Chapter 15 in my book, Close Your Church for Good, is called “To Hell with the Church.”
No, I am not cursing the church.
Instead, I am calling the church to fulfill the mission and purpose given to it by Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 16, Jesus said that He would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. This does not mean that the church is to huddle safely behind marble walls and stained glass cathedrals, as Satan tries to beat down our doors. Rather, it is the church which is to lay siege to the gates of hell.
Wherever Satan has his strongholds, we are to attack. But our enemy is not flesh and blood — we do not attack other people. No, people are the captives and the victims. People are the ones we are fighting for, as we try to rescue and deliver them from the clutches of evil.
So let us stop inviting people to church, and instead invite the church to hell. Let us go with Jesus, and batter down hell’s gates.
Please note that due to some of the feedback I receive on these posts, this chapter might be radically revised for the final edition of the book. These changes will only be available in the print or eBook version when it comes out.
Here are the blog posts that form this chapter:
- The Church Should Go To Hell
- Our Deal with the Devil
- Breaking our Deal with the Devil
- Our God of Darkness
- Bringing Heaven Into Hell
- Heaven is Not my Hope
- Church is Not Safe
- Running Headlong into Hell
- Fighting to Lose
- Dances with Harlots
- Closing Church to Break Hell’s Gates
Western Churches have for the most part abandoned the mission given us by the Lord as we have become nothing more than superficial, feel good type organizations. I would encourage believers to go see what church is like in the spiritual battlefields of Central America dealing with severe poverty, drugs, aids, etc. Or look at what the church faces in Africa or the Middle East. In these areas Chrisitianity is doing battle to rescue men and women from Satan’s grip at a great personal sacrifice. Too bad most chruches in the good old USA never venture into these areas.
I’ll go even further….the Matthew 16 passage has been misunderstood in light of who Christ Jesus is. The scripture states that upon a huge rock (Petra) I will build my assembly (church) and the gates of hell (the grave) will not stand against it. The “it” is the real issue, we read that it’s the church, but the real it is the huge rock or the truth that establishes the assembly anyway. That truth is this…Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Death and the grave will not prevail against that truth, and all that believe that truth have the same victory…Selah….