The Door Means Decision
The Door Means Decision
We live in a world that promotes tolerance at the cost of truth. “What’s true for you may not be true for me,” people argue; but if you were talking about money, medicine, or measurements, that statement would never stand. When it comes to money, medicine, and measurements, there are absolutes that must not be denied.
If a friend owed you a hundred dollars and tried to pay you with ten one-dollar bills, would you accept that payment? If he argued that, in his opinion, a one-dollar bill was the same as a ten-dollar bill, would you agree? Or, suppose your pharmacist used arsenic instead of aspirin in your prescription, would you swallow the medicine? If a carpenter built you a bookcase ten inches wide and eight inches tall, instead of ten feet wide and eight feet tall, and argued that an inch is as good as a foot, would you pay him for his work? If we want absolutes in matters that concern measurement, money, and medicine, why not in matters of personal morality and faith?
I try to be tolerant of other people’s opinions, but not when they deny absolutes. Plastic words and plastic ideas that can be molded to please everybody are very dangerous, and I will not accept them. In 2 Peter 2:1–3, Peter warns us against false teachers who try to exploit us “with fabricated stories.” The word fabricated is the translation of the Greek word plastos from which we get our English word plastic. What are plastic words? They are words that can be molded and twisted to mean almost anything. False teachers may use what appears to be a Christian vocabulary, but they do not use a Christian dictionary! Same words, different meanings. These false teachers do not believe in absolutes, and therefore they are dangerous.
When we come to Jesus, the Door, we must hear His Word, accept it as truth, and act upon it. When I hear somebody say, “Well, what do you mean by sin?” or “Aren’t there many roads to heaven?” I know I’m dealing with a master of “plastic words.” Jesus prayed to the Father, “Sanctify them [His followers] by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Proverbs 23:23 warns, “Buy the truth and do not sell it.” There is such a thing as the truth, and no amount of plastic words can replace it.
Years ago, people used to sing this children’s chorus in Sunday school:
One door and only one, and yet its sides are two.
Inside and outside—on which side are you?
One door and only one, and yet its sides are two.
I’m on the inside—on which side are you?
To stand before Jesus Christ, the Door, and make no decision at all is to stay on the outside of salvation! It means not entering the “one flock” of which Jesus is the Savior and the Good Shepherd. At the door you are in a place of decision, and to make no decision is to make a decision—the wrong one.