“For a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (I Corinthians 16:9).

(See the postscript for a story illustrating this text.)

Ain’t that the way?

You spot a great opportunity, the adrenalin flows and your heart races. You seize it and begin to make plans to do this wonderful thing in a big way, when suddenly, out of the blue, you’re blindsided by opposition and adversaries.

“Dear Lord, just as soon as you send a huge opportunity with wide-open doors and no problems in my direction, I’ll be back.”

Just as soon as everyone is on board and the naysayers are all gone, as soon as my mama agrees and the vote is unanimous, and when the resources are in the bank and old Mr. Crenshaw quits fighting it, yessirree–we’ll be right there to do this thing you’ve laid on our hearts.

That’s how our heart feels. That’s the counsel our fears give.

Paul was in Ephesus and having a great ministry, one lasting several years. This work was characterized by all three facets he mentions in this verse–great opportunities, open doors, and many obstacles.

Sounds like life, doesn’t it?  Great opportunities, open doors, many obstacles. It is indeed.

GREAT OPPORTUNITIES.

You see a great need, something important going unmet. A niche for ministry, if you will.  Someone could step in here and do (whatever) and make a huge difference.

What was it Pogo used to say in the old comic strip? “We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”

“This is a great opportunity, one you don’t want to miss out on!” An investment banker told me that once. Confidentially, he whispered into the phone, I should go down and borrow money on the equity in my house and invest in it.  I could make a lot of money in a short time.

All my cautionary instincts went into overdrive as he talked on and on. When he finished, I said, “Thank you, but no,” with no further explanation necessary.  Later, I watched in sadness for him and his family as he took bankruptcy and went to prison.

It takes spiritual vision to recognize opportunities God places in our sight. And wisdom to know when something is not an opportunity.

The spiritually blind cannot see an opportunity or discern when something is not that.  The Prophet Elisha prayed, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see” (II Kings 6:17).

When God places opportunities before us is not a time to act.  That is the time to pray and wait and watch.  We pray to know His will, wait for Him to reveal it, and watch for Him to open or close a door.

OPEN DOORS

No more waiting; a door has been opened. The time to act is now.

Great opportunities are merely insoluble problems without open doors. Without a way to approach it, an opportunity is merely a humongous need you happened to notice.

Opportunities are great mission fields; open doors are entries into them.

We can see this in Paul’s second missionary journey.  Picking up Acts 16 at verse 6: “And they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they had come to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troy.  And a vision appeared to Paul in the night in which a certain man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ Immediately…we concluded that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

Opportunities–fields of tremendous need–lay all around in every direction. Everyone needed the gospel. And yet, the Lord was at work directing His workers away from some fields and toward others.  The dream indicated to Paul and Silas that a door into Macedonia had been opened.

An open door is a great thing and settles the question of “where do we go and where do we start?”

When God opens a door for ministry into a land of great opportunities, this is the time for action.  Yes, you keep praying–there’s never a time to slack off in your praying!–but the time for waiting is over.  On the banks of the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s army was bearing down on Israel: “God said, ‘Why are you crying out to me? Go forward!” (Exodus 14:15)  Act!

MANY OBSTACLES.

Open doors into great opportunities are frequently accompanied by many adversaries and sizeable obstacles.

In our text, the adversaries Paul spotted in Ephesus were certain individuals.  Acts 19 tells of his experience in that major city. Vs 9 mentions some in the synagogue who “were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of The Way.”  So, Paul and his colleagues moved into a school run by Tyrannus where they remained two solid years (19:10).  Later, his adversaries were Demetrius, a silversmith, and members of his tradeunion whose livelihood was being affected by the large numbers who turned to Jesus and away from fetishes such as the small silver idols they were manufacturing and selling at a nice profit.

Look for the adversaries. It could be a sign you’re doing something right.

John Wesley once wrote to a pastor, “I hear you have a thriving Sabbath School in your district. I am amazed that the enemy has not raised up a champion against it.”.

Look for the champions who arrive to tear down, to slander, to fight. (See Nehemiah 2:19ff. for how these adversaries work.).

Other obstacles the obedient discover as they enter open doors into great opportunities may include…

1) Their own fears which have to be dealt with and overcome. Fear paralyzes. Courage does not take counsel of fears, but goes forward against great obstacles and eminent adversaries.

2) The faithlessness of co-workers who “just don’t see it.” Some of your best people will think you have lost your mind when you propose doing something for which resources are not in the bank.

Remember, there are always obstacles, always negatives to be dealt with and adversaries to be faced.

The Christian worker who demands that all conditions be right before he/she moves out in obedience to the Master will never accomplish anything.

We will act by faith and live by faith or we will do nothing.

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.”

The eyes of faith will see the opportunities; the spirit of faith will sense whether doors are open or closed; works of faith will be the best answer to the adversaries who wish to shut the work down.

Postscript–

Sometime around 1960, several people in the New Orleans area spotted the opportunity that lay before them as hundreds of ships a year came to the Port of New Orleans. Cargo ships, tankers, military vessels, and cruise liners make this one of the busiest ports in the world. This means thousands of foreigners were coming to the USA for brief visits but no one was reaching out to them in hospitality or sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them.

In many cases, these ships were from lands where Christianity was outlawed and missionaries were barred. And yet, here they were, at our front door.

No door was opened.

One brother in Christ tried to force the door open.  He hired a truck with a sound system to drive up and down the levee blaring the gospel message toward the ships docked there.  When that did not work, he quit.

John Vandercook, pastor of Third Street Baptist Church in uptown New Orleans, used to stand on the levee and watch the river traffic, his heart burdened for this great opportunity for which there seemed to be no open door.

One Sunday afternoon, Brother John watched as a ship docked in front of him. On deck, a man stood watching him. When the gangway was lowered, the man walked straight to Pastor Vandercook and said, “Sir, I am a Christian.  Could you point me to a church nearby so I can attend services tonight?”  Two hours later, Brother John met that man and a couple of friends and drove them to his church for services.

An open door.

The year 2013 is the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Global Maritime Ministries, a wonderful outreach to both ships crews and port workers in New Orleans (3635 Tchoupitoulas Street) and upriver in the community of Reserve. Philip Vandercook, youngest son of Pastor John Vandercook, guides the ministry.  Its website is www.portministry.com.

Have there been obstacles? Mostly, financial and a need for more volunteers.  If anyone fought it or opposed the work, I never heard about it.  But God is on the job blessing in mighty ways. Last December, a church in Mansfield, Louisiana, paid off the entire indebtedness on our new port ministry center. And earlier this year, an international transportation workers federation purchased a new hundred-thousand-dollar bus for this work.

A few weeks after the note-burning (shredding, actually) ceremony, the beloved founder of this ministry, Pastor John Vandercook, was called to Heaven.  As Scripture says, “His works do follow him” (Revelation 14:13).