[Troy Phelps]: How many of you, when you were in school, went on a field trip, you left the school grounds and you went somewhere? All right, at first, I was worried that you guys went to some really bad schools. But I’m glad to see that you went on some field trips, maybe you were studying animals, and you went to the zoo. I loved Zoo day. And I couldn’t find a photo of a can wrapped in aluminum foil. So this was the best I could do. My mom would wrap a Coke, and a bunch of rolls of aluminum foil put it in the bottom of my brown paper bag. I got to slow down here for a moment.

And at lunchtime, I couldn’t wait to get that treat of having a Coke and unroll that zoo day. And we have a great... Oh, it’s hard to see up there isn’t it? You can’t see the zoo photos. But we have a great zoo here in Cincinnati. And maybe if you were studying art, you went to the art museum or maybe you went to Wright Patt Air Force Base and you sat in the cockpit of a F14 Tomcat, or you went to the... you sat in the shuttle, that type of thing on your field trip. My senior year of high school, I got the opportunity to go to Washington DC. And that was probably my favorite field trip, we actually got to stay in hotels and go overnight, and be able to stand at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial, or read the names of the many thousands 58,000 names on the name of the war, Vietnam War Memorial, or being able to go and tour the Holocaust Museum and see those things with my own eyes. It makes an impact different than you can have in just reading about it in a textbook.

To be able... It’s one thing to maybe go and learn about the separation of powers and the legislative process. But when you get a go and you stand and you sit in the balcony, and you watch congressmen and women actually debating on a bill, it strikes you much different than when you just read about it. Field trips are great. To be able to go to a location, to be able to see something with your own eyes, to be able to touch it with your own hands, we don’t tend to forget those things.

After instructing His disciples for about three years, nearing the final stretch where He would turn His attention to moving toward Jerusalem, knowing that His death awaited Him, Jesus Christ took His disciples on a field trip. There were important lessons that He wanted them to learn and He knew the location that would be best for teaching them those things. I’d like to take you today as best as I can, on a similar virtual field trip of where He took His disciples. We’re going to start in Matthew 16. So the story is found both in Mark 8, and Matthew 16, the lead up to that is in 15. You know, they fed the 4000. And they then begin to go on this trip. They’ll get into a boat and they’ll come to the region of Magdala near the town of Dalmanutha or something like that. It’s found on the west side of the sea of Galilee. They’d get back on a boat, they’d cross over the Sea of Galilee to the area of Bethsaida, and they’d start on a large walk. It’s about 30 miles from Bethsaida up to where they’d go, and it would take them nearly 10 hours to walk there and you might wonder why. Why would God or why would Jesus Christ toward the end of His ministry, toward the end of His disciples decide to take this long walk, this long trip? And there’s a lot more to it than what appears at first glance.

This is the only time that it’s recorded that Jesus Christ went to this area. And again, it was no accident, like we heard in the sermon that God doesn’t make accidents, neither did Jesus Christ. This was no accident. This was a very intentional field trip. Their teacher was bringing these young men to a very important place for making this lesson. It was also a very sinful place, a place that Jewish rabbis actually forbid people to go to. It was a very sinful place and it was nothing like the disciples had ever seen before in their life.

In this picture, you can’t see it real well, but it was a very lush area, but it had a deep and long history of pagan, and false religious practices, and sins. The Canaanites had originally built temples and sanctuaries to Baal here. And this is right near the area that after the northern tribes split off from Judah that the first king of northern Israel, Jeroboam, built high places, he made priests from all the people, he took one of his two golden calves, and he placed it here near this area in the city of Dan. They’ve actually been excavating this area since about 1967, even more in the last couple of decades. And they’ve uncovered a lot of worship to Greek and Roman gods there.

Eventually, Baal worship was replaced with the Greek fertility gods. They originally named this area Paneas. It’s now called Banias. And that’s because, in Arabic, there is no P sound so they replaced it with a B. Around 20 B.C., this part of the kingdom was ruled by Herod the Great, and he built a city here. In around 19 B.C., Herod built the Augusteum. It was a white marble temple in front of the cave that we’re going to look at here in a minute. And it was meant to honor Caesar Augustus who had given him control of this area. And then in the year that Jesus Christ was born, Herod the Great died and he divided his kingdom among his three sons. And he willed this area to his youngest son, Philip the Second, or known by Philip the Tetrarch, I think is how you say that who rebuilt Paneas and enlarged it and made it even more beautiful. He renamed it Caesarea, in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar.

The name Philippi was added to perpetuate his own fame also to distinguish it from other Caesareas like Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean Sea. Caesarea Philippi became his administrative capital and he ruled there until 33 A.D. At this location, there are some really natural geographical or geological formations. So, there’s a very large rock face that’s about 100 feet high, and about 100 or 500-meters wide, so a really large rock face and the local people there built shrines and temples right into that rock face that you can still see to this day.

The disciples arriving on the scene would have come across five main areas of false worship when they arrived here with Jesus Christ. There would have been the temple to Augustus, there would have been next... So, I’m moving from left to right. There would have been the temple to Augustus. Then next to that would have been the court of Pan followed by the temple to Zeus. And then there was this upper region of the dancing goats and the lower region of the dancing goats. And all this, this city was named after the Greek god Pan. So who was Pan? Pan was one of the oldest Greek gods. He was the God of the wild or of nature and he was also a god of fertility. Worship of Pan actually began out in rustic areas. And so, he’s more familiar or identified as being kind of more rural, so they never built like large temples to him. And they actually worshipped him in places like caves or grottoes. He was depicted as half-human on top and half-goat on the bottom, often with horns too. You might remember this little goat playing man and he would play what they called the pan flute. And in the middle of this large, 100-feet high, 500-feet wide rock face, there was a cave that they believe Pan lived in. It was a very large, dark, and foreboding cave.

This cave was believed to be the gateway to the underworld. And in ancient times, the springs would actually burst forth out of this cave and water flowed directly out of the mouth of this cave. Josephus records that it was the chief source, the headwaters of the Jordan River, which would then continue flowing South down into the Dead Sea. Now, sometime after Christ was there, an earthquake would happen that would change the structure there and water now flows out not from the mouth of the cave, but underneath the cave, so you don’t get to see that now if you go to that area.

The cave contained seemingly a bottomless pit of water, a great abyss. Josephus records that when anybody let down anything that measured the depth of the earth beneath the water, no length of cord is sufficient to reach it. This place was so striking to Alexander the Great that the Greeks built a sanctuary here and these natural features to the Greeks. They always believe that these, kind of, unusual natural features must have gods involved with them. And this one was especially impressive. The Romans were heavily influenced by the Greeks, and they followed many of their religious tradition.

The Greeks and Romans believed this to be the actual gate to the underworld, the entrance into where they believed that the fertility gods went during the wintertime, and would travel there and that they would come back and return each spring. And they would try to entice these gods to return, gods like Pan. They would do horrific acts to try to get their gods to return. It would involve prostitution and even strange sexual interaction with goats. Goat sacrifices were thrown into this bottomless pool of water, and if the goats sank, the gods were thought to be appeased. But if it floated, they had to go buy another goat and repeat the process and hope the next one sank. So many goats were thrown into this, that the water actually ran red during that time.

Next to the cave, there were five indented niches carved into the stone face where idols of Pan, of Zeus, of Nemesis, and then a sanctuary of the called of the dancing goats were placed and they would place idols and different things into these niches. Pan was said to play his flute and make the goats dance to ensure fertility. But it was all mixed with sex, and lust, and things that it’s just best left unsaid.

Christ had brought His students to a pagan city filled with moral corruption. It represented the worst of evil culture. It was filled with all sorts of idols, shrines, and despicable religious practices. Some have even called this the red light district of their time. It was a city and a people who were openly embracing sin. And again, rabbis wanted no good Jew to go to this location. Why? Why would Christ bring impressionable students that He was teaching to come out of this world to this spot? Christ is the greatest teacher that has ever lived. The lesson He wanted to teach them was so important that they took a 30-mile walk, a 10-hour trip each way to get and stand in this location. What was that lesson? What did it mean to them and what should it mean to us today?

Today, in this message, we’re going to examine the church versus the gates of Hades, the church versus the gates of Hades. Please turn to Matthew 16:13. Those were some of those niches. All right. I’m going to put the scriptures up. Hopefully, you can see them. All scriptures will be on the screen today but I’ll also call them out. Matthew 16:13, again, the disciples had crossed the Sea of Galilee, they’d arrived in Bethsaida, they’ve taken this long walk. And then it simply says, “When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea of Philippi.” And because of that simple statement, it’s so easy to miss where they went, what was involved with getting there, and what a big deal it was of what’s going on. But Matthew did not need to spell that out to his readers or his disciples at that time, or those that would later read the recording of this. They would have immediately known the geographies and the sin of the city and they would have frankly known, we don’t go there.

He asked His disciples saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” In His three years of ministry, Jesus had been met with a complete misunderstanding of who He was by His own family, by religious leaders, by even those professed to following Him. He was called a blasphemer. He was accused of having the power of the devil. He was called a lawbreaker. There was a lot of confusion and blindness to who Jesus was. So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, other say, Jeremiah, and/or one of the prophets.”

Now, some of these people are dead. Why did they think that Jesus Christ were these people that they knew had long been dead? All but John the Baptist who had just, you know, recently died. Adam Clarke’s commentary states, “By this and other passages we learn that the Pharisaic doctrine of the metempsychosis or transmigration of the souls was pretty general,” means pretty widespread, “For it was upon this ground that they believe that the soul of the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or some of the prophets had come to a new life in the body of Jesus.” This term metempsychosis means the transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or different species.

Now, even Josephus, who was a Pharisee, he himself said, “Every soul is immortal. Those of the good only enter into another body, but those of the bad are tormented with everlasting punishment.” This was a belief that they had standing in front of the gates of Hades, Peter represented that some of the Jews thought Jesus was the soul of John the Baptist or some previously long since dead prophet in a new body. Christ wasn’t ignorant to what people thought of Him. He wasn’t looking for them to necessarily tell Him something He didn’t know. But He wanted this to stand against His true identity, that Peter would then say. In verse 15, He said to him, “But who do you say I am?” I envision Christ standing facing His students with that backdrop of that rock face behind Him that massive rock face with all of its pagan beliefs, all of its worship practices behind Him.

In verse 16, Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He didn’t say, “This is who I believe you are.” He said, “This is who you are.” He was very concise but emphatic in who Jesus was. “You are the Christ,” a word that we often talk about meaning the Messiah, the anointed or anointed one. In the Bible, it’s a term we use to talk about the act of consecration, kings and high priests, even some of the prophets were anointed. It’s a setting apart for a holy work of God. We are told that in Acts 10:38, that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with Holy Spirit, and power, He was the anointed one, He was the Messiah.

The Jews of Jesus’ day was also looking for a Messiah, a great anointed king of David’s lineage, who by the power of God would restore Israel and rule over the world. But the Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, as the anointed one. He said He was the Son, He wasn’t some old soul of a long-dead prophet. He was the child of God. He was living, He was in complete stark contrast to those blocks of wood, those rocks that are propped up in those niches behind Him. His God was the living God, the true source of both physical and spiritual life.

Then Jesus answered in verse 17, and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” Why was Simon so blessed? This knowledge did not come from a physical source. All other people were trying to reason using their human reasoning who Jesus Christ was using their false ideas. But Peter had received this knowledge not by himself, not through himself, not by man, but from direct revelation from God Himself was a miracle.

Our ability to understand the truth is a miracle. And it’s something we should never take lightly or for granted. And Jesus accepted these two titles. He was the Messiah, He was the Son of the living God. Christ was masterful, and in everything, in the ways that He taught. He would set up events just perfectly. And notice that He didn’t call him Simon Peter. He didn’t call him Cephas here, He called him Simon bar Jonah, the name given to him at birth. But then in verse 18, He says, “But I also say to you, that you are Peter. You’ve correctly stated with divine knowledge who I am, let me now tell you who you are.” He shifts from calling him Simon, son of Jonah. And says, “You know, my true identity. I know your true identity too. You are Petros.” The name Christ had given them all the way back in John 1:42. He was Cephas, a stone, a piece of a rock. It was small in size, but it was still strong and firm.

Those of you that have been in the church a long time that know that the Roman Catholic Church takes this scripture and uses it as the authority proclaiming that Peter was the first pope. And that there was an unbroken lineage from Peter all the way down through the Catholic Church of popes that they all stand in the place of Christ today. Is that true? Is that what Christ said here? Is Peter the rock the church was built on?

He says, “I also say to you, that you are Peter and on this rock,” what was this rock? Now He changed a word here. It’s no longer Petros it’s the word Petra. And it means a massive rock. Again, remember the backdrop that’s behind Him. 16 times this word is used in the Bible. And it’s never used for another person, this word Petra, other than Jesus Christ. And when we build a doctrine, we have to see does it stand up to all the other scriptures? Do the other scriptures show that Peter was this rock? Was he the firm foundation? No, that’s not what the Bible shows. How does the Bible use Petra? We’re going to look at a couple of scriptures here in Matthew 7:24 and 25. It says that, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the Petra on this rock, and the rain descends, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock.” That’s one example of Petra.

Here’s another couple. Romans 9:33, says, “Behold, I lay in Zion, a stumbling stone, and a rock, a Petra of a fence, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” And the last one, 1 Corinthians 10:4, “And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank that spiritual rock that Petra and that followed them and that Petra was Christ.” I think that’s pretty definitive. The Rock is Christ, not Peter. If Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, is that rock that the church is built on then what is Peter’s role? How is he a stone?

Let’s look at a couple of other scriptures quickly in Ephesians 2:19. It says, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens and saints and members of the household of God,” Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being what? The chief cornerstone, and whom the whole building being fit together, all being fit together, all these little stones being fit together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit.

Here’s another one. Last one to kind of prove this. 1 Peter 2:5, “You also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” This is Peter’s own words. Certainly, if the church was built on him, and he was now infallibly standing in the stead of Christ, certainly he would have made that clear right here. But no, he clearly understands who exactly the church is built on, and that was Jesus Christ. Remember, Jesus is teaching this concept with this giant rock behind Him. Jesus taught that He would build His church on something on the rock, but not this rock behind Him, on Himself. He would build it, not a man’s false ideas of their worship practices that that stone face stood in kind of contrast to Him as the rock and just a ginormous rock there in the world.

Christ would build His church. That’s what He said, did you know this is the first time He ever uses the word church? It’s the very first time it’s used in the Bible. He went to this location to talk about building a church. Not something made by man, not something man thinks of and creates. This was not something built on that rock face. This was something amazing and marvelous. Jesus Christ worked His whole life in building. He was a craftsman by trade, some say carpenter, it can also mean stonemason, which I personally think makes more sense with the majority of homes being built about 80% of them at that time were built out of stone. And we see all these teachings of Him bringing stones together and fitting them just right, something a stonemason would have known all about.

Jesus would take the living stones, those firm and solid living stones like Peter, and build His church. A body of believers made up of faithful men and women down through time made up of people of all races, of all sects, of all nationalities, of all financial backgrounds, of all walks of life. It belongs to Him. He builds it. He builds it with these small stones, but He’s the head.

Again, this is the first place that we see the word church, used this word ecclesia. It would be used after this another 117 times in the Bible, but this is the place that Jesus Christ chose to first use the word. Now, today on Pentecost, we understand that the New Testament church began on this day with the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit. But this field trip to Caesarea Philippi is the first place Jesus used and chose this location to teach the important concept to His disciples about His church. He walked them 30 miles to do this amazing compare and contrast to teach them about what the church truly would be built on and by extension, what it wasn’t built on, who He was and who He wasn’t, what the church would be, and by contrast, what it would be facing in this world to come.

The church means ecclesia, it means called out ones. It’s used for the body of Christ called out of this world called to leave their way of living behind them, to leave sins behind them, to be called out of false beliefs, out of idolatry, of sin. And on Pentecost, Jesus Christ began to build His church. But He brought His leaders here to teach them about this new church, this group of called-out ones, and what they would be facing down through time.

This was the point of the field trip. If you’re studying animals, you go to the zoo, if you’re studying fish, you go to the aquarium, if you’re studying government, maybe you take a tour of the Capitol Building. But if you’re a body of believers called to leave sin who are going to do a work in a world that is imprisoned by Satan, and sin, for these disciples, this field trip was to come and stand before the gates of Hades for this important teaching.

In ancient time, their cities were surrounded by walls. It was by the gate that somebody outside would either enter or people would leave. Gates were not an instrument for attacking at all. It was for an entrance, or an exit, or keeping people in, or keeping people out. What did Hades mean to people at that time? In Jesus’ day, people believed that when you died, your body went to the underworld to be ruled by the god of Hades or god Hades, He was considered to be one of the three most powerful of all the gods with Zeus and Poseidon.

Hades had complete rule of the underworld and all of its subjects. And Hades took great pride in collecting those subjects, and he wanted no one to leave. He had a hound, a three-headed dog, named Kerberos that guarded the gate of Hades to prevent not people from coming in but from the dead people leaving. The word prevail against is one word. I’m tired of butchering words, today, I’m going to skip it. But it can mean to overpower or prevail. But its first two meanings in theirs is to be strong to another’s detriment or two, to be superior in strength. The only other place we find that... did I go too far? Yeah. The only other place we find that in the Bible is in Luke 23:23. I’ll read it here just so we can get the context of how this word prevailed was used but they were insistent. oAnd this is about when Pilate wanted to release Jesus. But it says, “But they were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified.” And the voices of these men and then of the chief priests prevailed. In this case, the voices of these men were strong to the detriment of Jesus Christ. Their voices were superior in strength to the wishes of Pilate, to let Christ go.

The gate of Hades will not be superior in strength to the church of called-out ones that Christ is building. The gate of Hades will not be strong to the detriment of the church of called-out ones that Christ was building. There are four ways that this scripture is true. The gates of Hades... of how the gates of Hades will not be superior in strength to the church. The first one, the church won’t die out. Now, I’m not going to actually cover this one. This is a common teaching of the Church. Satan has certainly tried to destroy the church but we’re all still here and we will continue to be. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this because it’s been a long-standing teaching of the Church and there are lots of sermons you can pull up at ucg.org that will take you all way through time and show you that the church has always continued and will always continue. But I will point out one scripture in a moment when we get to it that does prove this point. And we’ll just hit that in a moment.

Number two, Christ overcame death. And this is the greatest fulfillment of this verse is that Jesus Christ Himself overcame death, Christ came to this unique place with their false pagan beliefs and said that, “The gates of Hades won’t keep me in,” showing that Himself the Son of the living God was superior in all ways to these false pagan beliefs and their religion. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul here combating the idea, the false belief that Jesus Christ wasn’t resurrected in 1 Corinthians 15:12. I keep turning around because I wanna make sure... there we go, I wanna make sure I don’t do that too often and get on the wrong slide.

“Now, if Christ has preached,” 1 Corinthians 15:12, “Now, if Christ has preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.” Verse 17, “And if Christ is not risen your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” Verse 20, “But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruit of those who have fallen asleep.” Verse 23, “But each one in his own order Christ the firstfruits afterward those that are Christ at His coming, and then comes the end when He will deliver the kingdom of God the Father when He puts an end to all rule, and all authority, and power, for He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”

Now, this is not Hades. This is the word. This is the God... Oh, thank you. Oh, I can look right here. Thanks, Mrs. Sipes. The laptop’s right down there. That’s so much better than turning around and I was on the wrong slide. You guys got a preview of Thanos up there, but we’re going to back it up real quick. Now, if I can find my notes again, all right. This Greek word for death is the word Thanatos. And it’s been personified in Greek to be a being of death. That’s where a fun fact for Marvel fans, that’s where Marvel got their name of Thanos. They took Thanatos. And they made it a little easier to say and made it Thanos. We’ll come back to 1 Corinthians 15 and a few minutes. But jumping back to Pentecost in Acts 2, during Peter’s sermon, we see in Acts 2:23, “Him Jesus Christ being delivered by the determined person... purpose,” I’m sorry, “by the determined purpose and for knowledge of God. You have taken by lawless hands have crucified and put to death.” Verse 24, “whom God raised up having loose the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” It was not possible that Jesus Christ could be held by death. God freed Christ from death by the resurrection death could not hold Him.

Acts 2:25-26, “For David says,” and this is quoting from Psalm 16, “‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is that my right hand that I may not be shaken, therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest and hope.” The hope of the resurrection. Acts 2:27, “For you will not leave my soul in Hades.” Now, this is quoting from the Old Testament David use the word shield, but it’s the Greek Hebrew equivalent of the same word when translated here in the New Testament, “For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.”

Let’s go to Romans 6:8. It says, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with Him. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” A word it means to rule over and be Lord of. Christ overcame death and because Christ overcame death, we can overcome death and that is number three, the church will overcome death. 1 Corinthians 15:50-51 says, “Now I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you, a man mystery, we shall not all sleep.”

Now this proves number point number one remember, the church won’t die out. There will be people living all the way up until the end-time.

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). Verse 53, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruption corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).

Verse 55, “Oh death, this is Thanatos. Oh Thanatos, where’s your sting? Oh, Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of the sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). Again, not on our own strength. It is through the strength of Christ Jesus. When we are resurrected and changed in the spirit bodies at the last trumpet pictured by the feast of trumpets, this will represent another great blow to the gates of Hades. The last and final blow to the gates of Hades will be right after the Great White Throne Judgment and we can read about that in Revelation 20:14, where it says, “Then death, Thanatos and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. And this is the second death.”

After all, people are either spirit beings in God’s family with their spirit bodies or destroyed because they’re unwilling to follow God’s way. Death and the grave finally come to an end, there’s no need for them anymore. Point four, the church will attack the gates of Hades. If we look at Hades as a type of Satan, who has bound and imprison the lives of the people of this world, keeping them in prison to sin, to pain to suffering, the gates of Satan’s Empire will not be stronger than the church that Christ is building.

Christ took His disciples on a field trip. And in one sense, He told them, “Don’t fear death in Hades,” they would soon see that death could not hold Christ Jesus. And these words would then bring them comfort and courage that they too could lay down their lives for the truth of God. And that death and Hades wouldn’t be able to hold them either. They too would be resurrected as part of God’s great plan. And that hasn’t happened yet. But it will happen. But they weren’t dead yet. What were they to do? They were to take it to the gate. In the ancient world, the gates of a city or a castle were the most vulnerable parts. The walls were made up of very large stones. But the gate was made of wood and it was the most vulnerable part to break through. It was the point of attack for any army that was coming against that city. To take a stronghold you had to attack the gate. Therefore, in 1 Corinthians 15:58, this kind of the end of where we’ve been reading in 1 Corinthians 15, “Therefore my beloved brethren,” He says, “Be steadfast, be immovable.” And then He says, “Always abounding in the work of the Lord, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Because of all this, therefore, be settled, He says, be unmovable and at all times, be doing something, be abounding in the work of the Lord.

This word for abounding means it’s constantly coming forth, constantly overflowing like those deep waters back at that time that would have been gushing out of the mouth of the cave, of Pan. They were to be always abounding in the work. It’s the job we’ve been given to do as church members. In the offertory, Mr. Myers talked about we all have our share, our own role to play in this organization. There is an organization but it’s made up of us as members, and Paul is writing to members in the church of Corinth, each member is called to be their part of the body of Christ. Their lives should always be abounding in the work of the Lord always advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ of the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:8 before Christ’s final ascension, He told His disciples He said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you shall be witnesses, to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria.” Wait, Samaria? Those half-breed dog place where those people we don’t associate with, there too? And all the ends of the earth. He said they would receive the Holy Spirit, the down-payment of eternal life and they’d have a job to do to be witnesses for Christ and Jerusalem, to Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth. They would be witnesses everywhere, to everyone, to all the people that Satan had in prison to all the broken, all the lost all the hopeless, all the hurting all the confused all the sick, everyone.

But at first, they weren’t happy to go out. They hunkered down. They became a closed and kind of community of believers to themselves. But then God kind of gave them a kick in the pants. And God allowed persecution to come upon the church. And they scattered, and they went out and that gospel spread around the world. The church has to be going out, it has to be offensive against the gate, it cannot be retreating, it cannot be hunkering down. It cannot be waiting out the kingdom, it cannot be hiding its light under a basket. There are times to defend the faith once delivered. But we aren’t to cower from Satan, and from the world he’s wrecked. We are to take it to the gates, not on our own strength, not because we are great, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through Jesus Christ living in our lives. It is the message of Jesus Christ of His purpose, of His life, of His death, His resurrection, by which you and I have the opportunity to repent, to be forgiven, to receive the Holy Spirit, that we’ve been promised as a down-payment of our future spiritual bodies. To understand that we’re going to be a part of God’s great family, to understand why we were born, to understand that we get to have this marvelous future, to be a God being. And to then go out and share that every day in our lives share the hope that we have within us, to share the understanding that has been a miracle that by God that we understand.

When I grew up as a kid and worldwide and I wonder if any of you relate to this feeling that I have, and my wife and have talked about it. I feel like we were taught, maybe not outright taught but taught back in those days, to kind of hide our light and to put it under a basket. To tell people we were going to a religious convention, not that we were going to keep God’s holy days that are outlined in the Bible and that we were keeping those Christian holy days that we would find some way to kind of hide around that we didn’t eat pork, maybe, you know, no, thanks, or hide some way that we’re keeping the Sabbath by saying, “No, sorry, I got something else going on that day, I can’t come to your party.” And not to lie. I’m not saying that we were taught to lie. But I don’t feel like we were taught back in those days to be out with it either.

In 1 Peter 3:15, it says, Peter says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. And always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness, and in fear, having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.” They will be ashamed, not us. Now, we can be ashamed. Let’s look at an example of that in Mark 8, this is the parallel account that we’ve been reading here about going to Caesarea Philippi. That’s found in verse 27-30, “But then, while they’re still there,” in verse 35, it doesn’t show that they’ve left this area. In Mark 8:35-37, it says, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” A word meaning breath or life. “Or what will man give in exchange for his life or his soul?”

But then notice something that Matthew’s account leaves out that Mark’s has. The next thing says is in verse 38, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation of Him, the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with His holy angels.” Remember where they are in this chapter standing in front of this area that is full of prostitution and sinful acts and He tells them, “Don’t be ashamed of Me or My words, or else I will be ashamed of you.”

The Jews pulled within they separated from the world. Remember who we are called to be. Perilous times will come, and they are coming. We are to be praying and studying and drawing close to God. We are to be strong Christians who advance God’s message on the gates of Hades not pulling back, not simply waiting for the end to come, but advancing the gospel. Now all of us aren’t called to be ministers, not all of us are called to beyond today, they have their important role to play. Not everyone has been called to or placed in those positions. But all of us, we all have our part to play. We are all, as Mr. Myers said, fellow workers, we are all called to be a light, to be an example, to stand for the truth, to shine as Christians, in this sinful world.

1 Corinthians 15:58, we read that before, I believe, saying, “Knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord,” it may at times feel like it’s in vain, it may feel like nothing comes from it. Nothing comes from maybe the booklets we put out at times, it may feel like that it may not feel like enough is happening. It may not feel like your lives at work changes much, your lives at school changes much. But He says, “It is not in vain. It is not empty.” We must continue striving for the kingdom, shining as called out ones, the church with a mixture of faith and reliance on God not on our own strength. We can’t attack the gate on our own. But with God’s power, we can. It’s not about numbers. We want God to add to the church, don’t we? We want God to add 3,000 to the church today like He did it back in Acts 2. But even if God doesn’t add big numbers to our church, I still believe He will continue adding people. But we are to be witnesses no matter what, to the ends of the earth. Christ said, “I will build my church.” And that church is made up of each and every one of us, each of you.

Living stones. We’re all a part of the team. We’re all a part of what God is doing. Not all the same, not all in the same role. But where each of us have been placed by God in the body, His church, one body fired up for the battle, a group of people willing to go through whatever it takes, whatever trials come our way. It tells us in Acts 14:22, that we must do many tribulations into the kingdom of God, whatever the trials come, we’re to take up our cross, we’re willing to go through whatever it takes to be in the kingdom, to enter the kingdom and also to take God’s truth against the gates of Hades, both personally and collectively. Satan won’t stand down; new challenges will come against the church. But here we are on another Pentecost through another crazy idea and having no idea what next year holds but we continue on and God is with us.

Remember where Christ brought His disciples. He showed them what His church would be facing, what conditions the message would go out into, the world would be caught up in idolatry and chasing after false religion and false gods. A world that is caught up in the lust of the flesh, we can look around our world and we can see many of these same things. The gates of Hades are still to this day clearly seen. Satan’s world would try to tell us that the truth is relative, that our feelings and emotions are enough to tell us which is the right path that God wants us to be happy. And that’s our single source of pursuing that to determine, how we’re going to live our life, whatever makes me happy, that if it feels good, it must be right.

Satan’s world will try to tell us that the truth is relative. He will tell us that that truth is rigid, that it’s intolerant, that it’s judgmental, that the Bible is archaic, that it’s incompatible with love and human dignity and they will call what the Bible says and what the Church teaches hate. John 15:18-19 says, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own yet because you are not of the world. But I chose you out of the world. Therefore the world hates you.”

We don’t have to fear any of this. This is all happening just as God and Jesus Christ knew it would happen. We don’t hate any person. Do we? We don’t hate any person. No matter their sin. We don’t hate the person. We want all people to be free from the chains that Satan has bound them in. That may not happen in this lifetime. But that doesn’t change who we are to be as a witness. God’s truth offers help and hope, help for today and hope for tomorrow.

Brethren, just before shifting His focus on Jerusalem and His coming death, Jesus Christ took His disciples on a field trip to Caesarea Philippi. A place so full of debauchery and false religion that good Jews wouldn’t go near it. Christ brought His disciples face-to-face with the world they would be encountering. Christ was not like these false gods, He was the Son of the living God. He taught them that after His death, He was going to build a group of people, a group of living stones into a collective body of believers of called-out ones who would not be overcome by the gates of Hades. That death would have no power over Him, and would ultimately not have any power over them either. His church would be stronger than the gates of Hades. And that metaphorically Satan cannot keep the message of the gospel of the kingdom of the of God from this world. The church and its message will prevail. Our lives will shine as examples of transformed lives of overcoming sin and of God’s way of life. Christ said He would build His church and the gates of Hades would never prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).