ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: THE SOUND OF THE LORD, Part 6
Mar 20, '09 1:37 PM
By Regner Capener
Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning!
Brother! I sure didn't expect to be offline for such a long period, but our
move from Sunnyside to Prosser turned into a much larger undertaking than we'd
thought.
It has proven to be a fabulous blessing, however! It is an entirely new
atmosphere, and it has proven to be a real strengthening of River Worship
Center's fellowship. We actually began our first services in Prosser on
February 15 even though the physical plant move was far from completed.. March
1 was our official beginning at the new location.
One other change I need to note before we get started today is that our
CapenerMinistries@embarqmail.com email address is no longer valid. Embarq ran into an engineering boondoggle here in Prosser
in routing their cabling along the Yakima River such that they are unable to
provide high-speed service. Their "broadband" on the north side of the
river isn't a whole lot better than dialup, so we approached Charter Cable
about getting 10 Mbit service here.
It's something they advertise, but weren't currently providing to this area due
to some equipment problems. I'm happy to say that their engineering department
went to work on the issue and resolved all the issues. We were offline for a
couple of weeks during the interim, but our last test showed download speeds in
excess of 10 Mbit and upload speeds in the range of 1
- 2 Mbits. Good stuff!
We're back to what we consider our default coffee (or coffee of choice). It's a
blend of Double-Roasted French (from Cascade Coffees), Dark Roasted Columbian
and San Francisco Bay French Roast. It seems to provide the best overall taste
and aroma for our tastebuds.
It has been a month since our last Coffee Break went out so a little review is
in order.
In Part 1, we talked about the fact that God holds all things together and
energizes all creation by the Word of His Power. Since He is the Source of all
life and creation, the power to create (or destroy) is inherent in His very
being. He created us in His very image and likeness and thus imparted into us
the same ability of creative (or destructive) speech and sound.
In Part 2 we talked about the power and authority released in sound, and
illustrated it with examples from David's ministry to the Lord in praise and
worship. We also discussed the significance of spiritual warfare that takes
place in and through sound, along with Paul's illustration from Ephesians 6
where he uses the musical term esti-pale
(<pallo), meaning: to vibrate; to create
a sound in opposition to describe "wrestling."
In Part 3 we noted that this spiritual "wrestling" in sound began
with Lucifer's rebellion in Heaven, and how he began to pervert the whole
purpose of music.
Part 4 centered around the discussion of the onoma
or character, personality and essence of one's being behind every sound -- and
particularly the onoma of the Lord Jesus
Christ vs. the onoma of Satan.
Part 5 began the discussion of articulated sounds through words, and the fact
that all words are nothing but "spirit containers" conveying the
objective of the motivating spirit which drives those words.
Let's see if we can wrap up this discussion today with some examples of the
spiritual force contained in spoken or sung words, and just how much impact the
resulting sound generates.
We've already noted that words come from spirit. Words are spirit containers.
They carry spirit with them. As spirit containers, words have power. They bring
with them the authority to energize life or initiate a sentence of death.
Today's airwaves are the classic illustration. Consider the sounds you hear on
radio, television, CD's, iPods and all the various forms of entertainment. You
walk into a shopping center, or perhaps a grocery store like Safeway, Kroger's
or the like. What do you hear? Do you pay attention to the music in the
background?
Ever notice how in some stores (Wal-Mart or K-Mart, for example) you will hear
certain "specials" that lure you to purchase something "on
sale"? Unless we are exceptionally cognizant of what we hear and careful
how we react, we can easily be sucked into spending money we can't afford to
spend? Without taking the time to elaborate on this statement, we are being
deliberately programmed by a thought process and agenda derived from Babylon.
I don't want to sound conspiratorial, and I'm not much for conspiracy theories,
but this is a case where our thoughts are deliberately manipulated so as to get
us to spend money, buy things we really don't need, or adopt ideas and agendas
not of our own thinking or reasoning. The motivator behind the agenda is Satan,
the king of Babylon. Let me give you a couple of quick illustrations out of
some personal experience.
My apologies, first of all, if you've heard this story before. A number of
years ago while living in Alaska, one of my business ventures was to provide
background music for different business applications. I provided music for an
airport, restaurants, stores, and a shopping center.
One day while engaged in a social conversation with the general manager of a
shopping center, he bemoaned the fact that the stores in this particular mall
were suffering inordinate rates of theft -- in a couple of cases approaching
15% or more. We took a walk through the mall, and I pointed out to him the
character and nature of the background music that was playing.
"Jim," I said, "What do you expect when what you're programming
people with is heavy rock and acid rock -- music which carries a sound and a
message that incites anger, lust, greed, and a whole lot of other things?"
If you want to have change in your environment, you're going to have to change
the sounds that people hear.
He responded that he had a contract with a background music provider, and that
he was simply taking what they were providing. I offered to provide him with
some tapes that were pre-programmed (I didn't tell him that I had programmed
these tapes with subliminal messages containing phrases like "The Lord is
my source; I do not need to steal; I am an honest person; I will pay for the
things I take," and so forth) to change his business environment.
Because he had already paid for his existing service and really didn't like the
idea of making a double payment, I offered to demonstrate what I was saying by
providing the service for 30 days at no cost obligation. We agreed that if he
saw a significant improvement in the 30-day period, he would pay my fees and
change his music service.
The change was noticeable and demonstrable before the 30-day trial period was
up. Toward the end of that test period, we sat down together again and he was
almost jumping up and down with excitement. "Our worst-case is down to
6%," he said, "and that's not something we've seen in many
months." Some stores were reporting a loss rate of between 1.5 and 3
percent.
The next thirty days brought the stores' loss-rate down to a maximum of 1.5
percent, and a few of them reported less than a half of one percent. It was a
remarkable demonstration -- not only for the mall manager and the store owners,
but for me as well. I knew the principle but this was the first time I had ever
seen such dramatic results.
It was proof positive that people react (or respond) to the sounds they hear,
even when they don't know they are reacting or responding.
During my years in broadcasting and in recording, I've acquired a slew of
original recordings, and a fair number of music archives of various musicians
and musical groups. While teaching a college course on subliminal programming I
invited one of my classes to take from my archives a 10 1/2-inch reel of tape
containing early recordings of the Beetles and test the music for subliminal
messages.
Let me preface my discussion by saying that I'd never been a Beetles fan, and
never could understand how folks could stand to listen to them despite the
obvious musical creativity of some of their pieces. The spirit of their music
had always bothered me, and listening to it jarred me.
Different class members dissected different pieces of the Beetles' music, and
all of them reported finding various subliminal messages. The most telling of
those messages was contained in one of their first releases, and it
demonstrated to me a very clear reason why their music had suddenly become so
popular, and why folks were flocking to music stores to buy their albums.
The message wasn't demonic. It wasn't sexually suggestive. It wasn't
politically subversive. It was simply commercial. The message, recorded
approximately 30 db below the average level of the music simply said, "Buy
me." It was not backward-masked as we found in the recordings of AC-DC or
Black Sabbath, and other like acid-groups. It wasn't even speeded up to repeat
at 4x or 8x. Recorded at normal speed, the message simply repeated, over and
over and over and over again throughout the song, "Buy me."
The message did its job. It got folks to run out and buy the music -- in record
numbers (pun intended). Similar messages were found in subsequent Beetles
recordings, all leading to a "popularity" of their music that was
deliberate and planned by the studios.
The "Buy me" message may not in and of itself been demonic but it
drove a demonic agenda. The music of the Beetles arguably changed forever the
attitudes, the tastes, the spiritual desires and mores of a music-buying public
and pushed the music business in a direction which has since spiraled downward
into "music forms" which are blatantly demonic at their core. The
words of some of the Beetles' music, and music which has subsequently followed
are indeed containers of spirit -- and that spirit is NOT the Holy Spirit!
Let's take a look for a minute at the use of music the way God intended.
When we go back to the origins of all music in Heaven, it becomes clear that
praise and worship of the Lord has always been its principal purpose. Music was
created for the sole purpose of generating an environment in which the power
and authority, the love, the grace, the faith of the Lord God was manifested,
demonstrated and exercised.
In that realm there is love and the faith which works by love, healing,
deliverance, redemption, wholeness, prosperity, blessing without measure, and
unlimited power and authority. It stands therefore, that when men and women
yield to the Spirit of the Lord and begin to play and sing the music of Heaven,
all those benefits are on display.
Throughout much of the 1990's, Della and I lived and functioned in ministry
from a ranch in Post Falls, Idaho known as "Trails' End." It was here
that we began to experience a much fuller measure of the presence of the Lord
with His accompanying grace and gifts on constant display.
We gathered together with other musicians, singers and intercessors not less
than three or four times a week, sometimes nightly, and sometimes three or four
times a day (if we were having a major gathering with folks from around the
country). Although we generally had from six-to-twelve people who gathered on a
regular basis, there were times when we had more than forty people packed into
that tiny ranch house for praise and worship.
One night as we were gathered together (and this was a larger than normal
group) the phone rang. The daughter of one of the couples worshiping with us
had just received a terrible report from her doctor. She was pregnant (she and
her husband were expecting their first daughter). A sonogram, followed by a
series of other tests, showed that the unborn child -- just over a month away
from birth -- was showing all of its internal organs on the outside of the
body. Barring some kind of miracle from God or unique surgery, this child would
not survive childbirth.
We told her to relax and be at peace. The Lord was going to intervene for her
and the baby. Immediately, the Holy Spirit began to pour through all of us some
rather extraordinary music of healing. It was not music we'd ever heard before,
much less played or sang. We knew immediately that a supernatural healing was
being ministered. It didn't matter that the mother and as-yet unborn child were
hundreds of miles away and couldn't hear the sound coming forth. Healing power
and authority were being released through that sound, and because the sound was
being driven of the Holy Spirit, distance was irrelevant.
Five or six weeks later when the baby girl was born, she was whole, complete
and beautiful. It was a pleasure for Della and me to hold that baby girl in our
arms a year later and see for ourselves the miracle the Lord had done. There
was not so much as a trace of the condition.
This is something we have seen repeated over and over again throughout the past
twenty or so years. It reminds me of one of the remarkable healings that took
place during the early years of our daily worship gatherings.
We had received a phone call from a lady who had been given a death sentence
with perhaps three-to-six months to live because of cancer. Her husband and
three sons were pretty distraught over the prospect of her death. We introduced
her to the realm of praise and worship as a part of daily living. For me
personally, this case was unique because this lady had been one of the
teenagers I'd shared the Lord Jesus Christ with when I was Minister of Youth at
Bethel Union Church in Duarte, California back in the mid-1960's.
The Lord had reconnected us after many years at a critical time in her life. We
had just begun recording our worship gatherings and releasing them on cassette
tape and CD's. When this lady could not be with us, we showed her how to
"plug in" to nonstop praise and worship listening on her stereo or
Walkman. She soon realized what a difference it was making in her physical
well-being and began to live a lifestyle of praise and worship. Dwelling in the
midst of the presence of the Lord has a powerful effect.
You can't be in the presence of the Lord for long and continue to hang onto
disease, infirmity or affliction. You can't be in the presence of the Lord for
long and continue to be tormented by evil spirits. The Enemy simply cannot
survive for any prolonged period when the sound of the Lord is constantly going
forth. That sound generates faith. It generates love. It generates power and
authority over Satan and his army of demonic powers that knows no limitation.
Cancer is one of those lies of Satan he tries to foist off on folks; and if
they are willing to spend the necessary time with the Lord, faith rises up in
such a dimension that cancer has to leave. Three years after this lady was
supposed to have been dead, she was more alive and healthier than she'd been in
many years.
Not long after River Worship Center opened its doors at our original location
in Sunnyside, a gentleman came who had been suffering from a near-lifetime of
drug and alcohol addiction. He'd been in and out of treatment programs spanning
a 25-year period, all with the same end-result.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and the fistful of treatment programs available
mostly deal with symptoms and not the underlying cause. They mostly teach folks
how to "live with" the problem instead of overcoming and receiving
permanent healing. This particular gentleman had been programmed to tell folks
that "I am an alcoholic," and he would receive his coin for being
alcohol-free for so many months, and then a year, and then so many years.
The problem was that every time he confessed "I am an alcoholic," or
perhaps, "I am a recovering alcoholic," he was setting in motion --
by his very words -- the spiritual forces necessary to drive him back to the
bottle under the right conditions.
Other pastors and ministers of the Gospel had prayed with him for deliverance,
but the confession never changed. We did minister deliverance to him but
counseled him to join us in our nightly worship gatherings and just
"soak" in the presence of the Lord, and receive from the Holy Spirit
through the Words containing His power and force.
Night after night, week after week, month after month, he came and simply
enveloped himself in presence of the Lord. Before too long, his hands were up
in the air, and he was joining in the praise and worship. A day came when he
realized that he was permanently free. The cravings for drugs or alcohol were
completely gone. He'd been transformed in the midst of the sound of the Lord.
The power and authority of the Holy Spirit had been released into his being,
and that power and authority brought real, genuine change.
We continue to rejoice with him today over his freedom and deliverance.
There's much more I could share, and perhaps in the weeks or months to come, I
may add another Coffee Break on this topic, but in our next Coffee Break, I
will return to (and attempt to conclude in the next few discussions) the topic
of Kingdom Economics.
What I hear I think about. What I think about is generated in my heart. What is
generated in my heart I speak. What I speak comes to pass. Out of the abundance
of my heart, my mouth speaks. Death and life are in the power of my tongue.
The Blessing of the Lord: it makes rich and He adds no painful toil and
sorrow! (Proverbs 10:22)
Be blessed!
Regner
A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER
WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Email
Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org
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