Oct 22, '10 3:48 PM

 

By Regner Capener

 

 

And another Good Morning to you!

Coffee’s on! Come and get it!

In our last Coffee Break, I laid out the essence of the two dreams that Della and I had on the night of August 7/morning of August 8^th of this year. Today I’d like to explore the prophetic pictures that have unfolded as a result and the strong Word from the Lord to the body of Christ.

DREAM NUMBER ONE, Part One

There are two main themes that Della and I have seen within these dreams. That’s to say, there are two primary areas of focus and two primary messages.

The first is the picture of the officer who put me under arrest because he saw me as a threat to his way of life, his beliefs and his governmental structure. The second was the “biting and devouring” of those who were caged, and this is a picture of a situation that exists in the body of Christ to a large extent.

I will clarify that by saying that this seems to be endemic in the western cultures more than in the eastern. Our western society has so altered the structure and makeup of the way the body of Christ lives and operates so much that believers from the first and second century body would scarcely recognize us today. Let me digress from the dream interpretation to explain.

Ekklesia has devolved into “church.” The intimacy of a personal love-relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ has faded into “religion” and religious practices, traditions, formalism, icons and man-made doctrines that have nothing whatever to do with our walk with the Lord.

(Ekklesia, incidentally, is the Greek word used throughout the New Testament that translators have turned into “church.” The word itself was coined by the Alexandrian translators during the period 300 – 275 BC when they sought for a means to convey the true sense of the Hebrew Ya.ad and its counterpart, Mowadah (the calling together of the betrothed by the bridegroom).

Ekklesia is nothing at all like the contemporary form of church with song services, announcements, offering-taking, sermons and prayers at the altar. These are all trappings added when the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes (Revelation 2:6, 13) began to really infiltrate and take hold within the body of Christ, and history tells us that there really was no such thing as “church” until roughly 225 AD during the reign of Alexander Severus when an old temple was converted into a church – and even then, the manner of gathering was quite different than we see in today’s modern churches.)

Aahhhh….but that’s another topic for discussion entirely. We won’t try to go there today. Let’s get to the core of what I saw.

When I shared these dreams a short time ago with a group of pastors, the near-unanimous consensus was that the people were starving to death because the leadership over them was not fulfilling its responsibility. The people were not receiving the kind of nourishment that would foster love or grace or wholeness.

The “officer” in the dream was a type of the “leader” who has charge over folks, but has no personal relationship with the Lord. He was austere, legalistic, demanding and thought he had the right to rule over them and say what they could believe and not believe. Because he had no personal relationship with the Lord, anyone who talked about such a thing was a heretic and a fool. Because he believed that he had a legal right to control what folks see and hear – and I was promoting something foreign to him – I was an immediate threat that had to be dealt with.

This officer was both a type and a picture of the shepherds and pastors who are supposed to be guarding and protecting God’s people and ensuring that they get the kind of nourishment that will make them grow into healthy, productive individuals who are profitable to the Kingdom of God.

We’ll talk more about this after a bit.

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DREAM NUMBER ONE, Part Two

The picture that unfolded in the second part of the dream in seeing people who were literally biting and devouring one another and cannibalizing each other was both horrifying and sobering. There are some scriptures we can take a quick look at before we continue.

Galatians 5: 14-17: ¹⁴For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ¹⁵But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. ¹⁶This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

All sense of love for one another had vanished when these people were caged up and fed minimally. The attitude was “every man (or woman) for himself.” They were literally consuming one another. The cannibalism had obviously resulted in the deaths of many before I ever got there, and several of the people in that cage were close to death because of their “devoured” condition.

I’m not pointing fingers at anyone here. But this is a picture of a condition that prevails in many parts of the body of Christ today. The lack of proper spiritual nourishment, the lack of a personal love-relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, the missing intimacy that accompanies our walk with the Lord, the watering down and even omission of basic fundamental truths that contribute to our ability to be in Christ and have Him manifested in us, all contribute to setting the stage for people to pick and swipe at one another.

The dissatisfaction that results when folks go through the motions – religious rituals and forms – without the signs and wonders that are supposed to follow the believer causes a malaise that in turn results in people looking at and judging one another. They don’t like what they see; and the problem is that they are in fact judging themselves.

Religion causes folks to live by a measurement standard rather than a love standard. What was it that Paul wrote?

I Corinthians 13:4-7 (NASB): ⁴Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, ⁵does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, ⁶does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

There is nothing about love – God’s love – agape – that lives by a measurement standard. It is a love that seeks to build up, to encourage, to save and preserve, to uphold and nurture. When agape is missing and you have phileo in its place instead (we normally refer to this as “brotherly love,” but it is a love which requires reciprocation in order to exist), value judgments form concerning the behavior of others, the standards of their living (poor, middle-class or wealthy) and whether they think like you do or not.

Because agape is a love that functions in the realm of the Spirit and not the flesh, people whose lives are relegated to living by reason, analysis, and logic have little concept of what it means to “walk in the Spirit.” Without that walk and life in the Spirit, folks resort to their judgments of one another and their analytical decisions which result almost every time in the “other” person coming up short in their eyes.

In order to walk and live in the Spirit, God’s people must have the kind of spiritual nourishment that enables them to grow in God’s grace, His Love, His mercy, His authority and His power. When that nourishment is missing and they can’t even get “the sincere milk of the Word” they live as “brephos” or “paidion” (babes or infants) who never even grow enough in the Lord to become “teknons” immature children, let alone “huios” fully grown, fully matured sons who function in and with Father’s authority.

What I witnessed in that cage were people who were or had been professing Christians. Had you asked them before they were thrown into the cage of their standing in Christ, most of them would have no doubt been glad to tell you that they had walked with the Lord for some years and knew Him well.

In fact, they didn’t know Him at all – at least not in a revelatory way. They had a knowledge of God, they undoubtedly had read the Word, they were likely faithful in going to church services, paying tithes, giving, ministering to the poor and needy and doing “good works.” Jesus described people like this on several occasions. Remember how He put it?

Matthew 7:22-23: ²²Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? ²³And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Are you seeing what Jesus said? “I NEVER knew you!” Wow! The Greek text renders this statement, “I never had a personal relationship with you. We were never intimate with each other.” The essence of what Jesus is saying is this: “You did lots of good things supposedly on my behalf, but you WERE NOT doing them in my name – my onoma! Yes, you spouted my name and used it as a formula, but you and I were not One. You were not in me when you did these works.”

Jesus finishes off his rebuke with a command for them to depart from Him because they were workers – implementers, if you please – of iniquity. Again, WOW! This word, iniquity, comes from the Greek, anomia or anomos, and refers generally to lawlessness, a violation of the law, or illegality.

Jesus was speaking from a Jewish perspective, and not a Greek understanding, when He referred to them as workers of iniquity. The Hebrew ‘avah or ‘avon describes perversity – a “bent”, if you will, in one’s character which pushes them or inclines them mentally, emotionally and spiritually to do something wrong.

What Jesus was describing, therefore, was people who were teaching and developing a character trait of religion rather than a personal relationship with Him. Religion is perverse. Religion causes folks to violate the most basic element of our walk with God. It takes love out of the picture and replaces it with rote, ritual, performance and duty. Religion has all the form of Godliness, but no power and no authority.

The problem with these folks whom Jesus was describing in His parable was that they were using Jesus’ name illegally. They were not in Him, and He was not in them. We refer back to something Paul wrote to the Ekklesia in Corinth:

II Corinthians 5:17: ¹⁷Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (ktisis: original formation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Again Paul writes to the Galatians and says:

Galatians 6:15-16: ¹⁵For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature (ktisis). ¹⁶And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Are you seeing it? Once a person is in Christ, they are a newly-minted original formation. That may sound funny so let me put it like this. Adam was the original formation. He was created in the image and likeness of the Lord God. He was the original pattern for mankind. Jesus came as the last Adam to reverse the curse that Adam’s disobedience brought upon the human race and to be – once again – the pattern Son in whose image and likeness we could and would become.

Thus Paul writes that if we are “in Christ” – wait, let me clarify this statement. The Greek text uses the word “Christos”, which is equivalent to the Hebrew “Maschiach” (Messiah). This word properly describes “the anointed one” but it goes further to describe “his anointing.” Thus to be “in Christ” is to be “in the Anointed One and in His anointing.”

In writing to the Galatians Paul makes clear that “circumcision” (or the keeping of the Law and separating oneself from lawless activity) accomplishes nothing as far as being “in Christ” is concerned. At the same time, he also says that uncircumcision (or not separating oneself from the world) does not alter or make a person unrighteous. Righteousness is not judged by the Law, and it is not judged by not keeping the Law.

There was no Law except for the one commandment given to Adam and Eve concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is no Law that governs us a Christians – except for the Law of Love. Whether we keep the Law or not does not make us Christians, and it does not cause us to be “in Christ.” If we are in Christ we are literally new formations – newly created beings for whom the Law does not apply.

In so saying, of course, I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter if we are law-breakers; it does matter. We ought not to break the law. But there is a higher Law that governs our existence once we are new creations – new formations and new beings – in Christ. That Law is agape: the very nature and character and makeup of the Lord Jesus Christ! To walk and live by this Law is absolutely revelatory.

OK. I didn’t mean to take up so much time on this topic but I needed to make sure you understand the foundation of what the Lord was showing me in the dream concerning the Christians who were in the cage.

* * * * * * * *

I’d thought to get farther along in the unfolding of the interpretation and revelation of this first dream today, and we need to return to our discussion on the picture of the “officer” who threw me and the others into the cage. However, I think we will pause for today and pick up this discussion in our next Coffee Break.

The Holy Spirit is moving and operating in this day and age in non-traditional ways; and any attempts we make to box Him in or try to second-guess Him are doomed to failure. Those who are willing to hear what He has to say and are ready to “operate outside the box” will see and experience the Glory of the Lord!

Blessings on you!