In 1854, the English artist William Holman Hunt presented the painting The Light of Peace to the public. You are probably familiar with its plot through numerous imitative variations, which tend to become sweeter and sweeter every year. Popular imitations are usually called “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20). Actually, the picture was written on this topic, although it is named differently. On it, Christ knocks at some doors at night. He is a traveller. He has nowhere to "lay his head", as in the days of earthly life. He has a crown of thorns on his head, sandals on his feet, and a lamp in his hands. Night means that mental darkness in which we habitually live. This is the "darkness of this age." The doors on which the Savior knocks have not been opened for a long time. A long time ago. Evidence of this is the thick weeds growing at the threshold.
In the year the painting was presented to the public, the audience perceived the canvas with hostility and did not understand its meaning. They - Protestants or agnostics - seemed to have an obsessive style of Catholicism in the picture. And it was necessary, as it often happens, to tell someone who is sighted and attentive about the meaning of the canvas, to decipher it, to read it like a book. The critic and poet John Ruskin turned out to be such a clever interpreter. He explained that the painting is allegorical; that Christ is still given the same attention as the poor knocking at the door; and what is most important in the picture is that the house is ours, and the doors lead to the depth where our innermost “I” lives. It is at these doors—the doors of the heart—that Christ is knocking. He does not break into them as the Master of the world, does not shout: “Come on, open it!” And He knocks not with his fist, but with the phalanges of his fingers, carefully. Recall that it is night all around... And we are in no hurry to open... And on the head of Christ - a crown of thorns.
Let us digress now for a moment to say a few words about the many imitations and variations on a theme. About the ones you've no doubt seen. They differ from the original in that, firstly, they remove the night. On them, Christ knocks on the door of the house (guess what it is) during the day. Behind Him is an oriental landscape or a cloudy sky. The picture pleases the eye. Due to the uselessness of the lamp, the staff of the Good Shepherd appears in the hand of the Savior. The crown of thorns disappears from the head (!). The doors on which the Lord knocks are already devoid of those eloquent thickets of weeds, which means that they are opened regularly. The milkman or postman apparently knocks on them every day. And in general, houses tend to become clean and well-groomed - a sort of bourgeois from the canon of the "American dream". In some images, Christ simply smiles, as if he came to a friend who is waiting for Him, or even He wants to play a trick on the hosts: he knocks and hides behind a corner. As is often the case in fakes and stylizations, the tragic and deep semantic content imperceptibly gives way to a sentimental melody, in fact, a mockery of the original theme. But the mockery is swallowed, and the substitution is not noticed.
Now to the point. If Christ knocks at the door of our house, then we do not open it for two reasons: either we simply do not hear the knock, or we hear and consciously do not open it. The second option will not be considered. It is out of our competence, which means that let it exist until the Last Judgment. As for the first option, deafness has many explanations. For example, the owner is drunk. You can't wake him up with a cannon, let alone with the careful knock of an unexpected Guest. Or - inside the house the TV is loud. It does not matter that the doors are overgrown with weeds, that is, they have not been opened for a long time. The cable was pulled through the window, and now the football championship or social show rattles from the screen to the fullest, making the owner deaf to other sounds. After all, the truth is, each of us has such sounds, hearing which we deaf for everything else. This is a very possible and realistic option - if not for 1854 (the year the picture was painted), then for our 2000s. Another option: the owner just died. He is not here. Rather, he is, but he will not open. Could it be? Maybe. Our inner self, the true owner of the mysterious hut, may be in deep lethargy or in the arms of real death. By the way, listen now: is there anyone knocking at the door of your house? If you say that you have a bell on the door and it works, which means that they are calling to you and not knocking, then this will only expose your dullness. Is no one knocking on your door? Right now? Listen.
Well, the last one for today. There is no outer handle on the door at which Christ knocks. This was noticed by everyone at the first examination of the picture and put on the artist's mind. But it turned out that the absence of a door handle was not a mistake, but a conscious move. Heart doors do not have an outside handle and outside lock. The handle is only inside, and only from the inside the door can be opened. When K.S. Lewis said that hell is locked from the inside, he was probably starting from the thought embedded in the picture of Hunt. If a person is locked up in hell, then he is locked up there voluntarily, like a suicide in a burning house, like an old alcoholic bachelor in a bedlam of empty bottles, cobwebs and cigarette butts. And going outside, to the knock, to the voice of Christ is possible only as an internal volitional act, as a response to God's call.
Pictures are books. They need to be read. Not only in the case of paintings on the gospel story or Christian allegories. Anyway. The landscape is also a text. And the portrait is text. And the ability to read is not limited to the ability to parse the words in the newspaper. Reading is a lifelong learning. What does it say? The fact that we have a lot of work, and our life should be creative, and the undeveloped fields for activity have long been waiting for workers. If you agree, then maybe we heard a knock?
Forgive me brother, but the Adventist doctrine spoiled me very much ... ... they compare Jesus with Satan in strength, they say that at the end of the names Jesus will fight the devil and will take him and throw him into the lake of fire, since no one else can cope with Satan except Jesus . they also teach that Satan has divine power that he, like God, can raise storms, tsunamis, for example, in one of Ellen White’s books she says that she was in a boat going somewhere to evangelize and makes it clear that the devil was following her. he raised a storm and she called out to the Lord and HE told her let her try (as if so) I will dry the sea, these are fairy tales, but behind these fairy tales they raise the devil to the level of the Lord so that people would be afraid of the devil ... .. this of course the devil himself raises the current sects and heresies. the bible says that without HIS permission nothing is done, not in heaven, not on earth, not under the earth….. I started to read all the books of Ellen White, in the end I felt bad, as if the village of spoiled food, I felt sick, I just got sick .... so much darkness .... I began to cry out to the Lord .... then I stopped going to the meeting on Saturday fasting and asking HE I was pulled out of this darkness .... The Lord showed me for a long time and told me to leave the meeting, I hesitated, I didn’t want to be alone ... .. then the Lord answered me, gave me a sign and illuminated me, HE saved me, I was just dying .... I couldn’t accept all this in spirit, for nothing……..yes they have Yshua there is Archangel Michael…..they teach that Shabbat is salvation, that only those who keep Shabbat will be saved, of course they keep the 10th commandment, if it’s for them succeeds, because there are no born higher among them, and every time they break the commandments they ask Yeshua to ask, confess ... .. the commandments are a mirror and Jesus washes, just like in baths. (sorry for the expression) ... .. the Jews, of course, are not for them exist, the Lord abandoned them forever and they are instead of the Jews because they recognized Jesus as the savior… apocalypse. for five years I was alone with the Lord and HE gave me his revelations of the apocalypse, small ones, since I was still a baby, but I didn’t part with the scripture .... she was a support for me in difficulties in pain and suffering, and I always opened the scripture and read it ...... when advent. they catch people from the street who don’t know anything, they do them the way they are ... .. false teaching is like a cancer disease that leads to death and you don’t know when you realize it’s too late ... ... I wrote them a revelation from the Lord but it seems useless, not they see and do not hear .... we know what we believe in, they shout .... .God is a person and not something ... ... then I met the evangelists, again I was looking for my own church, since God did not answer my prayers, I decided to arrange myself .... then I got disappointed, the Holy Spirit began to show me, I stopped walking, poked and said that without HIS will I will not go anywhere anymore ..... The Lord gave me words for the gospels. and revelation, they became very stubborn and hated me ... ... I don’t care what people think about me, but only God ... .. I’m all alone with me, even mine feel uncomfortable .... but I have the Lord and my five-year-old daughter, she me hugs and says, I got the best mother in the world .... I remembered the evening was, I suffered from loneliness, something was going on in the kitchen and asked, Lord, why am I alone? why am I not the same as everyone else? and God sent me a daughter as an answer, she ran to me and began to kiss me and said I love you so much, then she let go on the floor and made a dog to make me laugh. HE showed me that I am not alone……God never left me.
In 1854, the English artist William Holman Hunt presented the painting The Light of Peace to the public.
You are probably familiar with its plot through numerous imitative variations, which tend to become sweeter and sweeter every year. Popular imitations are usually called “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20). Actually, the picture was written on this topic, although it is named differently. On it, Christ knocks at some doors at night. He is a traveller. He has nowhere to "lay his head", as in the days of earthly life. He has a crown of thorns on his head, sandals on his feet, and a lamp in his hands. Night means that mental darkness in which we habitually live. This is the "darkness of this age." The doors on which the Savior knocks have not been opened for a long time. A long time ago. Evidence of this is the thick weeds growing at the threshold.
Christ stands at the door of a certain house and knocks on those doors.
In the year the painting was presented to the public, the audience perceived the canvas with hostility and did not understand its meaning. They - Protestants or agnostics - seemed to have an obsessive style of Catholicism in the picture. And it was necessary, as it often happens, to tell someone who is sighted and attentive about the meaning of the canvas, to decipher it, to read it like a book. The critic and poet John Ruskin turned out to be such a clever interpreter. He explained that the painting is allegorical; that Christ is still given the same attention as the poor knocking at the door; and that the most important thing in the picture is that the house is our heart, and the doors lead to the depth where our innermost “I” lives. It is at these doors—the doors of the heart—that Christ is knocking. He does not break into them as the Master of the world, does not shout: “Come on, open it!” And He knocks not with his fist, but with the phalanges of his fingers, carefully. Recall that it is night all around... And we are in no hurry to open... And on the head of Christ - a crown of thorns.
Let us digress now for a moment to say a few words about the many imitations and variations on a theme. About the ones you've no doubt seen. They differ from the original in that, firstly, they remove the night. On them, Christ knocks on the door of the house (guess that it is a heart) during the day. Behind Him is an oriental landscape or a cloudy sky. The picture pleases the eye. Due to the uselessness of the lamp, the staff of the Good Shepherd appears in the hand of the Savior. The crown of thorns disappears from the head (!). The doors on which the Lord knocks are already devoid of those eloquent thickets of weeds, which means that they are opened regularly. The milkman or postman apparently knocks on them every day. And in general, houses tend to become clean and well-groomed - a sort of bourgeois from the canon of the "American dream". In some images, Christ simply smiles, as if he came to a friend who is waiting for Him, or even He wants to play a trick on the hosts: he knocks and hides behind a corner. As is often the case in fakes and stylizations, the tragic and deep semantic content imperceptibly gives way to a sentimental melody, in fact, a mockery of the original theme. But the mockery is swallowed, and the substitution is not noticed.
Now to the point. If Christ knocks at the door of our house, then we do not open it for two reasons: either we simply do not hear the knock, or we hear and consciously do not open it. The second option will not be considered. It is out of our competence, which means that let it exist until the Last Judgment. As for the first option, deafness has many explanations. For example, the owner is drunk. You can't wake him up with a cannon, let alone with the careful knock of an unexpected Guest. Or - inside the house the TV is loud. It does not matter that the doors are overgrown with weeds, that is, they have not been opened for a long time. The cable was pulled through the window, and now the football championship or social show rattles from the screen to the fullest, making the owner deaf to other sounds. After all, the truth is, each of us has such sounds, hearing which we deaf for everything else. This is a very possible and realistic option - if not for 1854 (the year the picture was painted), then for our 2000s. Another option: the owner just died. He is not here. Rather, he is, but he will not open. Could it be? Maybe. Our inner self, the true owner of the mysterious hut, may be in deep lethargy or in the arms of real death. By the way, listen now: is there anyone knocking at the door of your house? If you say that you have a bell on the door and it works, which means that they are calling to you and not knocking, then this will only expose your dullness. No one is knocking at the door of your heart? Right now? Listen.
Well, the last one for today. There is no outer handle on the door at which Christ knocks. This was noticed by everyone at the first examination of the picture and put on the artist's mind. But it turned out that the absence of a door handle was not a mistake, but a conscious move. Heart doors do not have an outside handle and outside lock. The handle is only inside, and only from the inside the door can be opened. When K.S. Lewis said that hell is locked from the inside, he was probably starting from the thought embedded in the picture of Hunt. If a person is locked up in hell, then he is locked up there voluntarily, like a suicide in a burning house, like an old alcoholic bachelor in a bedlam of empty bottles, cobwebs and cigarette butts. And going outside, to the knock, to the voice of Christ is possible only as an internal volitional act, as a response to God's call.
After believing in the Lord, all brothers and sisters love to sing the song “The Beloved Knocks at the Door”: “The Beloved Knocks knocks at the door. The handles of the castle are covered with night dew. Get up, open the door for Him; Don't let your loved one go...
Every time we sing this song, it touches all of us and has a great impact. We all want to hold on to our beloved and be among the first to hear His voice and meet Him when He knocks at our door. All believers in the Lord desire it. But what does it mean when the Lord knocks at the door? And how do we greet Him when He knocks at our door?
During the Age of Grace, when Jesus Christ came to work atonement, the news of his works and his teachings spread throughout all Judah, and his name also became famous among a whole generation. For the people of that time, Jesus Christ knocked on their door as He preached everywhere Gospel with His disciples. The Lord Jesus said: From that time Jesus began to preach and say: Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17). The Lord wanted people to repent and confess before Him in order to forgive their sins and redeem them from the judgment and curse of the Law. At that time, many Jews saw the miracles performed by Jesus Christ, as well as the authority and power of His words; they saw the feeding of five thousand with five loaves and two fishes after the words of thanksgiving, the calming of the storm and the sea with one word, the resurrection of Lazarus with one word, etc. As the Lord Jesus said, everything was accomplished and fulfilled. His words are like the words spoken by the Creator when He created the heavens and the earth; they are also filled with power and authority. Moreover, the words that the Lord Jesus spoke and with which He taught people and rebuked the Pharisees cannot be spoken by people. His words reveal the whole of God's disposition and essence, they reveal the power and authority of God. In fact, everything that the Lord said or did could not but touch the human soul. It can be said that the Jewish people of that time had already heard the Lord's knock on the door.
However, the Jewish high priests, scribes, and Pharisees did not recognize that Jesus Christ was the coming Messiah due to prejudice and their own ideas. They held to the letters of the prophecies from the Bible and believed that the coming one should be called Emmanuel or the Messiah and, in addition, should be born of a virgin. When they saw that Mary had a husband, they simply denied that the Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin; they slandered Jesus Christ, saying that He was the son of a carpenter, thereby rejecting and condemning Him; and besides, they also blasphemed, saying that the Lord Jesus cast out demons through Beelzebub, the chief of demons. Having come into contact with the deeds and words of the Lord, the rumors and slander of the Pharisees, most Jews listened more to the words of the Pharisees instead of the Gospel of God. They closed their hearts to the Lord while He was knocking. The Lord Jesus said about this, “... and the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled over them, which says: You will hear with your ears, and you will not understand, and you will look with your eyes, and you will not see, for the heart of these people is hardened and with their ears they can hardly hear, and their eyes are closed, lest they see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn to me to heal them” (Matthew 13:14-15). The Lord hoped that people would be able to hear His voice, know His works, and understand His will. When people open their hearts to God to answer His knock, He guides them to recognize His voice and see His face. The Jewish people of that time, because they believed the rumors of the Pharisees, closed their hearts to the Lord, refused to hear His voice to accept His redemption, missed the chance to follow Jesus Christ. As a result, they suffered losses among their people for many generations and for almost two thousand years because of their opposition to God. On the contrary, those disciples who followed Jesus Christ, such as Peter, John, James, etc., heard the words of the Lord, came to know His works, and recognized Jesus Christ as the coming Messiah. As a result, they followed in the footsteps of the Lord and received His salvation.
Similarly, in the last times, we need to be even more attentive and prepared, because the Lord will come again and knock on our door at any time. Jesus Christ said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and I will dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them; and they follow me” (John 10:27). From these scriptures we learn that Jesus Christ will again speak and do new things at His return, which means that the Lord will knock at our door. All those who are wise virgins will actively seek and listen attentively to His sayings, knowing whether it is the voice of the Lord. When they recognize the voice of the Lord, they will accept His return. Our Lord is faithful. He will surely allow those who yearn and seek Him to hear His voice when He speaks. Perhaps He will tell us of His return through the mouths of others, just as the Lord Jesus warned us: “ But at midnight there was a cry: behold, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6). Perhaps we will hear His voice in person, or hear His word through churches preaching the gospel of the return of the Lord, or through the internet, radio, or Facebook. But in any case, the Lord hopes that we can become wise virgins so that we can watch and listen to His voice at any time. We do not need to treat His knock according to our ideas and prejudices, as the Jews did, and even more so we should not blindly listen to lies or rumors about religious antichrists, thereby refusing God's call, thus losing the opportunity to meet the returning Jesus and be raptured in Kingdom of heaven. Instead, we should open the door to the Lord and welcome Him by hearing His voice. Only in this way can we stand before God's throne for the Feast of the Lamb.
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