He Will Instruct Him (Psalm 25:8-9, 12-14)
I have been thinking of writing this post for some time now. Today’s MyDailyBible app “Verse of The Day” and verses from the devotional reading said, “Do it”.
Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8 NKJV) #Bible https://www.mydailybible.org/dv/nkjv/2019-07-29.htm
Acts 16:6-7 ESV And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Found in Today’s DailyPlan : one-year-tract : 2019-07-29 #Bible https://www.mydailybible.org/dp/esv/one-year-tract/2019-07-29.htm
I would think that there aren’t many people above 20 years old that haven’t heard of or seen the game show, “Let’s Make A Deal”. The original host of the show was Monty Hall whose real name was Monte Halparin and was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After college Monty had hoped to go to medical school, but was not admitted due to secret quotas restricting the number of Jewish students admitted.
I guess that turned out to be a blessing for Monty because he would have probably never been a celebrity as he is known today. Monty was also a “good human being” and was recognized by his home country twice for his concern for others with The Order of Canada and the Order of Manitoba awards. He spent much of his post-Deal days involved in philanthropic work. His family said he was always going to telethons and helped raise close to one billion dollars for charity in his lifetime. Monty Hall was repeatedly honored for his charitable efforts. Wards at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia are named in his honor.
What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
Psalms 34:12-14
It would seem the kind and decent life Monty lived was rewarded by Father God in a long life, 96 years. He was married to his wife, Marilyn Plottel for 70 years. Monty passed away of heart failure only 4 months after his wife died at age 90 in the summer and fall of 2017. After 70 years of marriage to the same woman, an almost unheard of thing in Hollywood circles, I suppose it was a lonesome and broken heart at that.
The main point of “Let’s Make A Deal” was knowing what “DOOR” of 3 to Open and which ones to leave Shut!!! The Bible has a lot to say about doors. Jesus on more than one occasion speaks of Himself of being the MOST Important Door in our life (John 14:6), Opening the Most Important Door of our life (Rev. 4:1) and opening or closing Doors for us throughout our life.
Unlike in the “Let’s Make A Deal” game, God Ordained Doors will bring Blessings Upon Blessings while the Zonks waiting behind the wrong doors of our life are not funny and may cost an enormous price to ourselves and our loved ones. These are just a few Bible verses about “God’s Doors”.
Jesus Is The Door & At The Door
John 10:7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Matthew 24:33 So you also, when you see all these things, know that [e]it is near—at the doors! (e) or “He”
Revelation 3:7-8 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this: ‘I know your deeds Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.
Revelation 3:20 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.
2 Kings 4:4 “And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.”
2 Kings 4:33 So he entered and shut the door behind them both and prayed to the LORD.
Matthew 6:6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Proverbs 8:34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.
Acts 14:27 Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too.
There Are Some Doors We Should NEVER Open
Genesis 4:7 (NAS) “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Once, many years before I was ever a “Born Again With God’s Spirit” Christian, either Father God Himself or the Holy Spirit spoke these words to me in my mind but Very LOUD and Very CLEAR. “If you open That Door, you will NOT be able to Close it!!!”
It was an actual door into the apartment of a woman I met that day on a sunny Sunday morning in Mississippi. Up until that point I had never cheated on my wife and I should have been in church instead of meeting a stranger on a beach that day. Needless to say I let the lust and desire of my flesh disregard even such a strong warning as that. I knew that my carnal mind nor the devil was presenting that thought and that it had to be from God. That Door opened to a slippery slope that over years of falling lower and lower, costing me many many things and almost my actual life. I had been spiritually dead for many of those years and one day woke up to myself and I hated what I saw in the mirror. Unlike Monty Hall, over years I had become a terrible example of a human. Thank God for His Angel that brought His Gift of Repentance to a sinner like me from His Throne of Mercy and Grace. Salvation, Repentance & Faith ARE Gift’s of God that He forces no one to receive.
Those warning words from God came back to haunt me and proved to be entirely true. As hard as I would try to change, it was impossible for me to do so. Bondage to sin is a very real thing. Only after I cried out to God in complete failure as a human for forgiveness of my sins and a sincere desire to repent of them did God intervene and close the Door I couldn’t close on my own. “Jesus Set Me Free” is NOT a cliche’ to me!!!
“4 Is The Door”
For some strange reason as I considered writing about “God’s Doors” and His warning me about opening the wrong door, a phrase that I thought I’d heard before on a few occasions could not found anywhere in Google or Youtube searches. It was “4 Is The Door” and the closest thing I could assume related to “4 Being the Door” was Revelation 4:1 and Genesis 4:7.
The honorable info about Monty Hall was a total surprise to me. I only thought of looking it up and mentioning it because everybody can relate the doors of life to his famous game. But while hunting the internet about “4 Is The Door” I did find some very relevant info that does tie God’s Door to the number 4, Charity and Kindness, Repentance and Jesus. Of course it’s found in the Hebrew language that God gave to our ancient ancestors to record His Testimony. The following is from Bible Wheel
https://www.biblewheel.com/Wheel/Spokes/Dalet.php
The Door to the Way of God (Notice 4 Leaves to the Doors of God’s Temple)
Ezekiel 41:23-25 And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors. And the doors had two leaves apiece, two turning leaves; two leaves for the one door, and two leaves for the other door. And there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubims and palm trees, like as were made upon the walls; and there were thick planks upon the face of the porch without.
The name of the Fourth Hebrew Letter comes from “delet”, the Hebrew word for a door, specifically the swinging leaf of a door. It contrasts with “petach” which denotes the opening of the doorway, the entrance itself. Ezekiel’s description of the temple above displays two of its senses; the highlighted words doors and leaves are all translations of delet. It is based on the verb dalal meaning to dangle, to hang down loosely, to be pendulous, like a draping tent door or a bucket on a rope. This verb also means to weaken or enfeeble and is the root of the name Delilah who brought down Samson, the strongest man ever to live. It is the root of the noun dal (poor, plural dallim). The association of these words, especially in conjunction with the meaning of Gimel (the 3rd Hebrew letter, that precedes Dalet) as the Abundant Giver (Bible Wheel book pg 152), gave rise to the rabbinic tradition concerning the alphabetic sequence recorded in the Talmud (Shabbat 104a):
The 3rd and 4th Hebrew letters, Gimel Dalet means Gemol Dallim (be generous to the poor). Why is the foot of the Gimel (the bottom of the written letter) pointed toward the Dalet? Because so the feet of those who are bountiful should be ever ready to seek beneficiaries.
God vividly displayed the weakness and poverty of Dalet in two Alphabetic Verses:
- AV Ps 119:25 My soul cleaveth (davaq) unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.
- AV Ps 119:28 My soul melteth (dalaph) for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
“Cleaving” to the dust means to be near death. It recalls the original death sentence God proclaimed to Adam, “dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return” (Gen 3:19) which is further amplified in the metaphorical description of the dead as those who “sleep in the dust” (Dan 12:2) or “dwell in the dust” (Isa 26:19). Thus the verse concludes, “quicken (restore to life) thou me according to thy word.” Likewise, the “melting” (literally dripping) of the soul signifies a loss of all strength and so the prayer concludes, “strengthen thou me according to thy word.” Putting these ideas together, the Rabbis recognized Dalet as the Letter of Humility, Selflessness, and Self-Denial. This is the essence of the Fourth Letter. The House of God has but one entrance, the Door of Repentance. All these ideas come together in Christ’s message to the Church of Laodicea (Rev 3:17ff):
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 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.
God admits us into His House only when we have recognized our utter weakness, helplessness, and complete dependence on Him. We must admit we have sinned, humbly repent, and turn to fully follow Him and Him alone where ever He leads. This is the “Way of God” (Derek Elohim) taught by the Lord Jesus Christ (Mat 16:24ff):
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
The fourfold cross is the ultimate Biblical symbol of death and self-denial. This is the Gospel message typologically taught in Numbers, the Fourth Book, which records how God led the children of Israel forty years through the wilderness until the rebellion of their flesh was quenched. It links directly to the KeyWord “derek” (way) that God used in the majority of the Alphabetic Verses corresponding to Dalet:
- Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. AV Ps 25:4
- I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes. AV Ps 119:26
- He hath turned aside my ways … he hath made me desolate. AV Lam 3:11
- Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: … AV Ps 119:27
- Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously. AV Ps 119:29
- I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me. AV Ps 119:30
- I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. AV Ps 119:32
- The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: … AV Lam 1:4
If only the children of Israel had truly prayed that prayer of Dalet, “Teach me thy ways, O Lord!” But that is not what happened. They rebelled and refused to follow the Lord into the Promised Land and so He commanded them to turn and go “into the wilderness by the “way” (derek) of the Red Sea” to wander forty years until all the rebels were consumed (Num 14:25). Had they obeyed they would have immediately entered into the abundant life of the Promised Land rather than wandering for four decades. Their experience in the wilderness prefigures the Christian pilgrimage through the desert of this world (Mat 7:13ff):
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
These symbols find their ultimate meaning in the Lord Jesus Christ who is revealed as both the Door (Delet) and the Way (Derek) in the Fourth Gospel (John 10:9, 14:6).
The Universal Doors of Birth and Death
Galatians 4 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
In Hebrew the Name of the Fourth Letter, דלת (Dalet), signifies a Door. It represents the two universal doors by which we all enter and exit this world, birth and death. This manifests in the chapter structure of Genesis, where the first birth, the first death, and the first use of the word door are all found in Genesis 4. Birth and death are two of the most humbling experiences of life. Both are characterized by complete weakness. Such themes are found in the Dalet portions of the alphabetic verses:
- AV Psalm 119:25 My soul cleaveth(דבקה, davkah) unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.
- AV Psalm 119:28 My soul melteth(דלף, dalaph) for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
- AV Lamentations 4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth(דבקה, davkah) to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
This theme relates to the Dalet KeyWord דל (Dal), which means poor, weak, and powerless, as explained in the article discussing the four weak and beggarly elements mentioned in the book of Galatians on Spoke 4.
Dalet is also deeply integrated with the structure of the twenty-two chapters of Revelation. This is particularly evident in the first verse of Revelation 4 where we read: “After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven.” The Inner Wheel of Revelation is precisely analogous to the Alphabetic Psalms which were deliberately designed in accordance with the Hebrew Alphabet. Yet this is but the beginning. The whole chapter of Revelation 4 is deeply integrated with elements from Spoke 4, such as the four living creatures and the Throne of God which linked with many Key Links to Ezekiel. Furthermore, Ezekiel contains the greatest density of the Number 4 in all the Bible, and Revelation 4 contains the greatest density within the Book of Revelation, and both of these portions of Scripture speak of the same thing!
The significance of the facts that the English word first occurs in Genesis 4, and is featured in Revelation 4 is infinitely amplified when we search the entire KJV for all occurrences of the words door or gate (and all associated words such as doors, doorway, etc, symbolized as door*).
The results are astounding:
The primary contribution is from Ezekiel which describes the structure of the foursquare temple, though there are also significant contributions from the earlier chpaters. For example, doors and gates appear repeatedly in the vision given in Ezekiel 8, as discussed in Behold, A Door.
For I Know the Plans (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
In The Word 