Scriptural Door-Knocking

(When door-knocking  many times I will knock a home that I could tell that a person was home but did not answer the door. It was reminded of this old preacher’s joke I had heard years before.)

It seems a preacher had gone out to visit a new member of the congregation. As he went up to the home of young couple, he noticed movement inside the house. He knocked at the door excitedly, because he knew that someone was there. He waited a few moments but no one came to the door. He knocked again waiting for the couple to recognize him and answer their door. Finally after several minutes he gave up and left his calling card in their door. Just before he did however he wrote on the back of the card Revelations 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”. 

The next Sunday, the preacher was pleased to see the young couple at services. After the lesson, the preacher was greeting all the members, the young women came up to him and handed his card back and left with a smile but didn’t say a word. He looked down at his card and under where he had scribbled Revelations 3:20, she had written Genesis 3:10. He grabbed his Bible, looked up the passage  and read “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."

    It is easy to become frustrated when it seems people don’t want to hear the gospel message. But God has called us to preach the word and given the responsibility to respond to each individual person. Our concern must be that the message is preached and the opportunity is given. We never know what fruit our labor may bring even if we don’t see them immediately. As long as we are serving the Lord as he has commanded, our labor is never in vain