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By your words I can see where I'm going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path. I've committed myself and I'll never turn back from living by your righteous order.
Psalm 119:105-106 (MSG) |
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Matthew 16:17-19 - Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and (1) on this rock I will build my church, and
(2) the gates of Hell will not overcome it. (3) I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Before I began my training in inner healing ministry, I had not given much thought to a large portion of this verse. I know there has been a lot of controversy as to what Jesus was going to build his church upon, but I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the verse. This verse is a key God has given to us and it is vital that we understand what He is telling us.
This truth removes any claims that any particular denomination is the only true church. The true church is the body of believers who hold fast to the belief that the Word of God is true, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and with constant reliance on the Holy Spirit, they pursue an intimate relationship with Jesus while practicing the Word relentlessly. This truth also removes any idea that Jesus intended for Peter to be the head of the church. That position was reserved for Jesus Christ alone. Colossians 1:15-18 – He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. Note: thrones, powers, rulers and authorities are all different levels of authority in the invisible realm, both the angelic and the demonic realm.
But I never thought to ask, “What are the gates of hell?” Somehow I envisioned them as offensive weapons that would be used against the church to intimidate us in an attempt to keep us from fulfilling the great commission. But the gates of hell are actually access points into the soul that provide satan with a legal right to construct a defensive fortification (a stronghold) so he can hold the person captive and keep them from living a life of liberty in Jesus Christ. The Church was given an assignment. We were called and chosen to move beyond the elementary teachings (Hebrews 6:1-2) and to move out onto the battlefield where we are to engage the enemy and rescue those who are perishing. Unfortunately, the Church in general, has failed to carry out the orders given to us by our Commander in Chief. Instead, we have chosen to camp out on the elementary teachings: salvation, faith in God, baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. This has become our comfort zone; it is familiar; it is our safe place; there is no risk involved there. It takes courage and fortitude, dependence on divine strategies and spiritually powerful, offensive weapons to engage the enemy in battle; but that is what we are called to do – 24/7/365 – everywhere we are – first in our own minds, then in our homes, in our workplaces, and even in the church! We’ve also learned that the soul is the access point through which satan breaks down our physical body’s defenses. An unhealed wound in the soul is guarded by a stronghold, and the unhealed wound gives satan legal permission to inflict our bodies with sickness, disease and infirmity. Conversely, when the wounds in the soul are uncovered and dealt with, the physical manifestation in our body is healing and deliverance. To help us remember the names of the gates of hell – and how satan gains access into our souls, we have an acronym: LIST
Psalm 144:11 (TPT) – Deliver me and save me from these dark powers who speak nothing but lies. Their words are pure deceit and you can’t trust anything they say. Lies are the things we believe about ourselves, about others, and about God that are contrary to what God says about us, about others and about Himself. From the moment of our conception, lies program and directly affect our perception of our identity, our earthly relationships, and our relationship with God. Lies come into our minds through our eyes (the things we have seen) and our ears (the things we have heard) and they have a devastating effect on our emotions which results in the destruction of our self-control (will). All three parts of the soul – the mind, the will and the emotions - are adversely affected by the lies we have believed. We do not get very far into reading the Bible before we are confronted with the introduction of the lie into the pristine Creation God had just completed. The serpent was described as being “more crafty (subtle, shrewd) than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.” (Genesis 3:1) The primary weapon the serpent used to destroy God’s creation was the lie. The target of his weapon was the destruction of our identity (our soul). Satan approached Eve, not Adam, because Eve’s relationship with God was through her husband while Adam’s relationship with God pre-dated Eve’s creation. So satan looked for an opportunity to trap the one he considered “weaker”. His approach was subtle. He came as a benevolent friend who seemed to be interested only in what was best for Eve. He appealed to her senses: what she had heard, what she had seen, what she could taste, what she could smell, what she could touch. He brought down the woman’s defenses and then betrayed her with his lies that challenged the truth about her identity and about who God really is. Genesis 3:1 - Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? He was implying that she had misunderstood what God said (the LIE: she was stupid). He was implying that God didn’t really mean what she thought He meant. (the LIE: not only was she stupid, she was totally incapable of understanding) Genesis 3:4-5 - You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. In this verse, the serpent boldly called God a liar! Satan’s own nature is usually the basis of his accusations against others. John 8:44 - He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. By calling God a liar, satan implied that the woman was so inadequately informed that she had been easily deceived (the LIE: she was foolish to trust God). He implied that God had ulterior motives which reinforced the lies that she was stupid, she couldn’t trust God, and that God was withholding something valuable from her; and that communicated (the LIE: that she was not important to God), in fact, she was worthless. Eve’s sense of self-worth was crushed as she became the victim of these lies: I am stupid. I don’t have what it takes. I can’t trust anyone. I am worthless. The lies the serpent used against Eve are the same lies satan uses today to destroy our perception of who we are (our identity) and our perception of who God is. When we believe a lie, our emotions wrap themselves around the lie and we act out based on the false information. In “computerese”, we call this GIGO. Faulty programming produces false responses. The core of our being has been programmed from the moment of conception. It is necessary to expose and identify the faulty programming and completely rewire the mind, will and emotions with the Truth of God’s Word. The Gate of Iniquity Numbers 14:18 - The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin (avon [aw-vone'] – iniquity, Strong’s 5771) of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Iniquity is the sin that entered the world through Adam and has been passed down through all the generations who forgot God. Iniquities that have not been dealt with in any single generation continue to pass down through the bloodline. The iniquities will continue to be passed down until a generation arises who will deal with them through forgiveness and repentance. Iniquities are often hidden behind strong defensive fortifications with a gatekeeper in charge of what goes in and what goes out. Iniquities predispose the person to believe lies and commit sin. When we accept Jesus as our Savior (and we may be the first in our family to do so), all our sins are forgiven. But our sins and the sins of our ancestors have given birth to consequences which continue to wreak havoc in every generation until someone operates in the authority we have been given in Jesus Christ and deals with them. Luke 10:19 - I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. Mark 16:17, 18 - In my name they will drive out demons… they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. These verses clearly tell us that we have been given authority over the demonic spirits that have manipulated and troubled our family because of unrepentant sin from the time of Adam until now. If we take the time to think about it, we can all identify patterns of behavior that are consistent through each generation in our family. When we identify those patterns of behavior, we need to forgive and repent on behalf of our bloodline, take authority over the demonic influences that have manipulated the generations, and bind them together. Then because these patterns of negative behavior are passed down through the blood line, we blood link them together with the ancestral demon who carries the family name, and we roll them all the way back to Adam, declaring that that pattern of behavior has been cut off in our bloodline and can no longer flow down through the generations to come. Why do we blood link the demonic influences together with the ancestral demon who carries the family name? Because when we are dealing with iniquities, we are not only dealing with the lower level agents whose assignment it is to continue to wreak havoc in this family, but we are also dealing with the hierarchy of the demonic who gave the lower level demons that assignment, and the ancestral demons are at the top of the list; they have a greater level of authority in the demonic realm. It is necessary to destroy the head and not limit ourselves to cutting off the tail. Where do we find this strategy in the Bible? Joshua 3:15-16 - Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam… while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. Once we deal with the iniquities in our bloodline, those iniquities have no further force or effect in our lives or in the lives of our children. The Gate of Sin James 2:10 - If we have broken even one of God’s laws, we are guilty of having transgressed the whole law. God has given us a way out of the bondage caused by sin through confession, forgiveness and repentance. At the cross, all our sins were forgiven – even the ones that had not yet been committed! But we have to appropriate (to take exclusive possession of) that forgiveness through acknowledging our sin to God, asking Him for forgiveness and then walking in repentance (our behavior has to change). The gate of sin has to do with our own actions, unlike the gate of iniquities which is dealing with the actions of our ancestors that have continued to be passed down through the bloodline until someone in that bloodline stands in the authority of Jesus Christ and deals with them. At the moment of our conversion, our sins are forgiven and the guilt of our sins has been removed as far away as the east is from the west. Though our sins are no longer held against us by a holy God, we must deal with the consequences of our sins. Although as Christians, we may sometimes sin, sin is not to be our habitual behavior. We need to remember that when we talk about sin, we are not talking about our identity. We are not “sinners saved by grace.” That is what we once were. Our new identity is clearly stated in the following verse: 1 Peter 2:9 - But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. When we are talking about sin, we are talking about behavior. Our identity is secure in Christ, but our behavior is what the Holy Spirit is working on through the process of sanctification. For our behavior to change, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We must get another way of thinking. We don’t have to look far to find that new way of thinking. 1 Corinthians 2:16 - But we have the mind of Christ. We must, therefore, use what we have so that we learn to think like God thinks. We must learn a new language – a new way of speaking about ourselves, about others and about God. And we must practice a new way of walking (behavior). 1 Corinthians 13:11 - When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. We must move from our limited perspective to seeing through God’s eyes. Our beliefs, attitudes, and actions will be changed as we allow the Holy Spirit to complete His work in us. What we once believed, we must allow the Truth of God’s Word to challenge, bathing those things with light so that our thoughts, attitudes and actions are conformed to the Person of Jesus Christ. The Bible is very clear about what constitutes sin. If the Bible says to get rid of it, we need to get rid of it. Please note that the writer of the letters to the Galations and Colossians was writing to the CHURCH, not to unbelievers! Galations 5:19-20 - The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Colossians 3:5, 8-9 - Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. …Rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other. We are supposed to get rid of – that means to deal with and turn away from – all of these things so that our witness to the world of who Jesus is will not be compromised by our sinful activities. Sadly, the Church has not followed God’s instructions because these specific sins are rampant within the Church today. They are not only tolerated but they are also practiced by the leaders as well as the congregation within the Church! Whatever the leadership in the Church is engaged in opens a door for that same behavior to become commonplace among the brethren and provides a safe and comfortable place for the demonic to carry out their assignments against the body of Christ. It is no wonder that the Church is wallowing in ineffectiveness and has become more conformed to the image of the world than to the image of God as modeled through the life of Jesus Christ. In His mercy, God has given us a way out of the sinful practices we have engaged in. Jesus blood covered all our sins at the cross; but we must daily bring any sinful behavior before the Lord and acknowledge the sin as sin, ask for forgiveness, and repent which means turn around and go in the other direction. Acts 3:19 - Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. Luke 15:10 - I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. When we deal with the sin in our lives, all of heaven throws a party to celebrate! Talk about making God happy! The Gate of Trauma 1 Peter 5:8 - Satan prowls around like a roaring lion looking for whom he can devour. He preys on the young, the old, the sick, and the weak much as a wolf preys on a flock of sheep. The weak are those who isolate themselves from a vibrant relationship with God and with other believers. If satan can separate us from the Shepherd and from the rest of the flock, he can bring us down. Trauma not only affects the physical body but it also opens a gate through which demonic agents gain access to the soul. When our guard is down, that is when the enemy invades. We may not even be aware that this has occurred. A change in the pattern of our behavior is the evidence we look for. Every trauma we will ever experience, Jesus experienced in His life on earth. We can never say, “No one has suffered like I have suffered.” Isaiah 53:1-9 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. (That says He was vulnerable.) He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (That says he was the kind of guy people didn’t notice because he didn’t meet their standards.) He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. (He suffered from constant rejection from everyone, even from own family.) Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (People looked down on Him; they considered Him worthless.) Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. (People judged Him, believing He had missed the mark, and was therefore unworthy of being loved.) 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. (He suffered the trauma of physical, mental and emotional pain; He suffered wounds in His soul.) He was oppressed and afflicted, yet 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. (He was wounded inside and out by the lies they told about Him as they falsely accused Him.) By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. (He suffered the trauma of being considered as insignificant, His life didn’t matter to anyone, and He was judged guilty based on false accusations because no one stood up for Him.) And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. (He was innocent, but His rights were not considered; He was unfairly punished for what others had done.) He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. (He was considered worthless, like trash to be thrown away. The liars prevailed against Him.) Trauma can begin as early as conception. Science has now been able to detect a spark of light that coincides with conception. At that moment, God assigns to the baby an angel of heaven whose task it is to watch over the baby and carry Divine messages that are intended to encourage the child in the development of the knowledge of his own identity. The demonic realm also sees the spark of light, and satan assigns to the baby an agent of hell whose task it is to thwart God’s purposes in that child. Trauma in the womb may originate with an abortion, a miscarriage, or through a medical procedure (D&C). Trauma in the womb before conception can affect the development of a baby who is subsequently conceived. Trauma can also come through the attitudes of the mother that are transmitted to the baby through the blood of the placenta. Babies in the womb hear and feel what is going on around them and because of the advances in medical technology we can now see those effects. Negative words spoken within the hearing of the developing baby can result in a child experiencing rejection from within the womb. Trauma can be a real physical event, or it can be an emotional response to the crushing words that are often spoken without thinking, or the harmful actions of someone we once trusted. We are familiar with the term PTSD. Trauma affects how we perceive events of the past and the people around us. Excruciating pain can be evidence of a traumatic memory. Trauma reinforces the lies we have believed. The healing of trauma requires an exchange be made: the pain of the event placed in the hands of the Father in exchange for His perspective, His compassion, and His healing. Forgiveness of the person(s) involved and repentance of how we allowed the trauma to affect us are also crucial steps toward complete inner healing. Possessing the Gates of our Enemies In Genesis 22:17, God spoke this promise concerning Abraham’s offspring: “Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies.” Later in Genesis 24:60, the family of Rebekah who would become the mother of Jacob and Esau blessed her with these words, “may your offspring possess the gates of their enemies.” The word translated “possess and possession” in these two verses is the Hebrew word yarash (yaw-rash') which means “to take possession of, especially by force; to have as a possession, often with the collateral idea of taking in place of others (Strong’s 3423). God’s plan was that we, the Church – Abraham’s descendents and Rebekah’s offspring - would possess the gates of our enemies. I don’t believe He intended for us to think of this as just the gates of physical enemies because in Ephesians 6:12 He told us that our battle was not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. When Jesus drove out demons, He was possessing the gates of the enemy. The people around Him were confused about what He was doing so they accused him of being Beelzebub. This is how He responded: Matthew 12:25-26, 28-29 – “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?...But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house.” Jesus was delivering on the promise God made to Abraham and the blessing spoken over Rebekah. He was declaring that satan’s dominion had been replaced by a greater Kingdom and the Kingdom of God would prevail over all of satan’s defenses. Jesus was also giving us strategies that we were to employ so that we could do what He did. How do we possess the gates of our enemies?
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