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SCRIPTURE – REV 3:20                                                                                                                                                                        SEPTEMBER, 2020

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him,
and will sup with him, and he with me.

SUBJECT – THERE IS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR!!

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The message for this month, has to do with something that all of us do just about every day, and that is, when someone knocks at our door, or rings the doorbell, we respond by either asking 'who is it??', or we just open it to see who it is.

In these days and times, it is almost a must, that you find out who is at the door, before you open it!! Otherwise, unless you have a steel screen door that has to also be unlocked before someone can enter, you could be putting yourself in danger.

Well, this message has to do with this same scenario, and how the consequences that take place have a far greater outcome, than you can even imagine, because the results will last for eternity!!

Now obviously, there is nothing that can happen to you physically, short of death, that will determine your eternal destination. After all, once you depart this life, that's it.

However, your eternal destination is not determined by your death, it is what your spiritual condition is, at the time you leave here, that will determine that.

And, that is what I want to address in this message.

If we look at what Jesus is saying in the subject verse, we see that He is telling John to write a letter to the Church of the Laodiceans, telling them among other things that He is knocking at the door.

Now, I want you to look at that part real carefully.

Here He is, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, God in the Flesh, who is the Creator of all things, and is All Powerful, and can do anything He wants to do, and yet, He is knocking at the door.

What He is showing us is the fact that even though He is all of these things and more, He respects each of our individual rights to privacy, and does not want to force Himself on us.

This is real important, because it shows His Nature, and sets the example of how we that are saved should deal with others, especially when it comes to sharing the Gospel.

Each of us that are saved, needs to remember to respect one another, whether saved, or not, when we are witnessing for Christ. The quickest way to turn someone off, is when you try to force them to either listen to you, or do what you say they need to do.

There are a lot of Christians today, that tend to believe a person they are witnessing to, has to accept what they are telling them, right there. And, they will literally hound the person, until they submit to what they are being told to do.

That is not how it is supposed to be done.

Searching the scriptures, you will find two points that let us know how we should be going about this task.

In 1Cor 3:5-10, the Apostle Paul says, we that are saved, are workers for God, to accomplish the same purpose, and that is to draw people to Christ. And, the way we should go about it is one of us, plants a seed[a Word from Christ] in the person's mind, and move on. Another one comes along a little later, and waters that seed[with another Word from Christ]and then moves on. And as time passes, the Word/Seed that was planted, will accomplish what it was designed to do, because God will see to it.

The idea is, as is explained in the parable of the sower[Matt. 13:18-23, *Mark 4:3-20, Luke 8:5-15] the soil that the seeds fell on, is that it is Christ/God, who will make those seeds that were planted in the individual's mind, to produce the desired outcome of conversion.

I specifically want to look at the version of this story in the gospel of Mark above, where after He told them the parable of the sower, they later inquired as to what it meant, because they didn't get it.

Notice, they inquired of Him, to get more information. What this means is, when you plant a seed in someone's mind, depending on the person, and their reception of it, they will either reject it, or, they will seek you, or someone else out, to get a clearer understanding of that message.

Now, as to the knocking.

As I mentioned, Jesus knocks, He doesn't force His way in to our hearts.

Question is, how is a person to know when it is Him doing the knocking??

That is simple. Anytime someone tells you anything about Christ, in person, in something that you read, on the TV or radio, that is Him knocking at the door of your heart. And, it is your response to what you were told, that will determine what path you are on, and where you are going.

Think about this for a moment!!

How many times have you, in a moment of distress, asked God what should you do, or why did this have to happen to me??

Well, when you ask that question, God responds by sending someone to you, or by providing some other means to get the answer to you.

Mat 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Mat 7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Now, the ball is in your court, as to whether you were serious about your question, and whether you are willing to listen to His answer.

I find a lot of people, including Christians, that fall in to the category of not wanting to hear what God has to say, if it does not agree with what they think the answer should be.

The last thing anyone, walking in a carnal mind wants to hear is something that puts the blame for their situation on them, while they are busy blaming others for their problems.

I know the signs, because I used to be one of them.

I had a foreman that was a minister, that used to try talking to me about getting saved. He would tell me that I was a sinner and if I wanted to get to Heaven, I would have to turn from my wicked ways, in other words, repent.

Now, he didn't say it in a harsh manner, but in a friendly way. My response was to stay as far away from him as possible. When I would see him coming, I left the area!! I wanted nothing to do with him, outside of what was required for my job.

That was Jesus knocking at the door, and I didn't want to open it up for Him to come in.

I was so bad that Jesus would be knocking at the door, and I would open it and invite all the devils that were behind Him in, then shut the door. Devils like fornication, partying, gambling, hanging with all sorts of individuals like pimps, prostitutes, and the rest of what we called back then 'the in-crowd.'

But, the time came when things got to a point that I had to seek this same preacher out, to deal with a problem that me and my girlfriend at the time were having.

Once again he told me the same thing he had told me before, and this time, I opened the door to let Him in. It took me some time after that to decide to make the changes in my life that He said I needed to make, for things to straighten out my life, but I finally did, and haven't looked back since.

But, the thing is, I had to get myself straight first. I was always putting the blame for things that were going bad in my life, on other people and things, including my girlfriend who later became my wife of 40 years.

The thing is, Jesus wanted to clean me up, so I had to let Him in to my heart, to do it.

That is why Jesus said, He wanted to come in and sup with me, and me with Him.

Supping, is a terminology that means among the obvious thing, talking things over, about your lives and other personal matters that you don't readily talk about in public.

And this is one of the main problems we have. We don't want to talk about personal things, many of which are leading us to our own destruction, with anyone unless they are really close to us.

You know how, at dinner time, the family used to sit down together and eat, while discussing the events of the day in each of their lives, so that could help each of them build a stronger bond with each other.

We don't have much of that today because everybody is busy doing their own thing.

When He says, 'if anyone hears His voice' He is talking about recognizing it. This carries with it the fact that He doesn't get up in your face, making a spectacle of Himself, calling you all types of names and trying to embarrass you.

The Bible puts it like this, 1Kings 19:12, He was a 'still small voice!!'

If anyone is hollering, and making a lot of noise, and calling you names, you can be assured, it is the Devil.

If you don't believe it, just look around at all the violence being perpetrated by those that feel they are right, burning and tearing things down, wreaking havoc all over the place because they want people to do something, and they want it now, the way they want it.

That doesn't sound like sitting down and discussing things the way Jesus would do it. In fact, mention His name to them, and you better high-tail it out of there before you get assaulted or worse!!

And the sad thing is, a lot of Christians tend to believe this is the only way to get justice!!

Paraphrasing James 4, Jesus, through the apostle Paul, put it this way, Our problems stem from the fact that we want to feel good about ourselves. And the only way to do that is by putting others down, thus, making ourselves superior to them, or them inferior to us. We want things, and God won't let us have them because we want them for all the wrong reasons, so we try to take them by force, from those that have them.

Notice, I said God won't let us have them.

What I am saying is, if He won't give them to us, there is some other entity that will, and that is the Devil!!

The Devil is always willing to provide you with whatever you desire. However, it will come at a price! Just about all of us have heard the term, 'selling your soul to the Devil.' Well, that is exactly what it boils down to. He will provide the opportunity for you to get what you want, if you will do what he wants you to do, first!!

And since the only things he is interested in is 'John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:........' he is setting you up for your own destruction. Anyone that opens up the door for him to come in, is going to have to do something destructive to others, and in opposition to God, that will eventually bring God's punishment on them.

All the time, I hear people, many of whom claim to be Christians, talking about how God blessed them to 'hit the number/jackpot, get the promotion they wanted, even though they cheated to get it, got the man/woman of their desires even though they were already married, or some other thing. God does not work in situations like this.

Some even use Bible scripture to back up what they believe, which is most certainly going to put you on the wrong side of God, quick. Because you are trying to publicly tie God in to your foolishness, leading others to believe God will do it for them as well.

The point of this message is quite simple. In order to hear God's voice, you need to recognize His voice. And the only way to do that is to get to know Him for yourselves, just as a baby gets to know their parent's voice and respond to them, while rejecting a stranger's.



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