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So often I have sung songs in church calling out to the Lord as a mighty warrior, a Being Who fights for the oppressed and the underdog in so many ways. I meant every word that I sang to Him. Who among us hasn’t longed to feel the strength of His protective embrace when the storms of the world fall upon us? We are all alike in this. We have all longed for wrongs to be righted and for injustices to be addressed. We have often begged for God to do this on our behalf.
Recently I began a study on the original languages of the text of scripture. With renewed understanding I have been amazed as the scriptures have become more powerfully alive than before, with new meaning and context bringing insight and increased awe of Who He is. If there is one thing that I have been left with it is this… I am in awe of Jesus Christ. More so today than ever before.
With this in mind let me share a story. I hope that it will powerfully impact you in the same way that it has impacted me.
In the book of Joshua, chapter 12 and verses 4-5, we are introduced to “Og king of Bashan, one of the remnants of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and Edrei and ruled over Mount Hermon.”
In the ancient Mesopotamian world, the territory of Bashan held a particular relevance to both the people of Israel and the surrounding nations. The word “Bashan” meant “serpent”. The ancients understood the territory of Bashan to be “the place of the serpent.” In addition to this meaning, the ancient understanding was that Bashan was also a gate to hell, or hades. It was a place understood to be representative of evil, particularly of an ancient evil. This understanding of the area of Bashan occupied the minds of both the Israelis and the surrounding nations.
This begins to set the stage for one of the most profound statements that Christ Jesus uttered in His ministry.
As time passed, Israel experiences heartbreak and devastation, time and time again. Then, comes the prophet Malachi. Roughly 400 years after Malachi, with nary a word from the Lord during that time, Jesus Christ is born.
It’s important to recognize that the Messiah came into a world beset by war, both ancient and modern. He was going to launch His ministry in a land formerly inhabited by giants. He was going head-to-head with evil and He had no fear whatsoever in doing so.
This routine lack of concern for the forces arrayed against Him characterized His daily preaching. The Lord enters into His ministry and we constantly see Him being asked to prove His claims. The Pharisees were constantly attempting to entrap Him to justify killing Him. His identity and His claims about His identity were constantly being challenged. The claims regarding His identity would reflect on His purpose, and His ultimate purpose was being withheld from the evil that was seeking to undo Him. Jesus was in the middle of a sneak attack on darkness.
In the midst of all of this, another drama is about to unfold.
We are told in Matthew, chapter 16, verses 17-18 that God the Father revealed to Peter precisely Who Jesus was. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father Who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!”
When Christ made this statement about the gates of hell, He and His disciples were in the district of Caesarea Phillipi.
That location is powerful and important. It is important because Caesarea Phillipi was located in the territory of Bashan, formerly ruled by Og, King of Bashan. It is this area that the ancients believed to be near the gates of hell and our Savior, with no weapon, with no army, armed only with the word of His power, declares AT the place of the serpent (the gates of hell, in Bashan) that the gates of hell will not prevail against His will for His church!
For Jesus to go to the place that was understood by the people of His time to be the location of an entrance to hell and declare that not even that place would prevail is profound.
Jesus, being God, came with His own spoken word, and in keeping with His entire ministry, He was doing as He always did, which was walking out the will of His Father. This means everything to us as Christians today.
Jesus went to the place that was understood to be a domain of evil by the people of those times and walked into the heart of it and then declared that He was the Victor in the spiritual battle that has raged for millennia. He declared that His church would advance and that not even hell or hades itself would be able to stand against it.
Jesus Christ is a warrior like no other. He walks with surety, with a powerful knowledge that He is correct and that how He sees the world is on point. He walks knowing that the gates of Hades, the very gates of the underworld and the evil that was represented there would oppose Him with all of its might, yet He boldly walks up to the front doors of hell and disengages the gates and for all practical purposes, storms inside. He needed no invitation. He needed no red-carpet rollout. He did what He came to do.
There is no one like Him. He stands alone and unique in the world. He is the same God who will play with children in one moment and the next declares on the doorsteps of hell that evil has been served notice.
Jesus Christ is compassionate. He is kind and He is tender. He is also the lion of the tribe of Judah, One Who fights for those Whom He loves. And make no mistake… He loves the entire world and He is relentless in searching out those whom He will redeem!
As we pray for revival around the world, we must understand that we are praying not only for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our lives and churches and nations, but we are praying for that day when, as it says in Psalm chapter 22 verse 27,” All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.” When we agree with God in prayer, we are agreeing with the fact that the Lord has inherited the nations. Agreeing in prayer is asserting the authority of the Lord and His rightful ownership that He and He alone won at the cross.
We are looking for a revival in our day and time, and also for the ultimate promise from many places in the text of scripture that all of the earth will one day turn to the Lord.
We can rest assured that this will happen. The same Warrior Who once stood at the gates of hell and declared that hell has no fury that He can’t overcome is the same Warrior Who still fights for all of us and for all those who are looking for redemption and salvation. They will find it in our Warrior King.
There is no one like Him.
He is the Way. Walk in Him and God bless you.
Original writing by Wes Ruff – REVIVALin20/20©