Spiritual Hierarchy & Authority, Part 23

 

 

March 23, 2018

 

We left off last week after starting a comparative list of the striking parallels between Adam and Jesus, and the events that unfolded.  Jesus literally had to reverse every step that occurred when Adam ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

 

Adam and Eve's son, Abel, found acceptance in the eyes of the Lord because of the sacrifice of his firstborn lambs as an offering to Him.  He was killed by his jealous brother.

 

Jesus' brethren killed Him, making Him The Lamb who was offered up as an atoning sacrifice, an offering acceptable in the eyes of God the Father -- and under the Law!

 

The Serpent had subdued Adam and Eve under him and his power, along with all of their descendants, making them subservient to his wishes and commands.

 

Jesus subdued the Serpent, and crushed his power under His heel, making Satan and all his hordes of spirits subservient to those descendants of Adam and Eve who would become One with Him.

 

Though He went to the Cross as a meek and mild Lamb, offered up in order to redeem His intended Bride, the Lamb of God took — and now possesses, once and for all — the Crown and the Throne!

 

Let’s shift gears now and take a look at the Throne of God the Father.

 

A pattern of the Throne was laid out for that chosen people called as a pattern of the Bride, Israel.  It began with God's promise to Abraham (see Genesis 15:18-21) to give to him and to his descendants, the lands of the Hittites, the Hivites (referred to in Genesis 15 as "the Rephaim"), the Perizzites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.  Three other nations -- the Kenites, the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites -- were also mentioned as being a part of Abraham's inheritance, but the other seven are the object of particular interest in this study, since God commanded the destruction and removal of these seven nations.

 

The Land of Inheritance, which was referred to in an overall sense as Canaan, was a picture -- a metaphor, if you please -- of Eden, the Garden of God.  Under the premise that Adam and Eve would become "gods" if they would eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Serpent, Satan, robbed them of the land of their inheritance.

 

There was a unique significance to the naming of each of the seven nations which occupied Canaan.  Each name represented an onoma.  Each onoma was a part of the overall makeup of Satan, and characterized one of the seven dominant spirits of Satan(**see note).  The collective total of the seven represented the makeup, the character, the identity, the very essence of Satan.

 

(**Note: Some have questioned the idea that there are seven dominant spirits which make up the totality of Satan, but one must remember that he was created by God originally as Lucifer.  Ezekiel was instructed by the Lord to take up a prophecy against him.  Part of that prophecy incorporates the following statements:

 

Ezekiel 28:12-14: "You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; ......On the day that you were created, they [every precious stone] were prepared.  You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there."

 

 The number, seven, representative of God, is the number of perfection.  Ezekiel also states in his prophecy that "You were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; Therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God." (verse 16)  Therefore, although Lucifer was created as the "seal of perfection," he "profaned" that perfection, changing and perverting the onoma of each spirit within his makeup.)

 

Just as a curse had been pronounced on the Serpent for his deception, lies, and theft of Adam and Eve's inheritance, so had a curse also been pronounced upon Canaan.  If you will recall an event which took place following the abatement of the Flood when Noah and his sons had established vineyards in the region of Ararat, Ham went into his father's tent after Noah became drunk.

 

We are told (Genesis 8:22) that Ham "saw the nakedness of his father, and [nagad] told his two brothers outside."

 

The particular usage of this word, nagad, in this instance is in the sense of: bragging; showing a thing openly; making a public exhibition of something.

 

The usage of the phrase, "[he] saw the nakedness of (his father...") occurs numerous times throughout the Old Testament with a specific significance.  It is a Hebrew metaphor which means: to take advantage of; to uncover for the purpose of intercourse; to benefit from seeing one's weaknesses and profit therefrom.

 

In this instance we are given a picture of Ham taking advantage of his father's drunken state in order to have homosexual intercourse.  That picture is further clarified in the statement in verse 24, "When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him."

 

Canaan was Ham's firstborn son.  He represented Ham's future, his inheritance in the land.  He also carried the aberrant seed of his father.  Noah therefore pronounced God's curse upon that seed, and all who would come forth from Canaan.

 

Each of the seven nations, upon whom God's judgment fell, descended from Canaan.  The Hittites were the sons of Heth, Canaan's second born son.  The Jebusites were descended from Jerus, the son of Canaan, whose name was changed to Jebus by his children because of his propensity for "crushing" everything in his path -- even his wheat and grains.  The Amorites were the sons of Emor.

 

The Canaanites were descended from Sidon, Canaan's firstborn son, and became an amalgamation of the descendants of several sons.  And so it went.

 

Each nation represented one of the seven dominant spirits of Satan.  Without getting into a study of each of them, I will simply identify each nation with its presiding spirit.  Each of these spirits, incidentally, is identified otherwise in Scripture, and Paul refers to them in Ephesians 6 as kosmokrator: world rulers of darkness.  (We’ve talked about this at length already.)

 

Each nation/presiding spirit is listed below:

 

(1)  The Fear of Evil

(2)  The Fear of Man,  (3)  The Fear of Death,  (4)  Rebellion/Witchcraft*,  (5)  Pride/ Threshing**,  (6)  Democracy***,  (7)  Greed/Merchandising****

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Notes:*  The presiding spirit of the Amorites, which we have identified as Rebellion and/or Witchcraft, was clearly exhibited in the characteristics of Jezebel, whose father was an Amorite king.  The Amorites sought to control others through witchcraft, and were the undisputed masters of hierarchical government.  The spirit of Jezebel was responsible for blurring the lines between male and female, and perverting sexual relationships to the extreme.

 

**   The Jebusites were a proud, arrogant people who were noted for "threshing," a technique by which wheat and other grains were winnowed and beaten.  The end product was good for nothing but preparation in breads and pastries, it was lacking in real nutrition.  Because of the way in which the grains were threshed, the seeds could not be planted, and no new harvest could come forth.

 

***  The spirit of Democracy prevailed among the Perizzites.  Their national motto was "Openness with All."  Their version of "love" was what we have come to call "sloppy agape."  They had no qualms about counterfeiting fellowship and open relationships with people of other nations and tribes for the purpose of gaining control over them.

 

**** The Canaanites were noted for greed.  They engaged in all manner of business and trade.  There was nothing they would not sell for a price -- including their friends and relatives.

 

All of the seed of Canaan, no matter what nation or tribe, carried the genesis of Ham's sexual perversion, and it became part and parcel of their existence, and their cultic religious rites.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

All of the things described above were intolerable in God's people, and the Lord warned them against intermarriage and intermingling of any kind with any of the above nations.  Prior to Moses' death, and Joshua's taking command, Moses stood before the people to deliver the following word of the Lord,

 

Deuteronomy 7:1-11, NASB: When the Lord your God shall bring you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and shall clear away many nations before you -- the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites -- seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them.  You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.

 

Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.  For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you.

 

But thus shall you do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars and hew down their Asherim (idols to Ashtaroth), and burn their graven images with fire.  For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

 

In spite of the very specific command of the Lord concerning these seven nations, and the fact that He clearly identified them as a chosen and holy people set apart unto Him, they did exactly as they were commanded not to do.  They intermarried with the nations.  They began to worship their idols and other gods.  They made covenants with them to keep them alive.

 

They began to engage in the idolatrous and licentious practices which perverted their relationship with the Lord.  And the Lord did exactly what He said He would do if they did not follow His very specific commands: He allowed Israel to ultimately be taken captive by these very peoples and spread abroad throughout the earth.

 

Israel was given the opportunity to overcome the Serpent.  She was given a chance to regain the throne which was her promised inheritance.  Just as Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden because they compromised with, and succumbed to, the wiles of the Serpent, Israel was driven from the land of its inheritance because it compromised with, and intermingled with the seven accursed nations.

 

What Israel failed to accomplish in the natural realm as a pattern for the Bride-to-be of the Lord God, the Holy Spirit identified once again as His intention for the Bride of Christ to accomplish.  It became a mandate for the first-century Ekklesias.  These seven presiding spirits did not just disappear when their nations were conquered, killed or dispersed.  They simply took on a new camouflage.

 

In writing to the seven Ekklesias in Asia Minor, John the Beloved wrote a graphic description of how these same spirits had infected the Body of Christ.  While the seven letters were written to seven different Ekklesias, they collectively represented a picture of the Bride, and therefore became a single letter.  Each Ekklesia was struggling with a particular spirit.

 

Each letter became an address to overcome one of those seven spirits.  Each Ekklesia represented both a segment of the Bride, and an area of overcoming.

The seven letters -- in succession -- draw a progressive picture of the return path to the Throne of God, The Lamb and His Bride.

 

This is territory we have covered in some detail in the past years, and it isn’t my intention to rehash the same studies, but I need to draw some parallels for you that I believe will help in understanding the progression that is laid out for us in the Revelation that John wrote — a progression of our return to total authority.

 

The levels of authority that God has for us do not come automatically.  There is a cost associated with each level, and that cost is manifested in our overcoming the Enemy, his lies, his subterfuge, his deception and his corruption of the Word of God.  That’s where we will go next week.

 

For those of you who’ve participated during the past three years in our Monday night Healing Prayer Conference Call, this is just a reminder that the calls have resumed on a once-a-month basis, the first Monday of each month.  If you have a need for healing, or you have friends in need of healing, here is the number to call: (712) 775-7035.  The Access Code is: 323859#.  For Canadians who have difficulty getting in to this number, you can call (559) 546-1400.   If someone answers and asks what your original call-in number was, you can give them the 712 number and access code.

 

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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