Your Profit and Loss Statement

"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

I suppose there's not another verse in all the Bible that is used more often in modern evangelism than this one. Some say it should not be used in dealing with the lost since it is a statement made to the church. I shall leave that question for ano ther discussion. For whether to the lost or no, it certainly paints a wonderful picture of God's loving invitation to sinners, much like Isaiah 55:1: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat . . . ," or like that day Jesus stood up at the feast and cried with a loud voice: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink . . ." (John 7:37), or like Matthew 11:28: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock . . . ." What a portrait of the King of Kings condescending to the level of His subjects. But the question is: Does it portray the whole picture of who Christ is? Or of what a lost man must do to be saved?

The Unqualified Discourse

As we seek to interpret scripture, let us always keep in mind the principle of the "unqualified discourse." That sounds like fancy language, but it's really not. It simply means that the Bible contains many emphatic statements which deliberately ad dress only one issue without regard for any other related issues. For example, the Law commands "honor thy father and thy mother." Yet when the Lawgiver became flesh, He said, "If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple." Similarly, Paul said, "By grace are ye saved through faith . . . not of works." But James said, "Faith without works is dead." Or, Jesus said, "For judgement I am come." But later He is quoted, "I came not to judge." These are unqualified statements, each designed to emphasize one particular point. If questions develop in the mind of the reader, he is expected to build precept upon precept in arriving at his answer.

Income-Vs-Expenses

Keeping this principle in mind, imagine that you own your own business and that you're looking at the Profit and Loss Statement. The "Income" section is at the top. The "Expense" section is in the middle and the "Net Profit or Loss" is com-puted at the bottom. Your income minus your expenses equals your net profit or loss. If you had $1,000 in income and $500 in expenses, your net profit would be $500.

Revelation 3:20 is like your income section: "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to Him." There's a rich promise if ever there was one, huh? Let's say your income then is a million dollars. But we're not finished yet. There are some expenses to consider.

First, your "advertising" expense, O lost man, is way out of line. You appear to be alive to those around you. You rise every morning and go to work. You may be a good husband, father, mother, son, or daughter. You may even go to church. But all that thrills your soul is not the atoning work of the Saviour. You see more glory in a one dollar bill than you do in the cross of Jesus Christ. Inside you're "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). You may look like all is well with your soul but within you're full of "dry bones" like the ones Ezekiel had to preach to. You boast of life, but you're really spiritually dead. Your advertising expense is way over budget.

And then your "computer" expense, oh my! You may have all the latest hardware, but you've got this virus in your software called sin that is causing serious system locks. You may be programmed for success as far as this world is concerned, but spiritually you are shut down. The testimony of the Word of God regarding your mind is: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Cor. 2:14). In order to respond to the promises of God you don't just need a "patch"; your whole software program needs to be rewritten!

And then your "interest" expense, oh no! Every day that you live outside of Christ is another day for you to "treasure up wrath against the day of wrath," and to grow a little bit more calloused to the things of God. It's as if your soul is caught in a giant web, and every day spent in unbelief that spider spins another strand around your soul, around your will, around you, until eventually you cannot repent any more than Esau could, though he "sought it diligently with tears." Lost man thinks he' ll come to Christ someday after he's sown a few wild oats, not fearing that "his own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins" (Prov. 5:22).

Lastly, your group medical expense is way over budget. (That was a big mistake when you decided to self-insure!) You see, you've got this employee (he's really yourself) who is deaf, in serious need of ear surgery; blind, in critical need of eye surgery; and with heart trouble, in desperate need of a transplant. Jesus said of you: "Ye cannot hear my speech." The Apostle Paul said the devil has blinded your mind lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine into you. The Prophet Jeremiah said the only hope for your stony heart is that it be replaced with a heart of flesh. Other expenses you have also, but time would not permit me to list them all.

The Bottom Line

Yes, God has given you a million dollar promise, O lost man ("Behold, I stand at the door and knock . . ."). But your expenses are running into the tens of millions: you're dead in trespasses and sins; you cannot receive the things of God; your wi ll is bound; you're spiritually deaf, blind, and in need of a heart trans-plant. And so, the bottom line is you're showing a net loss. In fact, you're bankrupt! And we're not talking chapter 13, "wage earner," where with discipline you can pay back the debt on installments. We're talking chapter 7, where you can't get any more credit for years, and in this case for all eternity!

And so the bottom line is this thing called salvation doesn't hinge on your ability to make the right choice, or your decision, or your faith, or even your "free will", but on God doing something for you that you are not able to do for yourself. Tha t's why Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see . . . ." (John 3:3)

Why Then?

Now this being the case, why do we act as if it all depends on something man does? Why do we ask sinners "are you willing to allow Jesus to be your personal Saviour?" (Wouldn't that be big of you?) "Have you ever invited Him to come into your heart ?" One very well known evangelism method closes with this question: "Would you like to receive the gift of eternal life right now?" I don't guess anybody hates cussing worse than I do. But I believe I would rather hear a man cuss at the top of his lun gs than hear an evangelist tell a sinner he needs to "let Jesus come into his heart." (Kind of like letting the cat in from the cold.) Does not such language convey the idea that salvation hinges on our asking? Hinges on our allowing Him to do something? Hinges on our willingness to accept Him? Hinges on our will? Worse still, does not such language make a mockery of the Gospel of Grace? Some would say, "No, because we make sure they are sincere." Oh friend, man is sincere one day about the Word of God and the next day about Playboy Magazine. Man is like the grass blown with the wind. Isaiah tells us there is no soundness in man from the crown of his head to the souls of his feet. If this thing hinges on man's sincerity, we're all in trouble!

No doubt there will be many readers who, at the time of salvation, were told to "pray to receive Christ." Listen, if there's been a radical change in your life so that you are now alive to God and dead to sin, if you see the glory of that old rugged cross, if you are taking up your cross daily and following Him, I'm not trying to tell you you're lost. I'm saying that your salvation did not depend on your praying to re ceive Christ (even though it may have seemed so). Your praying to receive Christ had about as much to do with your salvation as the man's stretching forth of his withered hand had to do with his healing.

Answer me this one question, please: Would you ask a blind man if he's willing to receive the gift of sight? Would you promise him that all he need do is be really sincere when he prays and he will see? "Oh," you say, "you're being ridiculous. Why, the opening of blind eyes doesn't depend on man's willingness or his sincerity, but on a miracle of God." Ah, out of thine own mouth shalt thou be judged! Is the snatching of a lost soul from the flames of hell any less of a miracle than the opening of blind eyes? Don't you see that the question is not "are you willing to receive the gift of eternal life?" But is God willing to do for you what you are not able to do for yourself? "Who then can be saved?" asked the apostles. And the answer of our Lord was "the things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:26, 27).

The Whole Counsel of God

Oh, but you object: "The apostles made little or no mention of man's inability in their preaching in the book of Acts, and I'm not going to mention it either. It will just confuse people." The apostles made no mention in the book of Acts of Jesus standing at your heart's door either, but you jump on that. Shall we pick and choose what parts of the Gospel are preached? The point is, we must declare unto sinners the whole counsel of God: not just the promises, "the income"; but man's depravity, "the expenses"; and the bottom line is total inability, "bankruptcy". Man is unable of himself to muster even the faith to lay hold of God's promises. The bottom line is that God must do something, and then, yes, you'll open wide your heart's door, but not until. If our goal is to strip a man of all hope in himself, as the Gospel indeed does, so that he will cast himself wholly into the arms of Sovereign Mercy, then why would we want to conceal the truth of his inability?

What Then?

Still, I hear you objecting: "What then do we tell them to do, nothing? Just sit back and do nothing, and wait for God to save you?" Friend, you're building a straw man. I like the expression of the old Puritans. They used to "shut the sinner up to God" by telling him to go home, get on his knees, keep praying, and don't get up until God does that work that only He can do.

A young man said to me not long ago, "If it's really up to God, then what if I ask Him to save me and He doesn't do it?" I said, "I'm glad you brought that up. The answer is: you keep on asking, you keep on seeking, you keep on knocking." If a drowning man knows there is a life preserver up there somewhere, do you think he'll give up if he doesn't grab hold on the first try? Or do you think he'll keep on trying with every breath in his body until he finds it? God says, "And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13).

Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and open the door, I will come in . . . ." What a wonderful promise. What an amazing picture of Jesus humbling himself to deal with man. But it's not the whole picture. There's more: He is the risen Lord of glory on His throne. There's more: He rules every atom in the universe, even your heart's door! And then there's the whole problem of your inability: dead men don't get up and answer the door; deaf men can't hear the knock; blind men can't find the door knob. It's very important that we seek to persuade sinners of these facts lest they take confidence in themselves. It's very important that we keep back nothing, but declare unto men the whole counsel of God.

You could look at God's grace as like a giant water faucet. God alone controls the handle. Sometimes it's turned off, and sometimes it's flowing like a mighty waterfall. But friend, what is stopping you from camping out under that faucet until God turns on the water? Salvation hinges not on the will of man (John 1:13), but on the will of God (Rom. 9:16-18): "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy . . . . Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." The only reasonable action for the sinner, therefore, is not to pray "Lord, I accept you into my heart" but to cry with blind Bartimaeus: "Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me." What other hope did he have? What other hope do we have?