Apostolic-Prophetic Branding
Apostolic-Prophetic Branding
"There are two great words that I guard with a fierce jealousy, namely prophetic and apostolic...And if these two words are ruined, cheapened, made merchandise of, lose their meaning, or are made to stand for something that God did not intend, then we have lost our foundations." (Art Katz 1929-2007)
Today the word "branding" is a marketing, rather than a Wild West term. It represents "the sum total of a company's value, including products, services, people, advertising, positioning and culture". It seems to be the thing in the West for businesses and institutions (including churches) to "re-brand" from time to time. They appear to be motivated by the desire and need to guarantee the capture of their share of the market and therefore the money. Contemporary churches seem unabashed in their pursuit of fame and fortune along these lines, happily paying for the services of high-powered market researchers and ad men.
So what? Big deal! Well in the very hour when the identity of the Church's foundations (i.e. His apostles and prophets...Ephesians 2.19-22)is of ultimate, crucial importance, it is evident that these "identities" are actually being formed more by the values of this world, than by God and according to His Word.
The world decrees that the Church's "foundation stones" (leaders) ought to be celebrities, with an abundance of power and success, fame and fortune. The Bible has ordained that God's apostles and prophets be recognised by the manifestation and working of His resurrection life out of their own death. Thus the Apostle Paul describes his vocation, "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." (2 Corinthians 4.10-12)
"Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of His Body, which is the Church." (Colossians 1.24)
Paul in fact staked his whole reputation as an apostle upon this, when he cried out against the Galatian church (which had itself been lured away from the Gospel by false apostles and prophets), "Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear in my body the marks ("stigma"...puncture wounds) of Jesus." (Galatians 6.17)
The authentic mark ("branding") of God upon the Church's true and Heaven-ordained leaders is visible and ongoing participation in the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. These ministries of resurrection life and power issue out of their sharing in His unjust and undeserved (and ongoing!) agonies on behalf of the world in Gethsemani and at the Cross.
"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53.5)
This authentic "branding" of the Church's true foundations has ever been so...foreshadowed in the Old Testament, to become reality in the New, "Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So that you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in His wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.' " (Luke 11.47-49)
The prophet with no name from Judah...no celebrity culture here!...(1 Kings 13)was ultimately vindicated by his own death, "Then he went out and found the body thrown down on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey...After burying him, he said to his sons, 'When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. For the message he declared by the Word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.' " (vss 28 and 31-32)
Before his explosive demonstration of the power of God on Mt. Carmel, the great Elijah lay buried in the grave-like crevasse of Cherith Brook. There he quenched his thirst from a failing creek and was provisioned by birds more noted for picking the flesh off dead men's bones, than acts of charity.
Elisha "performed" a miracle of restoring life to a dead man, from the grave, "Elisha died and was buried...Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood on his feet." (2 Kings 13.20-21)
Towering Isaiah's detailed and accurate foreseeing of Israel's Messiah ("He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth") was brought forth out of the furnace of personal affliction..."Just as My servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared..." (Isaiah 20)
Brooding Jeremiah "learned" his prophetical craft with death-threats hanging over his head and his "credentials" included a literal death and resurrection experience, "Then the official said to the king, 'This man (Jeremiah) should be put to death'...So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern (pit, dungeon, grave) of Malkijah, the king's son...They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud...Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace...He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. 'Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.' Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern." (Jeremiah 38.4-13)
This noble prophet (of a priestly family), whose visions and warnings span thousands of years, nevertheless experienced with God's People their foretold exile and correction, "(Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard) found Jeremiah bound in chains among all the captives from Jerusalem and Judah who were being carried into exile to Babylon." (Jeremiah 40.1)
(To truly visualise this, picture Jeremiah's face pressed up against the brutal grille of a wagon on one of Hitler's death trains!)
There never was any escape from this reality for these our dear, older brothers. Neither shall there be for the true and the genuine among us today.
In fact the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is "seen" by the Apostle John in The Revelation entirely in these terms in the 11th hour of this present Age, "Now when they (My two witnesses) have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will attack them and overpower them and kill them...for three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial...But after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them." (11.7-11)
Everybody wants to be an apostle...a prophet, but nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to see the dead raised, but no corpses are permitted to mess up our 59-minute meetings and 10-minute, cutsy-pie sermonettes.
"Anyone who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. He who receives you (the Twelve Apostles) receives Me, and he who receives Me receives the One who sent Me. Anyone who receives a prophet will receive a prophet's reward..." (Matthew 10.38-41)
And how are we to know such, so that we might receive them...and our reward? Clearly, according to The Prophet (Acts 3.22-23), such ones will have embraced their own death and lost their life for His sake.
The young prophet of the 20th C's first "pentecostal" revival, Evan Roberts, was written-off as being "insane", patronised by the ecclesiastical establishment for being "uneducated", and persecuted by the religious elite of that time for "heresy" (speaking in tongues!). Just one of these crosses would finish a good man off very quickly. Evan took up all three. But out of this young coal miner's daily dying, the Holy Spirit of God was pleased through 1904-05 to pour into the Welsh valleys abundant showers of soul-saving, Church-reforming, nation-renewing revival.
One of our time's most significant missionary-prayer movements (The Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus) was founded through the blood-stained diaries of the Saharan hermit, Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916). His vision of radical identification with the lost appeared to die with de Foucauld when he was executed with a shotgun blast by the "bandits" whose salvation he sought. A later generation "stumbled" upon him, recognised the "branding" of an authentic Christian prophet, then embraced and enacted his original dream.
He prayed, "Father, I abandon myself into Your hands. Do with me whatever You will. Whatever You may do, I thank You. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures."
And he wrote in his diary, "Remember you ought to die as a martyr...killed violently and painfully. Remember that your death must inevitably flow out of your life, and on that account, realise the insignificance of a great many things."
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves Me." (John 12.23-26)
In my own life it has been a privilege to observe first-hand the life and the doctrine of two prophets of God who stood head-and-shoulders above their clamorous peers...Art Katz (USA) and Muri Thompson (New Zealand). (See also "Absolutely Authentic") Neither was ever celebrated by the Christian establishment. Both were spurned by the particular group of people God sent them to. Each suffered having to watch the word of the Lord they carried and communicated, assigned to the "Too Hard" basket by the Church.
Far from such experiences posting a question-mark over these two men of God, I contend that they are in fact the proof of their authenticity.
(This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with and does not excuse the childish antics of those wanna-be "prophets", who behave in foolish and provocative ways, deliberately designed to trigger their richly deserved rejection by the Church.)
"That I may know Him (Christ) and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own." (Philippians 3.10-12)
"But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." (1 Peter 4.13-14)
