says they are.  The sound of His Word going forth is what determines the difference between light and darkness, life and death, health or sickness and disease, poverty or prosperity.

The Blessing of the Lord: it makes rich and He adds no painful toil and sorrow!  (Proverbs 10:22)  Be blessed!