Apocalyptic Trauma [A presentation for the Ignite Prophetic Conference at One Church Merriwa 8.2.25]
“ I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide usfrom the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of theirwrath has come, and who can withstand it?”” (Rev 6:12-17)
A Note on Context
I returned early morning Thursday from my 5th visit to Myanmar. As expected, this trip was radically different from the others. Whilst I alone would stay 2 weekends and 10 days, two faithful brothers would precede me and one arrive later to accompany me on the final days. We knew that we would encounter traumatised people, (https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/healing-wounds-how-communities-are-tackling-trauma-in-post-coup-myanmar/), but I was unprepared for the shaking that would assail me personally (Heb 12:27-28). On the morning of 24 Feb I was unexpectedly greeted by a text asking, from my arranged travel companion, “Where are you?” I had become confused about dates and had missed my 1.10 am flight! Feeling foolish about my stupidity I started to pray and called Singapore Airlines. After various struggles, I eventually reached the right phone number and was politely informed that it would be several days before they could rearrange my schedule. This would effectively ruin the trip. As I waited for my info on the phone I became so desperate that I fell down on my knees and pleaded with the Lord for a remedy. The operator then said, “we can put you on a flight this afternoon so you will arrive in Yangon tomorrow morning at 9 am. (A mere 24 hours behind schedule, but no extra cost was entailed. A double miracle, PTL) “The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor 1:3) had demonstrated his sovereign graciousness once again. More traumas were to follow, which I will later recount, but the wider context for this teaching had been spectacularly set! To have sinned is to have been traumatised!
The Trauma of Fallenness
My text from Revelation 6 outlines the time coming of the dissolution of all things. Demonstrating this is the apostolic consensus, Peter prophesies as follows, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.” (2 Pet 3:10). As with the rest of the Bible, he advocates holiness and godliness as a necessary holy consequence of the imminent stripping away of all natural boundaries (2 Pet 3:11; cf. 1 John 3:3; Rev 16:15). Our passage (Rev 6) comes from what we Protestants call the Book of Revelation, but which older faith traditions often call, The Apocalypse. This manner of referring to the last, and often, and tragically, most avoided book of the Bible (cf. Rev 1:3; 22:7), comes from its very opening words, “The revelation (apokalypsis; Ἀποκάλυψις) of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John”. The entirety of The Apocalypse is its unique demonstration of the full and final revelation of the identity of the Incarnated Son of God! Chapter 6 pictures in dramatic symbolical form the removal of every conceivable boundary, every horizon disappears (cf. Apoc 20:11). When all celestial and terrestrial signposts are destroyed, pandemonium is released everywhere amongst all classes of people. This is the apocalyptic trauma already breaking in on the world where there can be “no new normal”.
Prophetic Trauma
From the existential threat arising from the submersion of South Sea islands to wars in Europe, Africa and Asia, trauma is all pervasive. Contextually, the 6th seal follows the global persecution of the 5th seal (Apoc 6:9-11) and precedes the blessed rest of the holy Church thereafter (Rev 7:1-17). What is often misunderstood is that within the “ascension gift ministries/APEPT” of Eph 4:7-16, apocalyptic trauma is always conveyed to the Church through prophets via the other set apart orders (AEPT). For the prophets, like apostles, touch all the other 5-fold ministries. Apocalyptic trauma is called to touch the whole Church prophetically! (This is what makes the prophetic gift perhaps the most uncomfortable calling in the body.) The spiritual goal of global apocalyptic trauma flows from its agonies. This is to manifest the exclusive universal Lordship of Jesus over “all things” in heaven and earth: “Jesus Christ is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36; cf. Matt 28:18; Luke 10:22; Rom 10:12). Paul teaches of both corporate and personal anguish in ministry, “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8:23), “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). (Such travails should not be limited to apostles, or females!) such prophetic agonises are signs of the empathetic impact of apocalyptic trauma on the whole Church.
Intercession
What is the suitable Spirit-filled response of a Holy Church to apocalyptic trauma? The essential reply is intercessory prayer. This follows not only from the repeated injunctions of the New Testament that “disciples.. ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1), “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people” (1 Tim 2:1), and the descriptions of The Apocalypse of heavenly prayer scenes (Apoc 5:8; 8:4). But it flows much more fundamentally (Christologically) from the ongoing perpetual prayer life of Jesus, “who always lives to make intercession for us” (Heb 7:25). The deeper our union as a Body/Bride with Christ the more we will be a people of prevailing intercessory prayer (Eph 6:18)! The key response of God’s people to his wrath outpoured on the earth (NOT ON THE CHURCH) is constant intercessory prayer (Zech 12:10).
Conclusion
Circumstances control most Christians. Australia is not like Myanmar with its regular power cuts and cruel military dictatorship, hence the prayer lives of the two nations are radically dissimilar. Looking to the testimony of Jesus in Scripture however (Rev 1:2, 9; 19:10), our lazy thinking is radically reframed (cf. Rom 12:1-2). In The Apocalypse, idolatry is treated as a problem of such proportions that the earth itself has become an object of idol worship. Following the perplexities (cf. Luke 21:25) of those obsessed and anxious with carbon induced climate change we are forced to note that the loss of the planet itself as a final refuge (from a holy God) is felt by lost souls to be unbearable. People really are under the universal “wrath of God revealed form heaven” (Rom 1:18). Such are the limitless dimensions of the divine holy war against an unholy world. Hence the cry goes up: “Fall on us and hide usfrom the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of theirwrath has come, and who can withstand it?”” (Rev 6:16-17) We, the Church, must intercede for such perishing mortals, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy”