That was a very appropriate hymn
for us to open this service with. I'd like for you to turn with
me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 14. We're going to be looking
at what God opens. And as we were singing that hymn,
I was thinking about what the Lord tells us in Luke chapter
24 when the scripture says, and he opened their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. Beginning with Moses
and the Psalms and the prophets, he expounded unto them those
things concerning himself. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. And lo, I have come to do thy
will, O God. This book is a glorious revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It only speaks of him. There's
not very many churches that can sing that hymn with understanding
and with meaning and with faith that these scriptures, this is
not a book of of theology or history or law. It is a book of Christ. And every time we come together,
our hope and prayer is that the Lord will be pleased to open
our understanding that we might understand the scriptures and
come to see the glory of Christ and to rest all the hope of our
eternal salvation on him. Acts chapter 14, look with me
at verse 27. And when they were come and gathered
the church together, you know the word church translated means
an assembly gathered together. That's what we're doing right
now. The church is gathered together. They rehearsed all that they
had done. Is that what it says? That's
what most churches do. They rehearse what they're doing
for God. They rehearsed all that God had
done, how the God had done. Oh, that's what we want to do. We want to rehearse what he has
done. with them and how he had opened
the door of faith to the Gentiles. If God doesn't open the door
of faith, we will not believe. Let's pray together. Our merciful and gracious heavenly
father, we come before thy holy presence thanking you that it
is a throne of grace and that we have an advocate, Jesus Christ,
the righteous one, whoever lives to make intercession for us.
We ask, Lord, that for his glory, that you would be pleased to
open the eyes of our understanding, to open the door of faith, to
enable us to look and hope on him, to believe on him, to rest
our immortal soul on him, to have our sin put away by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for your word.
We know that except you send your spirit and power to open
it up to us, we will remain ignorant and blind. So we ask in Christ's
name that you would have mercy on us today. Amen. What God opens. The Lord Jesus Christ in John
chapter 10 calls himself the door into the sheepfold. If we're going to be admitted
into the sheepfold of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There'll be only one way to get there, and that's through the
Lord Jesus, who is the door. He said, all others are thieves
and robbers. Now, to be a thief means that
you take what does not belong to you by deceit, and to be a
robber means that you take what does not belong to you by violence
or by force. And that's what men do. They rob Christ of his glory
by deceiving themselves and others to be more righteous than they
are. They deceive themselves to be
able to save themselves by their own will and by their own works.
And then they violently rob Christ of his glory and salvation. The Lord Jesus said, we are,
I am the door. I am the door. And God's people
are saying right now, Lord, open that door to me. Open the door
to me. These disciples gloried in what
the Lord had done and how he had opened the door of faith. Left to ourselves, we will never
believe. Matter of fact, we didn't even
know we had a problem with unbelief until we were given faith. For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Men
boast in decisions that they've made and they bring their faith
as their offering to God in hopes that God will reward them with
salvation because they've decided to believe. That's just not true. If the Lord doesn't open the
door of faith, we will not believe and we won't know we have a problem
with unbelief. And this is not just a one-time
experience, is it? The Holy Spirit, when he comes,
will convict the world, God's people, of sin because they believe
not on me. Unbelief is the root cause of
all of our problems. Unbelief. And we didn't know
we had a problem with unbelief until the Lord gave us faith.
And now we cry with that dear father, begging the Lord for
his mercy for his son who said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. I've always got an element of
unbelief, Lord. Open the door of faith for me.
Enable me to believe on Christ. But the scripture is clear in
Hebrews chapter 11, without faith, it is impossible to please God. For they that come to him must,
must believe that he is and that he's the rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. God is pleased with faith because
the faith that God gives causes those who have it to glory in
Christ. And God's pleased with his son.
This is my beloved son, in him I'm well pleased. God's not pleased
with you and me, except we'd be found in Christ. He's pleased
with his son and he's pleased with the faith that he gives
because the faith that he gives causes us to rest all our hope. on the Lord Jesus Christ, to
glory in Him. Let Him the glory, glory in the
Lord. We've got nothing to glory in
ourselves. Lord, if you didn't arrest me
on my way to ruin, if you didn't shine the light of the gospel
of your grace from heaven, knock me off my high horse and put
me in the dirt. If you didn't stop me in my tracks,
if you didn't open my ears to hear your voice, if you didn't
open my eyes, if you didn't open the windows of heaven and come
down, if you didn't open the scriptures that I might have
understanding, everything would be locked up to me. I wouldn't
have any understanding or any sight Lord, you get all the glory
for it. This matter of faith is not a
commitment or a decision or a determination. And this knowledge is not something
achieved by effort. It's a gift of God. It's a gift
of God. And these believers, these early
believers, after going out on, this is the first missionary
journey. This is the first time that the gospel has gone out
into the world. And we've been studying that
for the last several chapters in Acts, the travels of Paul
and Barnabas. And now they've come back to
the sending church in Antioch. And they're rehearsing to them
for the very first time what God had done in opening up the
door of faith among the Gentiles. And their glory and rejoicing
in Christ for having done that. Faith, that's necessary for salvation. We've got to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. We've got to be brought to rest. That's what it means to believe.
It means to rest. It means to trust. It means to
deposit everything on Christ. In Isaiah chapter 44, the scripture
speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ as a nail fastened in a sure
place. We've all had the experience
of putting a nail into drywall and then hanging something too
heavy on it and it pulls out. But you find a good stud in your
house and put a good 16 penny nail in that stud, you can hang
anything you want on it, can't you? And there's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's a nail fastened in a sure
place. And that's what happened when
he went to Calvary's cross and God fastened him to that tree. And he bore the sins of his people
and put them away. And his work of salvation is
sure. It's sure and it's steadfast
and you can hang everything you have. That's what faith is. Faith
is hanging the whole weight of all your sin and your life and
your mortal soul on that nail which been fastened in a sure
place. The Lord Jesus Christ. Without
that, there'll be no salvation. And if the Lord doesn't give
us that kind of faith, we won't come up with it. We won't. And when he does give it to us,
the presence of that gift of grace exposes the unbelief that
remains in our old man. And so we're always having now
the struggle of the new man and the old man and the spirit and
the flesh. And we're always in a spiritual
warfare against this unbelief that exists in our hearts. And we are always crying, Lord,
help thou my number. Open the door of faith to this
Gentile. Now a Gentile is a dog. That's
what they are, the dogs. And every believer who's had
his heart opened and has been given faith acknowledges to God,
as that Syrophoenician woman did, truth, Lord, truth, Lord. I'm just a dog begging for crumbs
that fall from the master's table, licking the hand of the master,
following the command of my master. That's God's dogs. God's dogs. And she'll love the story of
Mephibosheth. When David fetched Mephibosheth,
he sent Ziba to go get Mephibosheth, and he said, bring him to me
and Mephibosheth. That poor cripple boy said, what would the king
have to do with such a dead dog as I? Lord, if you don't have
mercy upon me and allow me to sit at your table, I'm just a
dead dog. A dead dog sinner, completely
dependent upon you for everything. Unbelief doesn't believe that. The unbeliever doesn't believe
himself to be a dog. The unbeliever is like Goliath
who stands tall with all of his armor and says, what am I, a
dog? Am I a dog that you would send
after me, a boy with sticks and staves? No, I'm no dog. What a contrast. They were amazed that the Lord
had opened the door of faith unto the dogs, Gentile dogs. You know, being convicted of
unbelief doesn't mean that you have a guilty conscience about
doing something bad. There are And I fear that we're
living in an era where we're having a searing of our conscience
as a world, as a society. Things that used to be considered
shameful, even among unbelievers, is now not only accepted but
celebrated. And that's the searing of our
national conscience. But God has given all men a conscience
so that all men know the difference between right and wrong. And
that's not being convicted for sin because you feel bad that
you did something wrong. The spirit of God will convict
them of sin because they believe not on me. Lord, there's my problem. My problem is my unbelief. My
problem is not just the things that make me feel guilty, but
even the good things that I do are infected with my sin. Lord,
everything about me is sinful. But the Lord opened up the door
of faith. And that's what sinners do. Sinners cast all their hope
on Christ because they have no hope in and of themselves. When
the Lord opens the door of faith, he causes you to see yourself
as a sinner. And he causes you to see that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only successful savior of sinners. And the only hope that you have
to stand right in the presence of a holy God is to be found
in him. They gloried in what the Lord
had done, in that he had opened the door of faith among the Gentiles. Not for all the Gentiles, but
for some of the Gentiles, they believed. John chapter six, turn to me
there, if you will. John chapter six. Look at verse 44. We quote this
verse often. I want you to look at it. Pray
the Holy Spirit will give us the faith to believe what God
has said here. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking. He says no man can come to me except the father
which has sent me draw him. That word draw means to be taken
against your will before the judge. And that's how the drawing
begins, isn't it? And then once the Lord brings
us to himself, he makes us willing. You know that he's brought you
into his presence when you're willing to be there. You weren't
willing until you got there. But now that he's brought you
there, you're willing and you're so thankful that he did what
he did to open the door of faith for you and cause you to find
yourself in his presence. No man can come unto me except
the father which draw him or which sent me draw him and I
will raise him up again the last day. There's our hope. So much of religion is just based
on trying to make a better place for us in this world, isn't it? Health, wealth, and prosperity,
and all the happiness that you can get out of this life. Here's what it's about. It's
about eternal life. I should give unto them eternal
life. I will raise them up again on the last day. The truth is
we have no hope or direction or light on the circumstances
of the temporal until the Lord has settled the eternal in our
hearts and given us faith in Christ. Verse 45, look at verse 45. It
is written in the prophets that they shall be all taught of God. If all we hear is the voice of
a man, we're not gonna be saved. But if the Lord uses that audible
voice to speak effectually to our hearts, if he uses the word
of God and causes us to, he opens up our ears, our eyes, that's
what the Lord has to open. It's written, the prophets, they
shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father. How do I know if I've
heard from God? How do I know if God's taught
me, cometh unto me? That's how I know. I'm hanging
everything I've got on that sure nail, that nail that's fastened
in a sure place. everything. He's all my righteousness. He's all my justification before
God. He's all my hope and true happiness. Everything is in him. He's my righteousness, my wisdom,
my sanctification, all my redemption, everything. That's how we know
we've been taught of God. Then we come to Christ. And he becomes that one thing
needful, the one thing. And God opens the door of faith.
Turn with me to Revelation chapter three. This will be a great encouragement
to the people of God. Revelation chapter three. Look with me at verse 7. The
Lord is speaking to the church at Philadelphia. There's only
two of the seven churches that we named cities after today,
and that's Philadelphia and Smyrna. All the other churches were shameful.
And the Lord threatened to remove them. But Philadelphia, the city
of brotherly love, what a glorious, our Philadelphia doesn't represent
that much anymore, does it? But the church still does. Every
single gospel church can be called the Church of Philadelphia. This
is the evidence that we belong to the Lord, for the world shall
see that you love one another. This brotherly love, we have
a love for Christ, a love for his word, a love for God's people.
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write. Now that
angel is the messenger. It's each one of these are represented
of the pastor of these churches. These things saith he that is
holy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one who is holy. He's the one who's undefiled. He's the one who's separate from
sinners. He's the one that's higher than the heavens and he
that is true. The Lord Jesus Christ is only,
well, there's no truth anywhere else. No, we can accumulate some
information, but that's not truth. Truth always leads to God. always leads to God. If what
we're learning doesn't lead us to God, don't call it truth.
It may be true. It may be some accurate information,
but it's not truth. Truth leads us to God. The Lord
Jesus Christ said, I am the way I am the truth. Amen. He's the truth. And he that hath the key of David
Now, what does a key do? It opens a door. A key opens
a door. If you don't have a key, you're
not getting in. The Lord Jesus Christ, the one
who has a key, he told the disciples, he said, I'm going to give you
the key to heaven. And that false prophet out there
in Rome, Italy, wearing a big golden key around his neck, thinking
that he's got the key to heaven. It's just not true. The key is
the gospel, and the gospel is Christ. He is the key. He's the door. He's the only
one that can open the way. He that hath the key of David,
he that openeth, and no man shutteth, and shutteth, and no man openeth. What he opens, no man can shut.
Oh, if he's ever opened your heart, if he's ever opened your
eyes, even if ever opened your ears, no man can shut that. Child of God, you can't shut
it. That ought to be a great encouragement
to you. You can't, you can't sin your
way out of Christ. Say preacher, You're gonna give
people a license to sin by making statements like that. Oh no.
No, if the Lord's opened your heart, if he's opened your eyes
and your ears, if he's opened the windows of heaven and poured
out his grace, that truth is the one thing that encourages
you to abstain from sin and try to honor God with your life. It's the fact that your sin's
already been paid for. Already been paid for, it's all
been put away. Every bit of it. What God openeth,
no man shutteth. And what God shutteth, no man
openeth. Oh Lord, don't shut the door. You remember after Noah got in
the ark with his family? He'd been preaching the gospel
for over 120 years. Telling people there's going to, judgment is
coming. And people then did exactly the same thing that they do today.
When you tell them about judgment, ah, never seen rain before, never
seen fire fall from heaven, never seen the earth burned up before,
that's not going to happen. And as it was in the days of
Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the son of man. Men won't
believe. They didn't believe Noah's message. They won't believe ours. They
just live their lives as if all is well and no fear of God, no
fear of judgment. And the scripture says that when
Noah and his family got in the ark, the Lord shut them in. The Lord shut them in. What God
shut us, no man can open. God shuts us up in Christ. No
man can open that door and get us out. Don't you know that when
the floods, when the deluge began and the waters began to rise,
that there were men beating on that ark, wanting that door to
be opened. And they were shut in. They couldn't get out. I'm so
thankful for that. Look at verse eight. I know thy works. Behold, I have
set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, for thou
hast a little strength and hast kept my word. Now the Lord is
commending the church at Philadelphia. The church at Laodicea, while
they thought they were rich and increased in goods and in need
of nothing, they were proud and self-righteous and strong and
independent. And the Lord said, I'll spew
you out of my mouth. But this church was feeble, weak,
dependent. And the Lord commends them and
blesses them and says to them, because of your weakness, therefore,
my strength shall be made perfect in your weakness. And I have
opened a door for you and no man can shut it. What a, that's such a blessing
to me. Just to know that the Lord blesses
the weak. The poor, the needy, those are
the ones he blesses. Not the proud and the strong
and the independent, self-righteous. Thou hast little strength and
hast kept my word and hast not denied my name. That's who he
blesses. Those who hide God's word in
their hearts and keep it as it is a revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's my prayer for this church.
That's my prayer for myself. That's my prayer for each of
you. The Lord would open up what no man can shut and that he would
shut us up in Christ so that no man can open. Isaiah chapter 22 says, after
that nail, which is fastened in a sure place, in verse 22
of Isaiah 22, it says, the key of the house of David while I
lay upon his shoulder, so he shall open and none shall shut
and he shall shut and none shall open. The Lord Jesus Christ,
the key to heaven. He entered into glory, not void. He returned with what he came
to do. He returned with the names of
his people. He's seated at the right hand of God as our advocate,
our sin bearer, our substitute. Oh, that the Lord would open
the door of faith Pray with me that the Lord would
open the door of faith for these Gentiles. Open our blind eyes, Lord. Open
our hearts. Open the scriptures that we might
understand them as they reveal Christ to us. Oh, you can get
a seminary education and study the Bible and figure out the
historical events and even the theology of it to some degree.
But to see Christ in all the scriptures, as we sang at the
outset of this service, to see it as a book of Christ that only
speaks of him, that's the work of the Spirit of God. Lord, open,
open the door of faith. Open your word. David said in
Psalm 119 verse 18, he said, open thou mine eyes that I may
behold wondrous things out of thy law. What is the wondrous
thing in the law of God? The word law there is not talking
about the 10 commandments, it's talking about the whole of scripture.
And David says, Lord, if you'll open thou mine eyes, then I'll
be able to behold wondrous things out of thy law. Unto you a son
is given unto you a child is born and his name shall be called
what? Wonderful. Wonderful. You see, when the
Lord opens our eyes and enables us to behold wondrous things
out of his law, he shows us the wonder of Christ. And we use
that word wonderful very loosely. We say, oh, well, that was wonderful
or this was wonderful or. We know what we mean by that,
but this word wonderful means it's just. It's just inexpressible. It's full of wonder. It leaves
us speechless. We use that word wonderful for
things that don't leave us speechless, don't we know when it's brought
to its true use and true meaning. All the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Leaves us speechless. He's just
full of wonder. What can we say? What can we
say? And when we do try to speak,
we fall so far short. One of the reasons why, if all
you hear is the voice of a man, you haven't heard the wonder
of God. If all you've heard is from a preacher or from a man,
I don't care who he is or how eloquent he is or how much he
speaks of Christ. The wonder of the gospel. is
when God teaches you, they shall be all taught of God. David goes on in Psalm 118 verse
19 to say, open to me thy gate of righteousness and I will go
in. Lord, open that gate. Enable me to go in. The Lord doesn't open it. He's
got the key. He's got the key, amen? He has
the key. You see, that's why we're like
the church at Philadelphia. We're weak and small and defenseless
and helpless. That's what dirty sheep are. Lord, open it up to me. Open the sheepfold. Let me come
in. Open my heart. Give me faith. Cause me to believe on Christ. Turn with me, if you will, the
book of Zechariah, the second to the last book of the Old Testament.
We go here often, you're familiar with Zechariah. Look at chapter
13 of Zechariah. Verse 1, in that day, now Zechariah
is speaking prophetically of the day of Christ, when the Lord
Jesus Christ would open the heavens and come down and open the womb
and be born of a woman under the law. and lay his life down for his
sheep as their sin bearer and as their surety. That's what
Zechariah is speaking of. He's talking about the day of
Christ, the day of salvation. And he says, in that day, there
should be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. There's
your problem. That's your problem. How do I
know it's your problem? Because it's my problem. It's every one of our problems.
You see, our problem is not another person. Our problem is not our
circumstances. Our problem is not our material
or temporal needs and struggles in this world. Our problem is
sin and uncleanness. And only when the fountain has
been opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
are we able to drink freely. It's how this book concludes. Talk about that river that flows
clear as crystal from the throne of God and from the lamb. And
the Lord says, calm and drink, drink freely. We'll pay for it. The fountain is open. Right now
the fountain's open. The gates of heaven are open.
Judgment has not yet come. The door to the ark is wide open. For who? For sinners. For sinners and for those who
believe God. And it shall come to pass in
that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names
of the idols out of the land and they shall no more be remembered. And also I will cause the prophets
and the unclean spirits to pass out of the land. How do I know? The Lord has given me hope in
Christ. If he's opened the door of faith
for me, I put all my hope in him. All
those false hopes and idols that I once trusted in, the decisions I'd made, the works
that I performed, my religious activity, all those idols have
cast away. They've been cast away. And false
prophets, now I can't tell you how many times people come here
and they hear us and they, They go back to their false prophets
and they think they're hearing exactly the same thing. The door
of faith has not been opened unto them. Because if the door
of faith is opened unto you, you cannot go listen to a false
prophet. You just can't do it. Not that
you're being mean or just self-righteous or intolerant. It's that you
can't listen to someone tell lies about your Savior and about
salvation. It robs you of your hope to listen
to a false prophet. And that's what the Lord said.
When this fountain is opened and my people are brought to
drink from that fountain, they cast away their idols and they
get rid of all their false prophets. Paul said in Colossians chapter
four, verse three, pray that God would open unto us a door
of utterance. We should pray that for ourselves. Pray when you get up in the morning,
the Lord enables you. Lord, would you open a door of
utterance for me today? Would you enable me to speak
a word of truth and testimony about you to someone today? Lord,
if you don't open that door, I can't force it open. There
are lots of people. I mean, I've seen people on street
corners preaching and collaring people and browbeating them.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about God opening
a door of utterance for you so that it's just a natural opportunity
that God gives you a supernatural opportunity that God gives you
to speak a word of truth about Christ. You know, we try to get the gospel
out any way we can, but the biblical method for getting the gospel
out is one-on-one. We're not relying on these other
means. This is the way the Lord rose
his church. Believers were scattered and
everywhere they went, they preached the gospel. Second Corinthians chapter two,
when Paul was in Troas, he said, and the Lord opened up a door
of utterance for us. That gave us an opportunity to
preach the gospel. You remember in Acts chapter
12, I think it is, Paul and Silas were put into
prison. Or is that chapter five? Let's look here a second. Acts chapter five. Look with me at
verse 19. And the angel of the Lord by
night opened the prison doors and brought them forth and told
them to go stand and speak in the temple. to the people all
the words of this life. The Lord opened that prison door
and gave them an opportunity to speak. The Lord opened the
prison doors of our own fear and unbelief in order to give
us an opportunity to speak of Christ. And then again they were
imprisoned, I think it is in chapter 12, and the angel led
them out of the prison and they were They didn't know if what
they were experiencing was a dream or if it was real until the Lord
got them to the city gate, and the scripture says, and the city
gate opened on its own. And they went in and the angel
disappeared. That's the way we are. The Lord delivers us from the
prison of our sin, carries us to the gates, to that celestial
city, that new Jerusalem. And when those doors open to
us and we walk through, we don't need an angel anymore. We don't need a preacher anymore.
We don't need anyone to guide us anymore. No, we're in the
very presence of God. What a day that'll be when the
open door opens that door. They rehearsed all that God had
done. and how that he had opened the
door of faith for the Gentile dogs. Our heavenly father, we ask that
you would make your word effectual to our hearts and open the door
of faith for each of us. Open the door of utterance for
us. Lord, that we might rejoice in
knowing that. The door of heaven. Will be open
for us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.