Doors in Our Lives
A Family Address by the Rev. Kenneth J. Alden
(Readings are appended below)
1 Jesus said, “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
2 What did the Lord mean, “I am the door”?
A. Look at the doors in this room.
1. The Lord doesn’t look anything like a door.
a. What did He mean by saying “I am the door?”
B. Let’s think for a minute about what it is that doors do.
1. Imagine that there was a room with no doors at all.
a. No one could come into that room.
b. The openings let people come into the room.
1) They give entrance to it.
2. No imagine there was a room with doors , but you couldn’t open the doors.
a. When people wanted to talk or visit each other, they couldn’t.
b. Have you ever called your mom and she says, “Come in here and talk to me”?
c. Doors allow people to communicate, when you can open them.
3. But suppose you had a room with openings and no doors that you could close.
a. All sorts of things might come in.
b. Wild animals, birds, noise, hot air.
c. Doors are useful for keeping things out that you don’t want in.
4. So doors allow entrance to rooms.
a. They allow communication between people in different rooms.
b. They also provide protection to keep out undesirable things.
3 Does the Lord do any of these things?
A. The Lord gives entrance and introduction to heaven. (AC 2356:1-2; AE 208:2)
1. He also gives entrance to the church, which is the Lord’s heavenly kingdom on earth.
2. He gives entrance to heaven the church by means of truths.
a. So the Heavenly Doctrine says that truths are called doors in the Word and represented by them. (See Arcana Coelestia 2356:1-2)
1) The Ten Commandments, which are truths, were to be written on the door posts in ancient Israel.
2) The literal sense of the Word is also pictured by doors in the Word, because its truths give entrance to the knowledge of heaven. (See Arcana Coelestia 4861)
3) Doctrine, or teaching from the Word is also meant by “doors.” (Arcana Coelestia 2381)
b. Truth is more than just words.
1) It is what is real.
2) It is what is in the mind of the Lord.
3) It is His laws of order.
4) So the truth, as well as good, is the Lord Himself.
A) So you can say that truth or the Lord is a door giving entrance.
3. Now, if you know a lot of truths but don’t use them, you haven’t entered heaven except in your thought.
a. It is as though the door is closed.
b. So the Lord says that He stands at the door and knocks.
1) But when you hear and open the door, that is when you live by it, that is when the Lord comes in and dines with us, and we with Him.
2) So you need to live by the truth for it to give entrance to heaven. (See Arcana Coelestia 2356:1-2; Apocalypse Explained 208:4)
B. The Lord, as a door, gives entrance to heaven. He also gives communication.
1. What do you share when you communicate?
a. You share what you think and what you love.
b. What is more worthwhile to communicate than what is true and what is good?
1) Who wants you to tell them only lies, or to share evil with them?
2) When we speak and do what is true and good, we communicate best.
3) We communicate the Lord for He is good and true.
4) This goodness and truth which are the Lord are doors providing communication. (See Arcana Coelestia 8989:1,3; Spiritual Experiences 4675).
5) Jesus said, “If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” (Jn 10:9)
A) We communicate what is really worthwhile when the Lord is the door.
C. Doors also keep out undesirable things. This the Lord does, too.
1. Evil spirits can’t get past the Lord, as long as we love and follow Him.
a. “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.” (Jn 10:7-8)
b. In this picture of a shepherd, you can imagine that if a thief or robber came, the shepherd would keep them from getting at his sheep.
1) So the Lord, as a door, keeps the evil spirits away who would rob us of heaven.
2. Biblical historians say that shepherds used to lie down across the opening to sheepfolds. (Expositor’s Commentary Jn 10:7)
a. So they were a door.
b. They would wake up if the sheep were starting to wander out, or if a wolf came.
c. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.” (Jn 10:11-12)
1) Especially when the Lord was on earth was He both a Shepherd and the Door.
A) He became the Divine truth by learning it, and became Divine good by living it.
B) The Heavenly Doctrine says that He is the door and the Shepherd, as to His Human. (See Arcana Coelestia 2516:2)
C) As a door He keeps out the evil spirits so that we can choose heaven, if we want it.
d. The Lord is a door for you in another way.
e. If other people can see that the Lord is the door to your life,
1) It will open communication with good people
2) It will set boundaries for people who are not good but who want to communicate with you for other reasons.
3. Along with the Lord as a door providing protection, so the door posts provide a framework for that protection.
a. In our reading from Deuteronomy, we read about how the Ten Commandments were to be written on the door posts of their houses.
b. The Heavenly Doctrine says that doorposts signify truths of the natural. (See Arcana Coelestia 7847)
1) These are truths in lowest things, like the bonds of marriage that provide protection to marriage.
4. Picture the doorpost to your house, or your bedroom.
a. Imagine the commandments are written on them.
1) Sometimes children go into their rooms and close the door so that their parents won’t see them doing the things they know they shouldn’t be doing.
b. If you think of the commandments as you enter, you will be reminded not to do anything to go against those commandments when you go into your room.
c. Similarly, as you go out and think of the commandments written on the doorposts, you won’t do anything to violate those commandments outside of your room or house.
5. The Lord is a door protecting against thieves and robbers.
a. Be sure to enter your bedroom by the Lord and go out by the Lord.
b. At the same time, shutting doors can represent having “no communication with evil.” (See Arcana Coelestia 8989:4)
4 We have talked about the Lord as a door giving entrance, providing communication and protection.
A. There are many kinds of doors.
B. Here is a picture of Sampson carrying a gate to a city.
1. There are gates to yards and neighborhoods as well.
a. Gates in Word mean the same things as doors, but a gate was to a city. (See Apocalypse Explained 208:4)
1) And because a city, like the New Jerusalem, represents doctrine, so the gates picture entrance and introduction to doctrine.
C. Another kind of door is an outer door, like the door to a house, or the door to a porch or vestibule.
1. These represent entrance and introduction to more outward things in life, or of heaven.
D. There are also inner doors, like those to a bedroom, or to the sanctuary of the church.
1. These represent entrance and introduction to more interior things.
a. We are told in the Heavenly Doctrine that opening the door can correspond to opening communication from interiors of mind to outer mind. (See Apocalypse Explained 536:2)
2. The Lord says we are to shut this door when we pray.
a. “But when you pray, go into your room, and shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Mt 6:6)
b. What are we shutting out when we shut the door to interior things?
1) We are shutting out thought of worldly and self-centered things.
A) We are shutting out praying while wondering what others are thinking of us as we pray.
2) We are turning our thought to the Lord to pray for the spiritual things that He wants to give us.
E. The Psalm mention another kind of doors: the doors of our lips.
1. “Set a guard, O Jehovah, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men who work iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies.” (Ps 141:3-4)
a. The Lord says that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles us, but what comes out from the heart.
b. When we close the doors of our lips to saying hurtful things, telling lies, and blaspheming holy things, and do it because the Lord says it is wrong, we are also shutting the door by which evil spirits enter our minds.
1) We are not eating of their delicacies.
5 You can hardly go through a day without going through a door, unless you are so sick you cannot get out of bed.
A. Even then, usually words or food pass through the doors of your lips.
B. As you go through doors today and all through the week, think about the Lord as the door giving entrance to heaven.
1. Each time you go through a door, think of it as opportunity to enter mor into heavenly things.
C. Think also of the Lord as a door giving communication, so that whenever you go through a door, you think of communicating only what is true and good.
D. And when you close a door, think of the Lord providing a barrier to keep out those evil spirits that would steal and rob you of heavenly things.
E. As the Lord says, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
F. Amen.
Lessons: Deuteronomy 11:8-21; John 10:1-18; AC 8989:1,3
Arcana Coelestia 8989. 'And shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost' means a state in which strengthened and implanted truth [communicates] with spiritual good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the door' as the means by which truth is introduced into good, ...at this point strengthened and implanted truth, meant by a Hebrew slave after servitude lasting six years, ...and since 'the door' is the means of introduction it is also the means of communication (for a door is the means by which one room communicates with another); and from the meaning of 'the doorpost' as that truth linked to good, since a doorpost stands between two rooms, linking one to the other... [3] To bring further out into the open the arcana contained in this procedure followed in the case of slaves staying on with their master, something must be said about why it is that 'the door' and 'the doorpost' mean the means of communication and of linking together. Angels and spirits possess dwelling-places, which are in appearance exactly like those in the world,.... And - what is an arcanum - every single thing that appears in their dwelling-places is a sign of something spiritual; it also arises out of spiritual things which exist in heaven, and which are therefore present in their minds. Communication between truth and good is presented visually there as a door, and the linking together of them as a doorpost; and other things are presented as the actual rooms, porches, windows, and different kinds of adornment. Nobody at the present day, least of all one who is merely natural, is able to believe that these things are so, because they are not evident to people's physical senses; and yet it is clear from the Word that such things were seen by prophets when their inner eyes were opened to see into heaven. I too have discerned and seen the same things a thousand times. I have also on many occasions heard them say, when their thoughts were being communicated to me, that the doors of their rooms were open, or when they were not being communicated, that their doors were shut.
Through The Week
Recall the Lessons
✦ The Lord said we shall obey His commandments, lay them up in our hearts, bind them on our hands, teach them to our children, talk of them always, and write them on the doorposts of our house and on our gates.
✦ Jesus said that he who enters the sheepfold by the door is the shepherd.
✦ Jesus said He is the door of the sheep.
✦ Those who enter by Him will be saved, and go in and out and find pasture.
Reflect on the Message
✦ The Lord, as the Door, gives entrance to heaven and the church by His commandments and all the Word, for all truths are from Him and are Himself.
✦ The Lord, as the Door, provides communication between heaven and earth, interior and exterior, people and people, for what is good and true communicates love and wisdom.
✦ The Lord, as the Door, protects from evil and falsity, keeping out the “thieves and robbers” who come before Him and would destroy the life according to His commandments we have chosen.
✦ As with cities, yards, homes and rooms, we have different kinds of doors to outer and inner areas of life.
Take Action
✦ Cut a sticky note in the shape of the tablets of stone and put them on your doorposts to remind you to keep the commandments in whatever you do inside or outside.
✦ Try literally closing the door to your room each day when you pray, with the intention of letting the Lord shut out all that is not in keeping with the Lord’s will and wisdom.
✦ Ask the Lord to be the door of your lips so that you speak in harmony with His love of goodness and protection from evil.
✦ Picture the Lord as the door to the next state in your life.