Stepping Thru the Gate  

 Genesis 28:10   Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.

  11   So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.

  12   Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

  13   And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.

  14   Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

  15   Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”

  16   Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

  17   And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”

The Eastern Gate of Jerusalem

The Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded by a wall containing eight major gates. Moving counterclockwise from the northern-most gate are Herod’s Gate, the Damascus Gate, the New Gate, Jaffa Gate, Zion Gate, the Dung Gate, the Eastern Gate, and the Lions’ Gate. The Eastern Gate, facing the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley, is unique in that it is completely sealed shut. Some commentators see the Eastern Gate’s obstruction as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

The Eastern Gate of Jerusalem is also called the Golden Gate or the Beautiful Gate   (Acts 3:2)  . In Hebrew, it is Sha’ar Harahamim, the “Gate of Mercy.” It is currently the oldest gate in the Old City, having been constructed in the 6th or 7th century AD. Also, it is the gate that gives the most direct access to the temple mount—if a person could pass through the arches of the Eastern Gate, he would be very close to where the Jewish temple used to stand. When Jesus entered Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives in   Matthew 21  , He used a gate in the same location as the current Eastern or Golden Gate.

The Eastern Gate was sealed shut in AD 1540–41 by order of Suleiman the Magnificent, a sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It’s believed that the reason for the closing of the Eastern Gate was to prevent the Jewish Messiah from gaining entrance to Jerusalem. Jewish tradition states that the Messiah will pass through the Eastern Gate when He comes to rule. The Muslim Suleiman was attempting to thwart the Messiah’s plans with sixteen feet of cement. The Eastern Gate has remained sealed for nearly the past 500 years.

For 500 years this gate has been sealed. Suleiman sealed the gate with 16 feet of cement, but yet he couldn’t seal the gate of Mercy off. Messiah, Yeshua, Jesus the Christ, the son of God, holds the gate of Mercy open to all who will believe in Him.

What will happen if you step thru the gate of Mercy? Forty-two years ago I stepped through the gate of Mercy, the gate hell couldn’t close and never will. I too found the gate called beautiful. I was blind from birth, but now I see.

The Olympic opening ceremonies mock the God I serve, but they cannot close the gate of mercy. It’s still open.

Hear me: a lost people have a god they serve. There is no real atheist. If you don’t serve Jehovah God, you are serving the gods of the flesh, a god made by your hand, a god fashioned so you can be god.

If you are backslidden in heart, you have gone back to the god you used to serve. Do you remember what that was like when you served the other god?

The greatest sin you will ever commit is rejecting Jesus. You will go to hell for rejecting Jesus.

  Amos 3:13   Hear and testify against the house of Jacob,” the Lord is speaking to the Church here, “says the Lord God, the God of hosts,

  14   “That in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel; And the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.”

Jacob in our text was at Bethel when he saw the angels ascending and descending, and Bethel was where Jacob went when he was discouraged.

Hear me, church: the gate of heaven is always open to those who will go to the altar and grab the horns of the altar.

Amos tells us the horns shall be cut off from the altars. Why? Altars were raised to look like the altars at Bethel, those dedicated to Jehovah God. They looked like the altars or gates where mercy flowed, but mercy never flowed from those idolatrous altars dedicated to the flesh.

The brazen, or bronze, altar was a key element of the tabernacle in the wilderness, a place where the ancient Israelites sacrificed animals to atone for their sins.

Altars had long been used by the patriarchs, including Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The word comes from a Hebrew term meaning “place of slaughter or sacrifice.” Before the Hebrew captivity in Egypt, altars were made of earth or stacked stones. After God rescued the Jews from slavery, He commanded Moses to build the tabernacle, a portable place where God would live among His people.

When a person entered through the court gate of that tabernacle, the first thing they would see was the brazen altar. It reminded them they were not worthy to approach a holy God without first offering a blood sacrifice for their sins.

When an unholy man comes into the presence of a Holy God, all the protection he would have is to bring his sacrifice and grab the horns of the altar.

The “horns” were horn-like projections at the four corners of the altar of burnt offering. God’s instructions for the altar’s construction specified “horns”: “Make a horn at each of the four corners, so that the horns and the altar are of one piece” (  Exodus 27:2  ).

“Imitation altars” are altars with no blood of the lamb and altars with no fire. Most churches have no room for the altar.

During Amos’s day, the Israelites had apostatized and had erected altars to false gods.   1 Kings 12:26-30   speaks of two such pagan altars set up in Israel, one in Dan and one in Bethel. These altars had been constructed with horns at the corners, akin to the altar in Jerusalem.

When God says that the horns of the altar would fall off, He is assuring Israel that He would judge their idolatry. Indeed, God says earlier in the same verse, “On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel.”

The horns of the altar in Jerusalem had provided a refuge for fugitives. Those who caught hold of the horns of the altar were granted asylum (  1 Kings 1:50-53  ). This use of the horns sheds additional light on God’s statement in   Amos 3:14  . Some scholars believe that God’s promise that the horns of the altar would fall to the ground meant that there would be no place of asylum, no place to escape the coming judgment.

I believe with all my heart, America is in trouble. We have offered flesh on a pagan offering. Come back to the gate. The gate of mercy is open. Come running, grab the horns of the altar. You are a fugitive. You’re a sinner. Come to Jesus.

  Matthew 7:13-14   Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:

  14   Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.