The Closed Door

In Rev 3:20 Jesus Christ is seen knocking at the door of men's hearts, but Mt 7:14 declares that few open the door, i.e., trust Him as Savior.  In Lk 13:24-29 however the position is reversed: men seek admission at a door which Christ refuses to open, "Many will seek to enter, and not be able, when the Master hath shut the door," resulting in eternal "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Relative to that fateful day we read, "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" Mt 24:37, and in regard to those days we read, "The earth was corrupt and filled with violence" Gen 6:11.  Only fools will deny that conditions are the same today.  This is only one of many signs that Christ's return is near, and as that corrupt age ended in a sudden catastrophic foretold judgment, so will this one.

For 120 years Noah warned men who mocked him, but suddenly his preaching stopped.  The day of grace had ended.  He was taken into the ark, and God shut the door.  Seven days followed, and then came the foretold flood, but during those seven days the mockers were as surely doomed as if it had come on the first day.  Who can begin to imagine their frantic beating on that closed door as the waters of judgment engulfed them?  There were no mockers, no unbelievers that day.

So will it be relative to this present age.  Believers will be suddenly caught up to heaven, and 2 Thess 2:1-12 warns that in the following seven year Tribulation period, those who had rejected the Gospel will have no opportunity to be saved, but will be banished into hell when Christ returns to end the Tribulation, and inaugurate His Millennial kingdom.

How many times have you ignored His knock?  What if this should be His last?  Remember, to open to Him, is to have Him open heaven's door to you - and vice versa!

by Jim Melough

A Second Opinion

A young man I know developed a cough for which his doctor  prescribed medicine.  The cough persisted in spite of a second stronger medicine, and eventually an x-ray was done, revealing a shadowy spot on one lung.  And the doctor's diagnosis?  Scar tissue!

The cough, accompanied by night sweats and weakness, persisted, leading him to seek a second opinion. It was cancer.  Now, after a bone marrow transplant, he appears to be cured, after having almost died as a result of the wrong diagnosis of a doctor he trusted implicitly.

Millions have equally firm, but misplaced trust in their spiritual advisors, and tragically, only a very few discover their mistake in time.

A sophisticated society which scrutinizes carefully the qualifications of its doctors, insisting often on a second opinion, relative to a body which one day must die anyway, displays almost total indifference relative to the qualifications of those who minister to the needs of the soul that will exist for ever.

That indifference is the more inexplicable because society possesses the text book upon which the spiritual advisor claims to base his opinion - AND IN MANY CASES IT CONTRADICTS HIM.

For example, does your minister or priest guarantee heaven to all who are church members, moral, kind, generous, his explanation being that God is too loving to send anyone to hell; or that, in fact, there is a heaven, but not a hell?

Then let me quote from the text book, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," John 3:3.  "By grace are ye saved through faith ... not of works, lest any man should boast," Ephesians 2:8-9.  "Fear him (God) who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell," Matthew 10:28.

The only way to be saved from hell and fitted for heaven is to

(1) admit that you have no righteousness, and

(2) believe that when Jesus Christ died on the cross it was in your stead, as your Representative, for your sins.

You may be religious, moral, kind, etc., but apart from confession of total unrighteousness, and faith in Christ as your personal Savior, you are on the road to hell, no matter what assurances your spiritual mentor gives to the contrary.

What if like my young friend's doctor, your mentor should be wrong?  It is your soul that will be first in hell, and then eternally in torment in the lake of fire.

by Jim Melough