Illus: Pastor Jack Hinton was on a short-term missions trip. He was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around.
Pastor Hinton got his first look at her, and he said, "It was the most hideous face I had ever seen." He said, "The woman's nose and ears were entirely gone.”
She lifted a finger-less hand in the air and asked, “Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?"
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. A team member followed him, saying, "I guess you'll never be able to sing that song again."
"Yes I will," Hinton replied, "but I'll never sing it the same way."
• Some people can face all kinds of difficulties in life, and they can see blessings.
• Some people can be surrounded by blessings, and they go through life complaining as if they do not have a thing in this world to be grateful for.
The same thing is true concerning OPPORTUNITIES. Some can go through life as if life has passed them by, and they have never had an opportunity in their life.
But that is not so. THE DOOR OF OPPORTUNITY HAS BEEN OPENED BEFORE THEM ON MANY OCCASIONS, BUT THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO FIND THE DOOR.
Illus: Have you ever tried to find a door in a dark room? I am convinced that the reason God gave us toes is so that we can find the bedpost.
Many have been bumping around in the dark. The door of opportunity has been opened for them on many occasions, but they never could find it.
The things they do with their lives have no ETERNAL VALUE WHATSOEVER!
Illus: When they die you can calculate:
• How many hamburgers they ate
• How much air they have breathed
• How many cars they bought in their life time
• How many pair of shoes they have bought
But you cannot calculate what they have done for Christ because their lives have had NO ETERNAL VALUE WHATSOEVER!
We mentioned in a previous message, how for us to enter these GREAT DOORS God has placed before us we have to:
(1) SURRENDER TO HIM
(2) SACRIFICE FOR HIM
Once we do THIS, we need to be prepared for-
II. THE OPPOSITION
“...there are many adversaries”
You will notice that the most popular man in the church today is the apostle Paul.
Every Sunday, all over this nation, preachers are preaching about him or the things God inspired him to write in the scriptures.
But this man who is very popular today, said that when he took advantage of these OPPORTUNITIES that God placed before him, there were “Many Adversaries” there to stop him.
Notice, he did not say a few adversaries, but many adversaries.
Listen, the reason that many do not take advantage of THE OPEN DOORS OF OPPORTUNITY that God has placed before them, is because the moment they start to walk through those doors, the devil meets them and says, “Where do you think you are going?
If anyone is not determined, guess what? They will not be able to take advantage of those opportunities.
Illus: Remember when David came to the campsite of his brother, and the giant Goliath was blaspheming the God of Israel, and David wanted to know who the big mouth was that was blaspheming the God of Israel? They told him, and David wanted to know why no one had shut him up by now.
There was not a man in the whole camp that had the courage to stand up to Goliath. But David was willing.
THIS WAS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HIM TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE LORD.
They made fun of him, and Goliath really thought it was funny.
It seem like David did not stand a chance, but in spite of the fact that everyone thought he was crazy for his willingness to do something about this evil giant called Goliath, David went out to face the enemy.
HE SAW IT AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE A STAND FOR THE LORD, AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HE DID, AND GOD BLESSED THE STAND HE MADE.
Listen, you can’t walk up to the devil and smack him GOOD, and not have him smack you back.
• The Bible says, “All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecutions.”
• But some seem to translate that verse to read, “All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall live happily ever after!”
Paul said there was a GREAT DOOR opened to him, and there were also MANY ADVERSARIES who were trying to stop him from doing what God wanted him to do.
Listen, the devil is not going to pick on someone that is not doing that much. Why? Because what little they are doing to oppose him is so insignificant, they are not worth his time.
But you can rest assured, those who enter BIG DOORS will have BIG OPPOSITION.
So you need to prepare yourself by understanding that BIG DOORS mean BIG OPPOSITION.
You can’t knock the devil down without him wanting to knock you down.
Some say, “Preacher, I am smart. That is exactly why I do not take advantage of some of the doors that God has opened unto me. I know if I take advantage of these opportunities, the devil is going to be there waiting for me to step in.”
You are right!
• Your own family members will sometimes turn on you
• Your most trusted friends will sometimes turn on you
• You may loose your job
But listen, if you do not take advantage of these opportunities, then when you get to heaven, you are not going to have any ETERNAL REWARDS! NONE!
That may not mean a lot to you on earth, but when you get to heaven and lose all of these blessings for eternity, you are going to wish you had taken advantage of these opportunities.
Some doors that the Lord opens may involve danger. Look at Paul’s life as the Lord opened doors for him.
In his ministry, his testimony of danger can be seen in 2 Cor. 11:23-27.
• In stripes above measure
• In prisons more frequently
• In deaths oft (Deadly situations)
• Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one
• Thrice was I beaten with rods
• Once was I stoned
• Thrice I suffered shipwreck
• A night and a day I have been in the deep
• In journeyings often,
• In perils of waters - flood, rivers, streams
• In perils of robbers
• In perils by mine own countrymen
• In perils by the heathen
• In perils in the city
• In perils in the wilderness
• In perils in the sea
• In perils among false brethren
• In weariness and painfulness
• In watchings often - sleeplessness
• In hunger and thirst
• In fastings often
• In cold and nakedness
I am not going to do like some of the liberal preachers, and make you think THAT YOU CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL THE DOORS THAT GOD HAS PLACED BEFORE YOU AND ALL MEN WILL SAY ALL MANNER OF GOOD ABOUT YOU.
That is not what the Bible teaches.
We have looked at THE OPENING, and THE OPPOSITION, now let us look at-
III. THE OPPORTUNITY
Look at verse 9, We read, “...a great door and effectual is open unto me…”
What a wonderful age we live in! Can you imagine what it was like to preach during the days of the apostle Paul.
Illus: They could not take a taxi, train, bus, boat, car, or airplane to preach in the next city. They did not even have skateboards back then!
But we can get in our air-conditioned cars and travel from one city to the next.
WHAT A WONDERFUL AGE WE LIVE IN, WITH OPPORTUNITIES TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL!
With our computers, printing presses, fax machines, email, telephones, radios and televisions, we can reach in seconds with the gospel what Paul would have taken his whole life time to reach.
You can rest assured that as God opens a door for us, the devil will have someone nearby saying some discouraging things to keep us from walking through the door God has opened before us.
Illus: Legend has it that before the car was invented, one man asked another, “What are you doing?” He said, “I am going to build a car that operates on gasoline.” The man said, “I bet it won’t work.” But after it was invented, the same man saw it in operation one day and said, “I bet it won’t stop!”
Illus: Stacy Allison, the first American woman to reach the top of Mt. Everest, said, “You've got to decide sometimes in your life when it's okay not to listen to what other people are saying. If I had listened to other people, I WOULDN'T HAVE CLIMBED MT. EVEREST.”
It comes down to this: The bottom line is this, when God opens the door, it is all between GOD and US.
God opens the doors, and we have to have the dedication and courage to step inside the doors He has opened before us.
Illus: See the possibilities. Here's a fellow who sold insurance, and he went after a particularly difficult customer, a man that no one had been able to sell insurance to before. Eventually he sold him a fifty-thousand-dollar policy.
Back in 1883 when this occurred, that was a very large policy.
He took out his pen and handed it to the man to sign the contract. When the man tried to write, the pen wouldn't write. He tried several times without success, and finally handed the pen back with the contract and said, "I'd better think this over a little while longer." The man lost the sale.
He went home disappointed and discouraged because he had lost the sale, and he determined right then and there that he would never lose another sale because of a fountain pen that didn't work. He sat down and invented his own fountain pen. His name was Louis Waterman, and the Waterman Fountain Pen became the premier writing instrument of America for the next fifty years. Out of discouragement, great possibility. (-- Bruce Thielemann, "Dealing with Discouragement," Preaching Today, Tape No. 48. )
Conclusion:
If we do not take advantage of these opportunities, our LOSS can be so great.
Illus: Harold L. Fickett, Jr., wrote about a wealthy businessman who on his deathbed was filled with deep remorse.
When his pastor called, he opened his heart and shared the burden he was carrying. He said that 10 years earlier he had been given the opportunity to teach a Sunday school class of 9-year-old boys. Thinking he didn't have the time, he declined the offer. Now, however, deeply conscious that his life would soon be over, he confessed to the pastor that his most painful regret was that he had missed such a golden opportunity to serve the Lord by investing his life in the lives of those 9-year-olds.
He estimated that at least 100 boys would have passed through that class. "My investments in stocks and bonds will stay behind when I leave," he declared. "What a fool I have been."
Nothing in this life affects us like the OPPORTUNITIES that God sends our way. Let’s not waste them.
I. OUR OPENING
II. OUR OPPOSITION
III. OUR OPPORTUNITIES
