Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
The Final Arrival Through The Gates.
Friday, March 23, 2012
“Ephraim” means “fruitfulness” or “doubly fruitful.” As the believer progresses, there will be a choice symbolically: the Old Gate and the Gate of Ephraim.
MAT 13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil {one} comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.
1. These are the individuals who go negative because they did not listen or concentrate on the teaching of the word of God when it was spoken.
2. These are the ones who have no root or endurance and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away – they can’t take the pressure.
3. This is the person who hears the Word but the weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.
4. There is the ones who are positive, mentioned and illustrated in MAT 13:23 and fulfill the calling of God upon their life as mentioned in JOH 15:8.
JOH 15:8 By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and {so} prove to be My disciples.
There is one of the gates I missed because in reality it is part of the first one mentioned under category three, the Old Gate, referring to the Death of the old man, while it, the Gate of Ephraim, refers to the new life that results.
As the believer progresses from the Sheep Gate and the Fish Gate, there will be a choice: two more gates, the Old Gate and
the Gate of Ephraim.
REV 12:4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth.
The first demon army, REV 9:11 They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is
Abaddon [destruction], and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon [exterminator].
REV 9:14-15, one commanding the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels [that is the demon army commanders] who have been imprisoned at the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels [the demon generals commanding this second assault army group], who had been kept in state of readiness for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they might kill a third of mankind.
JOH 15:20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
The people that I’ve seen stay the most faithful to Christ are the ones who were willing to pay the price for it, people who had to count the cost ahead of time.
1PE 3:20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
We saw it in Caleb’s day when 10 out of the 12 spies came and gave a bad report, the exception was Caleb and Joshua.
The Prison Gate
NEH 12:39 and above the Gate of Ephraim, by the Old Gate, by the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel, and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate, and they stopped at the Gate of the Guard.
EPH 3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles-
EPH 4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
A prisoner does not have a will of his own for he can only do what the Jailer decides.
‘Not my will be done, but Thine’ was the example that Jesus gave us.
KJ PHI 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
A prisoner always has a broken and a contrite heart and will find himself being changed from glory to glory into the image of
God’s only Son.
2CO 3:17-18, Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
John was a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos and it was there that he came forth with such Revelation from the heart of God.
In the parable of Joseph back in Genesis … as a type and pattern …he went from the prison to the throne.
No prison experience will lead to, no throne experience.
Being a prisoner declares that one is truly FREE!
This brief look at the twelve gates that the Lord had Nehemiah record just touches the ‘Headlines’ of God’s dealings with each because of His love for each.
Having passed through these twelve gates, one can now reckon that they are a part of the city of God,.the New Jerusalem.
He wears down our noble determination through the frustrations of life and He squeezes out of us every piece of our self-confidence by disappointment and defeat.
He allows our goals and dreams fall apart or sink in the swamp of human power and strength. He teaches us through our faults and failures until we learn the most precious of all God’s premises: WE CAN’T.
When “can-do” becomes “can’t”, He shows us that He CAN, and therefore
WE CAN.
(“I can’t” then becomes blasphemy.)
JOB 23:14 For He performs what is appointed for me, And many such decrees are with Him.
1TH 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
The demands that have been placed on us are now demands on Him.
1CO 3:16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
1CO 6:19-20, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
The PPOG is the place of the working of the superior power of God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, the different stages of spiritual growth, and the P.S.D.’s signified by the Gates and the Walls of the book of Nehemiah.