The Church will Survive!
Matthew 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
The Battle
No one has to tell us that there is a constant battle going on between good and evil in this world. Some of us have different definitions of what is good and what is evil but all of us know that there are times that we want to do things that we should not do. We also fail to do things that we should do. Sin is not a theory, sin is a fact. Individuals sin and nations are used in evil pursuits. The question is, who is the author of sin and who is the author of that which is good? I am going to go out on a limb here and tell you what I believe. I believe Satan is real and is evil and wants to destroy all that is good. That which is really good is of God and from God and is seen in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church
We know that the church is the “called-out” people who worship the Lord Jesus in this dispensation—the period of time between the Lord’s resurrection and His second coming. The church is built on the rock that Peter confessed, that is, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It was not built on Peter himself. The Lord had an earthly people in the Old Testament and he has a spiritual people in the New Testament. The church is not an organization of man, it is not a corporate entity, it is not a building. It is a group of people that are different from all others because they have undivided loyalty and faith in the Lord. Their faith rests in Him and in His Word, the Bible. While others question the value of the Word of God and while others question which God (if there is one at all) is the real God, the church has settled all that by faith. I am one of those people.
Many intellectuals think I am simple (or foolish). However, my faith is based on inductive reasoning. That is the things I can prove and find reliable in the Bible let me have confidence in the promises that I cannot prove. Thus, I have satisfying answers to the “big” questions having to do with where we came from, as well as with where God came from. I find it easier to accept by faith that God, an intelligent designer, always existed than to accept (again by faith in man’s assumptions) that the matter that makes up this universe just happened. Man’s faith also assumes that the matter that couldn’t have always existed brought forth life and that life just happened. It is quite evident that creationists cannot explain the beginning of our universe because they cannot explain God’s beginnings. However evolutionists cannot explain where matter came from and therefore they are also at a loss to really explain the universe and where it came from. If we accept the hypothesis that man can from alien intervention, we still have to explain where the aliens came from originally. It seems to me that those who believe in Godless change or evolution would be like mechanics who learn how cars work and learn how to soup them up and improve them while at the same time denying that the original model was designed by an engineer somewhere.
Satan has plenty of ammunition to use in his attacks against the true church. Sometimes he works as a lion or a wild wolf, attacking and ravaging. So we see people who are forced to die for a system of belief that Satan tries to convince us isn’t even true. Sometimes he works as a bear, pretending to be friendly; but in reality waiting to destroy. He can appear as an angel of light according to Paul. He is sometimes a false prophet or a false teacher. But however he works, he uses what is referred to as the gates (or authority) of hades (or the place of departed souls) to attack the church. Paul says the church is constantly wrestling against his deceitfulness and his dominion and power as well as against his wicked spirits in Ephesian 6:12.
So What is the Point?
Sometimes I wonder why I care and then I realize that even though Satan is strong and is constantly attacking and corrupting the real church, yet there are those who are faithful. When Elijah thought he was the last faithful man on this earth, he wasn’t. However, the faithful were down to about 7,000 (1 Kings 19:7). When Satan tried to destroy the Messianic line from whom Christ would come, there was always at least one person he could not destroy. The church will be victorious. I want to be part of that faithful few. I hope you do too.
No matter how weak the church may be, no matter how bleak the future seems for the true believer who has accepted by faith things that cannot be proven or disproven scientifically, the gates of hell cannot and will not destroy the church. I believe that. Praise the Lord!
Bruce Collins
Meditation for the week of January 24, 2016