Assaulting the Gates of Hades

Notes for the Ekklesia Meeting
Sundays @ 10:00 a.m. Info: (651) 283-0568 www.dtminc.org Today’s Date: June 12, 2005

Assaulting the Gates of Hades
by Dan Trygg

"…on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it." Matt. 16:18-23

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-- yes, even his own life-- he cannot be My disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. 28 Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26-33

I love action/adventure movies, especially ones where there is an objective to be accomplished which requires careful planning, preparation and execution to obtain the desired goal. The Mission Impossible movies, Sneakers, Oceans 11, are some examples. In each of these, there is a team of specialists working together. They are given their assignment and creatively come up with a plan to accomplish their objective. Then, they must work together to make it all happen. That is a word picture that illustrates what the church is supposed to be. God has uniquely gifted each of us so that we can be specialists, but His desire is that we learn to work as a team to accomplish His objectives.

Typically, in most of these movies, the characters are already fully-grown, capable adults. We don’t usually see how they came to be experts in their field. Often, if there is any explanation of their backgrounds, we find that their expertise came about through many years of experiences and experimentation. They don’t come to that team unprepared, unskilled or untested. That is a dimension to the church that these movies do not take into account. This would be more akin to the task that the various branches of the military have in working with those who enlist with them. Out of all those who come to them, they must train and equip these people to accomplish both general tasks, as well as to find those who can fulfill specialized roles, in their branch of service.

In a similar way, God has given us the responsibility and challenge of working with "raw recruits". We are to bring them through some measure of basic training, helping to establish their foundational spiritual walk and disciplines, all the while looking for clues to determine what their specialty gifts may be. We are to keep one another on track in our personal growth in our faith-walk, so that we become strong, stable and well-equipped for team ministry.

Jesus told us plainly that we are at war. Our general objective is against the enemy’s established strongholds in people’s lives, as well as his influence and control in localized areas. God desires to develop us as assault teams to break up the enemy’s dominion and operations within lives, neighborhoods, communities, states, and countries around the world. It was never His agenda that we "go to church". Rather we are the church, His people gathered to train, prepare, and ready ourselves for the mission assignments He will give us.

We need to be clear about this, in order to understand what is supposed to happen when we come together, and what we are supposed to take away from our gatherings. If we think that the goal is to come to church, then we will leave the meeting with a sense of having done our duty, but with no special over-arching focus for what our meeting was all about. Church gatherings become "events" by themselves. They were never intended to be that. If we perceive them that way, then we tend to be looking to be entertained, stimulated or charged up by a meeting, and we judge the meeting’s success by whether it accomplished that, or not.

Of course, it is easy, then, to approach the meeting from a passive mindset, waiting for the musicians or the speakers to "minister to us" (i.e., to stimulate us, energize us, etc.). If that is not happening, then we get bored or come away frustrated that we did not "get fed". Can you imagine someone on the Mission Impossible or Oceans 11 team acting that way? "C’mon, guys, entertain me. This is boring. What? You expect me to participate? You expect me to come up with an idea, to play a role in the plan, …to actually do something?" You see, your perceptions of what the purpose of the gathering is all about will drastically affect what you expect, and what you do.

Jesus told us that the general objective was to storm hades’ gates, but how do we translate that into a practical course of action in our lives, or for our local assault group (church)? Well, obviously we need to have direction from Him, to see where we are to focus our attention, and we need to put together a plan of action in conjunction with His leading. (A significant difference between one of these action/adventure movies and our calling is that they are usually very specific. They are about a single objective, whereas the struggle we are facing is protracted, with conflict and potential objectives on many fronts.) As we probe and pray, we watch for signs that God is opening up a new opportunity. Then, as He makes His will known, we need to get in step with what He wants to do. Sometimes the situation requires instant action. At other times, God may desire that we put our heads together to formulate a plan that takes into account our giftings and the level of maturity of our Body. In other instances, we may have to develop skills that we do not yet have, requiring research, preparation and growth. Sometimes the objective may require special giftings or personnel that we do not have in our midst. In such cases, the Lord may require us to look beyond our group for people who can do what we cannot. Therefore it is important that we network with other believers outside of our fellowship.

Remember, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers. This means that we must learn how to combat an enemy that we generally cannot see, hear or touch. We cannot use weaponry or techniques that we may see on TV or the movies, because our foes are very different. The kingdom of darkness is very real, however. It is highly organized and efficient. Jesus’ words imply that Satan and his minions are already entrenched in people’s lives and in communities, businesses, countries, etc. Wherever people are, Satan’s forces are at work, and likely have at least some inroads. In spite of the fact that the enemy has had time to hide, to get dug in, and to set up elaborate systems of protection, Jesus says that all his preparations will not be able to stand against the assault groups of the Kingdom of God. We can win. We can drive the enemy out and turn the spiritual climate in an entire area around, …but we need to know what we are doing, we need to discover and follow God’s strategy for the assault, and we need to work hard. This is not a curiosity, or a hobby, …this is a real war. People’s lives are being destroyed, and we can make a difference. Satan is not playing, and we cannot afford to either.

We must realize, too, that Satan is not just hiding behind some stronghold somewhere, hoping that we will not find him. No. He is actively working to entrap us, if he can. That is why Jesus prayed for His disciples, asking the Father to "keep them from the evil one" (Jn. 17:15). Early on, He had taught His followers to pray for themselves in this fashion (Matt. 6:13). Many years later, the apostle Peter warned us to be alert and watchful, because the enemy prowls around, looking for easy prey (I Pet. 5:8). The apostle Paul warned us, as well, of the spiritual opposition that wars against us. He exhorted us to put on spiritual armor, and to be calling out to God in prayer, for ourselves and others (Eph. 6:10f). Although this may seem to be a bit overdone to our 21st century sensibilities, the truth is that the enemy is all around us. Our cavalier attitude just indicates how well he has succeeded in camouflaging his activities from our eyes.

George Verwer, founder of the mission organization, Operation Mobilization, has declared, "Most people in the church in America are wimps." He is right. Most people do not have a clue regarding anything I have written above, and they certainly would not know where to begin, if they were suddenly to realize what their true spiritual responsibilities were. Then there are those who do have some awareness of these matters. They nod their assent to what I have written. They have read about such things. They have been to meetings where they heard prophets, or they know someone who has had a run-in with a demon, or was involved in a healing. See, that is so typical of what we have come to be as a people. We live our lives vicariously through others. We think that because we have seen, heard or read about something, we are "in the know" and somehow more mature than those who "don’t know". No. We are no different than those who "don’t know". We are not any more actively engaged than they are.

What are you doing that is actually a threat to the enemy? Are you knocking on his gates, bringing the battle to his door? Does he have to be afraid of you and your friends, because you are hunting him? That is what Jesus is asking us to do, to go after the enemy and root him out. The church should be making the devil uncomfortable. We should be putting him on the run. Instead, we barely make enough noise to irritate him, and we do that in our own buildings, among ourselves, where it won’t matter. What noise we do make is not from anguished hearts, desperately crying out to God for direction, boldness and power to make a difference. Instead, we have our dressed-up "religified" version of campfire songs.

Right after Caesarea Philippi, Jesus began to talk about His cross. He also pressed the disciples about what it meant to follow Him. They were to count the cost. Were they serious? Are you? I don’t know about you, but I am challenged by what I am finally coming to realize that I am called to be and do. It makes sense more than ever before, and I find I have a lot to learn, and a lot to seek God for. I also am excited. I want what I know God has for me. I’m looking for team members, people who are ready to take on objectives God gives us. Are you ready to dig deeper, to go farther, to "turn it up a notch"? Let’s go!