David’s Tabernacle Restored, Part 1
Reprint: December 1, 2023
Over the next few weeks, I’d like to
take you to a vision that the Lord gave to me beginning back in the early
1970’s when I was at Long Beach Christian Center. That was only a beginning. In the years that have gone by since, this
vision has grown again, and again, and again.
Just when I think I’ve gotten to a full understanding of what God was
doing, he peels away another layer of revelation.
I suppose it actually
began much earlier during my first visit to Heaven in 1951, and the
conversation I had with David. That
conversation planted many seeds in my spirit but it was in 1973 that things
first began to jell.
Isaiah’s prophecy
regarding the re-establishment of the Tabernacle of David, followed by Amos’
prophecy, and then seeing it repeated in Acts, caused me to begin taking a
serious look at what David’s Tabernacle actually was, and why God was so
insistent that the day would come when He would again rebuild the Tabernacle of
David. Nothing was being said about
rebuilding the Temple of Solomon, so there had to be an enormous significance
in God’s economy to what David accomplished.
Besides, his Tabernacle was a far cry from the Tabernacle that Moses
built.
In
order for us to grasp the significance of these prophecies, and see what David
had in his heart, we need to go back to the time when David was still a
shepherd boy, sitting on the hillsides, tending his father’s sheep.
Something
was birthed in his heart that began to develop concerning the heart of the
Lord. It eventually consumed him. In my conversation with David during my first
visit to Heaven, I asked him how it was possible for him to write such glorious
prayers, praise and worship in the Psalms.
His answer spelled it out pretty clearly.
“Oh,
I didn’t write all of that,” he laughed, “I just sang what I heard coming out
of Heaven. It wasn’t original with me,
it was what the Holy Spirit was planting in my spirit. That made it easy. I just sang what I heard coming out of
Heaven, and because it stayed in my spirit, I was able to write it down.”
The
many hundreds of hours that David spent in the presence of the Lord during
those times of praise and worship birthed in him a recognition and an insight
into the desires of the Lord in a way that nothing else could have
accomplished. David’s pursuit was the
immediate and ongoing presence of the Lord.
He
also saw what that presence did for him in terms of protection. You’ll recall that he killed both a lion and
a bear when they came after his sheep, both events takin place with
supernatural enablement. All David had
in hand was a sling — no .357 Magnum Glock or .475 Winchester.
A
day comes when David is about 17 years of age.
He is brought before Samuel, the prophet, and anointed to become King
over Israel. What is about to begin for
David is some 13 years of testing what God has developed in him.
In
those intervening years, he will face the armies of the Philistines and kill
hundreds of them, face down kill the giant, Goliath, with nothing more than a
single stone from his sling, be brought before King Saul who was demonically
tormented and watch the demons flee as he worshiped with his harp. The crowds were going to hear of his exploits
and begin to sing, Saul has killed his thousands, but David his
ten-thousands. Saul was going to see and
know the anointing of God over David and be extremely jealous of him,
ultimately setting out to kill him.
David was going to have to be on the run for his life for many of those
years.
Finally,
when Saul was killed in battle, along with David’s best friend Jonathan (Saul’s
son), the Elders of the tribe of Judah placed a crown on David’s head and made
him to be King over Judah. It would
still be another three years —when David had just turned 33 years of age — that
the Elders of the remaining tribes of Israel agreed that David should be King
over the whole nation.
The
pursuit of the presence of the Lord still consumed David — even to a greater
degree after all these years. He had
seen into the heart of the Lord and knew what could happen to the nation if
they returned to the Lord with their whole hearts.
David’s
first major act as King of Israel, therefore, was to retrieve the Ark of the
Covenant, which had been captured and removed from the Tabernacle of Moses,
taken by the Philistines — and then when they saw what destruction their act
brought upon them, dumped back into Israel in Kirjath-jearim to the house of
Abinadab.
In
David’s anxiety and haste to bring the Ark back, he forgot the protocols that
God had instructed concerning the transport of the Ark. The Ark was placed on a cart, pulled by oxen,
to be transported to Jerusalem (see II Samuel 6). Big mistake!
When the oxen stumbled and the cart looked unstable, Uzzah put forth his
hand to stabilize the Ark and died on the spot.
David quickly moved the ark to the house of Obed-Edom where he had to
re-think the proper protocols for the Ark’s transport.
Consider
the celebration that took place when the Ark of the Covenant then went forth
carried by the priests as they entered Jerusalem! David was so excited about what was taking
place that he literally lost his clothes in the energetic and almost furious
dancing that happened. We will get into
this a bit more in the weeks to come.
David’s
heart was to see that Ark ensconced in public view for all Israel to see. More than that, he wanted that Ark —
representing the marriage covenant between God and Israel — surrounded by that
same sound of praise and worship he had experienced sitting on the hillsides as
he ministered to the Lord. David knew
that there was a secret in this praise and worship of which Israel did not have
any grasp.
Now
he selects three families out of the priesthood — Levites all of them — who
have a specific anointing in the realm of praise and worship. Of course they are going to receive
revelation and mentoring from David, and each family had a different anointing. Coupled together, they would minister to the
Lord in shifts around the clock so that praise and worship would go forth on a
24-hour daily basis.
Nothing
like this had ever happened in Israel’s history. In fact nothing like this had ever happened
in history, PERIOD! David was enacting
the heart of God in a way that was going to bring change to Israel, and to the
surrounding nations.
Consider
what took place over the next 33 years as this ministry to the Lord took place!
Israel
never lost a battle against its enemies.
Whenever the Philistines came against them, they were defeated and
almost eradicated as a nation. The same
thing happened with Syria. The same
thing happened with Moab and Ammon.
Egypt had been a longtime enemy.
Pharaoh sued for a peace treaty.
But
there was more!
The
land began to produce as it had never produced.
It’s a funny thing! When the
sound of the Lord goes forth, it even affects the land. It affects plants and animals. Everything is affected. Agriculturally, the people began to
prosper. But more than that, they began
to prosper financially. Israel became a
powerhouse nation.
David
began to take lands and territories promised to Abraham, but never taken under
Joshua’s leadership, or any other leader that had led Israel in the centuries
before. Israel’s borders grew.
And
God prospered David in ways that, to
this day, defy imagination. Consider the
fact that David wanted to do more than the simple Tabernacle. He wanted to build an elegant Temple to the
Lord. The Lord spoke through Nathan, the
prophet, and told him that because he had been a man of blood and warfare, that
God was going to give that mandate to David’s son. So David began to accumulate wealth in the
form of gold, silver, precious stones, rare woods, and everything it would take
to build that temple. The value of gold
alone, when measured by today’s standards, exceeded $11 Billion. The value of the silver was so immense they
couldn’t even calculate it, and they quit trying to calculate the rest in
precious stones and rare woods.
By
any standard, David was among the richest men in the world — and he didn’t save
any of it for himself. From his point of
view, it all belonged to God. It was all
set aside for the building of that temple.
Because
of his heart for the Lord, and the fact that he so desperately wanted Israel to
be in tune with the Lord, God made a promise that his seed would forever sit on
the throne, and that the long-promised Messiah would come from his generations.
We’ve
talked about the changes and prosperity that came to Israel as a result of the
24-hour praise and worship during David’s reign, but consider what happened at
the end of his reign and the subsequent reign of his son, Solomon. As he prepared to turn over the throne to
Solomon, his last great act as King of Israel was to enlarge the ministry of
praise and worship. He assigned the
families of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun to prophetic ministry in worship — both
vocally and instrumentally. Let me pause
for a minute to quote something that David wrote with understanding.
Psalm 144:1-2: Blessed be
the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war,
and my fingers to fight:
My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer;
my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth
my people under me.
David
knew when he played on his harp — or whatever instrument he chose — that his
fingers became the fingers of Holy Spirit to prophesy, to conduct spiritual
battle, to provide safety, deliverance and bring complete victory against his
enemies.
That’s
is an understanding that has been largely lost in the body of Christ. I’ve met a few of today’s worship leaders who
really understand what they have at their fingertips when they play. Steve Swanson comes to mind, as does Terry
McAlmon.
Getting
back to the topic at hand, David enlarged the ministry of praisers and
worshipers to 288. That’s an interesting
number. God never choses numbers without
specific precision and purpose. David
was able to see prophetically into the future when there would be two groups of
144,000 who would form the Bride of Christ — that chosen, called out, and
overcoming people. Paul saw it too when
he prophesied the following:
Romans 11:25-29:
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this
mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel
shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer,
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away
their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes:
but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and
calling of God are without repentance.
Paul
realized that Israel was set aside in God’s economy for a time so that the rest
of the nations of the world would have the opportunity to come to know Him and
enter into that same Covenant relationship.
John demonstrates this when he describes two separate groups of 144,000
overcomers — one chosen from the twelve tribes of Israel (see Revelation 7:4),
and the other “redeemed from the earth.” (see Revelation 14:3)
I’ve
run down a rabbit trail again.
We
get back to Solomon, now, taking the throne of Israel and continuing on with
this enlarged group of praisers and worshipers.
Solomon followed the architectural plans that David had prepared for the
Temple and spent seven years building it.
When it came time to dedicate the Temple, this is what we read:
II Chronicles 5:12-14: Also the Levites which
were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their
sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals
and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an
hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were
as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and
when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and
instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is
good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was
filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests
could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD
had filled the house of God.
That
presence continued to fill the temple so long as the 24-hour praise and worship
went forth unhampered and unhindered.
After
another forty years of this kind of presence in Israel, the nation had become
the most powerful nation on earth. They
had prospered during Solomon’s reign in such a way that it surpassed all they
had experienced during David’s years.
Then
politics took over. Solomon died and the
throne went to his son, Rehoboam. After
roughly three years or so of Rehoboam’s reign, self-seeking “advisors” —
politicians desiring to curry favor with the most powerful throne on earth —
let Rehoboam know that he was wasting money on the praisers and
worshipers. After all, the throne was
the source of the income and all provision for these 288 praisers and
worshipers. Their pay came out of the
royal treasury.
Rehoboam
foolishly listed to their advice and abandoned the ministry of praise and
worship. Immediately, Jeroboam came up
out of Egypt and divided the land so that ten of the tribes went with him. All that remained under Rehoboam was Judah
and Benjamin.
The
nation was never again reunited completely.
There was partial reunification under Hezekiah and Josiah temporarily
while praise and worship resumed, but it didn’t last as kings came to power who
again abandoned the praise and worship.
From
the time that Rehoboam abandoned praise and worship, 80 years followed in which
the nation saw war, famine, pestilence and constant incursions by their
enemies. Jehoshaphat now becomes king
after a series of failed leaders during the intervening years.
Eighteen
years into his reign in which he has been trying to bring the nation back on
course spiritually, they are attacked by a combined army of Moab and Ammon,
outnumbering them perhaps 10:1.
Jehoshaphat realizes that he is faced with an impossible predicament and
calls the nation to prayer and fasting for one day. At the end of the fast, a young prophet
stands up to prophesy concerning their course of action. This prophet turns out to be one of the
descendants of Asaph — and it is something we see in the coming years, again
and again, and again, where the descendants of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun are
constantly on the ready to resume their ministry of praise and worship.
This
is where we see the first glimmering of understanding of what David had set in
motion with his Tabernacle. And this is
where we will pick things up next week.
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 10:45AM Pacific. That
conference number is (712)
770-4160, and the access code
is 308640#. We are
now making these gatherings available by Skype.
If you wish to participate by video on Skype, my Skype ID is regner.capener. If
you miss the live voice 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
A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
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