‘HE THAT OPENETH … AND THAT SHUTTETH’
‘The key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder.’
I. The Divine Man stands behind the earthly type in these words in majestic beauty.—‘These things saith He that is holy, He that is true, He that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth. Behold I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut.’ Words of incomparable splendour, capable of endless application.
II. Let Jesus open each day of service, each opportunity of ministry, each door into another year; each new chamber of life, and knowledge and opportunity, and remember that He Who sets before us open doors is He Who knows our works, and that we have but little strength. He will not open a door leading into a passage of life beyond our strength to tread. The open door will reveal to us possibilities within our reach of which we had not dreamt, and when once a door is opened, though access to it may be beset, as in Bunyan’s vision, by armed men, and though strong pressure is brought to hear upon it, for its closing let us dare to persevere against disease and pestilence and opposition, relying on these sublime words, ‘None shall shut.’ Dear soul! say it to thyself repeatedly, ‘ None shall shut.’
III. But the Lord shuts doors.—The Spirit of Jesus ‘suffered them not’ to go into Bithynia. Down a long corridor of closed doors we may sometimes have to pass. It seems heartbreaking to see doors labelled Friendship, Love, Home, shut against us, but beyond them there is the one unclosed door through which we shall enter our true life.