Supernatural Power: The Rulers at the Table of Showbread – Paul L. Cox

In 2002 I went with my son, Brian, and several friends to the opening of Star Trek: Nemesis in Ontario, California. This is not necessarily a spiritual location! As I am sitting in the theater watching the movie all of a sudden the power of God starts coming on me and I start shaking. The thought occurs to me, “Does anybody know God is here?” The movie continues and I shake as waves and waves and waves of God’s power are coming on me. I could not figure out why this was happening in the theater. The power becomes so strong that by the time the movie is over I have to be held up while I leave the theatre. Surges of His power kept sweeping over me so that I was unable to drive home. I was shaking so violently that I was not sure I was going to be able to maintain any semblance of coherency. I could not help wondering, “What is this all about?”

It would take a few years to understand what the Lord was showing me.

It was now 2007. A friend of mine, Rob Gross who lives in Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii called me up and said, “I think you are supposed to come here to speak.” I said, “Well, that’s very nice of you.” Frankly, it does not take more than just the word Hawaii for me to hear God clearly say that I am to go! I said, “You know I have done all my stuff there.” He said, “Well, I had a very strong dream, a very clear dream, a very prophetic dream that you came to Kaneohe. When you came, you and I were together and the power of God hit us and we all ended up on the ground.” I thought that sounded pretty good. I said, “Well, I will pray about it.”

After prayer, we made plans to go to Hawaii. It was then that I decided to call the seminar Heaven Trek – Daring to Go Where God Wants You to Go.” Rob Gross called back and said, “Two other people in our church have now had dreams of you coming and God displaying His power. What was the Lord going to do in Hawaii?

The evening of the conference came. No sooner had we begun then the power of God descended on us and Rob and I fell to the ground. We could not move. We were literally pined on the floor by the power of God.

Two or three or four months later, I was in Oregon and I led two more Heaven Treks, one in Dallas, Oregon and the other in Ontario, Oregon. While in Oregon I experienced exactly what had happened in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Suddenly during one of the sessions the power of God hit us and we were all on the ground. I was feeling this power now on the back of my head where I had in the past felt beings called Powers. This discernment however was much stronger and intensely new. The sensation was so excruciatingly powerful that literally I was in pain.

In January 2008, I was in Singapore. After several days of wonderful Asian food, I deeply desired a good steak! I was excited to know there was an Outback Restaurant in Singapore! I was ready for some American food. Ten of us had come to dine. All of a sudden I feel this immense power on my head and people at the table started to shake. The power was similar to what I had experienced in Hawaii and Oregon. I then realized that the Lord had opened a heavenly portal, a door to another dimension. The portal had opened up over my head.

My friend Pastor David Lee was sitting next to me. I said, “David, you need to look up at the portal and tell me what you see.” He leaned over in front of me, looking up towards the ceiling. As he looked up he described the following: “I see this tunnel, at the top of the tunnel is a gate.” I immediately knew that we were somehow going to walk through that gate. I thought, “How can we do that because it is up there?” The meal came and we waited to see what the Lord would do.

The next day we were at the Salvation Army compound at the Advanced Discernment Training and Exploration school in Singapore. The morning was uneventful. In the afternoon, all of a sudden I started feeling what I had felt in the restaurant, an enormous pressure on the back of my head. I expected to sense the portal on top of my head, but was surprised when I realized the spiritual shaft was in front on me. The gate appeared to be in front of me, at the end of the shaft. I felt like everybody was to walk through that gate.

Our host, Pastor David Lee, walked through the gate and he started saying, “Choo-choo-choo. Wu-wu. Choo-choo-choo. Wu-wu.” Then he looked at me and said, “I do not do this. Choo-choo-choo. Wu-wu.” He then stomped around the room like a child pretending to be choo-choo train, unable to refrain from acting like a train. Those in attendance at the school started grabbing hold of him like he was the engine of a train. Revelation and understanding came. I realized that the Lord was giving us a prophetic picture of power, the power of a train.

I came home and prepared for my next ministry trip to Ashville, North Carolina. A man named Jim emailed me and said, “I am seeing a vision of a table with ten people around it.” He said, “I do not believe they are Elders, I believe they are something else.” And then he asked, “What are they?” I responded, “I do not have a clue.”

While in Asheville, we were invited for dinner at a spectacular mountain home. Several were invited to come, some came and others were not able to come. The lady of the house prepared an extraordinary dinner. As we sat down at the table I counted the number present. There were ten!

As we were eating, Jim started having a vision. Jim said, “I see ten men with staffs. This is the place where you declare. I do not sense they are judges, I sense they are legislating to ratify decisions you make that are in line with the Word and Will of God.” I began feeling this same “raw” power that I had felt since the first Heaven Trek. We started praying and I asked the Lord, “Who are these beings?” I heard the Lord say, “These are rulers.” I then “knew” that these rulers hold staffs. Then I said, “What do these rulers do?” Jim said, “If your declarations are according to the will of God, they pound their staff.” What is decreed here is done! No more discussion.

Up to this point, the Lord had given me no discernment about the rulers. New understanding was about to be released. Rulers are mentioned in Ephesians 3:10-13 and I Corinthians 2:6-8

to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities [rulers] and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Why are there ten rulers? I remembered that for the last twenty years I kept getting the phrase, “for the sake of ten I will do it.” Over and over again since 1989 ten people would show up at our house. Sometimes we would have nine people show up and we would say, “There will be one more.” And one more person would arrive. As the Lord worked in power in my life I finally said to the Lord, “I no longer care how many people come to church. All I ask is there would be at least ten that really want what You want!

When the Lord first revealed to me that all the spiritual beings that He had taught me to discern were in the Tabernacle, I had no revelation about the Table of Showbread. I know from Scripture that on the Table of Showbread there are twelve loaves of bread. I now believe that the ten Spiritual Rulers sit around this table in the Heavenly Tabernacle. Jesus is the Chief Ruler so He is one of the ten and is at the head of the Table. The throne of God is the Ark of the Covenant. If God sits on the Ark facing the wall, then Jesus would be at His right hand side. I believe that when decisions are made at the Throne of God, these decisions then pass by the Rulers at the Table of Showbread. The Rulers then translate these decisions into decrees. This is the place of extreme power, supernatural power. It would appear that there is something very powerful about these Rulers.

When we were in Ashville, during one of the morning session of the school, I looked at everybody and it looked like each of them were out of focus. It was very strange. I walked over to a person and I could feel something like a Plexiglas plate in front of his face. I remembered 1 Corinthians 12: “we look through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” I had always believed that the face to face was when you die. Perhaps this was not so. We asked the Lord to remove the Plexiglas and that was when we started to experience that same incredible power I had previously sensed.

Look at John 6:35- “And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the Bread of Life’.” Now remember, the Table of Showbread had twelve loaves of bread. The bread was changed every Sabbath and it was the food of the priests. The priest would stand around the table and they would eat of the Bread of Life. I believe Jesus had the Table of Shewbread in mind when He said, “I am the Bread of Life.” Jesus also said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The teachers of the Jewish law had said that the place of the Brazen Altar and the Laver was “the Way.” The Holy Place was “the Truth.” The Holy of Holies was “the Life.” Therefore when Jesus declared He was the “way, the truth, and the Life,” it was clear to the Jews that Jesus was declaring he was the Tabernacle!

Now He says, “I am the bread of life.” I am the Table of Shewwbread. “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But, I say to you that you have seen Me and yet you do not believe Me. All the Father gives Me will come to Me and the one who comes to Me will by no means be cast out.”

The Jews were very impacted by this statement of Jesus: “The Jews then complained about Him, because He had said, “I am the bread which comes down from heaven.” They said to Him, “Is this not Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus continues:

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.’ The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves saying, ‘How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day for My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven – not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.'”

Now this is a very difficult passage. It says as you eat of the flesh of Jesus and you drink of His blood. It is so difficult that in v. 66 “From that time many of the disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” Even though these were difficult words, Jesus was clear; He is the bread of life.

After Asheville, I returned to my home in Hesperia, California. We were holding a meeting in a local church. When the service began, the power of God fell on me and I discerned the rulers even stronger than I had before. I was literally forced to lay down on the chairs in front of the church. Unable to move, I told our guess speaker, Pastor Patti Velotta that she would have to take over as I was unable to get up from the chairs. It was later that I realized that the Lord was giving me new insight about Psalm 23.

I now believe that Psalm 23 may be all about the Rulers and the Table of Showbread. Let’s look at Psalm 23, now, in a totally different light. Remember the Rulers hold the staff. Who holds the staff? The shepherds. Who is the Great Shepherd? Jesus. Jesus, the Great Shepherd, sits at the Table of Showbread because He is the Bread of Life. He is all we need! “I shall not want.” “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Why do you not want? In Christ you have abundance of provision.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures. As I was lying there, I felt like the Lord said to me, “You are now going to minister from the state of rest.” In other words, I cannot do anything; I cannot even talk, so I am leading from the rest. I looked over at Pastor Patti and said, “You can do whatever you want, I cannot do anything.” Do you see this? He makes me lie down. He did. He made me lie down and it was really good. I was under the power of God. I was leading from the rest.

He leads me beside the still waters. There is no turbulence. You know, sheep will only drink from still water. They will not drink from running water.

“He restores my soul.” This is a place of restoration.

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness.” This is the path of righteousness, the ancient path that we are to return to.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” There is an amazing thing about my discernment when I am in this heavenly place at the Table of Shewbread. I can discern no evil. All I can feel is the supernatural power of the Glory of the Lord. Therefore, literally a “Table (the Table of Shewbread) is prepared before me in the very presence of my enemies.” Although the Table is in the presence of evil, there is no awareness of that evil because of His supernatural presence.

“You anoint my head with oil.” While in this heavenly place you can feel the anointing of the Lord like oil on your head! This is for me an indication that I am in a heavenly place. The anointing is so strong you will be like an “overflowing cup.” ‘My cup overflows.”

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.” I suddenly had a thought, “What if Goodness and Mercy were Rulers right behind a person?” I had someone stand and found this seemed to be true! Goodness and Mercy were following each person! What about the names of the other Rulers? Possible they are Love, Joy, Peace, Righteousness, Justice, Power, Authority, and Jesus. He is the Chief Ruler.

The Table of Shewbread is the place of reigning and ruling. Perhaps this is the place of revelation of the sons of God. This is where the sons of God are supposed to be. The decisions are made in the Throne Room of God and they are then decreed by the Rulers. This is a place outside of linear time. It has already happened here. God on His Throne makes decisions. The Rulers speak out the decisions. We as the “revealed sons of God” then enter into agreement with those decrees.

So after the Lord had given us this revelation I thought I wanted to go back and see what the Greek word “Rulers” actually means. So I did some investigation. The Greek way is arche. It means “beginning or origin, the person or thing that commences the first person or thing in a series, the leader. I was amazed! This is exactly what the Lord had told us! The Rulers were the “first” to make a decree! My surprise was to increase! Another definition of arche is “supernatural power.” This is exactly what I had experienced each time I had discerned the Rulers. The power is so great that when individuals encounter the Rulers, they find themselves going through a deeper level of deliverance.

In June 2008, we were in London. I was speaking about the Rulers and these words came.

“It’s a time line. It takes you back into the right time. It synchronizes you to redeem your lost heritage, to redeem what was stolen from you: land, finances, giftings, children. You can claim back what rightly belongs to you. Judgment has been made against your enemies. They dare not come against you. It is the Rulers that open the gates for you. This is your time; the treasures of heaven are laid up for you. Take hold of it, it is yours.

This is the narrow way. You thought it has been narrow before, but it is narrower. I have prepared the way for abundant life. Are you ready to come? The Rulers will open the door. Narrow is the way and only those who choose the narrow way will have abundant life.

The Shepherd is calling His sheep through the narrow gate. The Shepherd is raising a staff to come through the gate.”

Now I don’t know if you know this, but the shepherd would hold his staff over the gate and the sheep would pass under the rod in which case the shepherd would inspect the sheep to make sure that they were alright as they went through the gate.

“The Shepherd is raising the staff to come through the gate. You will go through the gate under His rod. He will inspect each one of you as you go through the gate. He will cleanse and wash you and take away everything that hinders you. The Shepherd is calling you. The fulfillment of time is here. Do not delay. Do not hinder the call of the Shepherd. He really loves you.

It is the crossroads. Ask for the ancient pathways. It is the path of righteousness that grows brighter and brighter to the full light of day. It is the narrow way, the ancient way to the origin. It is at the origin that the sons of God are revealed. Walk the line. Prepare the way for the sons of God to be revealed. The sons lead to the Father for His Name’s sake Justice for the gate of judgment. Let the son come through past the Shepherd’s rod. It is in the origin that you were knit together. The hope of glory is at hand.”

There is a movement from where we are to where we are to be in the Spirit. Somehow in the Spirit we come from the broad way through a narrow way into the place where the Rulers are at the Table of Shewbread. Perhaps this is indicated in Job 36:16. “He is wooing you from the jaws of distress (the narrow way) to a spacious place free from restriction to the comfort of your “table” laden with choice food.” He is wooing you and me from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from any restriction to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.

For years I had pondered why the power of God had hit me so strongly while watching the Star Trek movie. Suddenly, after the revelation about the Rulers, I knew what the Lord was prophetically showing me. The Lord was opening up new revelation about the heavenly realms. These were new places of supernatural power. We were to “boldly go where God wanted us to go.” There were many more places that we were to go on our Heaven Trek.

Ephesians 3:10-13
1 Corinthians 2:6-8
Genesis 18:32.
New International Version