The Potter and the Clay

by Arthur F. Winnington Ingram

THE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR[11]

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come and sup with him, and he with Me."—Rev. iii. 20.

I will come unto him and sup with him, and he with Me. I think sometimes that we dwell in our Advent meditation too exclusively on the thought of the coming Judgment. Of course we have to dwell on it. "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door." A tremendous truth that is. "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door." There is going to come a time when the door will come down with a crash, and we shall be face to face with the Judge. And this affects every single period of our lives. We sometimes imagine that we are going—dare I say the word?—to dodge the Judgment. Not at all; we are going to look into those Eyes like a Flame of Fire, and every man will give an account of himself before God. And every day is making up the Judgment. Every thought, every word, every act, every service, every decision we make, it all goes into the judgment, it all goes into the verdict. And when the Judge who stands before the door comes inside, He registers the verdict and the sentence we have been preparing all our lives. We go to our own place—the place that we have prepared for ourselves.

Now that is a tremendous thought, and it is one that we cannot possibly ignore. What is a person, what is a Church-worker, to do who realises that the Judge standeth before the door? What am I to do when I realise that He stands before the door of my heart? The answer can only be: Ask Him in as the Saviour, before He comes as the Judge that is to be.

I want now to take with you another kind of Advent—may I say a more delightful kind of Advent?—that is, the Advent of Jesus Christ Himself into the soul. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with Me." It seems at first sight too good to be true, when you think who Jesus Christ was—the Lord of Angels, the Son of God, the supreme Captain of the heavenly host, the most perfect beautiful Character that ever lived—that He is going Himself to come. Think of it—that He is going to come within me, within you, to live there, to dominate your consciousness, dominate your mind, your life, so that you will speak with His words, think with His thoughts, judge with His judgment; that He will live in you. It seems almost too much to believe; and yet this is precisely the thing which, when we study the New Testament, we find is promised, not only in this passage, but in St. John's Gospel. "My Father and I, We will come unto him and make Our abode with him." St. Paul's favourite motto is: "Christ in you the hope of glory." Christ in you, through the Holy Spirit. He, of course, brings Jesus with Him. It is said in St. John's Gospel: "He is with you, but He shall be in you." And when I speak to a number of Confirmation candidates, I believe it is perfectly true to say before the Confirmation: "He is with you, but He shall be in you." For that is the great gift of Confirmation, the falling of the Holy Ghost. "Then laid they their hands on them, and the Holy Ghost came upon them, for as yet He had fallen on none of them."

There is no doubt that this tremendous gift is the special promise given by Christianity. Christ wants to live in me. He wants to come inside. He stands outside the door, but if I ask Him He will come inside. And notice, secondly, that this tremendous promise is not made to a few selected people. You might suppose that it was meant for a few Sisters of Mercy, very devoted, who live their lives among the poor, or to a few particular saints among the clergy. But you all have this promise. This tremendous promise comes in the midst of the message to the Church in Laodicea, the people who were neither cold nor hot, the people who were uplifted when they ought to have been humble, the people who had to be chastened and rebuked that they might be made humble, the people who had not a chance of overcoming in their own strength—in fact, people just like you and me. And it is just because we know this, that I have to give this message of love to you. It is just because we know that we are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm—the churchwardens, workers, sidesmen, Sunday-School teachers—it is just because we are conscious, and because we know that we do want chastening, that we may be perfected and purified; in fact, it is just because we are like the people to whom that message was given that we need to pay heed to the warning of the message. Christ says: "I stand at the door and knock, and if any of you will open the door and hear My voice, I will come in and sup with you, and you with Me."

And, therefore, you see, that sets us thinking, does it not? as to what this knocking at the door can mean. Is it possible, you say, that Christ has been knocking at the door, and I never knew it was He who was knocking? The whole thing is wonderfully symbolised at the consecration of a church. Perhaps you have not seen the consecration of a church. The Bishop, representing Jesus Christ, knocks three times at the door, and says: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in." The churchwardens and sidesmen say: "Who is the King of Glory?" And the Bishop outside replies: "The Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory." Then the doors are flung open, and the Bishop enters, symbolising the entrance of Christ into His Church. That happens every time a new church is consecrated in the diocese of London or anywhere else. Who is the King of Glory? Who is He? Is it possible that He has been knocking at my heart and I have never known?

How does He knock? 1. First of all, and perhaps most commonly, by what we call smiting the conscience. You notice we use the very words in our popular language which represents knocking—smiting the conscience. Is it possible, for instance, that even now some of you have been conscious that you are not what you ought to be, that your life is not what it ought to be, that there is something wrong with you? People sometimes come to me and say: "Bishop, I want to see you. I am not right. There is something not right with me; something tells me I have not done my work as I ought. There seems to be something between me and God." Well, you must cherish that smiting of the conscience. Do not ignore it or despise it. It is the knocking, knocking at the door, of Jesus Christ Himself. There is not a doubt about it. Sometimes He knocks the door very loudly. Sometimes His knocks are soft, just like taps. When some pure-hearted boys or girls are going to be confirmed, it is a very gentle knock that Christ makes at the door of their young hearts. He feels sure they will attend. He does not have to rouse them by loud thundering knocks. He comes quietly because that heart is made for Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is made for that heart. And therefore at a Confirmation of well-prepared candidates it is lovely to think how He comes up and knocks at the young soul, and the soul recognises the knock, and says: "Come in." No loud knock is wanted. We were meant to grow up with "our days bound each to each by natural piety." Christ, who has taken us up in His arms at Baptism, is made to come gently, quietly, and happily, into the young soul at Confirmation. There is not meant to be some great break in our lives. We are meant to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. But if there comes this knocking, a smiting of the conscience, I do pray you to remember that it is meant in love, that it is Christ who wants to come within us.

2. Sometimes the knock is a very heavy one, the heavy dull knocking of a great sorrow. I have seen a great deal of it, when people have lost their dear ones in this Great War. One who had lost the light of her eyes said to me the other day: "I somehow feel nearer God in spite of it all." No doubt in that heavy, sad knock at the door you can hear Jesus Christ's own knocking. He may come into the soul through the sorrow in a way in which He has never come when all is right and bright and happy. If some of you have heard that heavy knocking at the door, do not think God has forgotten you and forsaken you. Rise and open the door, and Christ will come into your soul in a way in which He has never come before in all your life.

3. Sometimes it is the quick happy knocking of joy. Someone wrote to me the other day that he had had a great joy. All the darkness seemed now to have cleared away. He said: "I see my path in the light of God's love." There was the quick knocking of joy, and Christ came in with the joy. The clearer knock of joy was the knocking of Jesus Christ.