The greatest light that this world has ever received has come through the church. From salvation to the development of democracy and the eradication of slavery, almost every great advance in the human condition over the last two thousand years can be directly traced to Christian truth and doctrine. Doors from heaven are now being opened to continue the advance of truth and righteousness. They are opening in order to empower the church to shut the gates of hell, represented by some of the significant issues of our times such as war, racism, murder, poverty, disease and the delusion of drugs.

Along with the doors from heaven that the church has opened, some of the most devastating gates of hell entered this world through the church. Before we can confront those in the world adequately, we must close those that are within our own midst. They cannot prevail if we will confront them, but until we do they will continue their deadly work.

The Man Of Sin

There should be little wonder that there is such ambivalence in the world towards the church as we have been the greatest source of both blessings and curses. The apostle Paul obviously perceived this when he described the man of sin as one “...who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (II Thessalonians 2:4 NKJV). The temple of God is no longer one that is made of hands—it is the church! The church has been the vehicle through which the Lord has been touching and blessing this world since His ascension. It has also been the place where the ultimate manifestation of evil has taken its seat, not only claiming to be from God, but God Himself. This is a critical understanding that we must have for these times. As a prelude to the ultimate manifestation of the man of sin, the great sins of man have been taking their place in the church, one by one, claiming to be from God, and much of the church has been deceived by each one.

The greatest truths to have influenced the world have come through the church. Likewise, some of the most diabolical doctrines and philosophies to assault the world have come through the church. The Lord Jesus forewarns us in the parable of the wheat and tares, that every time the Lord sows good seed in a field the enemy comes along and sows bad seed in the same field. There were destined to be tares mixed with the wheat as the Lord declared, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into My barn”’ (Matthew 13:30 NAS).

There is such a mixture in the church that the greatest good and the greatest evils are all coming out of her, but the Lord is about to separate them. He is going to make the evil obvious so that it can be rooted out without destroying the wheat. The first step in doing this is to identify the tares. To prepare for this great separation, we must each allow the Lord to search us and expose what He will. We must have the humility to straightforwardly acknowledge and confront our sins if we are going to be free of them. Those who try to cover them up will be counted with the tares. We must now heed Jeremiah’s warning:

“Therefore thus says the Lord, ‘If you return, then I will restore you—before Me you will stand; and if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become My spokesman “’(Jeremiah 15:19 NAS).

The Ultimate Enemy

The first gate of hell into this world came through the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Through this tree, death came into the world, and death is the last enemy to be overcome. Death is the “taproot” of that tree which nourishes all of the other roots of evil in the world. This original gate of hell is actually the source of all of the other gates. When this tree is uprooted from the earth, death will no longer have access to this world. Neither will the “good and evil” that is of a humanistic origin.

As I have written an entire book, There Were Two Trees In The Garden, concerning the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge and its conflict with the Tree of Life, I will not give it more attention here, other than to say that this is our ultimate battle. When this tree is uprooted from the earth Satan will have lost his access to man. When an individual has this tree uprooted from the garden of his life, the enemy, sin and death will no longer have access to him. The same is true of a congregation, city, or nation. The two trees in the Garden represent the ultimate point of conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God.

When digging up a tree it is important that all of the tentacle roots be dug up and removed as well. If even a single small tributary root remains in the ground it can sprout again and become another tree. Throughout the church age, many of the tributary roots have been found and loosened from the earth. However, there are still many large ones that must be removed before the main taproot, “death,” can be pulled out.

The Power Over Death

There are basic spiritual principles that must be implemented for every spiritual victory. The first is that the cross is the power of God (see I Corinthians 1:18). We only have true spiritual power to the degree that we embrace the cross. We will not know the power of God in our daily lives until we take up the cross daily. The cross actually represents death, but a righteous death. Death is the path to victory over death. If we have been crucified with Christ, having died to this world, then neither death nor the world can have dominion over us. It is impossible for a dead man to fear, to feel rejected, to have the pride of life. Just as Jesus overcame the world by dying for it, so must we.

If we have died to this world we will not fear death. However, we may have died to the world in some areas, but not in others. We may have come to the place where we would be willing to die for the gospel, but not for our families, our jobs, or even our ministries. As Spurgeon once lamented, “I can find ten men who will die for the Bible for every one who will read it!” We will not die a truly righteous death for anything that we will not also live for. That is why the taking up of our crosses must be “daily.” If we do not live for Jesus, what good would it do for us to die for Him? Such a mentality is the fruit of a deceptive religious spirit.

We are called to take ourselves and all that we have to the cross every single day. Whatever is not under the cross, whatever we will not freely give up every day, is a point that the enemy can use to gain access to our lives through fear and/or pride. This is why the Lord required Abraham to be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. Even the gifts of God can become the idols that eclipse God in our lives if they, too, do not remain under the cross.

However, it is also through death that we enter into the power of resurrection life. There is no greater liberty than to love, appreciate, and properly relate to people or things that we no longer bind to ourselves with the yokes of fear or pride. There is no greater freedom to love this world, and to love it properly, than when we have died to it.

When Jesus died to this world, He was then given dominion over it. We too must die to everything before we are given true spiritual authority over it. Until we have died to something, and are able to keep it under the cross, we will be incapable of exercising proper spiritual leadership over it. Only when a seed has fallen into the ground and died can it sprout to bear much fruit.

As we come to the end of this age, we will be facing a direct confrontation with the ultimate enemies of God and man. We will have no dominion over them if they still have dominion over us. Before we can drive these evil powers out of our cities, we must drive them out of our own lives, and then, out of our congregations.

Getting Closer To The Taproot

All of the smaller evil roots feed the main taproot of death. As we uproot each one, the grip of death is weakened. One of the main tributary roots that supports the taproot of death is racism. It is easy to see how much death enters the world through racism. War is the ultimate weapon of the spirit of death, and most of the wars now raging in the world are racial conflicts. Racism is rooted in two of the ultimate strongholds of the fallen human heart—fear and pride.

When the Lord Jesus declared that one of the primary signs of the end of this age would be “... nation shall rise against nation....” (Matthew 24:7), the Greek word that He used for “nation” was ethnos, from which we derive our English word “ethnic.” The Lord was literally saying that one of the most obvious signs of the end times would be racial conflicts.

We are now seeing these conflicts on a scale that has never before been witnessed. The reason for this dramatic increase today is that the church is starting to confront this powerful root of evil in the human heart. Satan dwells in darkness. Light exposes Satan and displaces him. Whenever he is cast out of heaven (the high places) he comes to the earth with great wrath (see Revelation 12:9-17). The great battle between light and darkness has now begun, and there is no turning back. However, it is most comforting to know that these gates of hell cannot prevail against the church—because Jesus has prevailed, we have already won. The battles must yet be fought, but the conclusion is already determined.

A Historic Gate Of Hell

On August 19th, 1071, the Moslem Turks destroyed the Byzantine army in Mantzikert and took the Christian Emperor of Byzantine, Romanos Diogenes, captive. The Moslems then advanced deeper into European territory, targeting France, Spain and the Balkans. As their progress threatened all of Europe, the pope devised a strategy for retaking Jerusalem that would relieve the pressure on Europe, requiring the Moslems to return to defend their own lands. The pope then claimed to possess a letter from heaven which appointed him to summon the European nations to liberate The Holy Sepulchre.

In March, 1096, Peter of Amiens left on his donkey arriving in Trier, just before Easter. On Easter Sunday he marched into Cologne with about 10,000 men. He then sent out preachers to proclaim the gospel of the crusades and to raise further support in the Rhineland area. Consequently, his army grew to a total of 30,000 men. Peter was thus given the credit for starting the crusades that would change the known world, and would leave some of the deepest cultural wounds between Christians and Moslems which remain to this day. He also began a persecution against the Jews, with doctrines that would lead to some of the worst atrocities in history.

Seeds Of The Holocaust

Needing more money for their venture, the crusaders determined to force the Jews to support the mission, as they were the primary bankers of that time. Many of the knights financed their participation in the crusades by mortgaging their estates to the banks. Then the crusaders decided that they did not want to pay the banks back, so they declared it a divine mandate, to turn against the Jews because “they killed Jesus on the cross.”

Gottfried of Bouillon, the sovereign of Lower-Lothringen, which also included the Ardennes, present-day Holland, and the Rhine Provinces of Cologne, issued a decree that all of the remaining Jews living in Lower-Lothringen should be killed in order to atone for Christ’s death. As a result, the Jews in Cologne and Mainz gave Gottfried 500 silver coins in order to buy their protection. Gottfried used this money to pay for and arm his forces, and his method of raising financial support quickly became popular throughout Europe. In this way, the Jews found themselves, not only loaning money to the crusaders through their banks, but paying ransom money to bishops and knights to buy protection.

Even after they had paid for protection, Rhineland Count Emmerich started killing the Jews in the region of Cologne. Peter’s army then attacked the Jews in Prague while Gottschalk, Peter’s former pupil, massacred them in Regensburg. Thus began almost 900 years that the Jewish people have been subject to continuous threats of annihilation.

In one of the greatest perversions of the Savior’s message, some of the bloodiest and most diabolical onslaughts against the people through whom the Prince of Peace came, arose from the very ones who claimed to be His ambassadors on earth—the church. Every new generation of Jews are taught this history out of selfpreservation. The great Jewish scholar Abba Eban once wrote, “History has taught us well that no situation is so bad that it cannot get worse.” They remember well, but remain dumbfounded that the church does not seem to remember at all. These are wounds and openings that the gates of hell are still using, which only the church can close.

A Tragic Victory

On January 13th, 1099, Peter’s army of crusaders started for Jerusalem. They came to the city on June 7th. At midday on Friday, July 15th, the Holy City fell. It is a biblical testimony that many of God’s victories look like defeats to the natural man, with the cross being the greatest example of this. In this case, the opposite is true. When Jerusalem fell to the Christians, what was considered by many to be one of the greatest victories of the church, would live in infamy as one of her greatest defeats.

The Moslem mayor had been relatively tolerant in dealing with all his citizens, including the Christians and Jews. He allowed them to have their own places of worship and freedom to come and go as they pleased. He even allowed the Christians in Jerusalem to go over to the side of the crusaders during the siege. When it was obvious that the Christians would prevail in the siege, the mayor and his subjects likewise expected a high degree of chivalry from their conquerors. They were terribly mistaken.

Many Moslems gathered under a Christian banner where they had been promised amnesty. The crusaders, thus having them surrounded, slaughtered them all. The Jews of the city fled into the Synagogue. Having them trapped inside, the crusaders torched the building killing everyone, including the women and children, in a gruesome spectacle. This was a deliberate strategy to eradicate all non-Christians, so that Jerusalem could become a Christian city. The triumphant crusaders, many completely covered in the blood of their victims, then gathered at the Holy Sepulchre, and, weeping with joy, they offered thanksgiving for their great “victory.” Over 50,000 Saracens alone were killed in this terrible massacre.

It is true that there were many atrocities afflicted upon Christians by Moslems, but on this terrible day treachery was raised to a new level in the relations of men to one another. Most tragically of all, this was done in the name of the Savior who had come to deliver men from such evil.

The people of this world have not been able to forget these terrible events. They are trying to protect themselves from future onslaughts at the hands of religious zealots. But, to the world’s dismay, the church seems to have long ago forgotten these tragic mistakes, and continues to resist acknowledging them. Therefore, the church has continued to make the same mistakes over, and over, even if they do come in different forms. Trust is an essential element in any genuine communication, and the world will not trust the church again until she acknowledges, understands, and stops making the same terrible mistakes.

Forces are now working powerfully in the church to lay the same stumbling blocks before this generation that caused the previous ones to stumble. Because we do not recognize these gates of hell, most new Christian movements, even evangelistic “crusades,” contain tares that eventually sidetrack them. However, the Lord is preparing to give us the wisdom to understand and remove these stumbling blocks. There is a movement growing throughout the international body of Christ that is devoted to reconciliation and identificational repentance for the sins of our fathers.

We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us

We may look back at the historic church and smugly think that these atrocities were committed by the Catholics. This can be a most deadly mistake. Regardless of whether we are Protestant, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Third, Fourth or Fifth Wave, we have made all of the same mistakes, if only to varying degrees. We condemn the Catholics for having a pope who claims to sit in Christ’s rightful place as the Head of the church, but we have many popes—men,, whom we allow to usurp the Lord’s rightful place in our lives. We abhor the worship of Mary and the saints, but we worship our churches and make idols out of many of our ministers. We lament the crusades, but continue trying to establish the kingdom of God on earth by might and by politics, rather than by the Holy Spirit.

We may be appalled by how the Catholics sold indulgences, which taught that the grace and forgiveness of God could be bought with money, and we should be. This was one of the greatest affronts to the cross in history. However, it is hard to turn on a television or read a ministry newsletter without seeing our modern form of indulgences—”If you give to my ministry, then the Lord will bless you.”

It is true that the Lord receives our offerings as seed and multiplies it back to us for more sowing. However, we have continually crossed that line into the practice of trying to buy the grace of God, such as giving money so that we will receive our healing. We are healed by the stripes that the Lord Jesus received on His own back and any teaching that implies that there is any other way is an abomination.

It is crucial that we examine our history to recognize our mistakes. If we do this in humility, we will see how the gates of hell, that are still perverting our life and message, gained entry into the church. However, we are only dooming ourselves if we view these as the mistakes of other groups. If we do not see how their roots have gripped us all, we will not be able to remove them.

This is why the Lord has decreed that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children for generations. This is not for the purpose of punishing the children for what their fathers did; but every time there is a sin there is a wound. It is a fallacy to think that wounds heal with time; they become infected if they are not dressed and closed. Sins are passed on from generation to generation until someone comes forward to close the wound and bring healing. That is why the leaders of restoration movements in Scripture usually began their prayers with “Father forgive us for the sins of our fathers.”

The crusades are only one example of profoundly misguided religious zeal. No Moslem despot or Ayatollah in history has been as diabolical and cruel as some leaders of the church during the Inquisitions. We may protest that these were the Catholics, but again, the Protestants, and, to some degree, almost every spiritual movement since, have been guilty of all of the same errors. Even while Martin Luther was composing one of the greatest hymns ever written, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, he was having an Anabaptist starved to death in a dungeon because he would not submit to his Protestant dogma.

Victory Over Death

The historic church has wounded many cultures and nations. However, the greatest spiritual schism is not between Catholics and Protestants, but between the church and Israel. The terrible attacks on the Jews were not limited to the Catholics. With the emergence of the Protestant church in the 1500s, theologies were also promulgated within that branch of Christendom which continued this persecution. Some of these theologies have been traced to the roots of the Nazi holocaust. The Jews have survived each succeeding, and seemingly more vicious assault, but the wounds these people have received from Christians over the centuries have grown very deep. This has caused them to equate Christianity with the destruction of their souls rather than with salvation.

This schism between the church and Israel is now being addressed. That Israel has now exchanged ambassadors with the Vatican is a remarkable event. Evangelicals also have a Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. However, we are still a very long way from the healing of the wounds. Even so, before this age closes, this dividing wall between Jew and Gentile will be removed— through Christ. When the “natural branches” are grafted back in, it will mean nothing less than victory over death. This is because it simply cannot happen until both the church and the Jews come to the place of ultimate humility whereby the ultimate grace of God can be extended to us.

The Test Of The Gospel

The Book of Romans was Paul’s masterpiece of theology and the most clear exposition of the New Covenant in the Bible. The issue of the Jewish relationship to the gospel is addressed in chapters nine through eleven. This is the climatic point by which he sums up this theology before concluding the letter with exhortations concerning Christian behavior. Paul asserts that the hearts of Jews were hardened so that they would not accept the gospel until it was time for them to be grafted back into the tree which God had planted. He also declares that if the cutting off of the Jews for a time resulted in blessings for the Gentiles, the greatest blessing of all will be the result of their being grafted back in, which is, “life from the dead.” This is nothing less than victory over the last enemy.

In Romans 11:28 Paul makes the remarkable statement, “...concerning the gospel, they (the Jews) are enemies for your sake...” (NKJV). The Jews have historically represented the greatest test for the gospel, but it is for our sake. In a sense, Jews are the “acid test” of our message. Until the church comes to the spiritual stature where she provokes the Jew to jealousy, we have not yet attained to what we have been called.

The Jews were “hardened” to make them the hardest to reach. In this way, they have become the barometer of humanity, reflecting the overall condition of the state of man. When the gospel is preached that grafts the “natural branches” back into the tree, the church and Israel will then be able to reach the whole world. This is why Paul said that the gospel should be preached “to the Jew first.” This was not just out of favoritism, but because the Jew represents the greatest challenge of the gospel, and one which we must have.

Understanding the place of “the natural branches” in the plan of God has been one of the great historic, and current, stumbling blocks in the church. Paul warned us in Romans 11:18-21:

“Do not be arrogant toward the (natural) branches... for if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you.”

Pride toward the Jews can cause us to be cut off from the grace of God. Even so, our relationship to the Jews is not meant to be a stumbling block, but a stepping stone. Because the Lord gives His grace to the humble (see James 4:6), the proper relationship to the Jews requires a humility that will propel the church to a higher grace and anointing. Likewise, for the Jews to recognize the place of the church in the plan of God will require a profound humility, but one that will enable the great grace of God to be extended to them in unprecedented measure.

There are “replacement theologies” being promulgated in the church today that promote an arrogance toward the natural branches, which have caused many to stumble. These “replace” Israel with the church in the plan of God, attributing all of the promises for natural Israel to the church. There are some obvious truths in these doctrines, and there is truth to the understanding of “spiritual Israel,” those who are born after the Spirit. However, as Paul made clear in Romans 11, the promises made to natural Israel cannot be revoked without impugning the very integrity of God. These mixed theologies usually result in a blinding of the church to what is one of the most critical issues of our time—the grafting back in of the natural branches.

There are also counter-replacement theologies that have sprung up in reaction to the replacement theologies. These have Israel replacing the church in relation to the promises of God. This is just as spurious as the replacement theologies, sowing arrogance in the natural branches. Pride cuts us off from the grace of God regardless of how it comes.

For about two thousand years, it was the time of the Jews, during which God moved almost exclusively among them. Now we are coming to the end of about two thousand years of the time of the Gentiles, when the Lord dealt almost exclusively with the Gentiles. Our history contains all of the cycles of apostasy and restoration that ancient Israel experienced. Now, at the end of this age, we are not coming to another time of the Jews, but the time of the Jews and Gentiles together. It will take the supreme humility on the part of each to see the purpose of God in the other, which was precisely God’s point in requiring this joining together. Neither the church, nor Israel, can achieve their destinies and callings without the other.

Israel is now spiritually very far from her place of ultimate destiny in these last days. In many ways, the church is just as far. The Jews do not believe the doctrines of Christ, whereas the church has been deceived into thinking that believing them in our minds is the same as believing them in our hearts. This often causes our pride in doctrines to remove us from the very grace of God that we preach.

The final joining together of both “into one new man” is not going to look like Israel, ancient or modern. Neither is it going to look like the church, ancient or modern. What is coming will be something entirely new—something only the most profoundly humble will be able to perceive. This profound humility will release the supreme grace of God, resulting in the healing of all spiritual and cultural wounds. When the church and Israel have been grafted together through Christ, the time of the restoration of all things may begin, and the last enemy will have been overcome.

Summary

As we come to understand more about this last enemy, death, and how it maintains its grip on the world, we will also be able to understand all of the other manifestations of the enemy, and how they maintain their grip. Before we will have authority over them in the world, we must remove their tentacles from our own lives. Then we must address them within the church. When this has been done, we must resolutely attack their strongholds in the world.

It is not possible to adequately address such broad and controversial issues within the confines of a bulletin. This is only intended to challenge our readers to be open to these issues as the Holy Spirit is now leading us to confront them. Some of these will be addressed in much more detail in the next edition of The Morning Star Journal. Future editions of The Bulletin and The Journal will continue to examine what we consider to be the most deadly gates of hell, from both a historic and prophetic perspective. We will also seek to more deeply understand the “doors of heaven,” whereby the grace of God is extended to us in special ways.

Grace has been popularly defined as “undeserved favor.” That is not the complete definition, but it is accurate enough for our present needs. As soon as we begin to feel that we deserve the favor of God we have departed from the path of life. “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Probably the most basic quality of genuine humility is the true knowledge of our dependency on God. Only true humility we keep us in the grace of God, which will give us the light to perceive all of the stumbling blocks, traps and diversions that assault every believer. In almost every case, we will learn that the gates of hell are opened by pride, and the doors of heaven are opened by humility before the cross. We must embrace the cross and march forth with grace, not judgment or condemnation, but grace and truth.