The Gates of Hell - Pan's Cave at Caesarea Philippi Photos: Rick Barker by kind permission
Satan's Plan To Exterminate God's Chosen People
In Matthew Chapter 16 Jesus takes the disciples on a forty mile hike to the foothills of Mount Hermon to a place known as The Gates of Hades, or Hell. It was thought to be the entrance to the Underworld and was entered by a vast cavern dedicated to the Goat God Pan! [ Note: What a coincidence that the Baphomet, or Goat's Horns sign beloved of ravers and heavy metal enthusasists should be the sign of the G.O.A.T aka Satan! ] It was a centre of idolatry and the worship of several deities, including a Temple to the Roman Emperor Augustus. The disciples must have wondered why Jesus had taken them to such a centre of occultism.
Jesus' Statement of God's Power Over The Enemy
The reason was to make a statement about the Church and God's overall dominion over everything Satan might do. It began by him asking the disciples who people thought he was. Some said he was Elijah or one of the Old Testament prophets or John the Baptist raised from the dead. But when he asked them who they thought he was, it evoked the famous confession of Simon Peter, who said: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!"
Jesus replied: "You didn't get that out of your head, Peter. That was my heavenly Father revealing the truth. And that's the rock of faith on which I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." In other words, "none of the other deities worshipped at this hellish place, nor Satan, will be able to withstand the growth of my Church, which will be birthed after I have been crucified and raised from the dead" When Peter said he wouldn't let Jesus die, Jesus rebuked him by saying that was Satan's attempt to abort God's plan of salvation for the whole world.
Living In The 'Now & Not Yet'
When Jesus died and rose from the dead, he gave his followers all authority and power over the enemy's forces to go throughout the whole world making disciples and building his Church. But Satan is still "the prince of this world" (John 14:30) and "the ruler of the power of the air," (Ephesians 2:2), and awaits the final battle and defeat of his forces, when Christ returns to claim his own and to inaugurate a new heaven and a new earth at the Day of Judgment. Until then we live in what George Eldon Ladd called The Presence of the Future and 'The Now and the Not Yet.'
Satan's Use of Persecution against the Church