Christ Knocking at the Door.
By H. Cowles
"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 sup with him, and he with me." Rev. iii, 20. Proposing only a short discourse from these words, I shall not attempt to exhaust the subject which they present, but shall be content with remarks upon a few only, of the many topics which it suggests. It is quite obvious that our text is, not a doctrine to be proved, but rather, a promise to be illustrated and applied. It states a fact under a figure: "Behold I stand at the door and knock;" it gives us a promise based upon a condition, the condition being, "If any man hear my voice and open the door," and the promise, "I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me." This passage will richly reward our study and our meditations, if we adhere closely to it and examine it in view of its relations and significance as originally written. Following, therefore, only those lines of thought which these words as they stand in the Holy Scriptures suggest, let us inquire, 1. To what class are they specially addressed? 2. What is the real sense of the promise here made? 3. We will note how greatly this proposal is commended and enforced by the source whence it comes. Perhaps it does not occur to all the readers of this passage that it was written to Christian people. If we mistake not, we have heard many sermons on this text, in which this fact seems to have been altogether ignored—the whole drift of the discourse assuming that our Lord spake these words specially to ungodly men making no profession of piety. But a careful notice of the place they occupy will show this to be a mistake. They occur in epistles, dictated by Jesus Christ, and sent through his servant John expressly to the seven churches of Asia. Let any man read over these seven epistles carefully, and he will see in every sentiment and every allusion that professed Christians were specially addressed. Jesus Christ had them in his eye, and spake to them through his servant John. Now here we have no particular occasion to raise the question how far a promise given to professed Christians, may, by parity of reasoning, be applied to all mankind. Undoubtedly our Lord would have us assume that he loves to have all sinners become Christians; and that when they do, he makes this promise of special communion and fellowship to them as honestly and as heartily as to the church of Laodicea, or to any other of the seven. But waiving that question of application by inference, it is of no small consequence toward the proper understanding of the text, to keep in mind its original and intended application. For, if it had been addressed originally to men regarded as unbelievers and impenitent, it might be understood (though not very naturally) as simply promising pardon and Christ's general favor. But if it is spoken to those who are assumed to be already converted, then the stress of its significance must lie in those higher manifestations of communion, fellowship, and love which pertain to the more advanced stages of the Christian life. To make this yet more plain, by the help of our Lord's own figure, let us remember that, in any social community, you may fix your mind on a thoroughly good man, and you will find that while he bears a general good will and friendship for hundreds, perhaps for almost all, yet his special friends are but few. Those at whose table he is quite at home—at whose door he can scarcely be said to knock any longer, since practically the door stands, as to him, always open, and where, made ever welcome, he comes in and sups with them and they with him—these are only the congenial spirits, the favored few. Among the families whom Jesus loved when on earth in human flesh, there was only one that had in it Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. If it is said that, according to our text, Jesus said, "If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him," and therefore the number thus favored might now be indefinitely large, it is readily granted, nay, strongly maintained, only let the conditions be honestly and faithfully met. But this does not at all modify the doctrine we maintain, to wit: that this is a promise to professed Christians, and one that looks toward high and blessed communion of heart and soul with the Heavenly Guest. 2. We have already made good progress toward the answer to our second main inquiry, to wit: What is the real sense of the promise here made?
The figure used, drawn from the common scenes of social life, is of the plainest sort, could not well be made plainer. "I stand at the door and knock;" I seek admission to your house, to your friendship, and to your hospitality. "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him and he with me." I shall be most happy to become his guest—to express my regard for him and receive the expressions of his regard for me, by supping with him, and giving him the privilege of supping with me. Now, while this seems to us very plain, yet it deserves to be noted that the rights of hospitality have a deeper and broader significance in oriental society than in occidental. Among all the people of the East, there is more in eating at the same table than there is in our western world. There it means true heart communion, eternal friendship, and mutual protection, though at the hazard of life. When an Arab receives a guest at his table, he adds one more to his list of special friends, and the bonds of no secret society, pledging mutual protection, and inviolable friendship, can be more sacred than these. A story is told of a traveler in the East, who, being in most imminent peril from a very hostile Arab tribe, was able to turn to good personal account his familiarity with this sacred usage of that people. He found himself suddenly in the midst of these hostile freebooters. He knew that they had one chief whose word was law, and whose protection, if he could only gain it, would save him. Nothing else could. He therefore secreted himself near this head-chief's tent, until his dining hour arrived; then dashing past the guards at the door, he rushed into the dining apartment where the chief sat at his dinner, sprung to a vacant place, and pitched his hand into the salt dish and began to eat. The chief was fairly taken by surprise, but said, "My friend, you have eaten salt at my table. You are safe. We had made all arrangements to have your life and your money before sundown. But you are now our friend, and our life for yours, no harm shall come near you." Now, in all that relates to the significance of its social usages, the Bible is thoroughly oriental. Hence we must give the strong, rich sense to the fact of eating together. It can mean nothing less than true heart-communion, eternal friendship, solemnly vowed protection. When Jesus Christ proposes to come in and sup with us and we with him, it means that he gives us his hand and his heart in most intimate, endearing friendship. It means that he will take up his abode with us. It covers all we can ever need in the line of protection, even though the cost may be, his life for ours. Furthermore, it implies that he will make us know his friendship and his love. He will so fully manifest it as to leave in our minds no reason for a doubt. He means to have us understand that this is a blessed state. He enjoys it himself; he intends that we too shall enjoy it.98Suppose the figure were to become a constant fact. Jesus, as once in mortal flesh, comes daily to our door and knocks. We know his voice, and spring to set the door wide open, and welcome to our home and to our heart, so good and so glorious a Guest. He often eats at our table. And then his presence breathes such an atmosphere of love and purity—it carries in it such a blending of infinite nobility with unutterably tender and loving condescension, that we say with the once favored three—"Lord, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for thee"—and let this blessed communion last forever! If in our commonest, and also our least common scenes of life, we might always be sure of the presence and sympathy of such a Friend, should we not say, "Verily, O my Jesus, thy love is more than all the universe to me! With it I am so blest that nothing else can add another element, to be named, after this. If this offered boon of a divine Saviour for a guest in our house and in our heart be so precious, it becomes of the first importance that we well understand the conditions on our part. "If any man hear my voice and open the door." He does not force the door open—does not break it down nor wrench off the lock or break the bars. He only knocks, and then waits our hearing and opening. In this point of the figure, there must be some vital significance. What is it? It cannot mean less than that Jesus asks of us our real, hearty consent and concurrence. He waits to be truly invited in. And it must be further noted that he must know that this invitation is for himself, and not for any possible stranger that may happen at our door. "If any man hear my voice, and open the door" for me. Jesus would by all means know whether we are to receive and to welcome him. And this implies that we receive him for what he is, and not for something else which he is not. If we were to open the door for him to come in and take a place on our footstool, it would not meet the conditions. If we want him near us only to be our very humble servant—say, for instance, to give us heaven after we have served our lusts all our days, this would altogether fail of meeting the conditions. If we were to invite him in only to show before his very face how little confidence we have in his love and in his power to save—perpetually disclosing our unbelief, and grieving his heart—this, manifestly, would make his stay (if he were to stay) very uncomfortable. If we were to call him in and should propose to divide the honor and merit of our salvation between his atoning death for us and our various works of righteousness, it would be vain to expect any cordiality of friendship. Or, if we were to profess to open our door, yet deny to him the honor and homage due to the Son of God and to one truly divine, the Creator and Lord of all, we should only insult the Majesty of the universe! Nothing therefore can be more plain than the point we now urge—that in hearing Christ's voice and opening the door, we must hear that voice as his own, and must open the door for him, to receive him as he is, and for what he is—to dwell with us as we are, estimating ourselves at no more and no better than we are. That is, we as guilty and needy sinners, penitent indeed, and fully set against all sin, ask him to come and live in our hearts, to be there, a perpetual presence and power to help us against ever sinning more, and to gird us unto a holy life. It could not be well to ask him, and then withdraw and deny him our society. It could not please him to see that really we care more for some other company than for his. And taking a hint from the family which, when among men, Jesus seems to have loved and lived with most, we would remember that Jesus more loved the Mary who sat at his feet and heard his words, than the Martha who cumbered herself with much serving. Both probably sought to entertain and to please their distinguished guest; Mary touched the cords more exquisitely than her sister. It was more pleasure to Jesus to pour blessed truth into a hungry soul than to eat the best prepared supper. It were a blessed truth to remember that Jesus, coming in to dwell with us, loves to reveal himself, and hence takes very special delight in the reception which a docile, humble spirit gives him. He rejoices to fill the cravings of hunger and thirst for the bread and the water of life. Need it be further said that, whoever would honestly invite Jesus Christ to his own house and table, must first expel Christ's enemies? We could not ask Jesus to come in and sit in the same company with selfish lusts, with ungodly ambition, or with unsanctified greed. There is room on the throne of our heart for no other but Jesus. If we would give it to him, we must needs reject all other pretenders and intruders. All these various aspects of the one most significant figure used by Christ in our text, teach us this one great comprehensive truth—that the condition precedent to having Jesus Christ a present guest in our heart, is that we altogether renounce sin and fully consecrate our heart and life to his service and pleasure. So doing, we shall love his presence, and thirst for soul-communion and fellowship with him. 3. We are now prepared to note how greatly this proposal of our Lord is commended to us and enforced, by the same source whence it comes.
Whoever has carefully read these epistles of Christ to the seven churches, will readily notice some strong points of character in their author. Everywhere he speaks as one having authority. "Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent!" "Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." He speaks as one clothed with all power. "He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron." "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father on his throne." Nor can we fail to notice that he assumes to have all knowledge. In each one of these seven epistles we read the solemn declaration, "I know thy works!" This one truth seems to stand in the foreground—the first to be announced—the one never to be omitted. Jesus is he who searches the reins and heart. Upon all his churches and upon every individual soul of his professed people, his eyes are like a flaming fire, and no concealment can hide from his eye any thought, purpose, or affection of our heart, or any deed of our life. Do we ask who is he whose voice we hear in our text? Who is this personage that stands at our door and knocks, and who will, if invited, come in and sup with us and we with him? We have the answer from this same account given by John. He tells us how he saw him on this very occasion when these sweet words were spoken. John was an exile in the lone island of Patmos, banished there for his fidelity to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He says, "I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet. . . . . I turned to see, and saw one like unto the Son of man; his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; his eyes were as a flame of fire; his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." Need we wonder that John should say, "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead?" But this personage of such unearthly majesty and glory is altogether loving and tender, and would not crush even a bruised reed. Says the narrator, "He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last; I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore, amen, and have the keys of hell and of death." Now John saw in him that same honored, loved One, on whose bosom he had so often leaned at supper, and his strength returns again. If we would get some aid from and through our senses toward a worthy conception of surpassing majesty and glory, we have it here in this unparalleled description. We stand in solemn awe before it and say—Such, then, is the Monarch of the universe! This is a feeble presentation to our feeble senses (for all such aids of sense are at best but feeble), of the greatness and excellent glory of Him who was once born in a manger, who once died on a cross, but who now liveth and reigneth forevermore. Yes, this is He who says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me." It is as if Queen Victoria were to send a similar message to the lowly cottage of some of her peasants; and yet it is also not like this, for this majesty and glory tower so high above all that is earthly that it comes alike to Victoria's Palace and to the lowliest hut in her realm, knowing no difference in the comparison with His supreme and most excellent glory. So that the practical question for us comes to be this: Who will open his heart to welcome the King of the universe to come in as a kind and loving friend? Who values the friendship and favor of the Lord of all lords, and the King of all kings? Who is not too proud to rise and humbly, gratefully welcome in, this personage whom all heaven adores? Who is there not too much enamored with miserably low things of earth, who has a place in his heart for the love and the fitting entertainment of such a guest as this? Who is there of us to cherish a noble thirst for communion and fellowship with one so noble and so good? These are really the practical questions to which our text brings us. And let it be carefully observed, they come to our heart and conscience in a form that admits of no evasion. They must be answered! For whether we will or no, Jesus stands at the door, and he knocks for admittance. If it should happen in the case of any of us that the call seems unreasonable, or for any reason unwelcome, yet it is a call, and somehow, for better or for worse, you must meet it! Will you go to the side-window and shout, No? Will you look to the lock to see that all is safe against intrusion? Will you say, I am indeed very much engaged, and will it not be equally convenient for thee to call at another time? So it is, there are more possible ways than one to dispose of this Heavenly Guest! It is possible to your free responsible agency to say, No! You can indicate to Him who knocks at your door that you have no place for him in your heart. It is a fearful power you have of choosing against your eternal welfare, but you have it, and you may be beside yourself enough to use it? "Say, will you to Mount Zion go?
Say, will you have this Christ or no?"
—H. Cowles.