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GATES AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM
Gates and How to Deal with Them
Copyright © 2006 Jonathan Alao
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by means of any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from King
James Version of the Holy Bible.
ISBN
FRESHWORD BOOK
P.O Box 26083, Kampala, Uganda
[email protected]
Cover page design by Ayodeji Onipede
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+2348036696566
CONTENTS
GATES AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM ................................... 1
CONTENTS .................................................................. 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................... 4
DEDICATION ................................................................ 5
PREFACE .................................................................... 6
ONE ............................................................................ 7
LIFT UP YOUR HEAD ‘O’ YE GATES...................................... 7
TWO ........................................................................... 8
PURPOSE OF GATES ....................................................... 8
THREE ........................................................................10
PATTERNS OF GATES.....................................................10
LANGUAGE AS A GATE ...................................................11
RACISM AS A GATE........................................................12
SEVERAL OTHER GATES..................................................12
GATES OF HELL ...........................................................13
FOUR .........................................................................15
POWER OF GATES ........................................................15
FIVE ...........................................................................16
POWER TO OVERCOME GATES ..........................................16
SIX ............................................................................18
PRACTICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF GATES .....................18
SEVEN.........................................................................19
PRAYER FOR BREAK THROUGH .........................................19
WATCH OVER YOUR EYE – YOUR GATE ................................20
PRAYER SELECTIONS .....................................................20
Bibliography...............................................................21
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I acknowledge the various contributions of all stakeholders in the
assignment God has given to me.
Ayodeji and Chinemerem Onipede for their assistance in preparing
the layout of this book.
My jewel, friend, wife and mother, Busola and my children
Fellowship (Translated), Faithful, Deborah and Divine for making
life worthwhile.
To God who gave me life and a cause to celebrate it. To Him is the
glory!
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to Niyi and Dunni Yussuf for their efforts to
promote the work of God on earth and to fund the production of
this book. You will not loose your reward and the Lord will bless you
and your children, in Jesus name, Amen.
PREFACE
I recognise that many books have been written on this subject; the
most impressive one I have read is written by Abu Bako “Praying
Through The Gates of Time”. I have been privileged to preach on
this subject long before I had the opportunity to read any book on
it. In December 2005, the brethren from Congo, who came for the
meeting in Ruhungeri in Rwanda specifically, requested me to make
a book on this subject. Each time I preach on this subject either
within or outside Africa, the response has been amazing. It’s
apparent that we all have some gates to deal with in order to move
forward in life.
This book contains mostly what I have shared over the radio, at
camps, conferences, seminars both within and outside Africa. It
might not answer all the questions on gates, but it will certainly
bless you.
Lift up your head ‘O’ ye gates.
Blessings,
Dr. Jonathan Alao
ONE
LIFT UP YOUR HEAD ‘O’ YE GATES
“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting
doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 8Who is this King of
glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in
battle. 9Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye
everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 10Who is
this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.
Selah” (Psalm 24:7-10)
This scripture is known as the messianic psalms, which depicts
Christ the Messiah as he attempted to get access to Hades; but was
prevented by the ancient everlasting gates and the demonic
personalities guarding those gates. It is important to note that the
heralding angels of Christ did not suggest to the gates to move, but
commanded them to be lifted up.
TWO
PURPOSE OF GATES
Purpose simply means use. The use of gates in the natural has to do
with keeping things; to confine, shut up, or control. Gates allow or
prevent transaction or flow; they could be protective or
destructive. There was the story of a young man who was being
chased by a lion, he ran into his house and shut the gate that was
protective. As he sat down to rest, he looked up and there was a
Cobra looking down at him from the ceiling of the house, the same
gate has become destructive.
From these scriptures, we see several purposes of gates.
Entrances or passage ways for flow of traffic
“Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be
shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the
Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.” (Isaiah 60:11)
Places of worship
“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with
praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name”. (Ps. 100:4)
Places of warfare
“That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply
thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon
the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;”
(Gen. 22:17)
Places of weighty decisions
“And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We
are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine
house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of
Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in
Bethlehem” (Ruth 4:1-12)
Places of worthy convocations
“Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the
elders of the land” (Pro. 31:23)
Place of Weighty appreciations
“Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise
her in the gates.” (Pro. 31:31)
Places for weird practices
“And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man
before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he
shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest
son shall he set up the gates of it” (Josh. 6:26)
Place of work
“And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried,
whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called
Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;” (Acts
3:2)
Though the man at the beautiful gate was begging he was working
as well.
THREE
PATTERNS OF GATES
(SCRIPTURAL INSTANCES)
Pattern of gates is same as types of gates, in scriptural times, gates
were the strongholds of a city, most towers were build over gates;
if a city’s gate is seized then the entire city is captured. It is a
place where legislation is made.
Types of Gates
•
•
•
•
•
•
Gates of our Enemies (Gen. 22:12)
Gates of those that hate you (Gen. 24:60).
Gates of Heaven (Gen 28:17)
Gates of righteousness (Ps. 118:19).
Gates of Hell (Mt. 16:18)
Gates to the soul (Lk. 22:3) Satan, entering Judas; suggest the
presence of an entrance, that is a door or a gate.
• Gates to our heart (Rev. 3:20), Jesus is knocking at the gate of
your heart. Will you open for him to come in?
(CONTEMPORARY INSTANCES)
The Longman dictionary of English language defines a gate as; “an
opening in a wall or fence, or a city or castle entrance, often with
defensive structures e.g. towers.”
A gate is any port of access, used for the purpose of both entry and
exists. These ports of access could be in the spiritual realm, the
realm of the soul, or the realm of the physical, they could be visible
or invisible. It is important to note that there are several gates in
our time and life which we ought to know how to deal with.
Our hearts, our eyes, our mouths, our ears, our feet, and our hands
are all gates.
Gates are immigration posts; gates are also security check points,
gates are embassies. Gates are places for transactions of business,
legal, marital matters, and gates are places where altars, thrones
are set.
OUR SPOUSE AS A GATE
For those who are married, if observed carefully, whenever we are
not at peace with our partner, it seems we are labouring against
invisible resistance.
“Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to
knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker
vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your
prayers be not hindered.” (1Pet. 3:7)
For the husbands, our wives are gates to shut out or let in our
blessings, the bible says, we should dwell with them according to
knowledge i.e. among other things, that as gates they could be for
or against us and thereby slow or hasten our progress.
“And unto Sarah he said, Behold, I have given thy brother a
thousand pieces of silver: behold, he is to thee a covering of the
eyes, unto all that are with thee, and with all other: thus she
was reproved.” (Gen. 20:16)
Abimelech told Sarah that her husband was her covering; this is
clear in several other scriptures, for the wives, if we treat our
husband’s badly, we run the risk of being exposed to terrible
attacks and losses.
The encouragement here is to treat one another in love and
respect, as God has brought us together to influence each others
destiny.
I tell young people that there are blessings they can not contact
until they get married. “For he that findeth a wife or husband,
findeth a good thing, not a bad thing and obtaineth favour of
the Lord.” (Pro. 18:24).
LANGUAGE AS A GATE
For those who travel extensively, you know that immediately you
inform a person that you are from his country, he suddenly becomes
friendly and better still if you speak his language. I have seen
apparently unknown persons to me, standing to vouch for me and
taking me into their apartment because I speak their language.
Internationally if you can speak two out of the six United Nations
languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese} it
becomes easy for you to be easily accepted. Language too has been
a barrier to witnessing and assessing opportunities. From the tower
of Babel until today, our different languages have become a wall of
partition; keeping us from reaching our full potentials.
RACISM AS A GATE
It is a known fact that there are places you can not get to because
of your colour or race. It has become a gate that needs to be dealt
with in order for the gospel of the kingdom to have free course in
the affairs of mankind.
Lift up your head ‘O’ ye gates from the different human races that
the king of glory may come in the name of Jesus! Amen.
SEVERAL OTHER GATES
There are gates into the nations and if they are not dealt with, you
can not get in. All embassies and consulates are gates that need to
be dealt with in order to reach your place of destiny. When I
traveled out of Africa for the first time, I had to deal with the gates
into those particular nations; you need to do that before applying
for a visa. There are spiritual gates into cities, businesses, market
places, examination and professional bodies, big corporations and
organizations.
There are gates into governments, institutions, relationship, family
inheritance and destiny. There is also the gate of time (this is well
explained in Abu Bako’s book; Praying Through The Gates of Time).
We can exercise dominion in the earth when we pray through the
gates of time. Some years ago, we were holding a meeting (Hour of
Hope) in an auditorium called Oduduwa Hall of Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ife, Nigeria. In spite of the awareness campaign for a
long time, nobody seems to be showing up for the inaugural
meeting. During that particular meeting day, I went behind the
curtain, lay on the floor; and started screaming “lift up your head
‘o’ ye gates,”. A short while after, brethren were looking for me,
because people had not only come; the hall was getting filled up,
there were virtually no space to accommodate participants. I tell
you, we were not apparently ready for what we saw. This was the
first Hour of Hope meeting, many of those who were there will
testify to this; the secret was in dealing with the gates that kept
the university community for showing up for that meeting. You can
deal with the gates that keep your community from been a part of
your vision.
GATES OF HELL
“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but
my Father which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto thee, That
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mat. 16:17- 18)
When Jesus said this, he probably was referring to the government,
jurisdiction, authority, power of hell which shall not prevail against
his church.
Today, what are the means by which hell tries to overthrow the
church?
“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against
the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18But if ye be led of the
Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh
are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such
like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in
time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God.” (Gal. 5:19-21)
From the passage above, you will discover that the works of the
flesh are a list of the enemy’s weapons to overthrow the church
today.
Adultery or fornication is the gate of immorality. The number of
ministers and members that have fallen prey to this gate can only
be fully known when we appear before the throne of judgement in
heaven. The figures quoted by Steve Ferrar in his book “Finishing
Strong” is a big blow to the cause of the cross and a reason for
caution. Other gates are: uncleanness, lasciviousness
(excessiveness), idolatry, hatred, variance (racism), emulations,
wrath (bitterness), strife, sedition (rebellion),heresies, envying,
murders, drunkenness, reveling, unbelief / atheism (Heb. 3:12,13).
There was a professor, who did not believe there is God. As he was
teaching in his lecture room, he tried stepping down the podium
using the stairs, he missed one step and almost fell, and he
screamed “O my God”. The whole class of students, burst out in
laughter, beloved, even the atheist knows there is God.
FOUR
POWER OF GATES
The power of gates is determined by the pattern or type of gate and
the potter that guard such gate.
“They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song
of the drunkards” (Ps. 69:12)
Drawing an inference from this passage, they were probably making
enchantments or pronouncing curses upon his life to hinder him
from assessing the gate of break-through in life and ministry.
It is obvious that gates are seats of government and that is where
elders and legislators seat to make legislation in the old times,
(Ruth 4:19-12) (Pr, 31:23) (Dan 2:49). Just as gatemen are usually
not easy to convince to open gates without a higher order, you have
elders and legislators, who seat at the gate making legislation
against the destiny of men. I pray that every pronouncement that is
made over your life, that has no permission from the God of
heaven; be annulled in the precious name of Jesus (Amen) “for it’s
written, every tongue that shall rise against us in judgment shall
be condemned.” (Isa. 54:17b)
“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for
his wonderful works to the children of men! 16For he hath
broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.”
(Ps. 107:15-16)
Brass typologically talks about judgment, iron talks about “harsh
rulership”. I command every gate of injustice, falsehood, and
demonic government in your life to be broken in Jesus name.
(Amen.)
FIVE
POWER TO OVERCOME GATES
“Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their
beds. 6Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; 7To execute vengeance upon the
heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8To bind their kings
with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9To execute
upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints.
Praise ye the LORD.” (Ps. 149:5-9)
“And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for
him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to
break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not.
27
Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his
stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And
there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed
from him, and returned to their own land” (2 Kg. 3:26- 27)
From the above scriptures we discover the following weapons by
which we can overcome the gates of the enemies in our lives.
Power of High praise – (Acts 16:20-30) we see Paul and Silas
praising God at mid-might and the gate of the prison went wide
open. High praise is praise beyond the normal, praise that comes
when you should naturally be mourning: that’s what somebody calls
the “sacrifice of praise”. When you offer such sacrifices gates
break.
Power of the Written Word - (Ps. 149.8) we need to declare the
word of God over the gate. Jesus overcame in Matthew chapter four
by declaring all the time what was written. Do you know what the
Book says about your condition?
Power of the Prophetic Word - (Ps. 24) (2 Chron. 20:20b).
You need some prophetic intervention when there is a gate in
place.
Power of the Blood - (Rev. 12:11) there is power still available in
Emmanuel’s vein to rub off all the enchantments of the enemy put
in place against you.
Power in the Name of Jesus - (Phil. 2:11) everything that has a
name has a knee (joint, link, connecting points). At the name of
Jesus every knee must bow.
Power of a Seed - (2kg 3:26, 27) I usually tell my young buddies,
whenever you are in a siege; speak the word, sow a seed and the
siege will break, it has work over and over again; because
everything in life has its foundation in a seed. When you introduce a
new seed, you shake foundations and set up a new era.
SIX
PRACTICAL SIGNS OF THE PRESENCE OF GATES
• Repetitions of tragedy. (Lk. 20:30).
An example of a young man who got jobs eleven times and
lost them all. He seems not to be able to hold a job.
• Resistance to expected progress.
• Resistance in normal assignments.
• Recalcitrant fear to take a step forward.
• Ranges of burdens, trials beyond your available strength.
SEVEN
PRAYER FOR BREAK THROUGH
Lord, thank you for your word, I now have light; I’ll no longer walk
in the dark, in the name of Jesus (Ps. 119:105).
Every cover over my destiny is removed in the name of Jesus (Isaiah
25:7).
Lord, pluck my feet from every net and trap of the enemy, in the
name of Jesus (Ps. 25: 15).
Lift up your head ‘O’ ye gates and be lifted up ye ancient door of
limitation and let my king and my glory manifest, in the name of
Jesus Christ (Ps. 24: 5-8).
I command the spiritual climate around me to work for my favour
(Isa. 25:6,7)
I break every tribal and racial wall keeping me from my inheritance,
in the name of Jesus (Joshua 6:5) (Acts 10:23).
Lord, scatter and disband all the wicked spirits around my destiny,
in the name of Jesus (Zeph. 2: 4).
Lord, I pray for an open heaven over my life, in the name of Jesus
(Dan 6:13).
I break all satanic covenants with the grave, in Jesus name; Amen.
(Isa. 28:14-18).
Lord, I possess every gate ordained by God, in Jesus name (Gen.
22:17) (24 : 60)
Lord, resurrect every star of my life buried, covered, hidden,
blotted or swallowed in the name of Jesus. (Job 3:9) (20:15) (Isa.
60: 1-5) (Num. 24:17).
WATCH OVER YOUR EYE – YOUR GATE
You can remember how tragedy befell Adam and eve in the garden.
The devil came to deceive the woman and began by questioning the
word of God: “Did God say, you should not eat of any tree of the
garden?” (Genesis 3: 1), once you doubt God’s word, you are
heading for trouble! Of course, Satan got Eve. See how it happened:
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that
it was a delight to the eyes… she took of its fruit and ate” (Gen.
1:6). Eve was defeated at the eye-gate. King David was also
defeated at the same place in the incident of Bathsheba (II Samuel
11:2-3). For Eve, it put thorns on her roses, sweat on her brow,
separation from the God she loved and ultimately death. For David
it meant public disgrace and a civil war that ravaged the land. All
this was the direct consequence of what John calls “the lust of the
eyes” (1 John 2:16).
The first seems to be an accident, but the second is a choice.
Pornography can hurt a man badly; because it feeds an appetite
that once aroused can never get enough. It distorts your
perceptions and teaches you to see others not as God sees them,
but as objects to have or to be used. It is different this is from the
“God kind of love” which is kind, gentle, longsuffering, loyal and
always puts the needs of others first.
God is not trying to be hard to get along with. He is just being
protective over his children, for the man who cracks this door open
can spend the rest of his life fighting to get it closed. The answer is
to get into God’s Word and into God’s presence and cry like David,
“Create in me a clean heart” (Ps. 51:10). A clean heart is a creative
miracle and God can create in you a clean heart today.
PRAYER SELECTIONS
Forgive the sin of my eyes, O Lord.
Lord, give me grace to control what my eyes see.
Bibliography
Abu Bako, Praying Through the Gates of Time
Other Books by the Author
Divine Direction
How to Live
Managing the Angel of Your Life
Who is Your Father
Seed of Destruction