Everything.

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus declared: “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  Note that He does not mention peace and tranquility relative to His church, but rather forces from hell attacking His her and her having to overcome those forces in order to survive.  Other Scriptures promise His true saints personal peace and tranquility during the devil’s continuous attacks.

Jesus did not speak off the cuff.  Every Word He spoke was heard from on high and repeated for the world to hear and read (Jn. 12:44-50).  N0 idle chatter came from His lips.  He was not into funny anecdotes, humorous stories or nonsensical retorts.  Nowhere do we find Him making people laugh.  When He spoke, people paid attention.  Jesus of Nazareth was a serious man.  Therefore, His saying that the powers of Satan and his fallen angels (the “gates of hell”) would not be able to destroy His church alerts us to that fact that SPIRITUAL WARFARE IS INEVITABLE AND ONGOING IN HIS CHURCH.  At times that warfare has had state backing which has resulted in millions of deaths.  For example, the Roman Empire murdered some 50,000,000 people at the behest of the Catholic Church.  In the near future the end-time one-world, Catholic-dominated Church will again use the world-ruling Roman Empire to kill hundreds of millions of people in a world-wide cloud of terror.  Read The Ingathering: the Rise of the One-world Church.  Key word–Ingathering.

Christ’s New Testament Church came into being shortly after His crucifixion on the Day of Pentecost 31 A.D.  When His Gospel message commanding repentance of sin and a life of holiness became well known, the “gates of hell” rose up against that message and the church that was proclaiming it.  Satan did not want salvation seekers to know God’s rules of engagement that must be obeyed in order to inherit eternal life.  He (Satan) wanted them to “know” that believing in the Lord was all that was required.  The ruse had worked on Adam and Eve and most of their descendants.  Christ’s gospel revealed the deadly error in that popular theology.
Satan had to divert people’s attention away from the Gospel message and to his (Satan’s) message.  His agenda has not changed.  And as in days of old, he uses his false prophets to do his dirty work.  He inspires individuals, groups and governments to silence Christ’s Gospel message.  However, those forces did not prevail against the early church due to the work of  Christ’s tough, faithful apostles.  As a result of their tireless work, the church quickly grow in numbers and in holiness.  Satan was losing the war.  He had to take a different approach.

Enter Simon Magus (the magician) whom the Apostle Peter had rebuffed for wanting to buy the power of God.  Satan used this man to create a counterfeit version of Christ’s church, one which was much easier to enter and whose rules of conduct were much easier to obey.  Also, there were no significant penalties for breaking the rules.

Simon quickly went about abolishing some of Christ’s doctrines and creating others which were more in line with what people wanted.  One of the first of Christ’s commands to be eliminated was obedience to His Law.  Nailing the Law to the cross opened the door opened for church leaders to determine good and evil.  Other of the Lord’s commands were soon eliminated and many others were substituted.  Jesus warned about this in Matthew 15:9 where He rebuked people who called Him their Lord but substituted their commandments for His doctrines.

Simon’s counterfeit version of God’s church, headquarted in Rome, appropriated Christ’s name and called itself His church.   Satan’s man Simon, who called himself Simon Pater (popa, translated Peter) incorporated just enough of Christ’s teachings to appeal to those who were familiar with the Christian faith but rejected His strict requirements.  Though his church bore the look of Christianity, the majority of her beliefs and customs were taken directly from the world of Babylonian mystery religions.  Calling himself Simon Peter, the magician created a religion that would appeal to everyone, regardless of their beliefs and their gods which his church incorporated into her catechisms.  In this way Simon created a universally accepted religion and called it “Catholic,” which means “universal.”  Read Simon of Samaria: The Legacy.  Key word–Legacy.

Just as Jesus prophesied, His church has been at war with the forces of evil from the beginning.  Satan, using the Catholic Church, tried to destroy God’s church using the power of the Roman Empire.  And he almost succeeded.  But God has always had a remnant, a tiny group of true believers who, against all odds, have held onto Him by obeying His Law, thereby keeping their holiness intact.  God’s church has always been few in number.  Jesus prophesied that FEW would FIND His strait (difficult) gate, enter it and walk His narrow (one way only) path to salvation.  It was when the church began to grow in size that it began to weaken in terms of holiness.  Christ’s parable of the mustard seed speaks to this phenomenon.  When the “mustard seed” (church) sprouted and grew into a “tree” it attracted “birds” (counterfeit believers) who “nested” (settled) in it.  We all know what birds do to trees.  Due to Satan’s push for “inclusion” God’s church was soon filled with religious feces–false doctrines brought into the church by Satan’s birds.  The birds’ “truths” (leaven) soon began to pollute the church (loaf).  By the beginning of the second century Catholic doctrines and precepts dominated church teachings. The deaths of the original apostles had brought about a severe weakening of the church’s resolve.  Eventually some within the church decided that they could not remain therein.  When the so-called Protestants (“protesters”) left the Catholic Church they took most of her heathen beliefs and customs with them.  See the Introduction to this website for a list of such “truths” that continue to be believed and practiced to this day.  After a while God’s true saints, seeing that Satan had gained control of the Protestant system, left and went out on their own.  Though small in number, God’s church survived and today numbers several thousand world-wide.  As small as she is, Satan continues to make war against her.  Today his efforts take the form of attitudes and words.  But this will soon change.

As happened during the Inquisition, a world-dominating Catholic Church, riding a world-ruling “Beast” (the final resurrection of the Roman Empire) will one day be back on the warpath against God’s tiny church (Rev. 17:1-5).  This war will bring about the Great Tribulation.  Before this happens God will take His church to “her place,” an area of safety where He will protect her during the Tribulation and Day of the Lord–a 3 1/2 year period of terror in which billions of people will die.

History records that the war against God’s church has been ongoing since shortly after the church’s founding in 31 A.D.  Satan and his angels, called “the gates of hell,” have tried everything in their power to destroy her, both from without and within.  It is the history of this spiritual civil (internal) war that we will study in this series.  This church-versus-church war continues to this day and will continue until Christ returns.  Read Spiritual Warfare.  Key word–Warfare.

The history of God’s true church is a history of incredible courage, self-sacrifice, and in some cases, martyrdom as spiritual warriors struggled to maintain their holiness in a world ruled by the devil who controls both the world’s churched and the unchurched populations.  This war has revealed commendable courage as well as condemnable cowardice.  God preserved the history of this on-going war so that His end-time church–those “upon whom the ends of the world have come”–can receive instruction, correction and inspiration from the history His saints wrote with their blood, sweat and tears.  Let us study, appreciate and use the legacy of toughness and faith left to us by those courageous souls.  L.J.