Ultimate Foundations
Ultimate Foundations
"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do." (Ps 11.3)
"The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundations on the rock." (Mt 7.25)
"God's household, built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." (Eph 2.19-20)
In the Great Tribulation, on the eve of the Day, God is going to have an Ultimate Church in action upon the earth. But it will not be "ultimate" because of anything we might be in and of ourselves. The Last Church will be superlative and to the utmost, because it has been raised up on the paramount foundations "of the apostles and prophets"...both ancient and modern. (That is to say, the Church's original foundations of our "fathers" the Prophets of Israel, and the 1st generation of New Covenant Jewish Apostles...as well as the final generation of Jewish and Gentile apostles and prophets. This "last" will validate itself through its keen and vibrant sense of connected-ness to the entire and unbroken apostolic-prophetic continuum...stretching all the way back to the Patriarchs.)
In general terms I have been expounding and pressing hard for this for some years. Back in 2002 I wrote in "The Jerusalem Revival" essays, "The local churches and movements which are really going to survive and thrive through these Last Days of glory and fury will be those built on and growing out of...Ongoing, personal relationship with Holy Spirit ordained and yoked apostles and prophets, gifted to the Body of Christ directly by the Lord Jesus Himself...The stronger the foundations, the greater the House. The greater the House , the more immense the Glory. The more immense the Glory, the more profound the shaking of nations. And the more profound the shaking, the more colossal the Awakening." ("The True Foundations" pages 7-11)
But for these ultimate foundations to be authentic, their apostolic and prophetic elements have to be true, bona fide, legitimate...as opposed to synthetic or pseudo.
(At the moment, it is quite easy for just about anybody at all to claim whatever ministry title or ecclesiastical "crown" they may choose. But as the pressures of the Last Days mount and increase, their true constitution, composition and worth will be revealed as some very publicly crumble into rubble beneath the weight of the responsibilities and duties they have presumptuously and falsely assumed for themselves.
"In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury. I will tear down the wall you have covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundations will be laid bare. When it falls, you will be destroyed in it; and you will know that I am the Lord." Eze 13.13-14)
In the first instance, the "real" (as opposed to the "imaginary") apostles and prophets will be pre-eminently defined, installed, and vindicated by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as "the chief cornerstone"...because "in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord". (Eph 2.21) Thus, with Him, they will prove, in the long-run, to be foundational to the life of His whole Body in a particular nation or nations.
In addition, practically speaking, 2 Corinthians 12.12 and Jeremiah 28.9 draw sharp and accurate lines in the sand so far as apostolic and prophetic validity are concerned.
"The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles."
"When the word of a prophet comes to pass, then that prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent."
Nevertheless, my concern and object in this essay is to expound in as much detail as possible the current restoration of the contemplative ingredient back into the prophetic component of the true Church's true foundations. Without this, the whole prophetic phenomenon and "engine" is actually unable to function to a fraction of its God-ordained and given capacity. This is why at present in the Western Church prophetic ministry has been generally reduced to a cartoon or caricature...a mere sideshow of sensual saints, panting after another "personal word" to provide them with a shot in the arm to last until the next "prophetic" troupe comes to town.
This has happened because too many contemporary "prophets" want to deliver messages, and avoid at all costs the "bloody and sweaty" cost of becoming and being the message. Much of today's celebrated and feted Christianity is anti-incarnational, sanitized and compartmentalized. The "star" jets in for "show-time", scoops up the "love offering", and flies out...leaving what?
Where is that "embedded", "organic" prophet who is able to cry out as and with Jeremiah,
"My heart is broken within me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and his holy words." (23.9)
"When your words came, I ate them; they were a joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty." (15.16)
Where is Elijah who brings down the proud and sinful nation into the dust before the very face of Jehovah? Is he in the conference VIP lounge? Is he sitting up in Business Class? Is he watching a computer signing the next bulk mail-out of his glossy, fundraising brochure?
Elijah was rarely in the spotlight. Only ever fleetingly in Ahab's throne room. His stunningly effective and very public time atop Carmel was momentary. The prophet who had lived a life upon his face before God, was he who alone could cause all Israel in one day to crash face-first into the dirt, crying loudly, "The Lord, He is God; the Lord he is God." (1 Ki 18.39) In God, it is absolutely impossible to lead others into places where we have not ourselves first gone!
"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Gal 6.7)
"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." (Ps 126.5-6)
Elijah became a great reaper, because he was a prolific weeper. He became a false prophet slayer, because he was a Holy Ghost pray-er! "Standing before the people he pleaded for God" with mighty power and authority, because he had already given away his whole life "standing before God (where) he pleaded for his people." (1)
Elijah was a contemplative by nature and supernature; temperament and calling. Because of this, and his faithfulness to his own being and his "condition", he functioned effectively and efficiently in the role of the prophet. This office and ministry is being vitiated and diminished today, because of "short-cutters" who want to just function as prophetic people. So far as God is concerned this is just not possible. It is unworkable because He has ordered that the one who operates and "works" as a prophet, must "live" out of an interior life which is contemplative...one whose work is to prayer and whose prayer is their work. Their active, visible life is the spill-over and direct result of whatever they draw up out of the deep wells of their hidden life in, with and for Jesus. They just have to live this life come what may. Being seen and heard is of secondary importance to their vocation.
"We love the holy desert where separate strangers, hid in their disguises, have come to meet, by night, the quiet Christ." (Thomas Merton)
Such was Elijah, who is the archetype of the Tribulation-House of Prayer Church. (Mal 4.5)
"Elijah...prayed earnestly." (Jas 5.17)
Now what can it mean that Elijah prayed literally "with prayer"? Well, it means that he lived to pray, and he prayed to live; that he had (in the Biblical tradition) become prayer.
"But I prayer." (Ps 109.4 KJV)
"But I am prayer." (NASB)
(Note that in both of these verses, the italics "give myself unto" and "in" are additions on the part of the translators!)
In the same contemplative-prophetic tradition lived the Middle Eastern Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4th and 5th C's. They were led to flee "civilisation" upon the crowning of the Roman Emperor Constantine. They believed that his "legitimizing" of Christianity and the consequent "marriage" of the state and local church powers, would be a threat to God's contemplative "stream", and so they sought to preserve, maintain and develop it in its traditional habitat...the wilderness.
"And the child (John the Baptist) grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel." (Lk 1.80)
They knew what it meant and how to live to pray, and pray to live. One such, Joseph, was once being quizzed about the practical details of a life of prayer. In the middle of this dialogue he "stood up and spread out his hands to heaven, and his fingers shone like ten flames of fire, and he said, 'If you will, you can become all flame.' " (2)
When the angel of the Lord (whose name was "wonderful" and "beyond understanding") had finished visiting Samson's parents-to-be, he "ascended in the flame of the altar...when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar". (Jdg 13.20)
"For the Lord your God is a consuming fire." (Dt 4.24)
"Love...burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame." (SS 8.6)
"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled." (Lk 12.49)
"I will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." (Mt 3.11)
When, in the 14th C, Catherine of Siena (mystic, theologian and social activist) wrote, "It is enough to be on fire in order to cause other fires"...she was talking about the contemplative-prophetic continuum. She knew first-hand what it meant for prayer and the pray-er to be fused; when the flame and the lamp become indistinguishable.
Such a one might speak from time-to-time...but out of the overwhelming effulgence of God. Their identity does not lie in a title or a ministry. It is "hidden" in God Himself. That person's mind "entirely penetrated by the light of the Word...is raised above the judgements and opinions of the world, and in the light in which God has established (him), the foolishness of these things appears to it with a clearness which allows of no hesitation."
He "possesses God (&) in Him everything - the archangels, the grains of dust, the centuries past and to come...Thus transformed, the soul dominates the fluctuations of selfishness and interested complacences (self satisfaction)...His only aim and desire now is the greater glory of God, and it seeks with all its strength to serve Him". (3)
"Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan (secret counsel) to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared - who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken - who can but prophesy?" (Am 3.7-8)
"His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jer 20.9)
One of the three critically integral portions of the Ultimate Church's ultimate foundations, is the prophetic component. But the vital footing or base of that imperative foundation is the contemplative "stream" and life. That is why is has been marginalized throughout the centuries, and is generally scorned today as being "fringe" and unproductive.
If this utterly essential ingredient is absent (by neglect or design) then that particular foundation "stone" itself will be weak (at best) and fake (at worst). And this "hole" in the foundations will have a disastrous ripple-on effect through the whole of "God's household"...the Lord's "holy temple". (Eph 2.19-22) It is one reason why so many local churches are weak today and do not grow. But most critically of all, it is the cause of so much reproach falling upon God's holy prophetic unction, gift and Office. Any expression of the prophetic which is not solidly set upon a life of prayer is doomed at some time to crash into triviality, error, and even madness. "Prophets" (so called) ought not to be queuing up and vying for the microphone or a place on the podium or the "circuit". The true, authentic, bona fide will be somewhat reserved and restrained. They will have to be sought, discovered, winkled out.
"But when you pray go into your (secret) room, close (lock) the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen (in the secret place). Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (openly)." (Mt 6.6)
"I will give you...riches stored in secret places." (Isa 45.3)
"I will weep in secret." (Jer 13.17)
Prayer is not something Christians do dutifully and out of mere necessity before getting on with the "important" business. Because it is utterly foundational to Christian existence, it is totally foundational to the Church's foundations. This, to such an extent, that our foundational prophets will be those who discover sooner or later, that prayer is their life's blood and breath. If they will not learn to live to pray, then they will "die" or even die, because they have actually been called and ordained to pray to live.
Thus, the 20th C's greatest contemplative-prophet, Thomas Merton, could write, "God calls human persons to union with Himself and with one another in Christ, in the Church which is His mystical Body. There is and must be, in the Church, a contemplative life which has no other function than to realize these mysterious things, and return to God all the thanks and praise that human hearts can give Him."
(1) "The Prophets" by Abraham Joshua Heschel. Hendrickson Publishers, Massachusetts 2010.
(2) "The Desert Fathers" by Benedicta Ward. Penguin Books, London 2003.
(3) "The Blessed Trinity and the Supernatural Life" by Dom Jean-Baptiste Porion. www.transfiguration.chartreux.org/JBPorion
