The Psalm 23 Adventure, Part 45
June 23, 2017
Last week we wrapped talking about
the sound and the sound that Adam and Eve brought to the Lord by their very
existence and by their walk with Him each day.
You
understand that sound was in Adam and Eve’s very DNA. Whenever God spoke, sound went forth. Consider the sound that went forth when God
spoke the following over them.
Genesis
1:28: 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.
See
the picture? God “blessed them.” He spoke over them. He declared and decreed His authority over
them and into them. Whether you believe
it or not, God literally sang into Adam and Eve. Think I’m really stretching things? Then take a look at what Zephaniah
prophesies.
Zephaniah 3:17: The
LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will
rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee
with singing.
Sound! Singing!
Praise! Worship! It is all integral to God’s existence. He had surrounded Himself with it before time
began. When He spoke, things happened –
exactly as He spoke. Lucifer had
provided that place of singing, of praise, of worship to surround the
Throne. His whole existence revolved
around sound, around praise, around worship.
He’d been created for it. He’d
been anointed for it. And he corrupted
that anointing with jealousy, with rebellion, with anger, with insurrection,
with treason against the very God that had created him in the first place and
given him that anointing.
And
God had to take it away from him! And,
as we noted last week, God said, “I’m going to have a family for myself. I’m going to create a species of being like
myself who will take Lucifer’s place.
They will surround me! They will
surround the Throne with a unique sound that will be distinctly theirs, and
they will offer the praise and worship that comes out of their very existence!
Satan,
being the angry, jealous being that he was, hating God because of the judgment
he was forever subject to, decided he’d get even with God. He would corrupt the sound of Adam and Eve. He would tempt them. If he could succeed in his contamination of
their existence, he could block the plan of God for this species of being that
would surround the Throne with a new and far more spectacular realm of praise
and worship than he’d ever known or been able to provide.
His
efforts were only partly successful.
Sure, he brought the law of sin and death upon the human race. Yes, he deprived generation after generation
after generation of people from enjoying the personal and intimate presence and
knowledge of the Lord, but God was way ahead of him. He knew in advance what Satan was going to
try and pull, but He had already determined and spoken into being the agreement
between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So
watch what God does!
Genesis 3:14-15:
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done
this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the
field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
And
that’s exactly what happened! We’ve
already covered this in our previous discussion, but throughout many
generations, God had promised that this would be fulfilled in and with the seed
(the descendants) of David. For any
legalists out there, consider that Mary was a descendant of David through
Solomon.
On
the other hand, Joseph was also a descendant of David through Nathan. Thus, when Holy Spirit implanted the seed of
God in Mary, Jesus came along as promised as the seed of David. But he also came into this world free from
all of the DNA of Adam, whom Satan had corrupted. A new sound was about to be born in the earth
— and a new anointing!
Before
we get there, let me share with you a story passed along by Ray Hughes, and it
illustrates where we are going with this.
There
is, in East Africa, a tribe of people who understand that there is a sound
associated with every single person. No
two people sound alike. Each person is
distinct and their sound will remain with them from birth to death.
When
a woman in this tribe becomes pregnant, she immediately separates herself from
the tribe and goes off into the outback to wait and listen. She knows that there must be a sound that
will come forth from the child in her womb and she will not go back to the
tribe and to her husband until she hears that sound.
Once
she hears the sound of her unborn child, she learns it and then returns
home. She teaches that sound to her
husband. While the child is gestating in
the womb, together they lay hands on the mother’s belly and sing that song.
When
it is time for the child to be born, the mother gathers together the midwives
and teaches them the song. They sing
that song as the child is being born.
That child will grow up knowing that song and it will forever be his or
her sound.
Throughout
adulthood, that song and that sound will come forth from that person. It will never be heard from anyone else. When he or she dies, that song will be sung
one last time at the funeral, and from that time forth, it will never be heard
again.
Sound
strange? Then let me share with you
another story.
One
of the more unusual friends that Della and I have come to know and share with
in years gone by was a scientist by the name of Dr. Joseph O’Neil. I’ve shared bits of Joe’s story with you in
previous Coffee Breaks, but let’s just get to the issue at hand.
Joe
spent Einstein’s last seven years working with him. He was a genius of Einstein’s caliber — and
perhaps even greater. The discoveries
and inventions that Joe came up with were nothing less than spectacular. This was a man who served as a science
advisor to no less than seven presidents beginning with Harry Truman.
According
to my recollection, it was in the 1990’s that Joe discovered that human blood
had a sound to it. He was able to take a
sample of someone’s blood, digitize and convert it to music. Sitting at the lunch table one day, he said
to Della and me,
“I
can tell you what your entire medical history is by listening to your
blood. No matter what disease you may
have had, it inserts its own sound into your blood. If you are completely healthy, your blood
sounds very melodic. If, on the other
hand, you have cancer, or are a serious candidate for cancer, a very discordant
sound will appear. Barring intervention
and/or specific treatment, I can tell you what disease you will die from.”
He
later told us that he had developed a piece of equipment that was being used at
the Houston Medical Center on a trial basis for the purpose of listening to the
sounds of human blood and being able to accurately forecast any specific
disease that was developing in them, in many cases months or even years before
that disease would mature.
I
do not know the exact time frame (and I’ve wondered if this doctor extrapolated
some of his research and findings from Joe’s work, or if his work preceded
Joe’s), a medical doctor and researcher in Japan — his name was Dr. Ohno —was studying diseases in mice. He decided to take a single cell from the
mouse, extricate a single DNA strand from that cell and put it to music.
To
his utter astonishment he heard distinguishable strains and musical phrases
from Chopin’s Nocturne, Opus 55. How in
the world could such a thing be? One can
only imagine the events that would have unfolded for that mouse to have been
exposed to the music of Chopin. He
decided to try something different and take a cancer cell from another mouse
that was dying.
Turning
a single DNA strand from that cancer cell into music, what he heard was
Chopin’s Funeral March. If you know
Chopin’s life story, then you know that he died a relatively young man from
what was called at the time, “consumption.”
In fact, Chopin died of cancer.
Dr. Ohno was hearing the sound of Chopin’s DNA
in these two different experiments.
So
what are we getting at? Just this. Each of us has a sound that is distinct to
us. Each of us radiate that sound
wherever we go. No, it’s not audible —
at least in 99.9999% of cases — but it is a sound that we put out. We were created with sound as an integral
part of our existence. We were created
for worship! We were created to bring
the sound that is us to the Throne of God.
Six
or seven years or so ago I began sharing in a series of Coffee Breaks my own
first experience of being in Heaven.
When I was ushered through the gates by the Lord and had my first view –
well, let me borrow from some of what I’ve shared in that series.
There was no sun, but Heaven was lit up
with a brightness greater than that of the sun.
Every one of my five senses were inundated with sights, sounds, smells
and feelings hard to describe.
The aroma of Heaven was … well …
heavenly! It was almost like being in a
flower garden where every flower radiated its scent
to the max at once. At the same time, it
took no effort to discern between different aromas and flavors. It was a feast for the nose. I don’t know how to describe it any
differently. I’ve had moments since in
the years that followed where I have had the air fill with some of those scents
– and there have been others with me who experienced it simultaneously.
Perhaps the most gripping thing I
experienced from the very get-go was the sound.
I’d already been learning to play musical instruments and was keenly
aware of musical structure. The air was
filled with a sound of worship and praise the likes of which have stayed with
me my whole life. I’ll talk more about
this later, but ever since this first trip to Heaven, there has never been a
day – and scarcely a moment – when I don’t hear the sounds of praise and
worship music flowing in my spirit – and brother, does it ever take many
different forms!
Imagine for a moment hearing music like
huge waves rolling over you. Each wave
brings a different sound – a different focus – a different flow. One wave might be the sound of tens of
thousands of voices singing in the most spectacular harmony you’ve ever
heard. The next might be the sounds of
strings being plucked or bowed or struck with cadences and rhythms we’ve only
tasted of here on earth. Another might
be the sounds of a million different kinds of brass or woodwind
instruments. Every so often I could hear
the simple strains of a single instrument in praise and worship. The music was … how can I describe it? …
organic!
No, I don’t mean like the sound of an organ
– although there was certainly that sound present. What I mean is that the music, the praise,
the worship, the sounds of the voices and instruments literally penetrated
you. They became a part of your whole
being in such a way that you were part of that praise and worship.
Let’s put it like this: you can’t be there
and be in that presence of the Lord and not have your whole being radiate that
sound as though it originated within the very cells of your existence! And it does.
We were created for that purpose.
Each person becomes an extension, an addition to the sound of
worship. Your very existence, your very
presence (excuse me if I sound repetitious) becomes a part of that sound. It’s the sound of the Lord radiating in you,
out of you, through you! It’s the sound
of His presence! It’s the sound of His
Glory!
The
music we call “praise and worship” today is a poor substitute. But the Lord isn’t complaining about it. We, after all, are being trained and prepared
for a new sound – and it’s not a sound like anything here I can compare it
to. We need to break out of our religious
boxes. More accurately, we need for the
Holy Spirit to break us out of our musical mindsets, our expectations and the
sounds we come to expect as a part of praise and worship.
We
were created for it. There is an
anointing for this realm that David understood, and the Psalms are permeated
with it from beginning to end.
This
picture becomes more and more fascinating and revelatory as it unfolds, so let
me quit for today, and let’s continue this narrative next week.
For those of you
who’ve been participating in our Monday night Healing Prayer Conference Call,
we just want to let you know that beginning with the month of July and
continuing until the first Monday night in October, we will be taking a break
for the summer. We’ve found during the
past three years of doing this call that participation during the summer months
drops significantly because of folks taking their vacations, and being involved
in other activities. That said, we will
resume our prayer calls on Monday night, October 2nd.
At the same time, 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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