Opening the Door 1974

I'll read two passages, very brief, today that are both quite familiar to us. First from Luke 11, verses 9 and 10. And I tell you, ask and it will be given you, seeking you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. From Revelation 3, 19 and 20. Those whom I love I reprove and chasten, so be zealous and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and eat with me. Both these passages describe something that we all know very well from our own experience.

The situation in which the Lord is on the other side of the door and the door is closed. How can you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ if he's forever on the other side of the door? You never see his face, you rarely hear his voice, and when you do, how do you know it's his voice? How can you be sure that he's even there? Both these passages imply that this closed door relationship with the Son of God and with the Father is unsatisfactory. And that anybody who's satisfied to go on like that, living that way with God on the other side of the door and you're on this side, without making any genuine effort to get that door to open, simply is not serious with God, even if you do go to church all the time or Bible studies or fellowship.

If you're satisfied to let that door stay closed, never to experience God's presence, never to have a vision of his glory or know his power or hear Jesus' voice or taste his love, I say if you're satisfied with that, that's what you're going to have. You're going to go on living in the shadows of your own ego, vanity, and self-idolatry until the light of God's judgment breaks in upon you and you bend the knee before the Lord you never served. Ah, but to get that door to open about this, these two passages have two very different things to say.

In Luke, Jesus says, knock. Make some effort to prove that you really want that door to open, and it will. To him who knocks, it will be opened.

In Revelation, on the other hand, Jesus says, I'm knocking from the other side of the door. I'm trying to get you to wake up and open it. He said, if you will get up and open the door, I will come in and eat with you and you with me.

There was once a man who had a wound in the region of his heart that no physician on earth could heal. Ever so slowly, this wound was draining him of his strength, and he knew that if he did not find some kind of healing very soon, his life would end. One day the man was told of a prince with healing power who was said to live down by the riverside in a cottage among the very poorest of the people.

And so he set out down to the riverside and began knocking on doors. Could you please tell me where this healing prince that I understand lives around here, dwells? Where is his house? I understand that he could heal me. I have a wound.

And while he stands there, the door goes shut in his face. Get out of here. Never heard of him.

But he would go to door after door after door, knocking and get the same kind of treatment until finally one day an old woman directed him to a house on the very edge of the river that looked like it was about to slide right in. And he knocked on the door, and there was no answer. He knocked again, a third time.

And then suddenly the door swung open all by itself, and he walked in, closing it behind him, and discovered that there was not a soul in the place. There was a table set for a meal, and there was a fire burning in the fireplace. And so he sat down by the fire and discovered that ever since he came into the cottage, the throbbing pain from his wound was about ten times worse.

It was so bad that he could hardly get his breath. And as he sat there clutching his chest and trying to get his breath, there was a knock on the door. I can't get up and open that door.

I can hardly get my breath. The knock came a second time. I don't know who it is, but I wish he'd go away.

I didn't come here to open the door. I came to get some help. The third time there came a knock, and it was very, very insistent this time.

And so finally clutching his wound, he goes over and opens the door and finds himself looking into the face of the prince, who enters and says, Come and eat. And as they ate, the man discovered that his pain was gone. The wound had vanished.

He was healed. What can I do to show my thanks, he said. Bring others to my table.

Now, it's all very well for us to say that God has chosen us to be his children since before the foundation of the world. And it's all lovely for us to say that it is the Spirit of God who, in his sovereign grace, gathered us together in this place today. But, my friend, those are nothing but empty words so long as God is on one side of the door and we're on the other.

If we're going to have fellowship with the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit, there are two things that we are going to do today. And we're going to keep doing them every single day of our lives. First, we're going to knock on that door.

See, if we're not exercised enough to knock on the door and keep knocking, it will remain shut. While it is true Jesus indeed emptied himself of his glory as the Son of God and took upon himself our flesh, came down and atoned for our sins with his blood, all without any help from us at all. If we are going to get near to that grace, we are going to do some knocking.

Lord, have mercy on me. My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. Lord, come down and heal my son before he dies.

Lord, that I might receive my sight. Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean. Who knows how many miles these people walked to be able to say those words.

How many nights they lay awake thinking about them. How much pride they had to swallow in front of their relatives and their friends to be able to do that. The thief on the cross, not.

Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Now there are people in this gathering right now whose needs are desperate. And in many cases you're not knocking.

And there are people here who don't even realize how desperate their needs are. You think that because you got some money in the bank, you're all right. How can this be? If Jesus is on the other side of the door and if you'll only look around, you'll see death leaning against the wall over there looking at his watch, waiting.

You're not knocking. You're not crying out. You're still asleep.

You think God's going to ram salvation down your throat? He's not. He's not going to come and force eternal life on you if you're satisfied to remain a child of this world. Jesus isn't going to come in and break your chains if you're content to lie there in those chains and be enslaved.

If anything is going to happen in your life, my friend, you're going to knock. And until you do, the door stays shut. You're going to ask.

Just make some effort. You know, and not just all, you know, people get all heated up for three days and then they forget all about it. That's not knocking.

God knows when we mean business. Praise God for those people, you know, who are all the time knocking, all the time dissatisfied, all the time crying out, who take no rest and give God no rest until he establishes Zion and makes her a praise in the earth. God, you got to open that door.

Lord, you have to give us the power to minister to those needs. Heavenly Father, you must give us the bread to feed those hungry people. To those the door opens, all of us.

All of us. There's a second thing we're going to do. If we're going to have fellowship with the Father and the Son, when the knock comes from the other side of the door, we're going to open it.

A lot of people think that because they have a prayer answered or got healed, they're automatically in the kingdom, and that is not so. Answered prayers, healings, and the like are signs of the kingdom, not the kingdom. You know, you follow the sign into the kingdom.

If you stand there looking at the sign, or if you pick up the sign and carry it over your shoulder, that doesn't put you in the kingdom. You know, when you got that prayer answered or you got that healing, this meant that you knocked on the door and the door opened, and now you're standing inside the room where the table is spread. And now there comes a knock on your door.

You know, now Jesus starts asking you to do something. And it's interesting how quickly the crowd thins down when Jesus starts asking us to do something. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, and everybody splits.

Now, the second passage, which was read from Revelation, was in the letter to the Laodicean Christians, such as if you want to call them Christians. Now, these were people who had come inside. They got their prayers answered.

They saw healing. They were standing inside the room. See, they went to prayer meetings.

They went to Bible studies. They went to fellowship. They went to church.

But their works were dead. I know your works, he says in that passage. You're neither hot nor cold.

They're very good at saying, Lord, Lord, but they never do the will of the Father. And there are people in this gathering right now, many, upon whose heart's door Jesus is now knocking. And, my friend, that's all he's going to do.

He's not going to kick the door down and force his way in. You're going to open the door for him, or it's going to stay shut. You're going to let him come into that region of your life that you've reserved for yourself.

He's knocking, for instance, on the door of the room of laziness, bigotry, miserliness, and you know it. You've got three locks on the door. Now, if he gets into that room, you know there are going to be some changes.

What are you going to do? Some of us are walking down a path which we know is unholy. And perhaps nobody in the world knows that path we're walking, except the Lord. But we're walking it.

And now the path takes us along the wall, and in the wall there is a door, and as we go by the door, we hear the knock. And we know that if we open that door, it's not going to be the same anymore. What are we going to do? Some of us, long ago, were sent to go into the vineyard to work, and on the way to the vineyard, we stopped at a tavern to rest, and we're still there.

Now there's a knock on the door, and we know who's knocking. Now understand, if we open the door, this doesn't mean that Jesus is going to come in and just mess up our lives. This is what the evil one has us all thinking, and so we just huddle in the corner and get as far away from the door as we can.

If we open the door and he comes in, he gives us something better than that grudge, or that stubbornness, or that bigotry, or that hatred, or that pride. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they might have life.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. This meal we're going to eat in a few minutes, we call communion. Now how can it be communion if Jesus is on that side of the door and we're on this? First, you open the door.

Then he comes in and eats with us and we with him. May God help us right now to know specifically what that means. Get down to business.

You know if you're a miser. You know if you're holding a grudge in your heart. You know if you're lazy.

You know if you're prayerless. We can get down the list. You know what it is.

Can't you hear him knocking? Let's pray right now. Lord Jesus, you know how we've been pretending to be having a fellowship which we haven't been having, many of us. That door's been shut for a long time.

We haven't seen your face for months and some perhaps for years and some perhaps never. And we just pray that you won't let us have any peace now. Either leave the door and forget the whole thing or get that door to open.

Lord, I just pray that you'll be dealing with each one of us in definite ways and pour out upon us right now, Heavenly Father, a spirit of true repentance. We pray for those who are locked in habits they just can't break and keep telling themselves there's no other way. Heavenly Father, I just pray that you'll help these people to open the door.

Lord God, I pray that you'll help us each now to get our eyes off other people and only on our own situation to the thing that you're telling us to do. And don't, Heavenly Father, let us have the audacity to break bread unless we do it. Amen.