“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”

(John 10:9)(KJV).

SEEKER

This is a very beautiful picture of the life we are to live as God’s children. Well, how is that? We can by entering in by our Lord, who is the door, not only once or one time for all when you accept Jesus and the truth, but every day and for everything. Infinitely necessary and useful is Jesus Christ to sinful men as their Shepherd, to seek out, gather, and feed them; as their door and entrance to, and the precious price of salvation. Through Him they receive the most holy liberty, and endless felicity. With what faithfulness, wisdom, and grace He seeks them out, and guides, and protects them through life and death into everlasting blessedness!

But base are the men who, without His commission, thrust themselves into offices in His church, or behave indolently, unconcernedly, or tyrannically therein. Let everyone that regards the life of his soul flee from them! The purpose of God certainly stands firm, whether with respect to men’s salvation or damnation.

TROUBLE?

Is there trouble in the physical part of your life – your domain? Enter in by the Door and be saved. Is there trouble in mental matters of your life – your mind? Enter in by the Door and be saved. Is there trouble in the spiritual part of your life – your prayers, worship, beliefs? Enter in by the Door and be saved. There are a thousand and one things that make up life as it is today – too many to even mention or possibly think about – but in them all, nevertheless, we have to learn to enter in by the Door. Entering in, in the name of Jesus, is the condition of daily salvation. (Rom. 10:13-15).  Not salvation in sin but salvation from sin. Not salvation from sin only, but a salvation that keeps us manifestly the Lord’s sheep. In fact, let the name of Jesus Christ be in your daily prayers!

“Sheep are the most helpless and timid of all creatures.” (DA 478). “When lost it cannot find its way back.” (COL 187). “It knows it is lost.” (COL 193). Furthermore, “the lost sheep from God’s fold are scattered in every place.” (6T 315) “A sinner is represented as a lost sheep.” (COL 187-8). “He is just as helpless, straying about in a lost world.” (GW 183-4; COL 190-1; DA193). There are many descriptions of the world today, but I read one that describes it as a place full of distressed – troubled people! “It’s the churches duty to search for these lost sheep.” (6T 22). Ah! “But in doing this, God’s people are to be sheep amid wolves.” (9T236). So, again, entering in at the door in the name of Jesus is the condition of salvation daily and for security.

Are you experiencing this daily salvation or are you shut out from Jesus Christ just now, today, in your bodily life, in your mind, in your spirituality, in your circumstances? Is there any fog, any darkness, any weariness, any uneasiness, or any trouble?

OPEN AND SHUT DOORS

Every day there are things that seem to shut the way up, but you can always enter in by the Door and experience salvation. In Greece and the East it is the body of the shepherd himself that is the door of his fold. “He does not drive his sheep?” (DA 480). He cares for them. Each sheep has his name and responds to the shepherd’s call.  “Christ knows each of His followers individually and by name as His sheep.” (DA 479). But, still, many are apt to have the idea that salvation is a kind of a sealed and locked air tight room behind that door, and if we enter in all our liberty – “freedom” will be destroyed! That is not our Lord’s conception or thought. He says, “He shall go in and go out and find pasture.” (v-9). “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”(John 8:36).

God’s ordinances are the green pastures in which food is provided for all believers; the word of life is the nourishment of the new man. It is milk for babes, pasture for sheep, never barren, never eaten bare, never parched, but always a green pasture for faith to feed in. You, see, God gives His saints quiet and contentment in their own minds, whatever their lot is; their souls dwell at ease in Him, and that make every pasture green! Are we blessed with the green pastures of the ordinances? Let us not think it enough to pass through them, but let us lie down in them, abide in them. This is a rest forever; it is a constancy of the means of grace that the soul is fed! (Psalm23).

The idea, however, that we can have true freedom without restraint or discipline is an illusion. Doing what we please without seeking to do God’s will brings slavery to sin and leads to death. But trusting and obeying Jesus Christ gives freedom from guilt, from bondage to sin, from feelings of futility and from the fear of death. That is real freedom! When lured by worldly pleasures, some Christians go astray, and if you do not soon repent, you’ll have to pay sin’s dreadful price. To be under Christ’s control is to have true freedom!

I had a friend years ago, a highly skilled Californian obstetrician-gynecologist, who was very successful and wealthy, but was overweight, smoked heavily, loved his wine, vodka, and roast goose. He said, “no one, not even my doctor, is going to take away my freedom to smoke, eat and drink. He thought of himself as a liberated person; flaunting his immorality and cavalier behavior! What a strange freedom! Little did he know how enslaved he really was. His “freedom” soon killed him!

The greatest abundance is but a dry pasture to an indifferent man, free and easy toward matters of spiritual importance, and who relishes that only in it which pleases the senses; but to a Godly man who tastes the goodness of God in all his enjoyments, and by faith relishes that, though he has but little of the world, it is a green pasture. (Psalm 37:16; Proverbs 15:16, 17).

Are we entering in by the Door for our daily work, guidance, or only at our Sabbath worship services, a devotional meeting of some sort, or only when in dire distress… “at the end of our rope”?

The “going in and going out to find pasture” is our Lord’s picture of the freedom of a son. A servant cannot go in and out as he or she likes, but, Jesus says, “no longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends.” (John 15:15). Moreover, “you are all brethren.” (Matt. 23:8).

“Nothing is closed to you once you enter in by the Door. It is opened before men, which no man can shut.” (6T 467). “The Door, Jesus Christ, is the only Door to God’s fold; opened for men by Christ, which Satan cannot close.” (7BC 961).

Doors, however, can be closed. The Bible mentions some ways this has happened, and how it can close the door for us.          “The door was closed—the Ark—shut Noah and his family in and the world out” (TDG 235:2). “The doors were closed to Sodom and opened to Lot.” (TDG 235:4). Furthermore, “when words are spoken that cut, they may cause doors to shut.” (VSS 240-1). Isaiah writes (24:10) on his “mini – apocalypse” and impending judgment on earth; the “city of confusion is broken down. Every house is shut up, so that none may go in.” How true today for man is shut up in his home preoccupied with pleasure seeking pursuits, (T.V., fear, etc.). Moreover, “one fanatical streak closes many doors to the truth.” (TM 228). But “when the door is closed by enemies of the gospel, it cannot remain closed forever.” (AA 179).

Doors can open for us as well, “anywhere God is called upon.”(TDG 232). The Law was seen through an open door in the heavenly ark.”(OHS 138). “The door is now open to the gospel messenger, but will be closed soon forever.”(9T 172). “Christ will not force open our heart’s door.”(2T 216-7). The door is still open to Christ now.  Therefore, “remember where you have fallen and repent…” (Rev. 2:5).

“But there are church members who come and go like on door hinges.” (6T 426). Moreover, it’s like the word, “if;” small but like the door hinges, important, but for many their lives swing only on the words – “if.”  “There are very few who understand the signs of the times or what we are to experience before the end.” (6T 426). “He invites them to buy of Him “gold tried in the fire, and white robes that they may be clothed, and eye salve that they may see.” (Rev. 3:18).

GREAT AND EFFECTIVE

The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16:9, when he passed through Macedonia, “for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” King Solomon said, “Now Oh Lord my God. You have made your servant King instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in.” He asked, therefore, for a “wise and understanding heart and to be able to discern between good and evil. “(1 Kings 3:7-9).

Has a “great and effective door” opened for you in your life? You may say, yes, but is it effective? Pray as Solomon for an understanding heart and to know good from evil; to interpret what we see and hear in God’s will, and then we will know how to “go out or come in the door to find pasture.” Jesus said, “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” (Rev. 3:7-8). Here, Jesus is talking to the faithful church of Philadelphia. This is the whole gospel message! “You have a little strength; few.” What makes a church faithful? Faithful believers! Few, yes, but “do not fear little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

“The Lord is at the DOOR! Christ is knocking. The Holy Spirit is working.” (TMK 55:1).

Are you listening? Amen.

John Theodorou

USA