Xiao Fei
After I entered belief in the Lord, the brothers and sisters liked to sing a hymn called “The Good Man Is Knocking at the Door” which goes: “The good man is knocking at the door, His hair wet with dew; let us quickly rise and open the door, and not let the good man turn around and leave. …” Every time we sang this hymn, our hearts were deeply moved and stirred. We all want to ask the good man to stay the night, so when the good man comes and knocks at the door we will welcome the Lord the first time we hear the good man’s voice. It can be said that all of us who believe in the Lord have such a hope. But when the Lord comes, how will He knock? When the Lord knocks, what should we do to make sure we are welcoming Him as the Lord? This is something people who believe in the Lord should think about.
When the Lord Jesus came to do the work of salvation in the Age of Grace, news of the miracles wrought by the Lord and the word of the Lord spread throughout the land of Judea. His name also caused a great stir in all Judea, and for the people of that time the knock at the door was the disciples led by the Lord Jesus preaching the gospel of the heavenly kingdom in every place. The Lord Jesus said: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 4:17). The Lord hopes that people will come before the Lord to repent and confess their sins. In so doing, their sins will be absolved, and they will break free from the condemnation and imprecation of the law and be redeemed by God. At the time, many Jewish people witnessed the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus. They also noticed the authority and power in the word of the Lord, such that the Lord Jesus was able to feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. With a single word, the Lord Jesus was also able to calm the wind and the sea, as well as to cause Lazarus to emerge from his tomb after being dead for four days…. In accordance with the words of the Lord Jesus, whatever is spoken is fulfilled, allowing us to see the authority and power in the Lord’s word. There are also the words of the Lord Jesus teaching people and rebuking the Pharisees. These words are the truth and are not words we are capable of uttering. The words spoken by the Lord Jesus and the things He did reveal God’s disposition and what God has and is. They manifest the authority and power of God and cause men’s hearts to shake. The Jewish people at that time had already heard the sound of the Lord knocking, but how did they treat the Lord?
The Jewish priests, scribes, and Pharisees at the time knew clearly that the words spoken by the Lord Jesus and the miracles He performed all come from God, but they did not at all have hearts that revered God. They did not seek or investigate the work of the Lord Jesus, but all along just clung to the words of the biblical prophecies, believing that the One who was to come would be called Emmanuel or Messiah, and be born of a virgin. When they saw that Mary had a husband, they determined that the Lord Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that He was not born of a virgin. They also made judgments however they wanted and said that the Lord Jesus was the son of a carpenter and so just a completely ordinary person. They used this to deny and accuse the Lord Jesus. They even went as far as to blaspheme against the Lord Jesus and say that He relied on Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, to cast out demons. In the end, they joined the Roman government in crucifying Him. Most Jewish people believed that the Lord Jesus should have been born in the temple, and that He would be their king to save them from Roman rule. When the Pharisees were spreading rumors and slander and condemning the Lord Jesus, they were just being blindly obedient without any discrimination at all. Between the salvation of the Lord Jesus and the slanderous words said by the Pharisees, they chose to listen to the rumors and lies of the Pharisees, and rejected the way preached by the Lord Jesus. When the Lord knocked on the door, they closed their hearts off to the Lord. It is just as the Lord Jesus said: “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which said, By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them” (Mat 13:14-15). Because they refused to listen to the Lord’s voice and did not accept the Lord’s work of salvation, these Jewish people missed their chance to follow the Lord Jesus. As a result of resisting God, they were met with God’s punishment, bringing about 2000 years of destruction to Israel. In contrast, the disciples who followed the Lord Jesus at the time such as Peter, John, James, and Nathanael had hearts that loved the truth. They did not rely on their own notions and imaginations in how they treated the word and the work of the Lord Jesus, but sought conscientiously, investigated carefully, and obtained the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. They heard the voice of God and recognized that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah to come, and thus they caught up with the footsteps of the Lord and received the salvation of the Lord. We can see that the failure of the Pharisees and the Jewish people lies in that they only relied on the literal meaning of the biblical prophecies to accept and recognize the manifestation and work of God. This led them to be people who believed in God but resisted God. From this we can see that if people who believe in God treat God’s new work on the basis of their own notions and imaginations, not only will they not be able to welcome God’s arrival, but they may very easily become among those who believe in God and yet resist Him. How lamentable would that be? The Lord Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. … Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Mat 5:3,6). We can see here that we can only welcome the Lord’s return if we, like Peter and John, hear the Lord’s voice, have hearts that hunger and thirst for righteousness, and actively seek and investigate.
Today, the prophecies of the Lord’s second coming in the last days have fundamentally been fulfilled. When the Lord comes again in the last days, we must be more vigilant and prepared, take heed of God’s voice, and have hearts that seek and thirst for righteousness to await the Lord to knock at the door at any time. Only in this way can we welcome the second coming of the Lord. The Lord Jesus said: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (Jhn 16:12-13). It is also prophesied many times in Revelation chapter 2-3: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” We can see from the scriptures that when the Lord Jesus returns He will speak again and do new work. This is the Lord knocking at the door for us, as well as Him using His word to knock on the doors of our hearts. All who hear the Lord’s utterances and actively seek and listen attentively to the voice of the Lord are the wise virgins. If they recognize that the Lord is speaking they are able to welcome the return of the Lord and obtain the watering and supply of the word of God. This fulfills the word of the Lord: “And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” (Joe 2:29). The Lord is trustworthy, and He will allow all those who thirst and seek for Him to hear His voice in this time. However, God’s wisdom is difficult for us humans to fathom, and the way the Lord will knock at the door when He returns will not be as it seems in our notions and imaginations. It could be someone calling “the Lord has returned!” to us. It is just as the Lord Jesus warned us: “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go you out to meet him” (Mat 25:6). We may also hear God’s voice from the churches that spread the gospel of the Lord’s return, or from the internet, radio, Facebook, or elsewhere and see God speaking to all the churches. Still, no matter what way the Lord knocks on our doors, we absolutely must not treat the Lord’s knocking like the Jewish people did. We must not decline to seek or investigate based on our notions and imaginations nor blindly listen to lies and rumors. By doing so we would have rejected the Lord’s call and missed our chance to welcome the Lord and be raised up into the heavenly kingdom. The Book of Revelation predicts: “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 will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). The Lord Jesus says: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Mat 7:7). The will of the Lord is that we may all be the wise virgins and always be watchful in listening for the voice of the Lord. When we hear the Lord’s voice we must look into it with open minds and investigate with sincerity, and when we recognize the voice of God we must rush out to welcome the Lord. As long as we have hearts of seeking, God will surely open up our spiritual eyes. In this way, we will be able to be raised up before the throne of God and be present at the feast of the Lamb!
All the glory belongs to God!
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