THE MYSTERY OF SPIRITUAL HOUSE AND GATES
In a very simple and
plain language, your spiritual gates are those points in your body through
which virtue, grace or power leaves or enters your spirit. You are a spirit and
you live inside your body as a house. Your body therefore is like a house with
doors or gates that shields your spirit man. When one is born again, the holy
spirit becomes one with his spirit and lives in your physical body as a house
or temple.
In the olden days God
lived in a physical house but now in our own time He chose to live in our body.
What? know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not
your own? 1 Cor 6:19KJV
Just as the physical
temple of the Old Testament had 12 gates, we as human temples also have gates.
The spiritual city of Revelation 21:23 also has gates. This buttresses the
importance of the concept of spiritual gates.
The bible said clearly that we are the temple of God. According to 2Chronicles 23:19, it is
not just that the Old Testament temple had gates, but these gates were so
important that they were highly guarded.
And he set
the porters at the gates of the house of the LORD, that none which was unclean
in anything should enter in.
2 Chron
23:19 (KJV).
From
the text above, there are very crucial points that we need to emphasis. Firstly,
God has a house. This house has gates. God does not want anything unclean to
enter his house, therefore, these gates needs to be carefully guarded because
there are so many unclean thing around.
If
the old testaments priests guarded the gates of the physical temple carefully,
then we of the spiritual temple need to guard our gates with utmost
carefulness.
In
order to guard these gates, we need to properly identify and understand them.
The Bible on
Spiritual Gates.
The
bible has unveiled a lot of mysteries about spiritual gates generally. In order
for us to properly understand the human gates in particular we will survey summarily
some of the deep truths about spiritual gates in the bible.
1. Spiritual gates
are personalities. The Lord Jesus is a personality and he said
I am the door (gate) as quoted above in John 10:9. No wonder the city gates in
Ezekiel 48:31-33 and Rev. were named after personalities
Ezekiel 48:31-33 And the gates of the city
shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one
gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi. And at the east side four thousand and five
hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one
gate of Dan. And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures: and
three gates; one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.
Then in Psalms
24:9-25:1, we saw how this gate responded stubbornly as a personality, ‘who is
the king of glory’.
Lift up
your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King
of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the
King of glory. Selah.
This
implies that whenever you are addressing an ancient city gates, know quite well
that you are addressing a personality. There is a spiritual strongman attached
to any spiritual gate. In the garden of Eden, the gates were not brass and Iron
but cherubims.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at
the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned
every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Gen 3:24 KJV)
And had a wall great and high, and had
twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which
are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:( Revelation
21:12-13)
When
the Lord Jesus said that the most threatening power the church has to contend
with are the gates of hell, he was not also referring to brass and Iron but wicked
principalities and power; yet he called them ‘gates of hell’.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it.( Matthew 16:18 KJV)
2. As strong and
fearless as death it is kept under the control of a gate by God.
Job 38:17-18: Have the gates of death been
opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Psalms 9:13-14Have mercy upon me, O Lord;
consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me
up from the gates of death:
3. God loves the
gates of Zion.
Psalms 87:2-3 The Lord loveth the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
4. Gates are altars
Acts 14:13 Then the priest of Jupiter, which
was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have
done sacrifice with the people.
5. Gates are
spiritual courts.
Ruth 4:11 - And all the people that were in
the gate , and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that
is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the
house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem
KJV
6. The power of God
is more than the gates of the enemies.
Psalms 107:16 - For he hath broken the gates
of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.
Nahum 2:6 - The gates of the rivers shall be
opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
7. The major enemies
of the Church are the gates of hell.
And I say also unto thee, That thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.( Matthew 16:18 KJV)
... To be continued
