ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: PICTURES OF TRIBULATION & WRATH, PART 4
Sept
19, '12 1:46 PM
By Regner Capener
This
past week I had an experience in which I was transported to Heaven. I was taken
to an area in which angelic beings were preparing white robes for the Bride of
Christ. There was a significant portion of the event which dealt specifically
with a covenant that the Lord has made with Della and me concerning our
children, but let me first share with you that portion given as a prophetic
message to the body of Christ.
Let
me begin by sharing what I saw; and then I will share what Holy Spirit was
communicating.
I
found myself standing in front of an area in which there were angelic beings
seated at desks or tables. As far to my left and as far to my right as my eyes
could see, there were angelic beings. By the same token, as far distant as I
could see there were angelic beings. All of them were working on white robes,
preparing them for certain believers. It was obvious that they represented a
virtually uncountable number of people -- all of whom were destined to wear
these robes.
I
was positioned directly in front of an angelic being who was working on the
fitting and preparation of a specific robe for a specific believer -- in this
case our oldest son, Chris. An image of Chris flashed in and out as the robe
was being prepared, but he was not actually present in Heaven. Another very
tall angel stood right next to me and most of my conversation was with him.
The
angel who was working on Chris's robe made the remark that he didn't understand
why he was working on a robe for our son "since
he's never going to get to wear it anyway." In one sense
his remark was understandable since Chris has not been living or walking with
the Lord in the place he once knew, and has been living far beneath his destiny
in God. Nevertheless, I wasn't about to let that remark get past us
unchallenged and immediately said, "Excuse me, but we have a
covenant with the Lord concerning our children."
I
immediately quoted Isaiah 59:21:
"As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my
words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and forever."
I
could have added (but didn't at that moment) the promise God made when Chris
was born, "And all thy
children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the
peace of thy children."(Isaiah 54:13) Note the emphasis on ALL!
The
angel standing next to me looked at the angel working on Chris's robe and
responded, "He's right, you know. He does
have a covenant with the Lord concerning all his children."
The
events that unfolded next made me really appreciate that covenant, and I
understood just how important it was for me to lay claim to that covenant when
challenged, and to speak it forth! I also realized that a portion of what I was
about to see had specific implications for families with sons or daughters who
are not walking where they are supposed to with the Lord. (If this applies to
you and your family, take note of the events that followed and lay claim to
God's promises for your children with boldness!)
As
we stood talking, a veil was suddenly drawn up between the two of us and the
rest of the area where the robe preparation was taking place. As the veil went
up, a brilliant light illuminated the entire area. The light far exceeded that
of the noonday sun for brightness, and had it not been for the veil, my eyes
would have been blinded. The light radiated an intense heat with it, but it was
a very different kind of heat I didn't really know how to describe. As it was,
it was very difficult to look at and I turned my eyes aside toward the angel
standing next to me.
"What
is this all about,"
I
asked. The angel responded, "All these
robes are being prepared for the fires of purification."
Instantly the parable of the ten virgins flashed before me and revelation began
to flood my spirit.
In
that instant all the sounds I'd been hearing were suddenly silenced and I was
enveloped in total silence. It was as though someone had shut off a switch. The
sounds of conversation were gone. The sound of the continuous praise and
worship in the background was silenced. I turned again to the angel standing
next to me and asked, "What just happened?"
His
answer left an indelible imprint in my being. "You
are being cut off from hearing the cries of those who will be purified. You
cannot and must not bail them out. You cannot and must not intervene in this
midst of their trials lest the fire they are experiencing overtake you. They
must overcome by themselves! They must fall on the rock, Christ Jesus! You
cannot intervene. They cannot have your oil."
I
wanted to ask if this meant that all of us as Christians were going to
experience these fires, but before I could ask the answer flooded my being.
"These fires of purification are specifically intended for
those who have not yet responded to the dealings of Holy Spirit. Many people
have already responded to and embraced the fire in their lives. This that is
coming is not for them. This is a furnace of affliction intended to burn away
the bondages from those who've not yet willingly abandoned them or responded to
the opportunities presented by Holy Spirit. No one will be forced to respond
against their will, but those that willingly and purposefully reject the
dealings of God will open themselves to the wrath of God when it is poured out
upon the earth."
Although it was not
specifically spoken, there was a realization once again in me that the fire is
not for destruction but redemption. When John the Baptist came as a forerunner
for Jesus Christ, he prophesied,
"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he
that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear:
he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose
fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather
his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire." (Matthew 3:11-12)
One of Holy Spirit's
principal aims and objectives is to "burn up the chaff [in us] with
unquenchable fire." It is a fire you can't put out, and its
purpose is to burn out everything that doesn't permit us to conform to the
perfect image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Consider the very
first of the Seven Spirits of God. Isaiah names four of the seven in his prophecies,
the first being seen in Isaiah 4:4, the Spirit of Judgment and Burning. The
purpose of God's judgment is to set things right or back in alignment with His
Word and His purposes. The purpose of burning is to burn up all that is impure,
all that contaminates the very character and makeup of the Lord Jesus Christ in
our spirit, our soul and our body.
I've written this
before, but for the purpose of this application let me again share II Timothy
2:15 from my own amplified translation from the Greek text: "Be instantly responsive to the Lord, making yourself
available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer, who
has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the
time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."
The crucible is the
vessel into which gold is place which needs to be refined and purified. That
crucible is heated in an intense fire in order to get the impurities to float
to the top where they can be scooped off. This is a process that smelters and
refiners use repeatedly until they can certify that their gold is 99.999% free
of impurities. Using that same analogy it becomes clear that this is what the
Lord is doing with His people -- His Bride in particular. What's more, His fire "burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire!" There
are zero impurities in His people when He is finished with this process.
You understand, don't
you? This is NOT the "comfortable gospel": this is the Gospel of the
Kingdom! It is the rulership of the King in our
lives, and His rulership means we conform to His
standards and His measurement -- NOT what we might like them to be.
WOW!! This certainly
wasn't the way I expected to begin today's Coffee Break discussion, but what I
saw and heard in Heaven certainly fits and is consistent with the pictures of
tribulation I've been sharing thus far.
I was sharing with a
bible study group earlier this week and we were talking about the nature of
tribulation. One of the characteristics of tribulation that we really need to
anchor down in our spirit is that its purpose is redemption -- not destruction!
Tribulation
is not a squeezing together, an application of great pressure designed to
squeeze the very life out of us! God intends for His people to experience this
so that He has an overcoming people, a people who've been tried in the furnace
of affliction and have come forth in His image and likeness. His objective from
the beginning has been our redemption, our restoration, our return to that image
and likeness in which he first created Adam.
We
can use the example of the three Hebrew children -- Hananiah
(Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach) and Azariah
(Abednego) -- who refused to bow to the image of the king (Nebuchadnezzar) [see
Daniel 3], and were subsequently cast into a furnace heated to seven times its
normal heat -- a temperature which killed those who cast the three into the
furnace. The king and his servants standing by saw the Lord appear in the fire
with Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and they walked about in the fire with absolutely
no effect! The only thing that happened to the three was that their bonds were
burned off, and they were able to walk about and converse freely with the Lord.
That's
the same thing intended for God's people today. Those who willingly embrace the
fire soon discover that the Lord is there with them. Those who embrace
tribulation find that there is a level of fellowship and intimacy with the Lord
Jesus Christ that words fail to properly convey! At the same time, those who
embrace these times of stress, pressure, accusation, persecution come to the
realization that the Lord has been delivering them from fear, from past
failures and from areas of weakness in their flesh that have plagued them
throughout the years.
How
is it that I can say these things? If I were to tell you that I read all this
in a book somewhere, we'd all have a good laugh, and you'd know I was telling
one great big story. The fact is, I can give you a guided tour (and already
have to some extent in previous Coffee Breaks) of my personal walk with the
Lord in the midst of tribulation.
OK.
Let me give you one more picture of tribulation before we change gears and take
a close look at the wrath of God.
Revelation 8 begins
like this (see the first six verses):
"And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence
in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which
stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came
and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him
much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints
upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the
incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before
God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with
fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices,
and thunderings, and lightnings,
and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared
themselves to sound."
Without
revisiting all of the events that took place on June 9, 1994, we had numerous
friends and brothers and sisters in the Lord who reported things happening to
them like the following:
One
of our sisters in the Lord from High River, Alberta was driving to Edmonton.
Some 60 or 70 miles out of Edmonton she saw a hitchhiker standing alongside the
road. She had made it a practice to NEVER pick up hitchhikers, and it caught
her completely off-guard when Holy Spirit spoke loudly in her spirit and
instructed her to stop and pick up this hitchhiker. Because it was not
something she was inclined to do she drove on past and kept going. Holy Spirit
again spoke -- this time audibly -- and said, "I
said STOP! Go back and pick up that hitchhiker!"
She
had no option but to obey, turned the car around in the center divider and went
back and picked up the hitchhiker. As she pulled back into the traffic flow she
turned to ask the gentleman where he was headed. Before she could open her
mouth, he looked at her and said, "The
trumpet has been set to the mouth," and he vanished into
thin air. The whole experience shocked her and she didn't know what to make of
it. She contacted the RCMP office in Edmonton upon arriving and related what
had happened. The duty officer said to her, "Lady, you are the ninth
person to report that tonight!"
In
the days that followed (and she immediately shared it with us and our
fellowship) we had friends in Lethbridge, Alberta who
reported the same experience; and we subsequently heard of multiple like events
taking place all across the northwest from Montana to Oregon. I've no doubt
that there were other parts of the U.S. and Canada (and even very likely other
places in the world) who had the same identical experience on that date.
What
was it all about? This is a personal opinion, but my conviction is that the body
of Christ was being prepared for the sounding of the seven trumpets by the
seven angels! Take a look at the very first thing that happens when the first
angel blows his trumpet.
Hail
and fire came down together with the result that a third of the earth's
vegetation was destroyed. That's a picture of unusual heat, volcanic eruptions
and seismic events resulting in the destruction of crops worldwide on a scale
hitherto unknown.
The
next angel sounds and we see what amounts to cataclysmic geologic plate shifts
resulting in the death and destruction of one-third of all life in the sea,
along with the ships caught in the resulting tsunamis.
The
third angel blows his trumpet and a huge flaming meteorite falls to earth
resulting in the contamination of a third of the earth's water supply.
The
fourth angel sounds his trumpet and the heavens are literally darkened as what
I will describe as a planetary object passes close by the earth in what
astronomers would refer to as a "near miss" causing a part of the sun
and moon and stars to be obliterated from view for a full 24-hour period.
Without
getting into all of the events that follow (please read Revelation 9) it
becomes very clear that God's objective is to bring people to repentance and
salvation -- sozo. Look at the ending two verses of Chapter 9.
"And the rest of the men which were not killed by these
plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not
worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of
wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their
murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their
thefts."
You
get the picture, don't you? The purpose of these plagues and catastrophic
events is to get people to repent. So far we haven't seen the wrath of God.
Despite all the chaos which unfolds during this time of tribulation on the
earth, Father God has yet to pour out His wrath! When He does, folks, the earth
will see and KNOW the difference between tribulation and wrath.
That's
where we go next!
"Fresh and exceptional
things are about to take place in the Church around the world. It
will stretch our faith, but it will uniquely prepare us for an awesome
demonstration of God's glory. The Bible foretells that the spirit of this
generation will be as it was during the days of Noah. The Scriptures portray
Noah as one who found favor in God's sight.
Through a divine visitation, God specifically prepared Noah for
unprecedented events that unfolded in his generation. No human reasoning or
natural wisdom could have provided the necessary insight and strategic
blueprint for survival. Noah prevailed only by the Spirit of Revelation and
obedience to the spoken word of the Lord.
Only in the supernatural realm can we receive the provision for
our generation. This spiritual reality requires a far greater faith than we
presently possess on a corporate level. Therefore, we must set our faith in
order to access God's end-time promises to the Church. Jesus is the
Resurrection and the Life and He desires to display His resurrection power and
life, so we may behold God's glory.(Prophetic Word from Paul
Keith Davis)
Blessings on you!
Regner
A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER
WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Email
Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org
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: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself
from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
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.