The Twelve Gates of The Holy City

 

Chapter Fifteen

(The  Eighth Gate of The City, Gad)

 

 

 Gen. 30:9 says, 

 

"When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her maid servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.  Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.  Then Leah said,  'A troop cometh!'  So she named Him Gad."   Gad means a troop cometh or good fortune.

 

Can't you just hear God when Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus saying GAD!!!   A troop cometh!  He is the first born among many brethren   Gad means in Hebrew to crowd upon - to attack - to invade – to overcome - to assemble by troops - an army - a band of men who are fully armed and prepared.

 

The eighth gate is knowing by experience that you are part of that troop.  Gad, the eighth gate, speaks of predestination.  God never did intend for predestination to become a doctrine.  As long as it is in the doctrine realm it will produce death.  God meant predestination to be an experience.

 

When you get far enough into the City, through the eighth gate you will know that you were in the bosom and the mind and the heart and the counsel of God before he laid the foundation of the world. Have I lost you?   I get so tired of the pitiful way so many so-called Christians allow the least little thing to cause them to leave the Church.   The least little thing and they stop tithing.  The least little thing and they pout for months.  If you go through this gate, nothing will move you.  Nothing will offend you.  Nothing will upset you.  Nothing will cause you to want to bail out.

 

If you ever get a revelation in your spirit that God had you in His heart before you were born, it will change your life.  God brought Jesus out of His bosom the Word says and there was more than one Son in His bosom.  There was a troop in the bosom of God.  God has always had a family in His heart.

 

The word predestinate comes from two Greek words.   `Pre' - meaning before and `horizon' - meaning to set a boundary.  It simply means something that has been determined before hand.   Another description of predestination is to preplan something.

 

Rom. 8:28 says,

 

                   "For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He                     might be the firstborn among many brothers, and those He predestined He also called; those He                     called, He also justified; those He justified,  He also glorified."

 

What then can we say in response to this?   If God be for us, who can stand against us?   God has declared and decreed and determined and has spoken irrevocably that it shall be as He decreed it shall be.  There is something in my heart that tells me I can't help but win.  For this purpose God has decreed my success.  There is something in my spirit that refuses to agree with the sense knowledge of what my eyes see and my ears hear.

 

If this book says, "The earth is the Lord's", then I believe the earth belongs to the Lord. God has declared in Numbers 14:21, "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."  and I believe it shall be.  It doesn't alter one word if you don't believe it.  God said it, and in my heart that settles it!

 

What, then, happens in our spiritual walk when we pass through the gate of Gad?  Gen. 49:19 says,                      

          "Gad, will be attacked by a band of raiders, but he will attack them at their heels."

 

If you have passed through Gad, you are accustomed to spiritual warfare. You are a seasoned warrior. You do not turn and run when you are outnumbered and overwhelmed by the enemy.   You do not hide your head in the sand and pretend nothing is happening.  No matter how dark and how hopeless it may seem in the natural, there is an inward confidence, and inward knowing that God has everything under control and you will be successful.

 

Some of you, undoubtedly, have been overcome by the enemy in some area of your life.   Stop beating on yourself and stop that condemnation.   If you will leave gate 1 and 2 and allow the Spirit of God to bring you through gates 3,4,5,6,7 and this eighth gate, you will be a seasoned warrior and you will have experienced the infallibility of the word of God.   You will know that God has planned a way out for you.  Perhaps no one is oppressed by condemnation more than the pastor who teaches present day truths about the Kingdom of God.  You are faced constantly with those who lack understanding, and have doubts, and unbelief.

 

There is an abomination of condemnation that will enter your temple if you allow him and he will convince you that you are no good.   II Thess. 2:3-4 says:

 

                   "Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and                     the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction.  He will oppose and will exalt                     himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's                        temple, proclaiming himself to be God."

 

But if we will allow the nature of Christ within us to raise up, He will slay this abomination by saying,  "It is written'"  II Thess. 2:8 says:

 

                   "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of                     his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming."

 

I will overcome, because greater is He that is in me.

 

Gad was the sixth stone on the breastplate.  The stone was a diamond.

 

Jeremiah said in  Jer. 17:1,

 

                   "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond; it is engraved on the                                tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of their alters."

 

God is raising up a troop who are going to pinpoint the son of the Church.  He cleansed the temple twice.  At the beginning and the end of his ministry.  At the beginning and the end of this age the temple shall be cleansed.  A ministry that has endured hardness is a good soldier.  God is bringing forth a troop that will stand without fear or favor and in humility declare the sin of the Church and prepare her to meet Her Husband.

 

Deut. 33: 20-21 says,

 

"Blessed be he who enlarges Gad!  Gad lurks like a lioness, and he tears the arm, yes, the crown              of the head. He selected the best land for himself, for there was the leaders portion reserved;  yet  he came with the chiefs of the nation, and the righteous will of the Lord he performed, and His       ordinances with Israel."

 

I Chron. 12:8 says,

 

                   "Of the Gadites there went over to David to the stronghold in the wilderness men of  might, men                        trained for war, who could handle shield and spear, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and                      who were swift as gazelles on the mountains."

 

Verse 15 says,

 

                   "These are the men who went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflowed all its banks,                      and put to flight all those in the valleys, east and west."

 

Verse 37-38 says, 

 

                   "On the other side east of the Jordan River, of Reuben, and Gad and the half-tribe of Manesseh,

                    120,000 men armed with the weapons and instruments of war.  All these men of war arrayed in                         battle order, came with a perfect and sincere heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel;                     and all the rest also of Israel were of one mind to make David king."

 

Paul said in Eph. 4:19 that a man can come to a place in his life where he is passed feeling.  He said in I Tim. 4:2 that there were those who would have their conscience seared with a hot iron.  I believe that an individual can go so deep into sin that God will give them up to their own desires.  But, on the other hand, I believe that you can mature to a place in your knowledge and understanding and experience in God, where you cannot turn back. You have locked in with God.  You have gone too far to turn back.

 

If you ever pass through the gate of Gad, the experience of knowing that you were in the loins of God before the foundation of the world as a troop, a people, a family, there will be the evidence of this in the way you live and the fruit you produce.  Like I said before, you are the fruit of this ministry, the epistle of the Holy Spirit, and any other ministry can come in and inspect your fruit and know if this ministry is of God.

 

If you pass through this gate, you will absolutely know beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are from God and He has raised you up for just such a time as this.  Jesus passed through this gate.  If you pass through this gate you will know that absolutely nothing can come your way, no circumstance, no obstacle, no temptation, no test, and no devil in hell that can ever begin to move you, persuade you from the determination and the dedication and the preservation of this walk with God.

 

I am saying that it is possible to reach a place in God where you will never fall.  But you will have to pass through eight gates to get there.

 

What is Gad?    John 13:3 says:

 

                   "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God

              and was returning to God"

 

 Predestination, is knowing who God determined you to be in Him!   "Jesus knew His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God."    What if I were to say to you that I have come from God and He put all things under my authority and I am going to return to Him?  Do you know what Jesus did to prove what He said was true?   Did He work some miracles?    NO, He girded Himself with a towel and washed their feet.  Jesus said,  "The greatest among you will be the servants of all."

 

There is troop of servants coming out of the bosom of God, marching through out the world demonstrating the nature of God.