Scripture reading: Matthew 16:13-20
The Bible records in Matthew 16:16-17 that when Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus answered him and said, “Blessed art thou…for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Then, it says that Jesus went on to say in verse 18, “…I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
What He said is very peculiar, for He did not say the “armies of hell,” but He said the “gates of hell.” You do not attack people with your gate. You do not do that unless you are in a defensive position and the people are attacking your gate. What Jesus actually said was that when the Christians move to attack, hell’s gates will not stand! Amen!
We saw the example of it with Samson. We read in Judges 16 that Samson got up at midnight while there were men behind the wall waiting for him. They were ready to jump him as he came through the gate. But by the time he got to the gate, the Spirit of God fell on him and he rushed upon the gate and took it off. It was nothing short of an earthquake for the men who were behind the gate. Samson shook the whole gate, pulled it backwards and out at the roots.
He was not that tall. You might be thinking that Samson was a man-mountain and that he lifted up the gate off its hinges. No! No! He pulled the gate out at the root, going backwards, and the men who were lying in ambush behind the wall fled for their lives.
Now Samson, in that section of the story, is a type of the Body of Christ that will rise at midnight out of the harlot’s house, out of the place of spiritual harlotry! Out of the place of mixture! Mixture! Mixing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the works of the devil. Mixing it with the words of the devil: half right/half wrong! Three-quarters right/one quarter wrong! You know what I am saying! God is going to redeem us from the harlot’s house by the Spirit of God falling on the Church at midnight.
I will tell you the secret. You cannot, overnight, get up and get the power of God to bring down the kingdom of the devil. Do you hear me? You cannot overnight just get up and say, “I am going to bring down the kingdom of Satan.” God did say you are going to bring it down, but it is not an overnight action. To understand what God is saying, look at the example when you take a gun in your hands. Let us say that you take a nine-millimeter gun and fire it. What happens inside of that gun? The first thing that gets the shock is the gun! The gun gets the shock (the recoil) of the bullet before the bullet can go forward to hit the enemy. If you do not have the fortitude in you, then how do you expect to overcome a devil with your words? Do you understand what I am saying, brethren? We will get help from God, but God wants us to be in a position to fight back.
(Excerpt from The Omega Message, January 1997, pg. 7-9)
Thought for today: Let us use the circumstances we find ourselves in to gain our strength in God and rise into a position where we will be able to attack the gates of hell and they shall not prevail against us.
Sonlight Devotional 
Leave a Reply