Almost everybody knows the verse, and almost nobody knows the address on it.
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.Revelation 3:20, King James Version
That gets used, correctly and usefully, as an invitation to somebody who has never come in at all. And it is a good use.
But that is not who it was written to.
Revelation 2 and 3 are seven letters to seven real congregations in seven real towns in Asia, and this one has an address at the top of it: unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write.
It is written to a church. To people already in.
And here is what the letter says about them, and it does not soften it.
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.Revelation 3:15-16, King James Version
Lukewarm. And then verse seventeen: thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
That is the harshest paragraph addressed to any of the seven churches. And four verses later comes the knocking.
Work out where He is standing
Now, the thing that took me years to notice, and once you notice it you cannot unsee it.
If He is knocking, He is outside.
This is a letter to a church, and the picture at the end of it is Christ on the doorstep of His own people's house, knocking to be let in. He is not inside telling them to come to Him. He is outside asking to be let in.
Which means the drifting in this letter is real. The book does not pretend the distance is imaginary. It says the distance is genuine and then shows you who has walked over to close it.
You are not on the wrong side of your own door. Revelation 3:20 has the knocking coming from outside and the handle on the inside, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that arrangement in front of somebody who assumed they had been locked out.
Now look at what He is knocking for.
I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
A meal. Not an inspection, not a reckoning, and not a conversation about the last four verses. The stated purpose of the knocking is supper.
And in that world, eating with somebody was not a casual arrangement. You did not sup with a person you were assessing. Sharing a table was the closest ordinary thing to declaring somebody family.
You have been knocked on by somebody who came for a meal rather than an audit. Revelation 3:20 names supping twice in one clause, and the same Spirit who kept it that domestic is the reason nobody has to prepare an account first.
And notice the size of what is asked. If any man hear my voice, and open the door.
Hear. Open. That is the whole of it. The verse does not ask the Laodiceans to become hot first, and it does not ask them to fix what verse seventeen described. It asks a person to hear a knock and turn a handle.
You have been asked for a handle and not for a repair. Revelation 3:20 asks only for hearing and opening, and it is His Spirit who protects that from being expanded by a person who thinks they need to be presentable before they answer a door.
I want to say one more thing about the tone of the letter, because a person could read verses fifteen to seventeen and finish frightened, and this book is not for frightening anybody.
Read verse nineteen, which sits directly between the hard words and the knock.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.Revelation 3:19, King James Version
As many as I love. He states the motive before He states the instruction, and He states it in a letter where He has just called them poor and blind and naked.
The hardest letter of the seven contains the tenderest picture of the seven, and there are four verses between them.
You have been told the reason for the hard part before you were asked to do anything about it. Revelation 3:19 says as many as I love ahead of the call, and the same Spirit who fixed that order is the reason nobody has to read the rebuke as a rejection.
So stop assuming the door was closed from the other side.
You have concluded that eleven years is long enough to constitute a decision, and that the decision was made and is now on file somewhere. The letter to Laodicea says the hardest things in the seven letters and then puts Christ on the step with His hand raised.
You have somebody on the outside of the door and the handle on your side, and that is the whole arrangement in the verse. Revelation 3:20 describes a knock rather than a lock, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the reason that reaches a man driving past at forty miles an hour.
You have been asked to hear and to open, and that is the entire list. The written word names two actions and neither of them is becoming hot, and the same Spirit who kept the list that short is the reason nobody has to be repaired to answer.
And I will not put an ounce on you: the eleven years are not on file as a verdict. The Laodiceans are told what is wrong with them in the plainest language in the book, and four verses later there is a knock, and there is no probation between them. What God does not lock, nobody may declare shut, and He has never once required a person to have a good explanation before He would come and eat.
Declare this over yourself
- Eleven years I called a decision, you are not a lock on this door. Revelation 3:20 has Him knocking from the outside with the handle on my side, and His Spirit keeps that arrangement standing. I am not on the wrong side of my own door.
- Conversation I have been avoiding, get out, in the name of Jesus. You have kept me driving past for years, and the written word asks only that a man hear and open, which is a list of two, which ends you, and the Spirit of God kept it in for me to find, and I have found it. What God asks for, I can actually do.
- Lord, You are the God who said as many as I love before You said repent, and You are doing that here. Scripture puts the reason four verses ahead of the knock and names supper as what You came for, and Your Spirit keeps them in that order. I am standing at my own door with my hand on the handle, and I am opening it.
Revelation 3:20
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
