Closing the Gates of Hell
Matthew 16
Introduction
In Matthew 16, Jesus told us that those who believe in Him become part of the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.
But what exactly are the gates of hell?
Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing the idea of spiritual gateways in the Bible. The modern word for these gates or gateways would be “portals,” but that’s not a term that was used back when King Jimmy wrote his translation, so the biblical vocabulary for these would be gates.
I’ve been digging into this concept of the gate of heaven in the Old Testament. We traced out its whole story of what it was: a portal between heaven and earth- where it came from, the role it served in the Old Testament, and how it was eventually taken down by defiling its altar.
So when Jesus spoke of the gates of hell, could he have been referring to these entry points between our realm and the spiritual realm?
And if the gates of hell are these entryways, then what has Jesus given us- the church- the task of doing about them?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Matthew 16, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
Real Witchcraft
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about putting hell on defense. This episode is a culmination of not just what I’ve been talking about the past few weeks in regard to portals, but also a fulfillment of everything I’ve been discussing since the start of this year.
I do have some more to say about spiritual gates after today’s lesson, but I might hold off on it for at least a few weeks because I have kind of hammered on this portal thing for four weeks in a row now. I am not trying to become typecast as “the portal guy” or anything like that. I have many other things I’d like to discuss. But this portal series has been HEAVY research for me and I need a little break so that I don’t overextend myself.
So if you like the spiritual gates topic, don’t worry, this is a subject that will come up again in future episodes. This is a theme that comes up throughout the Bible if you pay attention, so we’ll come across more this. But if you’re someone who doesn’t like hearing about portals and spiritual gates, also don’t worry, you’ll get a little break from it after today.
So we established last week that spiritual gates seemed to be tied to altars. I’ll say this: God can do whatever He wants. God can open a gate anywhere He wants to. When Ezekiel was hanging out on a hill minding his own business in the first chapter of his book, it didn’t say anything about an altar, but all of a sudden God just shows up. So God can do what He wants, but generally, there’s some kind of altar that is activated by some kind of sacrifice or anointing.
Now, what can an altar be? There’s not a lot of restrictions on what an altar can be; it all really just comes down to how it’s used. I ended last week’s episode by making a comparison to witchcraft practices. I said that because witchcraft actually functions pretty closely to idolatrous practices. And when I say witchcraft, I mean real-world witchcraft, not the kind that’s in fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings or Narnia or even Harry Potter.
Real witchcraft often involves blood sacrifices, drinking blood, sexual immorality, and offerings made to demonic entities. A lot of the exact same stuff you see going on in the practices of idolatry in the Bible. And real witchcraft often involves creating some kind of altar which they use to summon demons or interact with spiritual entities.
Now, I do not recommend that you go look up the practices of witchcraft. It’s not necessarily a sin to study them, and there might even be some wisdom in knowing what we’re dealing with. But it’s very easy to become fixated on these things, and there’s also some wisdom in limiting how much time you spend researching dark spiritual practices.
Romans 16:19 (KJV) says
…yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
You don’t have to know about all the dark stuff out there to be a good Christian. It’s OK. When someone makes a dirty joke and you don’t even know what they’re talking about, that’s OK. It’s fine to be simple concerning evil. When some porn star was in the news for sleeping with 100 guys recently, it’s OK to not even know who these people are. You don’t have to keep up with the news about who is famous on Only Fans. You don’t even have to know what Only Fans is. It’s OK to be simple concerning evil. Simple means “dumb,” like when we say someone is simple-minded. It’s usually not a good thing. But the Bible says you can be smart about what is good and dumb concerning evil.
So when I talk about these practices in witchcraft- and I kinda ran out of time last week- I think it’s OK to study it in moderation. But you don’t need to fixate on it. Don’t become one of those Christians who sees a demon or a satanic symbol or the illuminati under every rock or in every tv show or music video you watch. I’m talking about these things today in the spirit of
Ephesians 5:11
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
So I think what takes place in our world with witchcraft- and certainly the worship of false gods around the world- is that they are consecrating altars and opening gates of hell. All over our planet.
These altars can be tied to physical locations, such as with a literal altar built and activated. But I believe these objects used in satanic or idolatrous rituals can also be portable objects. And when practices of witchcraft- which can include cutting themselves, sacrificing living things, making offerings to a demon or a deity- are performed, it turns these objects into an altar for a gate of hell. It creates a doorway for demons to walk into our world.
I don’t believe these spiritual entities can just walk into and out of our world anytime they want to. They need the gates to be opened. They deceive humans into opening these gates for them. And this also gives them some ownership rights or jurisdiction over territories where these altars are located. It gives them a foothold when they have a gate in that spot. That’s why destroying their altars is called cleansing the land.
To follow up on something I said about UFOs a few episodes ago: I have always felt that some of these UFO sightings are probably spiritually-related. That they could be spiritual entities traveling through our atmosphere. As more and more time goes on and these UFOs are studied, even secular scientists say they appear to be inter-dimensional beings because that’s the only way to describe sometimes how they behave.
But one thing that’s always confused me about UFOs is how they seem to “run away” when they’ve been caught. They seem to behave in a way that when they’re spotted, they don’t just blip away. They seem to “make a run for it.” And I always thought: if they’re inter-dimensional, why can’t they simply disappear anytime they get caught? But if you take into account that there are only certain locations on earth that they can use to enter and exit, then that explains why they have to go find one of those doors before they can leave.
How many portals are there around the world? No idea. Could be thousands. Could be millions? I don’t know. But the question I’m concerned with today is: what can we do about them?
Keys to the Kingdom
So what can we do about them?
This concept of closing the gates of hell is going to start with recognizing the authority we’ve been given as believers. Let’s return to the spot where Jesus first spoke of the church, which is a passage we’ve been going back to repeatedly this year.
Matthew 16:13-19
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,
To go back to an earlier lesson: remember that Peter himself is not the rock. I went into the Greek to prove this point, and it’s a very important point for understanding who we are and what our faith is built on. The church is not built on Peter. Peter is a tiny rock. But the church is built on a large rock. A large rock made up of many tiny rocks. A Petra.
So what is the rock that Jesus said his church would be built on? The confession of faith in Jesus. What Peter had said just a moment before: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. If you truly believe that, you are part of the church…
(verse 18 continued)
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [or: you]
When you are part of the church, you are called to fight the gates of hell. Because if someone trying to prevail against you, that means they are in some kind of conflict with you. I’ve heard many preachers comment before that this means we are to take the fight to hell, because you’ve probably heard it to: gates are a defensive structure, not an offensive structure. That hell isn’t attacking us with the gates, but we are to attack hell’s gates.
And that is a correct application: we certainly are supposed to be on the offensive against hell. But I no longer think that this word “gate” is simply a metaphor, but speaking of the literal entryways of the demonic into our world.
But good news: we have authority over it!
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
As I talked about in an episode last fall: this is spiritual warfare language. Binding and loosing are words used to describe when spiritual entities are tied up or set free. When Jesus freed the woman with the back problem, he said “woman, thou art loosed.” That was Luke 13.
But that passage also said that this woman had been bound by a crippling spirit for 18 years. Jesus credited Satan with crippling her. Now, I don’t think it was literally Satan, but probably an evil spirit working for Satan. And all Jesus did to free her was lay hands on her and tell her she was free.
And that same authority has been given to us: the authority to bind and loose. Jesus showed us how it was done. Binding and loosing is spiritual warfare language. And we also, I believe, see it here in regard to these portals.
We see a portal or spiritual gateway being opened on the world in
Revelation 9:1-3
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. 2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth.
One of the plagues of the tribulation is that a portal is opened up that lets out all these demonic scorpion creatures who afflict mankind. I know not everybody sees eschatology the same way and I won’t force this point today, but I believe this is another example of a portal in scripture. But notice how the angel opened it: “He was given a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.”
A key. Just like Jesus said: we have been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. So these portals are gates to the spiritual realm. We have the keys to open and shut these gates. And we can open gates to heaven.
Same chapter: Revelation 9:13-14
13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.
There’s that word “bound” again. Spiritual warfare language. And this is not as clear as the last passage, but I believe something like a portal is being opened here again at the Euphrates, and there are four angels bound here. I think they are probably fallen angels. And they are released to kill a third of mankind during the tribulation.
Several months back I received an email from a listener named Chris who is impacting people with an incredible ministry in Massachusetts. Chris pointing out a lot of the weird things going on with the River Euphrates in Revelation and prophesied in Isaiah. And Chris, if you’re still listening, I’ve never quite settled yet what that’s all about but it’s always hung there in the back of my mind. There does seem to be a lot of portal-type activity going on in the Euphrates River region, though.
So portals are spiritual gates that have keys and that Jesus said we have the Keys to the Kingdom. We can open and close these gates. We can bind and loose the spiritual beings who use them. This might also explain a verse I’ve always been confused by in
Revelation 2:7
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
Perhaps this “key of David” verse refers to authority over these spiritual gates or doors. Are there nuances to understanding to what the key of David is vs the keys of the Kingdom? Probably. But I haven’t figured that out yet, and I probably wouldn’t have time today to get into it if I did.
Our Authority
But Jesus has given us the keys to the Kingdom. I think we need to start using them. So here are some action steps you can start taking today to use the authority that’s been invested in us.
I’ll start broad, and then get more specific. Broadly speaking, we can pray that these gates would be closed and evil spirits would be bound. And I think our prayers need to start including that. We need to start praying that God would protect us from evil spirits. The Lord’s prayer,
Matthew 6:13 says
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
And some translations will say “from the evil one.” That’s actually the more literal translation. It’s spiritual warfare language against Satan, fallen angels and demons. It most literally means Satan, but just like we referred to earlier in Luke 13, sometimes the Bible uses the word “Satan” to also refer to any of the evil spirits who are working for Satan. So Jesus says that when we pray, we should include words of deliverance from evil spirits.
Deliverance ministry gets kind of a bad reputation sometimes, because people (probably) get a little silly with it. But honestly, the Bible says to pray prayers of deliverance over people. If you don’t like how someone else is doing it, then do it the right way. But don’t just not do it because some Christians have made it look weird.
We can bind demons who are after you, your family, someone you know. And if you don’t do that, then you’re just wasting the authority Jesus has given you.
Pray prayers that make hell shake with fear. Pray prayers that make demons nervous when you get out of bed in the morning. And if you haven’t been praying a lot of prayers for protection or deliverance, this is where to start, broadly speaking. Make it a part of your daily routine.
In a more specific sense: there are portals or gates of hell throughout this planet. I have ideas about where some of them are. Most of them, I certainly don’t know. I would try to keep your spiritual eyes open to these possibilities. I would pray for discernment in this area.
And if you are feeling in your spirit like there’s a spiritual gate open somewhere in your vicinity, I’d just pray to God that He would close it. That He would bind any spirits who are trying to travel through it.
Let’s start with your house. Pray and ask God to show you if there is anything in your home that could open your personal property up to spiritual attack. I shared a story last week about a family that returned from a missions trip with a mask. They thought it was a harmless souvenir, but it probably wasn’t.
Any objects that have been used in idolatry or witchcraft can be open doors, and the bad news is, you may not even know it. But the good news is, God wants to protect you from that, so if you make this a part of your prayers, I believe He will bring things to your mind and show you how to cleanse your home.
And when you have peace about your home, which will hopefully be pretty quickly, protect your home, and start praying about your neighborhood. Start praying about your city. This is perhaps the strangest thing I will say today, but if you feel like this is too out there, you don’t have to do it. I don’t want you to do anything you can’t do in faith. Maybe take a prayer walk through your city and as you’re walking, ask the Lord if He wants you to stop and pray over a specific spot. You don’t have to tell anyone what you’re doing. But I would just encourage you to put yourself out there and try to be in step with whatever the spirit shows you.
This could be a good starting spot for closing the gates of hell in your neck of the woods, which is where you are to have dominion. We are to take dominion of the earth; this goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. So take dominion over the sphere where God has placed you.
If you identify an object that has been used in occultic practice, I would quite literally recommend destroying it. There is no benefit to keeping it around. When the pagans accepted the gospel in
Acts 18:18-19
18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.
I love that it said the value. Someone might have said, “these books could have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Or, “We could have studied this to know what Satan is up to.” No, these objects are spiritually tainted. They could have been used to open a gate of hell. They must be destroyed. We must close the gate.
So if you have an object in your possession that you think could be tied to a gate of hell, literally destroy it.
However, I am not recommending that you commit vandalism or property destruction of someone else's property or public property. I know we might look at some stories of Gideon and other Old Testament heroes and how they smashed the idols and want to copy that.
But that was a theocracy. That was in the land of Israel which belonged to God. That was how idols and altars were dealt with in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, here’s what we observe.
(We looked at this verse last week)
Revelation 2:12-13
12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
13 “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
I can’t remember if we talked about this or not last week, actually. Satan’s throne was an altar of Zeus. And what we know about an altar to a false god is that it creates a gate to hell. So this church literally exists in the same city where there’s a huge gate of hell and intense persecution.
And yet in Pergamum, Jesus doesn’t instruct them to smash the altar. He says to stand firm, to hold fast.
So this tells me that - as opposed to the Old Testament time- we no longer live in a physical nation of believers. The Kingdom of God right now is a spiritual nation. We’re not always going to have the authority to smash every idol. We may not always be able to close every gate.
But we are not defenseless. We have the keys of the Kingdom. We can bind whatever tries to come out of that gate.
[music]
Next Time
So guys, I’ll close down with a few more important comments on our authority in just a minute.
I have a weekly newsletter going now. I have a link in the show notes where you can get it. I have a big project I’m working on in the background right now which I’ll announce here in the next couple of months. But if you’re on the newsletter, you get to hear about that early!
Also, in this week’s newsletter, I want to let you know about four practices of witchcraft that create gates of hell. This is for those who want to dig a little deeper and be more spiritually aware of what witchcraft does. There are practices in our culture that may look innocent but are actually witchcraft. So I want you to be spiritually aware but I’m gonna run out of time to go into all that today, so let’s put it in the newsletter.
You can find the link to sign up for the newsletter in the show notes, or if that gives you any trouble, just send me an email to weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com and I’ll get you on the list.
If you thought you were supposed to receive an email already, you might check your spam folders and see if it went there. I’ve been sending these first two out on Sunday afternoon.
The Altar of the Cross
So last time I ended with this comment: since we’ve established the link between altars and gates, do we need to construct altars to open portals to heaven in our lives?
And the answer to that is no. Like I mentioned before, there are some differences in the New Testament and Old Testament practice of fighting these demonic entities. Now hear me carefully on this: if you want to open a gate of heaven, you still need an altar and you still need a sacrifice. But the good news is, Jesus Himself already took care of that by offering up Himself. We accept that gift by faith. Comparing the New Testament way to the Old Testament Levitical way,
Hebrews 13:10 says
We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.
Hebrews 9:27
But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
So we have a sacrifice; it’s Jesus. And our altar is the cross. And when we believe that by faith, we don’t have to conquer land and smash their idols to stop the forces of hell; we have all the firepower we need. The gates of hell will not prevail against us.
What about our Temple? Guess what: we are the Temple. Temples are a point of connection between heaven and earth in the Bible. That’s what we are. We believers, especially as we gather together, can create a gate of heaven.
Our spirit has been made just like God’s Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit within us. We have that connection to heaven wherever we go. The cross was the altar. Jesus was the sacrifice. A portal to heaven has been opened in you.
Angels can be sent wherever you are. And you have the authority to set them loose. Because you have the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.
When believers gather together, Jesus said, there I am in the midst of them.
Psalm 24:7 says
Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Hebrews 3:6 says
but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house
That verse is so interesting. It does not say that we are “in” God’s house, like we often say when we go to church. It says we ARE God’s house. We are the Temple of God. We are petros making up the petra. We have the same Spirit in us who was in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Today we are Bethel: the House of God.
Remember that the church is not four walls and a roof. The church is you and I. We are His House.
Instead of needing to claim land or physical territory, you rely on your relationship with Jesus. If you have made the profession that Peter did- Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God- you have accepted the Gospel, you are part of the church. You have Kingdom authority. Instead of Satan repeating what he did at Bethel’s gate, you can close the gates of hell.
And if you think that sounds weird, I hope you’re a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.