HOW TO SILENCE THE GATES OF HELL

HOW TO SILENCE THE GATES OF HELL AND SET CAPTIVES FREE

MAIN TEXTS: MATTHEW 16:18, ACTS 4:23-31

 Jesus asked His disciples to make disciples of all nations. The leaders of an unbelieving nation (people in land under one government) or tribe (a society or division of a society whose members have ancestry, customs, beliefs, and leadership in common) invariably develop systems by which they lord over their people (See Mat 20:24-25). The systems of bondage usually include belief systems, by which the leaders claim supernatural rights that their people are made to believe they have neither right nor capacity to challenge. The leaders themselves may not believe in the efficacy or integrity of these belief systems, but since they serve their purpose of oppression they defend them to the hilt. When any type of liberation for their people approach, they like to convince them that that their de facto rule is better and that they should rather rise up against the oncoming interventions. This is because they feel that when their peoples are empowered their insincere means of existence will be dismantled.

THE GOSPEL THREATENS INSINCERE SYSTEMS
The Gospel of Jesus Christ liberates and empowers. Therefore, often when it is being introduced to the people of a nation or tribe, the de facto systems tend to rise against it. Unlike other liberating systems however, the Gospel does not attack the oppressive force of the nations with arms or other morally harmful means.

THE GATES OF HELL
We may safely identify the systems that work on keeping the Gospel of Jesus Christ out of tribes and nations as the Gates of Hell Jesus referred to in Matthew 16:18.  At least two reasons would justify this identification. Gates are the entry points of walled entities that determines who will go in and who will go out. Nations that have systems that seek to determine who can come to Christ and who cannot therefore seek to regulate who can go to hell and who cannot. Also, gates in the Bible were places where the power brokers met and transacted business among themselves and traded with the outside world. They therefore represented the systems that regulated external influences, and people in charge could tended to profit off their people by keep them in the dark as to the real state of external benefits.

THE CHURCH IS UNSTOPPABLE
Jesus said the Gates of Hell cannot not keep His Church out forever. He paid for every soul with his death and His church has both the capacity and the strategy to dismantle the oppressive power of the Gates and make the captives go free (See also Luke 4:18-19). The Church displayed this capacity and outlined the strategy at the very first Gate of Hell identified and dismantled in Scripture, surprisingly, at where Jesus was born. As the Kingdom of God, advanced, it suffered violence: Men of violence sought to silence it by force through threatening, beatings and killings (See Acts 4:1, 8:1, 9:1, and 12:1). Invariable, these men of violence were not ordinary persons, but the power brokers of the state.

A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY
An immediate and reflexive response to the violent opposition to the Church would have been fear  or loss of faith (as in the case of John the Baptist in Matthew 11:3) followed by attack, in so ca-called self-defense, just as Peter did in the garden, when Jesus was arrested (Mat 26:51-52). Jesus warned that perpetrating violence for the sake of the Church was completely off-course. He had already taught the Kingdom principle of loving enemies and praying for persecutors (Matt. 5:  43-45).

THE PERFECT STRATEGY
When the Elders, etc. sought to limit the Church’s liberation advance, the leaders returned to base to sharpen the three-phase strategy of bringing down the Gates which was already in force and had gotten the attention of the Gates in the first place:
1. Intercession
2. Interaction
3. Interpretation

INTERCESSION: Although the elders were angry and itching to take action in the manner they had done against Jesus, they were silenced because of the miracle that God had done among the people. When the disciples lifted prayer, therefore, they had no need to attack the Gates violently or call down fire upon them (as was suggested to Jesus some time ago by James and John in Luke 9:54). They saw that as the Lord stretched forth His hand to heal and perform other beneficial miracles among the people, they will feel His presence and liberating power themselves. And once this was done, the Gates will be impotent, for they will see done for the people things far better than the promises of good by which they have deceived and ruled the people. The prayed for the progress of the Gospel’s liberating grace.

INTERACTION: The miracle had happened because the disciples were living, walking and working among the people. They were even going to the Temple where the Jews met to worship. They did not separate themselves from the people. They interacted with them, just as Jesus had prayed for them in John 17:15. Because if this interaction, they needed to be kept pure as doves and wise as serpents (Matt. 10:16), wearing the full armour of God so as to be able to resist the deceptions of Satan and his cohorts (Eph. 6:11, 12). They prepared themselves therefore to walk in boldness which comes only through righteousness and the fullness of the Holy Spirit (See Pr 28:1, Acts 1: 8 and Ephesians 6:10-18). Because of their innocence with respect to violence, ill-will or anything whatsoever with respect to the law, they way able to point out the wickedness and deviation of the elders to their face. They could only continue to do this if they remained innocent, not partisan!

INTERPRETATION: If they prayed, and interacted with the people but did not explain the Good News to them, all their efforts would have come to nothing. The nature and the intentions of God concerning people have been with mankind since creation, but many have failed to take appropriate notice (Please read Romans 1:19-32). Many have replaced the excellence of God’s work with inferior beliefs that fall short of salvation, and yet many have believed a lie. It is the work of the disciple of Jesus to point out the full implications of what God has done for us, starting from their own efforts at reaching God. The Gospel has actually gone ahead of us in many formats, we only need to study hard to identify them and ground them in the Scripture. Almost every belief system has a symbol or name of Jesus, but in a way that stops short of proclaiming Him as the only Saviour and Lord. The disciples pointed this out to the elders and people and prayed and prepared to continue doing same.

WHAT TO DO:
1. Make intercession for sinners a priority in communal prayer. We must always pray that:
a. our focus remains on the commission,
b. we are filled with the Holy Spirit in order to remain bold,
c. and that Lord continues to move in healing and beneficial miracles that silence the systems
d. people who control the Gates may themselves be saved (See 1 Tim. 2:1-3)
2. Prepare to retain boldness as you interact with many people. Keep on the whole armor, up to your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You may be called upon to explain the hope that is in you at any moment and you should be ready (see Col. 4:5-6)
3. It is important to study the Scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15)
a. From the pure milk point of view, examine thoroughly whether what you hear is what is written (1Pe 2:2, Acts 17:10-11)
b. Know the shadows from the realities, noting the full implications of the shadows. Walk in the reality and encourage others to do same (Col 2:16-17, 1 Co. 10:11).
ASSIGNMENT: Discuss Gospel from the viewpoint of 1 Cor. 15: 54-56