Bridal Church and Global Mission
Introduction
This prophetic word has a very specific context. On July 4 Last our major newspaper, The Sunday Times, ran a front-page headed, In Bad Faith, followed by a 3-page expose of Youth With a Mission concerning issues of sexual abuse. This was triggered by issues to do with the now convicted rapist Jarred Hayne who is a rugby player of international renown. Hayne is not the focus of this teaching, but his profile has significance (see below).
I think YWAM Perth is the largest most consistently missional group in our city. I have known the key leaders for decades, and many of my sister’s family trained through this ministry. The vendetta against YWAM continues, fuelled by those whose sexuality is opposed to traditional Christian values, but neither a simplistic defending of our YWAM brothers and sisters against the devil’s sorties (1 Pet 5:8), nor joining in the chorus of abuse aimed at them (Rev 12:10), has anything to do with what “the Spirit is saying to the Church in Perth” (Rev 2:7 etc.). understanding that when a part of the Body of Christ is attacked the whole Body in a city is attacked is attacked (1 Cor 12:26) we must look in the opposite direction to action of the evil spirits to sense that the Lord is speaking about a great and outstanding movement outward from Perth. As the first rains after a drought bring pollutants up to the surface of a river, the beginning of a flow of the river of God to the nations (Ps 46:4) is revealing shortcomings and sin in the Church. This should be to us a great encouragement, if we are up to its depths (Ezek 47).
Sex and a Holy Bride
The 3 biblical experts on marriage, Jesus (Matt 19:3-9), Paul (Eph 5:22-33) and John (Rev 19:6-10), were virgins. This testifies that marriage, and sexuality, are essentially spiritual realities. Praying recently I sensed the Lord saying he would deliver his Bride from pornography and other sexual immoralities through an experience of spiritual intimacy far deeper than anything sex can provide, inside or outside of marriage. An intimacy which can be described as “angelic” (Luke 20:34-36). This will fulfil the contrast between the “one flesh” of sex outside marriage and the “one spirit” in being joined to the Lord. Such powerful spiritual closeness takes place in the Church as the “temple of the Holy Spirit” as a foretaste of the joys of resurrection life (1 Cor 6:12-19). Hallelujah. This demands “profound” wisdom (Eph 5:32).
The context for prophetically interpreting the focus on sexuality in relation to YWAM (https://thewest.com.au/news/religion-and-belief/youth-with-a-mission-claims-ex-student-says-she-was-told-to-repent-for-suicide-attempt-after-gay-shaming-ng-b881917237z) is that sex beyond heterosexual marriage is a perversion of God’s original intention for humanity. This is not merely a politically correct cultural issue. The meaning of sex in marriage is “one flesh” as an icon of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31-32) so as to multiply godliness across the earth. “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their (marital) union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” (Mal 2:15 cf. Gen 1:28). Sex isn’t primarily for pleasure, man and woman are destined for one another a sign of our being destined for Christ (Eph 1:4) through the discipling of the multitudinous nations (Matt 28:18-20; Rev 5:9-10; 7:9). Nothing less than this is at stake in the attacks on YWAM/Church in Perth today
Bridal Mission
As the total message of Revelation is Christ’s call to the Church to be his faithful witness (Rev 1:2, 9,16; :9; 12:17; 19:10), then the “first love” call of Jesus to the churches is to reclaim this passion (Rev 2:4). Since bridal love is unquenchable and “as strong as death” (Song Songs 8:6-7) a new missions movement awakes an immersion in the mystery of a bridal spirituality that loves Jesus whatever the cost. The first great Protestant mission movement was birthed across the globe by a visitation of the Spirit amongst a tiny Moravian assembly in 1727. The cry that inspired the missionaries was, ““May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of his suffering.” The Lamb that is who shed his blood for a Bride still being gathered from across the world. Today there is a restirring of a host moved into mission by the restless love of being in communion with Jesus in a foretaste of his Bridal Supper (Rev 19). This community knows itself set apart first for her Betrothed before anything else. Jesus put it emphatically, ““If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27). This is hardly controversial, what then is the lesson of the Spirit for YWAM Perth and the Church in Perth?
A Fuller Wisdom
Aside from the media scrum, quite unexpectedly, ex-YWAMer’s have opened up to me about other sex scandals they sincerely believe were poorly dealt with in the Mission. And they shared in grief without bitterness. The confirmed unity of witness is that YWAM eldership lacked a breadth and maturity of wisdom to deal with a Haynes level scenario. Why? Since sexuality and spirituality are intimately connected in a way that spans the local and the global, then nothing less than the wisdom of a city eldership would be sufficient to deal with a man with a pre-existing international reputation for sexual misconduct entering our city as a disciple. The present scandal is a holy provocation to provoke the Church in Perth, for every city has a Church (Acts 8:1; 1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; 1 Thess 1:1; Rev 2:1 etc.) to seek and set up a city eldership (Acts 11:30; 20:17; Tit 1:5 cf. Ruth 4:2) that representatively embraces the full spectrum of the wisdom of God to disarm the perverse authority of the evil “rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). The primary qualification for such an eldership is exclusively living in the way of the cross. Without such a band of brothers and sisters of diverse (5-fold) gifting, the spiritual naivety of the Church is on par with sexual naivete of those so often prone to abuse. Babylon is a relentless Seducer (Rev 14:8; 18:3 cf. 2 Cor 11:1-3)! The cross is the one way forward.
Death to the Limits
Early this morning I was praying for a dying Christians man and was suddenly overwhelmed by sense of the vastness of eternity. I sensed this was a share in Jesus’ last call, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). Whoever allows the Spirit of the Bride-and -Bridegroom (Rev 22:17) to bring them to the threshold of death about anything and everything will be immersed in this awareness of the vastness of eternity and so moved to sacrifice all things for the mission of God. I “see” a vast throng emerging of those, mostly young, who are prayerfully offering their bodies as living sacrifices (Rom 12:1-2) forming a throng of worshippers of the Father in Spirit and Truth (John 4:24; 14:6). The praise of their lives laid down to Jesus will reach the ends of the earth through an unprecedented mission movement. This movement will “hold the note” (endure in breath and length) fulfilling the Antioch destiny of the Church in Perth through the gift of bridal unity many of us have long strived for.