Midwife Generation
Midwife Generation
"But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live...So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them." (Ex 1.15-22)
I have in recent weeks prophesied over two young women (one in Wellington, NZ...and the other in Sydney, Australia). Both, it transpired, are in their 20s and are midwives. I attach the greatest prophetic significance to these characteristics, and therefore "see":
(1) The Church's current rising generation has been marked out by God for a particular and special task and responsibility when they "come of age" in a few years time. It is my personal and firmly-held view that at any given time, three generations are present for the Lord in His Church:
(a) 0-30 years, who are the "apprentice" generation;
(b) 30-60 years, who are the "leadership" generation;
(c) 60-? years, who are the "parent" (fathers and mothers) generation.
"I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one." (1 Jn 2.13-15)
It is very important to never ever straitjacket any Christian generation with jargon, cliche or caricatures. Nevertheless, generations will display certain qualities and characteristics which correspond to their particular and peculiar destiny; those gifts and callings of God which "marry" a generation to their unique time and responsibility.
(2) The generation which is even now on the cusp of transitioning from "apprenticeship" to "leadership" is going to be as a midwife to the Church for God. A midwife is literally "one who is with the mother"...there for her especially! Therefore I anticipate men and women whose principle thought and concern will be for the growth and welfare of the Body of Christ...rather than for themselves and their own religious and material advantage and aggrandisement.
Hence, they will be enabled by the Cross and a well-cultivated and well-developed selflessness, to defeat the desires and designs of the "king of Egypt", who ever seeks the destruction of the Lord's salvation-purposes...most especially in the days of their vulnerable "infancy".
"And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour the child." (Rev 12.4)
"Take the Child and His mother and flee...for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him." (Mt 2.13)
(3) It is my profoundest desire and greatest expectation that this rising generation will (by the power of the Holy Spirit of grace and supplications - Zechariah 12.10) attend to, support and facilitate the birth of the Tribulation Church(1) (that "well ordered and well regulated common life, hinging and pivoting upon prayer"), and thus of the Messianic Age(2)!
Undoubtedly at birth the Tribulation Church (House of Prayer) appears unimpressive and feeble...a mewling, colicky disappointment. And yet through such the Lord is pleased to reveal Himself gloriously, rescue His House from crooks and swindlers, save all Israel, and call The Son from Heaven to His Throne on Mount Zion.
" 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." (2 Co 12.9)
"My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a robbers' den." (Mt 21.13)
"So all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from Zion, and He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.' " (Ro 11.26)
"For the Lord has chosen Zion...This is My resting place forever." (Ps 132.13-14)
(4) "And last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." (1 Co 15.8)
A quick flick through the world of Bible commentaries, quite rapidly reveals that understanding of this text is mired in contradiction and controversy. So, let me have-at-you (for the sake of that generation now waxing) out of left-field. I believe that the great Apostle Paul (agent of half of all NT Scripture) is describing his "condition"...of being completely out-of-step with his own generation, and yet absolutely vital and indispensable to it and to those yet to appear (especially the Last)!
History shall record that the "midwife" generation was likewise as "one untimely born"! Completely out-of-step with their religious contemporaries, and yet vital to both God and man. They must simply cling to the promises of Exodus 1, that as they continue in the fear and reverence of the Lord, He will be good to them, and the people (Church and Israel) will multiply and become very mighty. (vs 17-20)
Accusations of being anti-church and/or attempting to drag God's People back into ecclesiastical-liturgical bondages, will whistle and hiss about the "midwives' " ears, like so many bullets. But they will just have to fearlessly and stubbornly set their course and tramp it according to the "vision" and the 'blueprint".
For this reason many will discover themselves led by Jesus out into the "wilderness". Sometimes this will mean literal urban or rural deserts; at others the figurative-spiritual wastelands of incomprehension, rejection and even persecution.
That has ever and entirely been the history of the Church's prophetic-contemplative movement...from Elijah by "the brook Cherith", to John the Baptist a "child...in the deserts until the day of his public appearance", to the 4th C Desert Fathers and Mothers in Syrian and Egyptian wilds, to (in our own "day") Charles de Foucauld gunned down in the Sahara by those whose conversion he sought through intercession.
(In 1156, a Carthusian hermit wrote from the high mountains of SE France, "We unworthy and poor men of Christ who dwell in the deserts of Chartreuse for the love of the name of Jesus.")
Such planned or imposed hidden-ness or obscurity is in fact the Lord's secret weapon...for two reasons most graphically illustrated by Elijah the Tishbite:
"Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of Jordan." (1 Ki 17.3)
(i) Having announced (and in some respects triggered) a national crisis for Israel, the prophet is tucked away safely...to pray.
"Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain." (Jas 5.17)
Prayer is not a spectator-sport or an attention-obtaining device! (Even though some pray at length in public as if it is?)
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret (concealed and hidden) and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you." (Mt 6.6)
In the Lord's vocabulary, the words "prayer" and "obscurity" are synonyms. But sadly for too many Protestant flockers, they are antonyms. This is a crucially important part of our Biblical inheritance which we have to reclaim swiftly. "The secret place of the most High" (Ps 91.1) not only guarantees the security of the pray-er and the prayer house, it is also the environment and atmosphere for sustained and "effectual fervent" worship and intercession...corporate and personal. (Jas 5.16)
(ii) "Cherith" means "trench". It's really just a hole in the ground, and that's not only an ideal bolt-hole, but also the perfect place for the "death and resurrection" process which is the indispensable ingredient of all prophetic-contemplative journeys, events and processes.
"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (Jn 12.24 & Mt 13.31-32)
"When (Abraham) was but one I called him, then I blessed him and multiplied him." (Is 51.2)
The prophet precipitated a veritable explosion of resurrection-revival power and life atop Mount Carmel, only after he has "died" and "germinated" (seed-like) into prayer-incarnate in his "grave" out on the fringes of the Wilderness.
"That I may know Him (Christ)...being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Php 3.10-11)
Or as the Jewish contemplative-martyr, Edith Stein (1891-1942, Germany) so eloquently prophesied, "The more perfect (our) active and passive crucifixion may be, the more intimate will be the union with the Crucified and therefore the richer the participation in the Divine Life."
There are no short-cuts from prophesying in Ahab's palace to sparking national revival on Mount Carmel!
"What is buried in the earth, like a seed, in decay is raised imperishable...in glory...in power." (1 Co 15.42-44)
"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way.' " (Jn 14.6)
1) See www.thetribulationchurch.co.nz
2) "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him." (Mt 25.31-32)
"In the regeneration ('re-genesis') when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Mt 19.28)
