IN the first part of this book of Revelation there is a message from God sent by the Apostle John to the seven churches in Asia. The seven churches were not seven different denominations, but seven congregations of the one visible Church of Christ. This may be seen by the fact that each church has but one pastor—here called “an angel” or messenger. If they were denominations, there would be several pastors in every denomination according to the number of congregations in it; but it was one pastor that each congregation had.
The message was addressed to the angel or pastor of the churches, and was suited to the spiritual condition of the churches respectively. The congregation of Laodicea was in a worse state than any of the rest. On reading their own report of themselves, one would think that they were in the best condition of all the churches in the world. In their own estimation they were “rich and increased with goods and had need of nothing.” But the report that Jesus Christ gives of them is quite different; He says that they are wretched, and poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. The report of Christ is the true one. Their own good report of themselves was owing to their ignorance of themselves. Some churches that have forsaken “the faith” give a good report of themselves, but when we read Christ’s report of them, we see that they are miserably mistaken in their high opinion of themselves. Christ, after He had told the Laodicean Church their real condition in His sight, counsels them to buy of Him “gold tried in the fire that they might be rich, and white raiment that they might be clothed, and that the shame of their nakedness might not appear; and to anoint their eyes with eyesalve that they might see.” They would get all these good things by receiving Him by faith, therefore He stands at their door and knocks for admittance.
In addressing you from the text, I call your attention to the following particulars:—
I.—The Person that stands at the door;
II.—The door at which He stands;
III.—His work there; and
IV.—The feast that Christ and those who admit Him partake of: “I will sup with him, and he with me.”
I.—”The Person.”
The Person is Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God, the Saviour of sinners of mankind. The chariot, in which Christ, the King of glory, comes, is the word of the Gospel. That chariot was made by God Himself. He will take no other chariot. Men deceive themselves when they think that Christ will come to them in a chariot of their own making—the word of man—and they throw aside the word of God as in their opinion antiquated for the twentieth century.
II.—The door at which Christ stands.
It was at the door of a Church—the Church of Laodicea—He was standing when He spoke the words of our text. Christ was within that Church once, but He is now outside.
How is it that He is outside a Church in which He was before? He was put out. Who put Him out? The congregation that He was now addressing at the door. When the good people in that Church died out, a sort of self-righteous people took their place, and they imagined that they were so rich, so good, that they did not need Christ any longer with them, and virtually said to Christ that He might now leave their company. Pastor and people seemed to be unanimous in dismissing Him, so He left them. Many churches in gospel lands have thus dealt with Christ. Many churches in Europe have done so. As long as the Lord’s people were in these churches, they welcomed Christ with them, and He was willing to remain with them; but when these were removed to the Church in heaven, those who came in their place drove the Saviour away from their midst, and they set up in His place a fictitious Christ, with whom they felt quite pleased. “But their house was left desolate,” when the Christ of the Bible and the Saviour of sinners left them. This is true of almost all the Churches of the Reformation in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Christ was once in these churches; but like the Church of Laodicea they put Him away from their company, and yet they say that Christ is with them and that they have the Gospel. They may have a gospel “which is no gospel.” What a wonder that Christ would seek admittance to a church that put Him out! But there He is standing at the door. If any man inside open the door, He will go in and sup with that person.
Christ also stands at the door of the individual sinner to whom the Gospel comes: “What is that door?” I shall mention four doors at which He stands:—
1. The door of hearing.—
This is one of the doors of entrance into the soul of man. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear the voice of the Saviour in the Gospel. That was the first door to which Satan came to enter the soul of man. It is also the first door to which Christ comes for re-admittance into the souls of ruined men. Satan came as a thief, to steal, to kill, and to destroy. Christ comes that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly than man possessed in the state of innocence. In the case of adults especially, hearing the Gospel is necessary to salvation. Without faith they cannot be saved. He that believeth in the Son of God shall be saved, and faith cometh by hearing. And it must be the hearing of the word of God. “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?” These are conclusive arguments against the unscriptural notion of those men in our day who assert that the heathen may be saved without the Gospel. These men have reason to doubt their own salvation. In the history of our own country there is no mention of a Christian man or woman till the Gospel was introduced into it, and the reason is that there were none such. The light of nature is not sufficient to give us a saving knowledge of God. We need the Gospel.
2. The second door is the door of the mind.—
Knowledge of Christ enters the mind of man by a door. What is that door? It is the understanding. When the eunuch was reading about Christ, Philip asked him, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” It is what we understand we may be said to know, and no more. Many read the Scriptures who take a wrong meaning out of them, because they do not understand them. It is not enough to read and repeat the Word of God; we need to understand it. The understanding of man, as he is by nature, is shut, and the mind is full of spiritual darkness; and so long as the door of the mind is shut, saving knowledge of Christ cannot enter in. Christ comes to this door, that He may get into the soul. It is He Himself that opens it. It was He that opened the understanding of His disciples to understand the Scriptures. It is He that opens the understanding of all His people. He came and gave us “an understanding, that we might know him that is true.” He does so by His Spirit. The illumination of the mind that is dark by nature is the work of God’s Spirit. This knowledge is too high for men to attain to without the teaching of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that quickens the dead soul. It is He that gives saving knowledge to the ignorant sinner. “Ye were once darkness, but ye are now light in the Lord.” Christ, as the prophet, stands at the door of hearing and the door of the understanding. “Behold, I stand at the door.” Incline your ear and hear His voice; submit your understanding to Him, that He may enlighten you in order to be saved. You need to hear His voice in the Gospel and to know Him by the teaching of the Spirit. “They shall be all taught of God.” It is such that open to Christ and trust in Him for salvation. “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee.”
3. The door of the will.—
In some houses there is a two-leaved door, and if one leaf is open a man can come in. But Christ will not come in unless the two leaves are open, and the two leaves are the understanding and the will. In opening to Christ and receiving of Him there is, on the one hand, the assent of the understanding, and on the other, the consent of the will. “If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” It was unwillingness that caused the Jews not to come to Christ. “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.”
4. The door of the heart.—
I take the heart in a limited sense, as the seat of the affections. Christ is an object to be loved as well as to be known, and the heart is the seat of love and desires. Christ is to be loved above all other objects.
III.—His work at the door.—
He stands and knocks. “I knock.” He knocks in order to be admitted.
1. He knocks by His Word.—
“If any man hear my voice.” He knocks, first, by the word of the law, by which is the knowledge of sin. We find in Christ’s teaching that He preached the law, and He did that to the Church of Laodicea when He told her that she was poor and miserable, blind and naked; of which she was ignorant, which was the reason of her good opinion of herself. The sinner by nature is ignorant of his condition under the broken law and the curse of God, and he is to be told this. He knocks, secondly, by the word of the Gospel, by which is the knowledge of Christ and salvation, and when He knocks by the word of the Gospel He appears as the Crucified One—as He who suffered, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God—and says, as He said to the Church: “Open to me, for my head is filled with the dew and my locks with the drops of the night.” It is a sight of Christ as crucified and dying for sinners that melts the heart, through the effectual work of the Holy Spirit. The law alone hardens the heart; the Gospel melts it.
2. He knocks by His providence—by adverse and prosperous providences.—
He gives prosperity in order to lead sinners to Himself. The goodness of God ought to lead us to repentance. He gave manna to the Israelites when they were murmuring, to try thus to see if His goodness would lead them to obey Him. Many instances might be adduced to show that He uses adverse providences to bring sinners to repentance and faith in Himself. Manasseh is a case in point. God was speaking to him, through the prophets, to turn from his evil ways, but he would not hearken to God’s voice, and then God brought him into affliction, and that brought him to his senses. Then he began to cry to the Lord, and he was heard and obtained mercy, the fruit of which was seen in his work of reformation in the Church. Poverty and sickness and other calamities have been blessed to many. We have been told that the disease of consumption has been blessed to many, and good people used to call it the “blessed affliction.”
He is knocking by His providence at our door as a nation by this awful War in which we are involved. But there is no sign yet that our nation hearkens to Christ’s voice; for from the King on the throne to the lowest subject, with few exceptions, all are deaf to the voice of Christ, though He speaks loudly in a terrible manner. But until we as a nation are brought to repentance, He will continue His judgment of cutting down high and low by the sword, and all who harden their heart against Him shall be destroyed in everlasting perdition. There are, however, a few among our soldiers and officers who hearken to the voice of Christ, and these, although they should be killed, shall go to heaven, so that death shall be gain to them. Not only in the army, but among the people in general, especially in large cities, many are frequenting the theatre and other places of pleasure just the same as before Christ began to speak in this terrible manner. Promoters of idolatry in our country are defying the Almighty, but except they repent they shall “all likewise perish.” Although unconverted chaplains tell the soldiers that if they are killed in this lawful War they are sure of going to heaven, God will send to hell all that are killed without being born again. For “except a man be born again, he cannot see or enter the kingdom of God,” and chaplains that are not born again shall be among them in the place of perdition. The death of Christ and not the death of the sinner is the only ground of salvation. Therefore let kings, judges, rulers, and the people in general be wise and be taught. Let them kiss the Son lest they perish (Psalm ii.)
3. He knocks by His Spirit.
He was striving for a long time with the generation before the flood, but because they grieved the Spirit, and would not yield to His operations, He said, “My Spirit will not always strive with man”; and destruction came upon them. There is a common operation of the Spirit which must be experienced to some extent by the hearers of the word of God, and some may at times begin to pray through this influence, but when the effectual work of the Spirit begins, the sinner is brought to repentance towards God, and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. So that in the case of those that open to Christ there is more than a striving of the Spirit, which striving is all that the Declaratory Act of 1892 ascribes to the Holy Spirit in dealing with sinners. The Holy Spirit works effectually through the word of God which is the sword of the Spirit, and results in making the sinner willing to receive Christ as He is freely offered in the gospel.
IV.—The feast of which Christ, and the believer that opens to Him, partake.—
The feast is the provision of the covenant of grace. It is called a supper because this is the last dispensation of the Gospel, as supper is the last meal of the day. When Christ comes into the soul, He comes with a feast to a hungry person, and they are both to sit at the same table to partake of this feast. Christ partakes of it, and the believer partakes of it. It is Christ that partakes first, and then the believer.
In what sense does Christ partake of His own provision? In this sense—it is a feast to Christ to save a sinner. When He spoke to the woman of Samaria, he said to his disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of,” and that was that this woman was saved by Him. Then, in the parable of the lost sheep, when He found the sheep, He put it on His shoulder and went on His way rejoicing. It is a feast to Him to do the Father’s will. He said, “My meat and drink is to do the will of him that sent me.” He delighted so much to do the Father’s will that He reckoned it as a feast, and when He saves a sinner He is doing the will of the Father. It is a feast to Him to see of the travail of His own soul, for then He “shall be satisfied.” He sups with the believer, inasmuch as He rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, where His people were, before the world was.
The believer sups also. Not at a different table, but at the same table with Christ. Here is a wonderful sight—the glorious second Person of the Trinity and the poor sinner so near each other. The sinner that was separate from God by sin brought nigh again through the blood of the cross. But, poor as the believer is in comparison with Christ, Christ is not ashamed of His companion, though the believer is often ashamed of himself. He has fellowship with Christ. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. Fellowship is founded upon union. The believer is united to Christ, and therefore he has fellowship with Him. Christ himself is the feast, and the believer feeds upon Him. “Truly, my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”
The feast is not a carnal feast, but a spiritual feast, and there is sufficient food for all the faculties and powers of his soul. There is food for his mind, “To know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent, this is life eternal.” There is food for his conscience, for the conscience finds sufficient provision to satisfy it in the death of Christ, and there is nothing that can satisfy an awakened conscience but the death or atonement of Christ. There is food for the will, for there is nothing that will satisfy a renewed will but Christ in His fulness of blessings. “This is all my salvation and all my desire.” There is a feast for the affections, which by nature feed upon the husks which the swine do eat. They are now set on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. As men need food daily, so does the believer, and although he does not get such a rich diet always, yet there are times in which he receives out of the fulness of Christ to make him truly happy and strong to serve the Lord with the greatest delight. Still, on earth he is often poor and needy, hungry, and thirsty, but when he is brought to the Father’s house above, he shall be perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity.
In conclusion.—
(1) A word to the unconverted sinner.—
You have been born and brought up in the land of the Gospel. Christ has been knocking at your door ever since till now. Have you opened to Him? If not, you are guilty of the greatest sin, for all other sins will be forgiven if you come to Christ, and believe in Him. But if you persist in unbelief, it is impossible that you can be saved, “For he that believeth not shall be damned.” You may be like Agrippa, who said to Paul—”Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”; but almost to be a Christian will not do. You must be altogether a Christian if you are to be saved. Remember that Christ has not taken his seat at the door. He is only standing, and ready to leave and go to others who will welcome Him to their hearts. This may be the last knock He shall ever give at your door. Be wise, therefore, for your immortal soul, and receive Him now, as He is freely offered in the Gospel to you as a lost sinner. Although it is Christ himself by His Spirit that works the grace of faith, it is you that must exercise that faith in receiving Christ, for it is you that must believe if you are to be saved, and this is the sense in which we understand the sinner opening to Christ. Another said—”Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; why standest thou without?”
(2) A word to the awakened sinner.—
You have for a long time kept Christ outside the door, and you may be apt to think that it is too late now, but He still says, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” You may be thinking that you have kept Christ waiting at your door so long that He will deal with you as you dealt with Him. But you are to remember that Christ is not like you. He does not recompense evil for evil. Sinners are saved by grace, and not by their own merit; and grace does not look for merit in the sinner, but is fully satisfied with the merit of Christ. Cast yourself, therefore, upon Him as you are, a guilty and unworthy sinner.
(3) A word to the believer.—
What a marvel it is that you who were far off from God by nature are brought nigh by the blood of Christ! Give Him the glory. When you sup with Christ, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. You also weep as you partake of the Supper with a weeping that is two-fold. When you look on Him whom you have pierced you mourn; and you weep with joy that He has saved you, sinful as you have been. Although your fellowship with Christ may be broken, the union between you and Him can never be broken. In view of the unspeakable obligations under which Christ has laid you, see that you live not unto yourself but unto Him that died for you and rose again. You can never do on earth what you ought to do for Christ. See, then, that you will be careful to do as the woman, of whom Christ said, “She hath done what she could.” Seek, by prayer and other endeavours, to advance His cause in the world. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, and your work shall not be in vain in the Lord. Live on Christ, and live for Him. For this is your reasonable service.
May God in His infinite mercy bless this sermon to the reader! Amen.