David’s Tabernacle
Restored, Part 12
Reprint: February 16, 2024
We are talking about the core of the opposition that has faced
those who are committed to real praise and worship, and where that opposition
and persecution began. When you understand Satan’s original place in
Heaven as Lucifer, the Archangel who surrounded the Throne with praise and
worship, and how he was cast out of Heaven after his arrogance and rebellion
and effort to overthrow the Throne of God, then you begin to understand why he
so hates those who have replaced him with their love, their praise and their
worship.
Let’s get back to the beginning place of all opposition to
worship. We’ve already explored some of this before, but I’d like to
give you the full picture.
Isaiah 14:4-23: ...Thou
shalt take up this proverb against the king of
Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The
LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who
smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in
anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they
break forth into singing. Yea,
the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of
Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down,
no feller is come up against us. Hell
from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all
the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings
of the nations.
All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become
weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy
pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols:
the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! how art thou cut down to the
ground, which didst weaken the nations! For
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to
hell, to the sides of the pit. They
that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider
thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble,
that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a
wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not
the house of his prisoners?
All the kings of the nations, even all of them,
lie in glory, every one in his own house. But
thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the
raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to
the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under
feet. Thou shalt
not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain
thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their
fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the
world with cities. For I
will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts,
and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the LORD. I will
also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep
it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of
hosts.
Isaiah’s prophecy is only half of the picture (and we’ll get to
the rest of it momentarily) but he lays things out in methodical fashion.
Isaiah is making it clear that the “king of Babylon” was none
other than the former Lucifer. Notice that the hallmark of Lucifer
as the fallen angel is “He who smote the people in wrath with a continual
stroke.” We’ve already talked about the fact that Lucifer lost his
place as worship leader in Heaven (and Isaiah spells out clearly just why he
lost that place) and he was replaced in God’s economy by this family of people
created in the image and likeness of God.
The Hebrew word that Isaiah uses to describe this “continual
stroke” that Lucifer / Satan uses is Makkah. This
is a word which has specific intent attached — the intent of striking so
viciously that one is killed, murdered. Satan wants no one around
who will worship the Lord, no one who will take that hallowed place he once
knew.
And that is still his tactic today. More often than
not, he uses people whose words are designed to kill their effectiveness at
worship or praise. He demeans and belittles everything that they
do. And more often than not, Holy Spirit will put someone in the
place of worship leadership who can scarcely carry a tune in a
bucket. Why? Because the Lord uses the
foolish to confound the wise.
Sonny (Gunvaldson) was telling us
about a time when he and Joanne were at a meeting — perhaps a conference — in
Kelowna, BC. This couple came up to lead worship. Sonny
and Joanne knew that these folks had a reputation for not being able to sing
very well, and they wondered why this couple was called. Sure
enough, when they started to sing, they were off-key and certainly not
harmonious.
What happened next was not what anyone expected. As
they got lost in worship, the glory of the Lord flooded that meeting. God
didn’t care that they couldn’t carry much of a tune. He cared that
they knew how to worship, and brother, did they ever know how to worship! The presence of the
Lord filled the place and everyone got lost in that presence. Nobody
focused on their singing or things being out of tune musically. They
may have been out of tune as far as the music was concerned but they were
certainly in tune as far as Holy Spirit was concerned.
We skip forward to one more part of Isaiah’s prophecy to where
he says, The whole
earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. That’s
because the persecutor, the accuser of the brethren, the murderer himself has
been stopped. The word for “singing” is rinnah, a
word for rejoicing, joy, shouting, triumphal praise.
When God’s people truly worship, when they praise, they bring
down the efforts of the Enemy. Nothing he says or does
succeeds. Those people under his influence fail at their
efforts. The glory of the Lord is put on display and the world gets
to see the winning hand of praise and worship.
There is so much I could go into in Isaiah’s prophecy, but I
want to go on to Ezekiel’s prophecy, which completes the word that Isaiah
delivered.
Ezekiel 28:11-19: Moreover
the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation
upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Thou sealest up the sum, full of
wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of
God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and
the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the
workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was
prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and
down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou
wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst
of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as
profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
Thine heart was lifted up
because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom
by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee
before kings, that they may behold thee.
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore
will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I
will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold
thee.
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at
thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
All of the pieces of these combined prophecies come
together to give us a picture of Satan’s arrogance, the unbelievable
hard-headedness he has in believing that he could unseat the Lord from His
Throne, and the fact that everything he touched (and touches today) becomes
discordant and contaminated.
I could really wax political at this moment, but won’t for the
sake of these notes other than to say that we see the influence of Satan in all
of the opposition against the president and the desire of goats on the left to
smear the sheep on the right. There! How’s that for a
commentary!
Let me wrap up todays discussion with
a look at the families of Asaph, Heman
and Jeduthun and the opposition they ran
into. Remember how they were chosen by David, appointed and anointed
by the Lord to minister to Him on a 24-hour daily basis? Remember how
David, at the end of his reign as King of Israel, strengthened their hand,
increased their numbers and appointed them to prophesy over Israel with their
instruments, as well as the Psalms of praise and worship that they sang?
Good! Then you will also remember how, three years
into the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, the Enemy
comes in the person of Rehoboam’s advisors —
self-seeking politicians. They wanted Rehoboam
to save money from the Royal Treasury that he was paying to support the 288 praisers and worshipers. Sounded
logical to Rehoboam.
He fired all 288 of them and sent them packing to their homes
and fields. Now they would have to support themselves at various
trades at which none of them had needed to work for better than 40 years, and in
some cases over 80 years. Satan was purposed to rob Israel of the
presence of the Lord, and the authority that had ruled in Israel for eight
decades. How better than to attack the families of those who brought
that authority and presence of the Lord to the nation.
Eighty years would pass before that praise and worship resumed,
but it came during the reign of Jehoshaphat. It would happen
eighteen years into his reign that the Moabites and Ammonites gathered together
with a combined army that outnumbered the armies of Judah by a factor of
perhaps 10:1. Jahaziel, a descendant of Asaph, stands and prophesies to Jehoshaphat and Judah
following a day of fasting.
II Chronicles 20:15-17: Hearken
ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou king Jehoshaphat, Thus
saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed
by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not
yours, but God’s.
To morrow go
ye down against them: behold, they come up by the cliff of Ziz;
and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jeruel.
Ye shall not need to fight in this battle:
set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD
with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go
out against them: for the LORD will be with you.
Ever notice how specific the Lord is in His
prophecies? Brother! Not only is He telling them that
they need not be afraid, He tells them exactly where the Enemy will
be. He instructs them that they will not need to fight at all, but
rather to stand still when they get there because the Lord is going to put a
show for them!
Jehoshaphat remembers all of a sudden what his great, great,
great grandfather had done in appointing the families of Asaph,
Heman and Jeduthun to the
ministry of praise and worship. The reminder had come in the form of
Jahaziel, a great descendant of Asaph. So
he stands up after Jahaziel’s prophecy and issues the
following command.
II Chronicles 20:20-21: And
they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said,
Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your
God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.
And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers
unto the LORD, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out
before the army, and to say, Praise the LORD; for his mercy endureth for
ever.
The rest of the story you know. With the
families of Asaph, Heman
and Jeduthun going out before the army and praising
God and worshiping Him, all of a sudden the enemies turned on each other and
killed each other off.
During the next seven years of Jehoshaphat’s reign, the three
praising and worshiping families were restored to their places and Jehoshaphat
prospered like you can’t even imagine.
When Jehoshaphat dies, however, and his son takes the throne, he
repeats the scandals of the previous kings and abandons the ministry of praise
and worship. The families once again have to fend for themselves as
their place in the temple is removed. This cycle repeats itself over
and over again for the next two centuries as kings come to power who reinstate
them, and then kings who succeed those kings kick them out again.
Finally, Judah is carried away into captivity. Israel
(the remaining tribes) had been taken into captivity many years
prior. Not until Esther is raised up to become Queen with Xerxes I (Ahasuerus, in Scripture) do we see the re-emergence of the
families of Asaph, Heman
and Jeduthun.
Esther and Xerxes have a son who is called Artaxerxes. He
comes to the throne at the age of 14 years after his father is
assassinated. Esther becomes Queen Mother and guides Artaxerxes behind the scenes. Nehemiah is
appointed to become his cup-bearer and is ultimately appointed governor over
the (now)-province of Judah. Not long thereafter, Ezra is given
permission to return and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
Who do you think accompanies Ezra? Yup. You’ve
got it! The three families of praisers
and worshipers. We are told that “they
kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.” (see Ezra 6:16) It matters not how much persecution
the praisers and worshipers suffered. They
were always ready to return to their real calling. So must it be for
us today!
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
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: AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com
with the word, “Subscribe” in the subject line.
To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject
line.
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.