Name the five biggest tech companies in America. Most of you can probably do it. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, and, at least at this point, Netflix.
What do they all have in common? What makes them so influential, powerful, and, for many of us, indispensable? What can we learn from these millennial trends?
It’s not so much that they make things. Until recently, Amazon, the largest Internet merchant had no physical store front and didn’t manufacture any products. Alibaba did essentially the same thing on a global scale, focusing on supply-side logistics.
Of course, Samsung and Apple make smart phones, but what’s so great about the phones? You can talk to someone on any “dumb” phone. You can send a text message to someone through a “dumb” phone or even a computer.
What made Google and Facebook so indispensable to modern life? People survived for thousands and thousands of years without anything of the sort…
I believe it’s because Facebook made connections and delivered the content of your life to your friends, and vice versa. Google helped you navigate something massive and technical and intimidating…. it the land of digitally infinite information supply, it helped you find your way and find what you needed.
Just to put that into perspective, as of last year, there were about 3.8 million Google searches per minute.
They made themselves the primary gateways—gateways of our culture, of our images, of our fears and cravings, and of our information. They are powerful because more of that information passes through them than any other gate.
In general, I’d like to introduce gate theory.
The most powerful companies these days are the gateways through which the most information is accessed. In the industrial age, it was the one who had the capital and produced the goods. Nowadays, it’s the one who serves as the gateway through which the most people access the most information.
No let’s take a turn into a more spiritual dynamic. Who is the most effective person when it comes to spreading the kingdom of God on earth?
Before you begin to call to mind the biggest names on Christian media and television, I would like you to reconsider what I’m really talking about. I don’t emphasize so much the big names but rather the big portals, not the people with the biggest platform but the biggest prayer life. It’s the gateway people. It’s the ones through which the world-shifting spiritual power passes.
Still not convinced? Let’s take a quick tour of the Bible, looking at the usages of the word gates.
Deuteronomy 33:25
The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze,
and your strength will equal your days.
In this mosaic blessing, the city’s gates symbolize its strength and influence. Why? Gates to replace where good things come in…
Isaiah 60:11
Your gates will always stand open,
they will never be shut, day or night,
so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations —
their kings led in triumphal procession.
…and to keep the bad things out, hopefully.
Nahum 3:13
Look at your troops—
they are all weaklings.
The gates of your land
are wide open to your enemies;
fire has consumed the bars of your gates.
They are where the presence of God is ushered in…
Psalms 24:9
Lift up your heads, you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
… and are used to describe salvation in the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 22:14
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
They symbolized Jesus’ establishment of his victorious church.
Matthew 16:18-19
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
This spiritual analogy comes to life when considered in light of the Old Covenant.
1 Chronicles 9:22-26
Altogether, those chosen to be gatekeepers at the thresholds numbered 212. They were registered by genealogy in their villages. The gatekeepers had been assigned to their positions of trust by David and Samuel the seer. They and their descendants were in charge of guarding the gates of the house of the Lord—the house called the tent of meeting. The gatekeepers were on the four sides: east, west, north and south. Their fellow Levites in their villages had to come from time to time and share their duties for seven-day periods. But the four principal gatekeepers, who were Levites, were entrusted with the responsibility for the rooms and treasuries in the house of God.
2 Chronicles 23:19
He also stationed gatekeepers at the gates of the Lord’s temple so that no one who was in any way unclean might enter.
2 Chronicles 31:2
Hezekiah assigned the priests and Levites to divisions —each of them according to their duties as priests or Levites—to offer burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, to minister, to give thanks and to sing praises at the gates of the Lord’s dwelling.
I really believe it’s the warriors of prayer who are the most tapped into heaven that have the greatest impact. They are the real hinges of history; they hold the keys to the kingdom, and whatever they bind on earth has been bound in heaven.
Those who hear the whisper of the Father and agree with it in intercession, the ones who set aside the time and the effort to listen to and birth the supernatural… those are the human gateways of the divine, the ones who pray.
Matthew 6:9-10
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
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