The Doctrine of The Open Door. Part 6

Grace Bible Church
The Tree of Life
A Weekly Review
Week ending 10/10/2010
The Doctrine of The Open Door. Part 6.

We are studying the Doctrine of the Open Door.
Point 6. The next Door of Opportunity in Life is the Door of Rebound and Recovery from the cosmic system through the rebound technique.

A good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, they no longer know what to believe. (COL 1:11-13)

Today most believers are no longer standing. They are no longer courageous. They no longer know what to believe, and if they do, they do not hold on to it. They let truth slip away; therefore, compromise results. The gospel has been compromised.

We have faith plus commitment being taught. We have faith plus water baptism. We have faith plus making Christ Lord of all. Instead of faith, some even propose substitutes like inviting Christ into your heart. You can't invite Christ into a sewer, and the “heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” (JER 17:9).

It's like a puzzle that no one can put together.

Others add to salvation, like repentance from sin. When in fact, repentance means a change of mind and indicates what happens when you understand the gospel through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Bible only emphasizes believe, and adds nothing to it.

You can't be saved by water baptism, by renouncing sin, by joining a church, by psychological gimmicks like raising your hand and walking an aisle. These things cannot save you because they are things you are doing. When you add anything to faith in Christ for salvation it is salvation by works which is not salvation at all.

So today, instead of the truth being taught accurately we are hearing slogans like;
Ask Jesus into your heart.
Ask Jesus into your life.
Say the sinner’s prayer.
Or be pleasant, by nice, be friendly, and you will become saved or even spiritual, etc.

So the question is do you know what you believe? Do you know what to believe? Is there anything for which you are ready and prepared to take a stand for? Today, there are so many believers who are simply ready to compromise on everything.Learn to stand on the solid ground of the gospel so that your entire Christian life will be based upon fellowship with TLJC and will have a sure foundation. Do you know where you stand? Do you know your position?

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,(EPH 3:14-17)

EPH 6:11 says, Pick up and put on the full armor from God, that you may be able to hold your ground against the schemes or the strategies of the devil.

EPH 6:13-15 goes on to say, Because of this, pick up and put on the full armor from God, that you may be able to hold your ground in the day when evil attacks you, even after you have achieved or accomplished everything, hold your ground. Because of this, hold your ground, [after you] have buckled on your combat gear around your waist by means of doctrine, and [after you] have put on the breastplate of righteousness, [hold your ground] after you have put on your combat boots on your feet with readiness, preparation, or the equipment of the gospel of peace.

How can you hold your ground against the enemy if you do not even know what your ground is? What God wants is a man or a woman who is prepared to stand and hold their ground and whose feet are prepared with the equipment of the gospel. The Lord knows that He can rely upon such a believer, and that they will stand no matter what is happening around and about them.

So, are you standing? Do you plan to stand? Are you ready to stand? Are you living in the PPOG, opening up the door of your heart with the result of having fellowship with TLJC or do you have one foot in the world, - the cosmic system, and one foot in the Church? Only you can answer that question for yourself.

And so the open door of REV 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; is an open door concerning restoration of fellowship with our Lord an Savior, Jesus Christ.”

There is not one passage in the Bible that talks about asking Jesus into your heart to live. It is ACT 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved,”

It is not “ask Jesus into your heart to live!” By the way, if you did that you were not saved until you truly believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. The average pastor doesn’t want to admit to his congregation that he’s been wrong when it comes to something as serious as salvation so what he does is this: He has his mind made up that he is going to find a passage to back up what he believes and therefore he violates hermeneutical principles, the theory and methodology of interpretation of scriptural text.

For example in 1CH 28:9b the word of God says, If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

Then in HEB 13:5, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,”

Which one is true? They're both in the Bible.

Or in PRO 23:31, Do not even look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly;

In DEU 14:26 the Lord says to His people, “And you may spend the money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.”

ROM 4:2-3 says, For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about; but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

Then we read in JAM 2:21, Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

How about EPH 4:26 which says, Be angry, and yet do not sin;

But in EPH 4:31 it says, Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you,

The point is that you can go to the word of God, take scriptures out of context to try and back up your erroneous views! This is what a lot of individuals do. They take scriptures out of context, and then say that they have found a passage that agrees with what they believe!  Many individuals have used this passage in REV 3:20 to say that Jesus is on the outside of your heart, knocking and hoping that you will let him in! There’s many things wrong with this view! The most obvious one is that the Lord is not talking to unbelievers in this passage he is talking to lukewarm believers, REV 3:16. Secondly, there is no reference to the word heart in this passage nor is there a reference to salvation.

REV 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me.”

You can make the Bible say almost anything you want if you take scriptures out of context! The principle here is we should not go to then word of God to back up our personal beliefs, we should go to the word of God to develop our personal beliefs.

So, this passage has nothing whatsoever to do with salvation. It has everything to do with believers who are lukewarm and who are in the cosmic system. We will all fall from time to time.

For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, (PRO 24:16)

When we do PSA 37:23-24, become a reality, The steps of a man are established by the Lord; And He delights in his way. When he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down; because the Lord is the One who holds his hand.

But the most dangerous part of apostasy or withdrawal and forsaken the truth is falling from grace; GAL 5:4, You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

So, a warning is given about falling away in HEB 3:12, where it says; Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God.

So in REV 3:20, “Behold, I stand”…we have the demonstrative particle idou meaning to behold or to pay attention. Then the verb to stand is very important to note because it tells us something that we do not see brought out in the English language. “Stand” is the per-act-ind of histemi which is hesteka and the perfect tense should be translated I have stood or I have been standing. The reason we translate it like an English present is because the intensive perfect emphasizes the existing results from the completed action of the verb. This is the emphatic method in the Greek of presenting a fact that is! The fact that is pointed to is warning discipline.

Warning discipline is correction from God. It is not punishment, suffering or pain as we bring upon ourselves through wrong decisions, nor is it retribution or payment for sin. It is a teaching aid. So the intensive perfect presents the fact of warning discipline as a serious issue.

So REV 3:20, “Behold, I have stood with the result that I'm still standing at the door”

The active voice means that the Lord Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb through the administration of warning discipline. He is warning the believer that if he doesn’t begin to make positive decisions certain things will begin to happen in his life! And the indicative mood states the reality of warning discipline.

Sometimes the only way to distinguish between warning discipline and pain that you have brought upon yourself is through understanding the law of volitional responsibility. Certain decisions lead to certain types of pain. And there may be some area where you can hurt in a very intensive way that is not related to the hundreds of decisions that you have made in a given period of time. Therefore it will be something special that hurts in a very sharp and special way in your life as a teaching aid. And by a teaching aid I mean something to teach you with!

REV 3:20, “Behold, I have stood with the result that I'm still standing at the door.”