Reprint: August 9th, ’24 2:10 PM

 

 

 

Throughout Scripture, we see numbers
repeated again and again and again. 
What most folks miss is that these
numbers are metaphors in Hebrew with
pictures that go well beyond the
surface.

 

When John wrote, “And
I John saw the holy city, New
Jerusalem, coming down from God out
of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband,” the
angel of the Lord was showing him
the same thing that Ezekiel had seen
in a vision.  It was not a city in
the sense of a physical or
geographical place; it was the
ensample of a principle: a principle
which strikes at the very heart of
all that the Lord has been doing in
our midst.

 

The mathematical revelations of this
city are, individually and
collectively, inescapable proofs of
the calling, the preparation, and
the final adornment of us as a
people for Jesus Christ.  As John
was carried about the city in the
Spirit, he saw the following:

 

1)  And
[it] had a wall great and high, and
had twelve gates,

 

2)  And
at the gates twelve angels,
and the names written thereon,

 

3)  Which
are the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel.

 

4)  And
the wall of the city had twelve foundations,

 

5)  And
in them the names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb.

 

6)  And
he measured the city with the reed, twelve
thousand furlongs.

 

7)  The
length and the breadth and the
height of it are equal.  (i.e., 12,000 X 12,000 X 12,000furlongs)

 

8)  And
he measured the wall thereof, an
hundred and forty four cubits,
according to the measure of a man,
that is, of the angel.  (i.e., 12
X 12 cubits)

 

Before we continue, let me take you
back to two earlier pictures in
Revelation which parallel this
picture of the city.

 

In Revelation 7:3 – 4, 14, John
describes hearing an angel cry, “Do
not harm the earth or the sea or the
trees, until we have sealed the
bond-servants of our God on their
foreheads.’  And I heard the number
of those who were sealed, one
hundred and forty-four thousand
sealed from every tribe of the sons
of Israel……

 

“…And he said to me, ‘These are the
ones who have come through great
tribulation, and they have washed
their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb.”

 

Then John describes a second group
of 144,000 (see Revelation 14:1).  “And
I looked, and behold, the Lamb was
standing on Mount Zion, and with Him
one hundred and forty-four thousand,
having His onoma,
and the onoma of
His Father written on their
foreheads.  And I heard a voice from
heaven, like the sound of many
waters and like the sound of loud
thunder, and the voice which I heard
was like the sound of harpists
playing on their harps.  And they
sang a new song before the throne
and before the four living creatures
and the elders; and no one could
learn the song except the one
hundred and forty-four thousand who
had been purchased from the earth.”

 

Have you ever considered the
significance of this number, 144? 
It is twelve in its completeness: 12
X 12, twelve squared, twelve
completed and fulfilled.

 

As you will easily remember, we have
discussed the number, 12, and its
significance on numerous occasions
over the years.  Twelve is the
number of Ekklesia. 
It is the number of preparation and
processing.  It is the number of
tribulation and affliction.

 

Twelve in atomic physics, as we have
previously noted, is the maximum
number of atoms which can be
cohesively related one to another. 
It is the number of relationship.

 

When Jesus chose His disciples, He
chose twelve – not nine or ten or
thirteen or fourteen.  Why?  Because
it was the maximum number of people
with whom He could develop an
interpersonal, intimate
relationship.  It was the maximum
number of people (units, actually;
where we define a family as a unit –
not just the father or the husband)
with whom a relationship of trust,
transparency, openness, faith and
love could develop without becoming
watered down or diminished.

 

Twelve was the maximum number of
individuals who could relate one to
another without becoming divided
into cliques or private little
circles.  It was the perfect number
of trust and transparency.  Within
the framework of twelve,
relationships could develop in which
barriers of distrust and fear could
be dissolved.  Processing and change
could take place within the
individuals without the fear of
betrayal.  (OK, I know the original
twelve had a Judas, but the Lord
permitted that so as to fulfill His
plan to have a Bride, free from the
bondage of the Serpent.  The apostle
Paul recognized that he was one “chosen
out of due season” to
replace Judas as a completing member
of the original twelve.)

 

This picture was initiated with
Israel’s selection as the first
Bride in the earth.  Jacob had
twelve sons, each of whom
represented one/twelfth of the whole
Bride.  Some have erroneously
concluded that there were thirteen
tribes because of the half-tribes of
Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh, but
Ephraim was chosen to take the place
of Levi, whose inheritance was the
Lord – not land and holdings as did
each of the other tribes.  Levi was
instructed to live amongst the other
tribes, being a separate yet joined
people who existed entirely as a
channel of communication between the
Bridegroom and this corporate Bride.

 

Anyway, John sees two distinct
groups of 144,000.  The first is
taken from the twelve tribes of
Israel.  The second was “purchased
from among men” (in the larger sense
of the earth).  Why two groups
instead of one?

 

Remember the first Bride in the
earth: the Bride who chose the flesh
and the Law instead of the intimate
relationship being offered by God? 
That Bride was Israel.  Here is an
extraordinary picture of the Spirit
of Grace and Supplications, of whom
Zechariah prophesied.

 

Though Israel had been divorced by
the Lord, though she had been “sent
away” into captivity for her
adulteries, and even though the Law
specifically forbade remarriage to
one who had been “put away” (see
Deuteronomy 24:1-4), the Lord
promised that He would once again
call Israel to Himself, that He
would take her back, divorce, warts
and all!  He even sent Hosea to live
the picture of that promise
prophetically before Israel.

 

Hosea was instructed to marry Gomer,
a woman who had been a prostitute,
and to have children with her.  True
to her past life, Gomer ran
off from Hosea after several years
of marriage, and married another
man.  Hosea was instructed by the
Lord to go and find her and bring
her back to himself, and in so doing
to say to Israel, “Thou shalt abide
for me many days; thou shalt not
play the harlot, and thou shalt not
be for another man: so will I also
be for thee.  For the children of
Israel shall abide many days without
a king, and without a prince, and
without a sacrifice, and without an
image, and without an ephod, and
without teraphim:
Afterward shall the children of
Israel return, and seek the Lord
their God, and David their king; and
shall fear the Lord and His goodness
in the latter days.”

 

Jesus made it clear that there would
come an end to the days of His Grace
to the Gentiles (all non-Jewish
nations), that Jerusalem (which had
been under foreign occupation and
rule since the first days of
Israel’s captivity) and Israel would
once again return to a place of
relationship with Him, becoming a
free people.  Luke quotes Jesus as
saying, “For
there shall be great distress in the
land, and wrath upon this people. 
And they shall fall by the sword,
and shall be led away captive into
all nations: and Jerusalem shall be
trodden down of the Gentiles, until
the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled.” (Luke
21:23b-24 NASB)

 

Then Paul shares some startling
revelation and promises.

 

“For I do not want you, brethren, to
be uninformed as to this mystery,
lest you become wise in your own
estimation, that a partial hardening
has happened to and in Israel until
the fullness of the Gentiles has
come in; know therefore that Israel
will be saved, healed, delivered and
made whole, just as it has been
written, ‘The Deliverer will come
from Zion, He will remove
ungodliness from Jacob.  And this is
My Covenant with them, when I shall
have taken away their sins.’

 

“From the standpoint of the gospel
(at this moment in time) they are
enemies for your sake, but from the
standpoint of God’s choice, they are
beloved for the sake of the fathers;
for the gifts and calling of God are
irrevocable.  For just as you were
once disobedient to God, but now
have been shown mercy through and
because of their disobedience, so
these also have now been
disobedient, in order that because
of the mercy shown to you, they may
now likewise be shown mercy.”  (Romans
11: 25-29, RAC Translation &
Amplification)

 

What he is saying is this: the
purpose of the Bridegroom from the
beginning was to permit Israel to
fall away so that He could extend
His mercy to the nations, calling
them to Himself; and that when the
day of His mercy and calling to
those nations is fulfilled, He will
– because of their past disobedience
– now again show mercy to Israel and
call her to Himself as in the days
of old.  The promise of the
Bridegroom to Israel, therefore, is
His Covenant.  In spite of Israel’s
adulteries, and her subsequent
divorce from the Lord, the
Bridegroom’s gifts and calling to
her are without repentance.

 

That this is Truth is evidenced in a
stupendous move in today’s Jewish
community.  When I first began to
work on this article, I was told
that in New York City alone, more
than a thousand Jews per
day are coming to know Jesus
Christ as their Messiah and
Bridegroom.  In Israel, in spite of
the media attention to the uprisings
and problems between the Arab and
Jew, hundreds and even thousands of
both Arabs and Jews are turning to
Jesus Christ with their whole heart.

 

Jews are forsaking their Judaism and
legalistic past in staggering
numbers.  Even though the media
spotlight is turned on the political
conflicts, a spiritual peace is in
the works which will sweep the
nation of Israel and bring about the
fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. 

 

I know this doesn’t seem to fit with
many of the contemporary
interpretations of “end times,” but
it is happening nonetheless!  We are
about to behold a miracle of the
ages as the Lord brings about a
peace between brethren: Jews and
Arabs.  (And, NO, I didn’t grab this
out of thin air, or make it up as
some kind of new doctrine.  Isaiah
prophesied it.  Ezekiel prophesied
it.  Jeremiah prophesied it.)

 

Jerusalem – the New Jerusalem – the
Bride of Christ has, as her gates,
the fulfilled, the completed, the
made whole Bride drawn from Israel
and seen in the representation of
each of the twelve tribes.  Standing
before each of the twelve gates are
twelve angels who sound forth the
call of the Bridegroom.  But the New
Jerusalem does not only consist of
Jews.

 

Next week, we’ll wrap up this
picture of the New Jerusalem.  Maybe
these analogies don’t fit with what
you’ve heard or been taught but I
want to stir your spirit and cause
you to rethink things.  Hopefully,
this overall picture I’ve been
drawing for you of the Call to the
Bride by the Bridegroom going forth
in the earth today will awaken
things in you and cause you to
realize that the Lord has a grand
and glorious purpose for His people.

 

Things are not unfolding in the
traditional ways we’ve been taught. 
God is working in extraordinary ways
with folks who are responding.  This
is a year of overflow for those who
walk in commitment to the Lord Jesus
Christ.  It is a year of tremendous
change.  It is a year of spectacular
disasters, and a year of spectacular
blessings for those who are one with
the Lord.

 

If you aren’t experiencing that
overflow, perhaps it is time for you
to reevaluate your responses to the
Lord.  Maybe it is time for you to
junk some doctrines that have kept
you in bondage, doctrines that have
kept you from walking in the
fullness of all that Jesus Christ is
doing, saying, and breathing into
His called-out people.

 

I’ve used this phrase in the past
before, and I want to repeat it for
this Coffee Break.

 

“When you want what God wants for
the same reason that God wants it,
you become unlimited and
unstoppable!”

 

 

In case you are missing out on real
fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia,
our Sunday worship gatherings are
available by conference call –
usually at about 10:30AM
Pacific. That conference number is (712)
770-4160,
and the access code is 308640#.  We
are now making these gatherings
available on video using ZOOM.  If
you wish to participate by video on
ZOOM, our login ID is
835-926-513.  If you miss the live
voice-only call, you can dial (712)
770-4169,
enter the same access code and
listen in later.  The video call, of
course, is not recorded – not yet,
anyway.

 

Blessings
on you!

 

Regner

 

 

 

Regner A. Capener

CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER

Sunnyside, Washington 98944

 

Email Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org

 

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