EDITORIAL by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 24, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 37.

EDITORIAL

By Editor

He Is Knocking at Your Door

If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.

THE mighty Creator, who made all things that are in the universe, is the One who is also the Captain of our salvation. And it is none other than this mighty Personage who says continually to each one of us, "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." Rev. 3:20.

"Behold, I"—that is, the Mighty One, the Infinite One—am standing at the door of your heart, and am knocking. "Behold, I," who am the Creator of all things, the One who guides every world that circles in the infinite depths of space—even "I," who am the King of Eternity, am standing before you, knocking for admittance into your life.

Men are usually too busy in trying to get on in this life to take into account that there is such a Mighty One, such a great Personage, who is seeking to become their most intimate Friend and Helper. He says, "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." O, the soul-satisfying blessedness of this promise! Think of the intimacy, and close, warm friendship that it suggests. Not only will I come in, says the Master, but having been admitted, I will sup with you, and you with Me.

Meditate for a moment on what it signifies to enter into such intimate relations. You are to "sup" with the Master. No more confidential friendship could be suggested. And then to think that this great character is the One who is making the advance! He is the One who is knocking for admission into our lives, not that He may get some personal benefit in a selfish way, but that He may help us by giving us the joys of all His infinite creation. And as we allow Him to help us in this way, He gets joy out of it; but it is the joy of seeing us happy instead of miserable.

Take another view of the matter: In asking us to let Him come into our lives, He is really asking us to come in contact with all His mighty works of creation. He is asking us to become acquainted with Him as Creator as well as Redeemer. To show that He wishes us to sense and keep in mind His power as Creator, He has given us the Sabbath to memorialize His creative power, and through the Sabbath He gives us one seventh of our time to meditate on the infinitude of His works and to revel in the joys of His matchless power.

Let us stand beneath the open sky of a clear night and behold the multitude of stars.

Each star is a world of some sort, and many of them are hundreds of times as large as the earth on which we dwell. Let us stand and gaze at world after world, until we have viewed every one that we can see with the naked eye, and then let us take the telescope for a still further view. With the aid of this instrument, we will find hundreds of thousands of other worlds where before we saw nothing but empty space. And having viewed all this, let us turn to the sublime language of Job and learn that "lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways: and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of His power ["mighty deeds," margin] who can understand?" Job 26:14.

Having taken this view, let us seek to realize that we are now in contact with the "One that inhabiteth eternity." We are taking a finite, limited, imperfect, mortal view of His immense domain. Then let us stop long enough to drink in the blessedness of the joy that the One who is the mighty Creator is the same One who asks us to let Him be our Guest. Let us hear Him again while He says, "Behold, I"—this Infinite One, this mighty Creator—"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."

Note a further blessedness of the invitation: It says, "If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in." This wonderful Master is too great to be narrow and exclusive in His invitations and His affections. For altho He says of Himself that He is "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity," and that His "name is Holy," and that He dwells "in the high and holy place," yet He is "with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite." Isa. 57:15.

The power of His presence is so great that any individual who will permit Him to come in will have his life insensibly ennobled and uplifted. And therefore the Lord can safely give the invitation to "any man;" for even tho the man may be degraded and sinful—even tho his life may be such that he will be overpowered with shame when he hears the knock of the refined and righteous Master—yet does this Lord entreat that He may be permitted to enter and become the honored Guest. The very influence of His presence, and the application of His sacred life-blood, are to make the man all over. He is not to remain the defiled sinner that he now is, but he is to be changed by the mighty power of this infinite Creator.

If we are tempted to doubt His power, then He bids us go out on another starry night to take an additional view of His innumerable array of worlds; then in the confidential manner that no one can describe, but that every one understands who has come in contact with the Master, this Lord of Creation breathes into our very soul the assurance, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Matt. 28:18.

But you will hear some one say that this great Creator is too mighty to stoop to notice a little, finite man. Do not get such a misunderstanding. Because He is so mighty, because He is absolutely infinite, therefore He can and does have the ability to notice each and every one. And, besides, this is the one revolted planet. This is the one place where things have gone wrong, and man is in sin and rebellion against the righteous laws that God has made to govern the universe. And for that very reason, the infinite God is giving more of His time and attention to this one planet and the beings upon it than to all His universe besides. We should expect that such would be the case. And because the Lord is

giving so much of His time and His omnipotent powers to this revolted planet, we find such statements as this in His Word: “The eyes of Jehovah run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” 2 Chron. 16:9.

You are ready to say, perhaps, that it sounds well to talk of such close intimacy with the Creator of all things, but you fail to find the evidence that it is so. Come right up close to the text already quoted, and see that the evidence is in the very words themselves. It may seem strange to hear the assertion that the words contain the evidence of their own authenticity. But Infinite Power is able to put life into His words so that the very words themselves speak to the innermost heart. If such power and such life were not in the very words, we might well doubt them.

But let us hear these words again: “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.” He says “Behold.” “Just look, and you will see. Just think for a moment on your own experiences, and you will realize that I have followed you all your life. You have repulsed Me again and again,” the Master is saying to you, “but I have ever remained knocking for entrance. You have tried to talk infidelity; you have written infidelity; you have listened to infidelity; you have laughed loudly at the puns that infidelity has tried to make against My name. In all these ways you have tried to drown the sound of My knocking. But you can never forget the times when I have stepped up to your side when you were standing in quiet before the open grave; never can you forget when I have spoken to you when in the face of awful calamity; never can you erase the fact that there has ever been with you the quiet voice which no one else could hear, but which has been as distinct to you as the ringing of bells in the depths of your own soul.”

This wonderful Master loves us, and hence He follows us ever. He wishes that we may spend eternity with Him, and is urgent in His invitations and entreaties. How can men find it in their hearts to turn from One who is so gracious, and so great! T.