HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 18, 2024 – When I was born again, God shut the door to evil. I didn’t have to do anything to keep the evil at bay; God did that for me as one of the signature terms of service of his grace. He continues to keep that door firmly shut even today, 25 years into my rebirth.

But I also bear some responsibility for maintaining my grace. There are a few doors that God won’t close but that he may advise me to close, as a test of sorts (and as a nod to my ongoing free will). These “test” doors, once shut, I dare not reopen. As tempting as it might be to open them just a crack to see what’s happening on the other side (or to get down on my hands and knees and peer underneath the door), I must never do those things. When God means business he means business, and when he commands us to shut the door, he means shut the door, and shut it for good.

I received such a command a few nights ago in a dream. I dreamt that I was lying on my side facing a wall, drowsing. Behind my back, evil was creeping toward me from the next room. I could see it coming through God’s eyes, but I was too tired to do anything about it. Closer and closer the evil approached the open doorway (the way my cat used to creep toward me, but only when I blinked), until suddenly God commanded me to shut the door.

I heard God loud and clear, but I was too comfortably relaxed in my warm bed to get up. I wanted to keep on drowsing and so I ignored God’s voice. That’s when he turned up the volume and changed his tone and his command became both a warning and a wake-up call:

“SHUT THE DOOR!”

This caught my attention, and in my dream, I immediately sprang out of bed and rushed to shut the door before the evil could slip through.

It’s easy to be lulled into spiritual complacency. It’s easy to ignore God’s voice when we’re side-tracked with “non-God” things. It’s easy to slide into a comfortable slumber, turning our back on possible dangers and expecting God to take care of us. What isn’t always easy is shutting the door and keeping it shut. There’ll be any number of excuses as to why the door could remain just slightly ajar or why it shouldn’t be shut at all but left wide open. Satan is very good at devising excuses and justifying exceptions to counter God’s commands, like he did in the Garden of Eden. And we’re very good at buying Satan’s lies, like Eve and Adam once did.

What about you? Are there any doors that God has commanded you to shut lately? Have you, like me in my dream, pushed God’s voice aside and left the door wide open, letting the evil draw closer and closer to you? Or did you, as soon as you heard God’s voice, immediately rush over and slam the door shut?

Evil comes in many forms. As born-again believers, we have enormous protection in our day-to-day dealings with the world and we’re also protected while we sleep, but that doesn’t mean we should expect God to do everything for us. God is not going to keep every form of evil at bay from us; some forms of evil God will even permit to approach very close to us, unless we do as he says and shut the door.

I know the form of evil that God was alluding to in my dream. I have since shut the door on it and resolved to keep it shut permanently, but I know I can’t do that without God’s help, as this particular form of evil is highly alluring to me, the way the Tree of Knowledge was alluring to Eve or the dark arts were to Solomon. Not all curiosity is healthy. I can even point to the many alleged benefits of succumbing to this particular temptation, but none of them come from God. When God says to shut, we’re to shut, not to argue or whine or attempt to strike a bargain. Nor should we roll over and keep on slumbering as if we hadn’t heard God.

What God says to shut, we’re to shut, and never open again.