TOPIC; I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT. (PART ONE)

-THE WRITTEN WORD -

'And Jesus answered and said unto him: blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father Who art in heaven.

And I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build My Church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”.

-THE REVEALED WORD-

Today, men and brethren, the Holy Ghost will throw some deep light into what the true Church of Jesus Christ is all about. He will also reveal to us why the gates of hell cannot prevail against that Church.

-How Jesus Christ Founded His Body On Earth-

For the avoidance of all doubt, the ‘gates of hell’ here refer to satan and the fallen angels, who operate largely from the bottomless pit. They are the "angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, which our God has kept in everlasting chains…... (See the Gospel according to Jude).

They are angry and enchanted demons, with common agenda - to steal, to kill and to destroy. They claim they are avenging what God did to them; and they vehemently bent on wrecking that vengeance on humanity, God's creation. Satan is their leader.

To counter and frustrate the wicked intents of these forces of darkness, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to the world: and offered Him as a ransom to these rampaging devils, and on behalf of humanity. He sent Him to take the place of humanity, to pay for whatever humanity had done against these vengeful spirits - to suffer on behalf of humanity. And Jesus did.

Brethren, we are all witnesses that Jesus did come, that He faced the judgment of these evil spirits, that He was made to answer and to pay for whatever satan and his agents have against humanity. Jesus was humiliated, abused, disgraced, tortured and crucified as a common criminal. All these He did on behalf of humanity. Yet these vengeful spirits are not satisfied.

This Jesus, Who had the power to accept or reject all that He went through at the hands of satan and his rampaging agents; chose not to: and that for you and for me. Yes, Jesus had the power to destroy both satan and all the forces of darkness gathered against Him, but He humbly and willfully submitted to their whims and caprices. He forsook His nature as God, and suffered as a man: and was killed as a man – crucified and stripped naked on the Cross – the Calvary.

And the same Jesus, Who is also God, in both form and substance, resurrected from the dead after three days in the grave; because death and all the forces of hell put together could not hold Him captive therein. He arose and ascended back to heaven from where He came, and is today sited at the right hand of His Father, waiting till these forces of darkness are brought under His feet.

But before He rose from death, Jesus went down into the pit of hell, fought and humiliated satan and his agents – and made a mockery of them. He then released all whom satan had held in captivity. He defeated death itself.

Brethren, Jesus did all these in order to reconcile humanity back to the Father, His Father – to restore man to the Garden of Eden from which the first man, Adam, fell. And in so doing, He, Jesus, also became the second Adam.

And when Jesus ascended, He sent the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father, to gather together all, among humanity, who would willingly and willfully accept what He, Jesus Christ, did for humanity on the Cross of Calvary. For it had pleased the Father to ordain, that as many as would do so, would become His sons and His daughters.

-The Body Of The Christ-

The Holy Ghost gathers these believing folks as the Body of the same Jesus Christ, even as the Church of Jesus Christ - even as the family of God amongst men. They that believe are that Church, the body of Jesus Christ. And the Holy Ghost is the One Who gathers them together. And Jesus Christ is the head of that Body.

And because of what He, Christ, wrought on Calvary and in the grave, the forces of hell can no longer prevail or have dominion over His body, which is His Church.

The first of that Church of Jesus Christ, His body, is described in the biblical Acts of the Apostles. It was birthed after that the Holy Ghost had come upon the disciples of Jesus, and turned them into instruments for spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To some of them the Holy Ghost gave Apostles, to some Prophets, to some evangelists, to some pastor and then teachers. And these folks, through the same Holy Ghost, went on to establish the Church of Jesus Christ on planet earth. The gates of hell could not prevail against them.

-The Foundation Of The True Church-

Let me remind all and sundry, that our Jesus Christ came into the world based on prophesy. He was a product of prophesy. He was the prophet of all prophets. And every true prophecy revolves around Him and what He represents.

Therefore, the body of Christ is founded on the Prophets, and on the Apostles – and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself standing firmly as the Chief Cornerstone - a Stone of offence and a stumbling Block to all who believe not: the Stone which the builders rejected but which has become the Head of the corner.

Whosoever falls on this Stone shall be broken and upon whosoever it falls, that person shall be crushed.

We can now see why the all the forces of hell put together cannot prevail against the true Church of Jesus Christ. In part two, shortly, we shall see what the perverted church looks like, and the consequences. Till then, keep running.