Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2752
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out, and find pasture.” John 10:9.
How very condescendingly the Lord Jesus Christ sets Himself forth! The noblest figures of speech are not too lofty to describe His merits. If we could speak with the tongues of poets and of angels, we could not adequately represent His loveliness and though the writers of the Scriptures, Inspired by the Holy Spirit, have used language which exceeds all other in majesty and beauty, even theyare not able to tell all the excellence of the Glory of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yet, beloved Friends, when He speaks of Himself, He is pleased to use no lofty imagery, no far-fetched metaphors— He talks of Himself one day as water, and another day as bread—and here He deigns to call Himself a door. The illustration is exceedingly simple! Who is there that will not understand it? He means that as by passing through a door we enter into a house, so by passing through Christ Jesus, by faith, we enter into eternal life, enter into the true Church and ultimately shall enter into Heaven!
“I am the door.” This metaphor is not only simple, but it is wonderfully commonplace. The dealers in profundities will not like this expression. The gentlemen who must have something new—something very striking—will hardly admire this kind of talk but then, our Lord does not court their admiration. His objective is not to win the applause of the wise and the poetical, but to win the souls of the poor and the needy, to bring them to eternal life—so He uses what many call a child’s figure, a commonplace figure, “I am the door.”
He has selected this emblem, I should think, partly that it may often come before our notice. You will not go out of this place without seeing a door! You will not get into your own house without seeing a door and when you are inside, you will not get into your parlor without seeing a door. And when you go up to bed, you must pass through a door. When you rise, tomorrow morning, and start to go out to work, you will have to open a door— probably two doors— and when you reach your work, there is pretty sure to be another door to be entered. Doors meet your gaze almost everywhere, so our Lord Jesus Christ seems to say to you, “I will meet you wherever you are. Anywhere and everywhere, I will speak with you and plead with you. I will make the door of every room in your house and the door of every cupboard, too, preach a little sermon to you, as you shall be reminded by it that ‘I am the door.’” I am sure our Lord Jesus Christ does not want His ministers to deliver magnificent orations, spread-eagle sermons, with long and elaborate sentences in them. He wants them to just come and talk as He talked, in all simplicity, so that the very poorest and most illiterate of their hearers may understand their meaning, embrace the Truths of God they proclaim and find everlasting life in Him of whom they speak. So I shall try to do at this time, keeping the style of my discourse congruous with the text.
We will begin by noticing first, the door Secondly, the users of it “By Me if any man enters in.” And, thirdly, the privileges of each of these users. ’ ‘He shall be saved, and will go in and out, and find pasture.”
I. First, then, concerning THE DOOR.
“I am the door,” says Jesus, and the first thought that strikes us is, the necessity of it Here is the house of mercy and, inside, there is washing for the filthy, healing for the sick, food for the hungry, clothing for the naked. But suppose there had been no door to the house—what use would it have been to us? Suppose there had been only windows, through which we could look in and see the provision prepared there? And suppose that we could hear the songs of those who
were permitted to partake of it, but there was no door by which we could enter in? All the mercy of God would have only been a tantalizing of our hunger in such a case as that. The house of mercy, without a door, would have been a house of misery to us! Look at this picture, if your eyes can perceive it—the city that lies foursquare, that mighty city, whose pinnacles tower on high so loftily that the height is as great as the breadth, and the breadth is the same as the length. Her very foundations are of precious stones and her twelve 12 gates are priceless pearls! Can your eyes gaze, even for a moment, on that brilliance that outshines the sun? And can you hear the sound of harpers harping with their harps within that city whose streets are of pure gold?
But suppose there was no door there and that our spirits had to go flying with awful beating of weary wing, round, and round, and round that solid wall, but never finding a gate where we could enter? What hope would there be for a soul shut out from the city of the perfect, the home of the blessed, because there was no door of entrance? Yet there would not have been any door if it had not been for Christ! Our sins had, as it were, walled up God and shut Him in—and walled us up and shut us out! There would have been for us no going in to God, nor any coming out from God to us, had it not been for Christ, the Mediator through whom we draw near to God because, in Him, God has drawn near to us! See, then, the necessity for this door and, blessed be His holy name, see how Christ meets this necessity. We needed a door by which we can get to God—and Jesus says, “I am the door.”