21 And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison. 22 But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

23 Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to rejoice, and they said, “Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand.” 24 And when the people saw him, they praised their god. For they said, “Our god has given our enemy into our hand, the ravager of our country, who has killed many of us.”  25 And when their hearts were merry, they said, “Call Samson, that he may entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he entertained them. They made him stand between the pillars. 26 And Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.” 27 Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained.

28 Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other. 30 And Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.  (Judges 16:21-30)

It was in answer to his prayer that God granted him his supernatural strength one more time, and both God and Samson had vengeance upon the enemies of Israel.  Prayer, and God’s answer to that prayer, changed things for Samson.

Mordecai called for a fast among the Jews.  And while the text doesn’t specifically say that they prayed, fasting is normally associated with prayer, and Queen Esther was allowed to approach King Ahasuerus.  She interceded to the King for the Jews, their lives were spared, and their enemy Haman was put to death.  

Moses prayed and God turned from destroying the nation of Israel in the wilderness.  Elijah prayed, fire fell from heaven and consumed his sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal were destroyed.  Joshua prayed and the sun was made to stand still in the sky:

The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. 14 There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel. (Joshua 10:13-14)  

Daniel practiced watchfulness in prayer.  He prayed before his open window three times a day in Babylon and was thrown to the lions because of it.  But “God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths.“ (Daniel 6:22). 

[King] “Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: "O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 17 Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone."

35  And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. (2 Kings 19:15-19, 35a)

Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me.“ (John 11:41).  And Lazarus walked out of his grave.  Prayer "changed his life".  No kidding!

Obviously, prayer changes things.  More specifically, God changes things when we pray.  One of the things that changes is the person praying!  We need to be careful how we think about this thing called prayer.  It is not praying in itself that changes anything.  There is no inherent power in prayer.  Prayer is not more potent based upon how many people are praying.  

The motto of the Slavic Gospel Association for many years has been, “Much prayer, much power.“  But it is God who brings His power to bear in response to prayer.  It is God who commands us to pray who changes things.  God has chosen to act towards us in response to our dependence upon Him, and we make that dependence known through prayer.  We are repeatedly and constantly encouraged to pray to God with the understanding that He will hear us, and He will answer us in keeping with His own good and sovereign purposes.

In our text today, we have the apostle Paul encouraging the Colossian believers to be watchful in prayer for themselves.  Then he asks that they would pray for him and his co-workers.  Specifically, they are to pray that God would open a door for the word.  What he means is that they should ask God to grant them opportunities to declare the gospel Lord Jesus to the Gentiles.  And it is because of such preaching that he is writing this letter to them from prison.  But the gospel is such good news that it is worth suffering for.  So he asks them to pray that he will have more opportunities to speak.

Notice exactly how Paul states his request to the Colossians: Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word.  What do we learn from that statement?  Several things:

1.  Corporate prayer is needful.  Paul is not content to be the only person praying for God to act in this way.  He does not keep this as a matter of personal, private prayer.  He puts that request out there for the Colossians, not only so that they wil pray for him, but in order to make the point to them that the gospel is worth the pain and suffering necessary to proclaim it to a lost world.  His own willingness to suffer for Christ is an encouragement to them to do likewise.

2.  At least some of our prayers should be intercessory prayers, prayers for the sake of others.  Praying for yourself is needful.  Prayer for others is also needful, because it gives us an opportunity to share in other people’s lives, in their sufferings as well as in their times of rejoicing.  We share our lives with one another when we pray for each other.  It builds a bond between us when we love each other enough to pray for one another.

3.  We should not assume that the gospel will be preached without the intervention of God in response to prayer.  (Jonah and the nation of Assyria might be an example of this.  Who was praying for the Assyrians?) Just the fact that Paul asks the Colossians to pray for God to act is evidence of this.  The proclamation of the gospel to the nations is not the “natural” result of Christian love.  It is the result of the intervention of God in the affairs of men.  The doors for the advancement of the gospel are naturally closed.  Men’s minds are closed to the gospel.  There are no open doors, or open invitations, or natural occasions among unregenerate men in which preachers and teachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ are invited to speak.  It is God who makes those opportunities for proclamation happen.  Since that is so, we pray for Him to work.  He opens the doors for the gospel, not us.  Consequently, we understand that:

4.  It is God who is in sovereign control of every opportunity for us to speak of Him to others.  Open doors are divine appointments.  God opens doors of opportunity.  He sends his disciples like you and me to those places where He would have us speak.  He blazes the trail to those people to whom we share the gospel message.  God not only opens the hearts and minds of those to whom the missionary speaks, but God also paves the way for the missionary to be there in the first place.  It is God who grants every open door for every witness to speak of Him.

5.  God also leaves doors shut.  Why pray for Him to open the doors if they aren’t shut?  Why pray for Him to open them if they are all already open?  This whole idea of open and shut doors in reference to the proclamation of the gospel brings us to the unmistakable conclusion that it is God who causes the gospel to fall upon open, rather than closed hearts.  It is not only the opportunity to share the gospel that God has to make possible.  He also has to open the hearts of those to whom we speak.

As Paul is writing this letter to the Colossians, he is in chains.  His opportunities for preaching the gospel are rather limited.  He can preach as far as his chains will reach.  But he asks the Colossians to pray for open doors for him and his colleagues so they might declare the mystery of Christ and make it plain.  How is that going to happen?  Only if God acts.  At this point, Paul’s only potential audience consists of the guards that watch him night and day.  Thus his request that God would open more opportunities to him.  He wants to preach the Gospel.  He is dependent upon God for that to happen.

Look with me at the book of Acts, chapter 13.  In this chapter, Paul’s home church was instructed by the Holy Spirit to send Paul and Barnabas out to minister the gospel among the Gentiles.  In verse 4, we read that they left Antioch and went to the town of Seleucia, and then to Cyprus, etc.  If you skip on down to verse 14, you see that they finally come to another city by the same name: Antioch.  On the Sabbath, they go to the synagogue and they are invited to speak to the congregation.  

God has opened the door wide!  So Paul steps up and begins to explain that Jesus is the Messiah for all people, Jews and Gentiles.  The Gentiles in the synagogue are SO happy to hear this that nearly the entire city turns out for the service at the synagogue a week later. 

45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. 46 And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you.  Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,

“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.  (Acts 13:45-48)

In Chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas continue traveling through Iconium, Lystra, and a couple of other dots on your Bible maps, until they get back home to the first city of Antioch where they started.  Then in verse 27, we read this:

27 And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he [God] had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.

What does that mean?  “God opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”  What is Paul saying?  

In Revelation 3, Jesus is speaking to John and instructing him to write these words to the church in the city of Philadelphia.  It is a description of Jesus Himself when He says, 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

It is God who opens doors and hearts for the Gospel.  It is also God who shuts them.  But Paul instructs us that we should pray for God to open doors for us so that we might take the message of the Gospel to those people whom He has appointed to eternal life.  And we can have every confidence that God will do exactly that.  God in His wisdom has not only appointed men and women to eternal life, but He has also appointed the means and the opportunities through which they believe the Gospel and are saved.  Listen to what the Lord Jesus says to the church at Philadelphia:

8 "'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.  I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

It seems that the church at Philadelphia was given an unclosable door for the Gospel.  There are those who try to close the doors God opens.  The enemies of God and the Good News are everywhere.  They were in Philadelphia.  Listen to the next verse:

9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.

As it was in Antioch when Paul preached to the Gentiles and the Jews became jealous and tried to shut him down, so it was in Philadelphia.  Who was it that wanted to close the door that Jesus had opened for them?  Those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie.  These are unregenerate Jews who resent the open door of faith to the Gentiles.  They would have shut it if they could.  Because of jealousy, they would have withheld eternal life from non-Jews.  These are people who are Jewish only by birth, but not by the new birth.  If they truly understood the reality of salvation, they would want it for everyone.  That is why the Lord Jesus refers to them as the synagogue of Satan.  They are Jews only by genetics, not by the Spirit of God.

One of the most obvious attempts to close the door on the Gospel in this country is seen through the tireless efforts of the educational system to eradicate any suggestion of special creation.  They insist upon teaching evolution in our schools exclusively.  They constantly try to close the door on the truth of Creation.  But that door remains open, and Creation is still taught here and there because God keeps that door open.

Let me ask you question: How did we get here?  How is it that Grace Fellowship exists at all?  And how is it that we exist here in this place, in this community, at this time?  As far as I know, we are the only Baptistic church that has ever assembled in this little town.  How did these things happen?  By God opening and closing doors of opportunity.  

God not only opens doors, but He opens them and sends His people through them.  Pine Grove Mills is the door He’s opened for us and He sent us here.  It would be wise of us to redeem the time He’s given us here.  In fact, that is exactly what Paul says to the Colossians in chapter 4, verses 5 & 6:

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Do we pray for open doors?  Do we not have a responsibility to do so?  It seems the door to this community has been open for some time.  Ten years.  What about the individual doors of the houses here?  Do we pray that God would open THOSE doors for the Gospel?  And the doors of the hearts and minds of the people living here?  If we prayed, do you think prayer would change things?  Do you think God might actually hear our prayers and open doors that have been shut to us for ten years?

If prayer changes things, it may be that we’re just not praying as we ought.  If it is true that God opens doors for the Gospel in answer to prayer, and if it is true that God changes people in answer to prayer, then we need to ask ourselves the question, “Could it be that we have not seen God move in this community because we haven’t seriously prayed for Him to do so?”  Certainly we have prayed.  At least some of us have on occasion.  But shouldn’t it concern us that no one from this community has joined with us in ten years?  Could it be because their salvation isn’t a serious concern for us?  Do we not care if God opens doors for the Gospel here or not?

Last week I told you that the message you heard was a call to repentance from prayerlessness.  It is sinful for us to neglect the worship of prayer.  God specifically commands us to pray constantly and about everything.  We could quote hundreds of verses that speak to the general topic of prayer, and to the specifics of how we ought to pray and THAT we ought to pray.  We could even talk about the specific things we should pray for, and one of those things we should be praying for is that God would open doors for us for the sake of sharing the Gospel with those around us.

On the evening of Sunday, November 22nd, we are having a prayer meeting here for the specific purpose of praying to God to open doors for the Gospel here in Pine Grove Mills.  If at all possible, and I mean if at all possible, I would like for all of you to be in attendance at that meeting.  But in the meantime, pray.  Please pray regularly for God to work and move in our hearts and in the hearts of those people who call this place home.  We must pray for them.  The vast majority of them are not praying for themselves.  Or it may be that they are like the Jews Jesus spoke of in Revelation who are Jews in name only, but not in heart.  There are multitudes of Christians in name only, but whose hearts and minds remain closed to the Gospel.  That is what we must pray about.  

Father, open doors for us.  Open the door of faith to the people of this little village.  And move us to speak the mystery of the Gospel to those to whom you send us, and make it clear to them.  Enable us to speak the truth of your word accurately and in a way that our friends and neighbors might be able to understand it.  Father, we ask that You would change things.  That You would change us.  That You would work through us for the sake of the Gospel.

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John 10:9   I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

1 Cor 16:5  I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, 6 and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7 For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8 But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, 9 for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

2 Cor. 2:12  When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, 13 my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.


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1. All Scripture is from the ESV.