October 24, 2023

Acts 12: 5-16 So Peter was kept in prison . . . Suddenly an angel . . . appeared . . . He struck Peter . . . and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off . . . Peter followed him out of the prison . . . They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. . . . Then Peter came to himself and . . . he went to the house of Mary . . . Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant . . . came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice . . . she ran back without opening it. . . . But Peter kept knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. (NIV)

"Where one door closes one must open it again. That is the very function of a door. There would be no such invention as a hinge if that were not the case."*

Let’s follow Peter on his night of adventure: He was in prison, expecting to go to trial the next day. Suddenly, his chains fell off; he was escorted out of his cell and out of the jail by an angel; and the iron gate to the city mysteriously opens for them. Then Peter, abandoned by the angel, made his way to the home of Mary, where the gang had gathered to pray for him. He knocked on the door, but it didn’t get opened. He knocked again – kept on knocking – until someone had the presence of mind to open it and let him in.

Peter’s experience, and his actions, show us that not every obstacle is a permanent one. How many times have you had a door shut in your face and you thought, “Well, that’s that then.” Here was Peter in chains – they came off. He was in a cell in a prison – those doors, once closed and locked, now open. Then the iron gate – an insurmountable obstacle, it would seem - swung open for him. And then he came to the door to his friend’s house. He knocked but no one let him. Did he shrug and say to himself, “The door is closed to me,” and walk away? No. He kept on knocking until the door was opened.

God is in the business of opening doors, not just closing them. Read in Acts 5: 19 of some other apostles who were also broken out of jail by an angel. When Paul and Silas were in prison, an earthquake blew open the doors (Acts 16: 26); and Jesus proved that a locked door could not stop him (John 20: 26). And in Colossians 4: 3, we have Paul asking for prayers that God would open a door for him to proclaim the message (for which he was in chains!).

Sometimes, a closed door is a clear sign that we need to go another direction. But before you leave, perhaps you should turn the knob. Just because the door is closed doesn’t mean it’s locked. Oh, it is locked? Did you knock? Maybe, if you knock again, someone will let you in.

If. . . [God’s] hand is in it, an obstacle is only a door waiting to be opened.*