The church that Jesus is building is a church that handles the gates. Come and say the gates. When I hold your gate, where am I? Am I at home? Let me come to this side.
If I hold you at your gate, where am I? Am I in my house? Where am I? Let me use you. Come one minute. If I hold this man at his gates, this is gates of his house, this is my house, how do I stop his gates from prevailing? Come one minute, help me.
This man is in his house, this is the gate of his house, right? Go backwards a bit. This man is in his own house, this is the gate of his house. This is the church, this is hell, which is the enemy of the church, come forward a bit.
When the Bible says, the gates of hell shall not prevail, that means hell should not exceed his gates. How does that happen? If you stay in your own, within your own gates, how do you stop the gates of hell from prevailing? The gates of hell. So try to go out, try to go out.
The gates of hell shall not ascend. The gates of hell. Take note, it doesn't say the power of hell, doesn't say the kingdom of hell, it's specific to mention gates.
Gates are entry and exit points of every territory. So when he talks about the gates of hell, he's talking about the territory of hell. Hell will not be able to expand his territory because someone will stand at the gates.
Sit one minute, sit. Follow me, follow me. The church is mandated not to only be in a defensive mode.
Come on, say risk. Defensive mode is risk. When we build our fine churches and sit within our fine churches is risk.
It makes the church cold. There is a spiritual dimension that the church will never enter until we go outside our premises. Move my slide, please, because of time.
Please move this thing. Move for me, move, please. The power of the church is to control two gates.
Heaven has a gate. Remember, if you are a child of God, you are in the church. The church is a part of the kingdom of God.
Therefore, it exists within the gates of heaven. Please take note. While hell, even though people are on earth, demons are on earth, they are part of hell.
So when he talks about us being part of heaven, that's how demons and the people and the evil people on earth are part of hell. Yet they are not in hell, but they are part of hell. So we are not in heaven, yet we are part of heaven.
Why? On earth, both kingdoms have territory. I don't know if you understand this. Heaven's gate has keys.
Those keys were formerly with the Pharisees, and Jesus gave it to Peter. Can you remember, the scriptures go to Matthew 23, 13, so that you can get it. What are you, scribes and Pharisees? Hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven.
Oh, can the scribes shut up the kingdom of heaven? No, look at your scripture. Please follow me. I came to deliver a prophetic word.
Listen, what are you, scribes and Pharisees? Hypocrites, you shut up the kingdom of heaven. Oh, I thought they are hypocrites, so they should shut up the kingdom of hell. They have the key of heaven.
The scribes and Pharisees, and even people you call fake pastor, some of them have the key of heaven. As fake as they are, as false as they are, they have what? The key. You are hypocrites.
Yes, you shut up heaven against men. You yourself will not go. You will not allow anyone to go in, but you have the key.
That's why you can shut up. You can't shut up somebody and say you have the key. You can lock your house and stay outside and not allow anybody going.
You are not going in, no one else is going in. Because there was such a key. But Jesus said to Peter, I'm taking the key from them.
I'm taking the key from them. Look at what he says to Peter. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Oh, if the Pharisees shut it before, that means the key was with them. But Jesus didn't say, I have given you. He said, I will give you.
That means it's in someone's hand. I'm going to take it from him and give it to you, so that you can now shut. You can now control.
So heaven's gate has keys. Hell's gate also has keys. Revelations 1.18. It's so clear what the Bible says.
I want you to read. Read for me. Come on.
So hell has a key. How did Jesus get it? Take note of what he said. I was dead.
I deliberately died so that I can go there and collect the key. In other words, the key of hell could not have been taken if Jesus didn't carry out an offensive. You can possess the key, the gates of the enemy, if you remain in defensive.
We are not here because we lack an auditorium to hold a crusade or a program. We are taking ourselves out of our territory. It's a spiritual mapping strategy.
All right. Follow me. Follow me.
I'm running. Gospel campaigns are spiritual postures in the kingdom to take battle to hell's gates. And there is a time to do it.
It came to pass when a year was expired at a time when kings go forth to battle. At the time. At the time.
At the time. Take note of what time. There are seven agents of revival.
Number one agent is God and what's his role in the revival? Timekeeper. He's the timekeeper of revival. At the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab and his servants and all Israel and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah.
Take note, they besieged Rabbah gates. But David carried still. What was the result? David committed a sin.
Why? When it's time to go for battle and you sit down, you start making errors in ministry. My beauty is finer than your beauty. My church is fuller than your church.
My members are more than your members. Music concert to music concert, we've forgotten the mission of the church. Go into all the world, not sit within your walls.
It was told Saul that David was come to kill her. And Saul said, God has delivered him into my hand. Why? For he is shot in by entering into a town that had gates and bar.
He went into a town that had gates and bar and shot himself in. So Saul said, I'm going to meet him. Why? He's shot in.
When you are shot in, you attract attack. Defensive strategy of the church is what kills the church. The church must have a good defense, but it must know the time of offense.
We have come into the season when again, the church will be on offensive, healing the sick, casting out devils, preaching the gospel. Are you still here? The keys of a city are always giving to the church when the church steps out of his comfort zone. The keys of a city are always giving to a church.
Our church is cooler than this place. We have more places for overflow. We can just have a meeting there.
Why come out here and spend a lot of money? Because we are obeying spiritual mapping strategy. Until you go to the gate, 1 Chronicles 19 verse 9, until you go to the gate, God will not give you the city key. And the children of Ammon came out and put the battle in array before the gates.
Take note where they put the battle, before the gate of the city. We're not fighting in the field. No, no, no.
We fight you at your gate. We lock the gates. Imagine such a battle.
You want to fight someone, you lock the gates. How do you do that? How do you get a city key? How do you get a city key? How do you get a city key? What's the address of the city gate? If you say I'm going to take Lagos, where is the gate of Lagos? Huh? Where is the gate of Lagos? Somebody's a beggar. No, because see, you are looking at it physically.
Let me show you. Let me show you the address. Look at it.
Number one, inconvenience streets, off sacrifice clothes, evangelism bus stop. Anytime you step out of your convenience, every time you come out with sacrifice, every time your purpose is to reach to one more person, you stand spiritually at the gate of a city. Your comfort zone is your territory.
You want to take the enemy at the gate. You need to know what it is to stand in inconvenience. Let's walk.
Move forward one minute. Listen, the country called Turkey. Turkey was formerly Istanbul.
It was the headquarter of the church. The seven letters written in the Bible, John's letter to the seven churches. Where are the churches? They were all in Constantinople within that territory.
Today it is one percent Christians. Let me tell you what happened. For 1,200 years, the church enjoyed war's protection and reduced his soldiers to 7,000 soldiers.
2,000 were borrowed. They hired soldiers. So they outsource battle.
They had only 5,000 soldiers. They outsource 2,000. So they get mercenaries to fight for them.
But there was a young man who would change this story. 1,200 years. Can you imagine how long? Constantinople was covered with walls, but there arose a 21-year-old boy who took over that place and made it the Turkey of today.
How old was he? He had between 80 to 120,000 soldiers. Constantinople had 5,000 soldiers with strong walls. But this 21-year-old boy knew that the key to building a kingdom is possessing the gates.
He took between 80 to 120,000 men to the gates of Constantinople. The Christians were there having fun. Our walls are too strong.
It has been there for 1,200 years. Within 53 days, in 1453, a man called Mehmed II, 21 years old, with a troop of about 120,000 people, defeated Constantinople and turned it to a Muslim country. Go home and read it.
How old was he? 21. And Constantinople has been there for how long? 1,200 years. Building walls versus raising soldiers.
While the church was building walls, Mehmed was raising soldiers. He took the soldiers to the gates. Put my picture slide.
He took the soldiers to this wall of Constantinople, 1453. In 53 days, he stood outside the gate bombarding it with cannons. He entered.
He converted all the churches there to mosques and made himself the first Muslim person to sit there. He raised an army, 120,000 army. He showed you that an army is stronger than walls.
When churches are building, my cathedral, our church is fine. At least there's nothing wrong in building a church. We are building one.
There's nothing wrong in building church. But when we build church and become comfortable, and we no longer talk about the offensive strategy, the devil will bring the battle to your gates. That's what wiped out the church in Europe.
Today, churches have been turned to mosques because everybody builds their church to compete with the other person. My church is finer than your church. My church is bigger than your church.
We're having one program to another program. We're enjoying ourselves. We are happy.
It leads to the diminishing of God's kingdom. Defense without offense. Constantinople built walls, and they trusted the walls, and they reduced their soldiers.
How many Christians are soldiers today? The people who lived there decided not to be soldiers anymore. Walls are enough. We have contracted evangelism to social media companies.
We are not on ground winning souls. We have many people watching online who are not even serious with their work with God. Our present occupation is who has the highest views online.
But with all those views, how many people are close to hell? How many people are standing as soldiers campaigning for the kingdom? They only sit in the comfort of their house and join a view and watch online. So, I have 20,000 people viewing online. We are building an online army, and there's nobody on the streets.
There's no crusades in the street. There's nothing wrong with online. We have so many thousands of people watching online right now.
But as long as you are sitting in your convenience, you are within your gates, and you are not operating in the full blessing of Abraham. Abraham, you possess the gates of your enemy. Convenient Christianity is the enemy of revival.
Don't forget that word. Convenient Christianity is the enemy of revival. What do you want? Do you want religion, or do you want revival? What do you want? Do you want to see people in mass giving their lives to Christ, weeping? Do you want to see conversions? Do you want to see the name of Jesus standing in nations? All you want to have my church is bigger than your church.
My online viewership is more than your online viewership. This is where the church has gone wrong. The call of God is upon us now to go out again, speak for his name.
Speak the name of Jesus outside our church. Speak the name of Jesus. Say that with me.
Convenient Christianity is the enemy. Why will I spend tens of millions going to the stadium when I already have the hall that has everything? I'm not just here to lead somebody to Christ. I can lead somebody to Christ in my home.
No, no, no, no, no. What about the spiritual condition of the city where the name of Jesus is not named anywhere else outside church? So we must go outside church and shout, Jesus. That's what we call crusade.
Yes, sir. Crusade is not trying to get somebody born again. Many of you are already born again.
Many people in this country are born again. Many people in many countries are already born again. We're not just trying to get people born again.
Even if some people are going to get healed, yeah, people will get healed. But many people here are well. The people here are, the people that are well are more than the people that are sick.
The people that are saved are more than the people that are not saved. So we're not here trying to lead somebody to Christ. We are trying to expand his name.
We are trying to mention his name into the atmosphere. Whatever was, listen, when we leave this place, somebody may come here to play tennis and suddenly I say, ah, I want to be born again. Why? Listen, as the body of Christ, we affect atmosphere.
We need to take Christ's atmosphere outside the church. Come on, shout, Jesus. Sit, sit one minute.
When they said no more preaching on the assembly grounds, it is not just about preaching. You say, okay, we'll preach in our church. No, no, no.
Those atmosphere no longer hear Jesus. The stadium is big space. You hear Pele.
Pele is going. Pele is going. Pele has called.
Pele. Nobody will say Jesus there. The national assembly will discuss the things they want to do.
Nobody will mention Jesus. The UN will meet. Nobody will mention Jesus.
They have succeeded in keeping Jesus within the four walls of the church and you are okay with it. Very soon they will tell you how to praise, how to worship, what you should do in the church. The name of Jesus was mentioned everywhere.
Everywhere. The Bible says this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness in all the world. That means in every gathering amongst every group of people, the name of Jesus will be preached.
The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world. All the world doesn't mean all the world because look at the next thing you see there. Shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations.
So all nations and all the world are not the same. Can you see it? It will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations. So all the world is not all nations.
All the world refers to every place so that all nations can have the opportunity to hear the name of Jesus. When you preach on an assembly ground, that's crusade. Yes sir.
When you preach in the UN, that's crusade. Yes sir. When you preach in a stadium, that's crusade.
Yes sir. What is crusade? Mention the name of Jesus outside the church. Outside the four walls of the church.
Mention the name of Jesus. Can I have somebody shout Jesus? Jesus. We will not be silenced.
That name cannot be silenced. Yes. That name cannot be stopped.
Yes. We cannot bury Jesus. Yes.
The Bible says he was placed in the ground. Yes. Three days later, he popped up.
Yes. You can't bury the name of Jesus. Yes.
He should be revived in every place. Yes. In every nation.
Yes. Among every people. Yes.
If you believe, shout the name Jesus. Jesus. Amen.