Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: You’re either a Christian or you’re not. In the same way you can’t get here physically without coming through a physical door, you will never make heaven without going through a spiritual door. In a second, I'll read where Jesus is the door. If the door is closed, you are in big trouble.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. So many of you have shared how important this program is to you and how Richard's messages have impacted your life. We also know that there are many others who have positively influenced your life and how to be a better Christ-follower. We are devoting this entire month to celebrate and give honor to those in our life who have made a great impact and how we want to do the same in the lives of others. So, we're introducing a new feature on our website to help you share that story. More on that later, but for now, with today's talk, here's Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "The Doors." I have been chewing on this for quite a while, and I'm not going to tell you that this is the final version of this, but I'm going to make a run at this to try to explain it. Let's start with Genesis chapter one. In Genesis chapter one, verse 26, what you've pretty much got is God has created most everything—the animals, the universe—it's done.

Then verse 26: "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image,'" and you can't overlook words like "us." He would have said, "Let me make man in my image," not "us," "our." So that means you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit involved in what's happened to this point and what is about to happen. "So let us make man in our image." Whatever they're about to do, all of them being one, one being three, are going to be included in what they're about to do.

"According to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Now, there's another word you have to pay attention to in that verse. What did he say? "Let them have dominion." Is he going to make more than one person or one person? One person, but as it turns out inside that one person, he will create, as we'll see in a minute in chapter two, another person.

"So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." That is the summation of what happens, and then we're going to get the detail, back up, and get the detail of how that went down. "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"

"And God said, 'See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food'; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

God spends six days making, speaking words. Most of it, if you go back and read these chapters, God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He said these words, and things happened. But then he gets very specific about this next thing. Go to Genesis chapter two, verse one. "Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground."

Verse seven: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Now, you say, if God can speak things into existence, why didn't he say, "Let there be Adam. Let there be Eve," and it's done? He could have done that, but that's not what he did with human beings. He did that with animals.

He makes all these animals somehow, it doesn't say he did it this way, but on us—the man first and really the only person he does this with is Adam—he takes dust, the dirt of the ground, somehow like a potter makes pottery. He builds this man, but more than just building a man, look at it. If you cut yourself open, see a cadaver, this is an intricate thing. He builds this man and then does what only he can do. I cannot build myself, and I cannot build myself a man. I cannot build a woman. And even if you could, Frankenstein notwithstanding, you can't breathe spirit, soul into that person like he did.

"The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold," and he goes on to describe that.

Then go down to verse 16. "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden, into this Garden of Eden, to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.' And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.'"

So, we don't have Eve yet. The instruction to not eat of this specific tree was given to Adam. He apparently told Eve about this after God made her, because when the devil tempted her, she misquoted. Either Adam misquoted it to her, or she misquoted what God told Adam when Adam told her that you couldn't even touch it. He didn't say you couldn't touch it.

"And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him."

Adam could look at the cattle and go, "Okay, there's male, female, male, female. I've got no female." God goes, "This is not good." And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman. Women were not made from dust—that should be very comforting to women—but you were made from part of a man. A rib was taken out, and then God goes, "Now watch this."

Adam wakes up, and there is this similar but not the same, comparable but not the same person. This is crazy amazing. I am not like my wife; my wife is not like me. We would kill each other. It gets close already. But this is what goes down. So when he wakes up, there's a woman. What's the first thing he says? "Whoa, man." That's what we call them, "Wo-man." You'll get it later.

He takes this rib, makes a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said—which by the way, Adam, his name comes from a word that means "the dirt" that he was taken from—first thing Adam apparently says is: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." She's part of me. What's supposed to happen when you get married, by the way, is the Bible says the two become one flesh.

How's that possible? I'm still me; my wife is still her. How are we one flesh? I'll give you one demonstration of that. We have three daughters, and the two of us made those three people. So they are a manifestation of the one flesh because you could not separate me out of them or her out of them. We make one flesh in those children.

But it's also true about the two of us. Now, some of you are just waiting for your spouse to die. If you're a husband and you come home and there are cruise brochures laying around the house, you're in trouble. You should sleep with one eye open. She's thinking about going on a cruise with her buddies. But there are a lot of couples, and we've got some in the room, one in particular I'm thinking of, whose wife is very sick and probably not going to make it. Why is he upset about that? Because they're one flesh. It's almost inseparable.

Yes, if she dies, he's going to go on, but it's going to be painful because the two shall become one flesh. "She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Then verse 24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

This is why I'm starting with Genesis. God makes a man from dirt, breathes into him, and he's alive. He takes a rib out of the man and makes a woman. Now she's alive. They're comparable; they're one flesh. Built into this, and this is before the fall, those two get together and now seed is planted in that woman, and this process of reproduction, multiplying, kicks in. Now life is formed inside of a woman.

I'm going to say I'm going to be careful. I'm not going to be careful; there's nothing to be careful about. There's crazy people on the planet now saying that men can have children. You've lost your mind. If you don't have an answer to that, you've just lost your mind. If you get in a conversation and somebody brings that up and you talk to them like they're sane people, they've lost their minds. "Well, they identify as a woman and they can have children." They can't. Only women have children. That's it. It's not complicated. Are we on the same page? If we're not, don't raise your hand; I don't want to know if we're not on the same page.

God sets the system up physically once he's got Adam and Eve. They start having children, and the way they have children is they hook up. A child is conceived, children are born, and no one since Adam and Eve—that's the process—no one has come to this earth as a human being that did not come out of a woman's body. No one.

The freaky thing for me when my mother died—and I didn't know this until she died—is that my door was gone. She was the physical manifestation of the door. A seed was planted, and without that seed that day, that egg that day, there is no me ever, period. Before, after, period. I am the culmination of that conception moment, and that's the only way you get me. You can't say, "Oh, we'll try again next month and we'll get Richard." You only get you one time. So I made it into that womb, conceived. I was able to make it out of that womb, and that's how I got here. And no one has ever existed since that didn't come out of a womb. So that's door number one.

Go to Luke 13. Now, we're going to gate number two, door number two. As long as everybody's on the same page with me that the only way you physically get on this planet is you have to be born of a woman, you have to come out of a woman's womb. It can be a C-section or vaginal, whatever it is, but you're coming out of a woman one way or another. That's it.

Nobody, including Jesus, got here without this. So the only way—and you'll see in a minute why I'm making an emphasis on this—the only way you physically get out and are in this physical world is to come through this door of a womb, a woman. So it makes sense that there can be an "only way" to get spiritually into heaven. I'm about to read you what Jesus said about that.

Luke 13:23: "Then one said to Him, 'Lord, are there few who are saved?' And He said to them, 'Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, "Lord, Lord, open for us," and He will answer and say to you, "I do not know you, where you are from," then you will begin to say, "We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets." But He will say, "I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity."'"

So you say, "Well, I grew up in the church. I know Jesus' stories. I know all this stuff about him. My family, somebody was a Christian." You're either a Christian or you're not. In the same way you can't get here physically without coming through a physical door, you will never make heaven without going through a spiritual door. In a second, I'll read where Jesus is the door. If the door is closed, you are in big trouble.

And if the door is closed and you were all, "I'm too cool for any of this," and then you die or the moment comes to get in the door and you're knocking on the door trying to get in and he goes, "I don't even know who you are," you better make sure he knows who you are and why you should have access to heaven. None of this matters until you're knocking on heaven's door or knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door. And then you're in a panic because you can't get in. You had all these claims that you were religious and did all this stuff. It's not claiming that you know him; it's not using "Lord, Lord" on him. You better make sure he knows you and that you are in his family. In the same way you've got to be born to get here, you have to be born to get in there.

Go to John 14:6. You think, "Well, maybe he wasn't being narrow; you're just interpreting it that way." Well, then what are you going to do with this? John 14:6, Jesus said to him, "I am"—again, the phrase "I am"—"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." You will never get to God the Father unless you go through the door, which is Jesus, the way which is Jesus, the life which is Jesus, the truth—it's all him. Why do we make a big deal about Jesus? Because you've got nothing without Jesus. He's your only hope.

First Corinthians 15. I wish I had time to read you this. I've started using AI a little bit, the ChatGPT for a while then I've gone to Claude because the guy that discipled me's name is Claude; it sounds more spiritual. I use it so much now trying to do research that it will shut down on me and say, "Oh, you can't keep looking till 5 o'clock" or something. I'm like, "What?" So I pay the fee and it cranks back up.

I typed in this verse, 1 Corinthians 15, and asked the question about these two verses. It answered me wrong. I went back and I said, "Why are you giving me wrong answers? You're calling it this, but it's really this." And it came back and said, "Wow, you're right. I screwed up because I just took the opinions of things that are out there, and the things that people are saying out there are incorrect, and you're correct. I've gone back over it, and I'm sorry, and I'll do better." Then I said, "Are you deliberately trying to misguide me? To deceive me?" And then he apologized again. We're having dinner Tuesday; it should be great. I think he's going to stand me up, but we'll see.

Okay, so this is something that the real Claude Townsend showed me one day, and I had no idea about this and this still blows me up. First Corinthians 15:45. This whole chapter is about if there's no resurrection from the dead, then the dead don't rise; you've no hope. But in verse 45, it says: "And so it is written," just please track with me, keep it simple. "So it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being,'" so he's human. "The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit."

Now, I've heard sermons and tried to correct preachers about this. They will talk about the first man Adam, and then they talk about the second Adam. There's nothing in the Bible about a second Adam. There's no such thing. You don't need a second Adam. You need a last Adam and a second man, and that's what it says. Why is this important? "The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." Who is the last Adam? Jesus.

So Adam is a life-giving being. The last Adam, Jesus, is called the last Adam, so that means he's the last of the Adamic nature. So he covers it all, and he is a life-giving spirit. "However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural," so Adam is born physically, that's first. "And afterward the spiritual," then Jesus. "The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven."

Why is this important? This is what I never knew. So when Jesus dies on the cross, he's born of a virgin, lives a sinless life. When he dies on the cross, he dies as who? The last Adam. He's buried and raised from the dead as what? The second man. It's a do-over. What Adam screwed up, he said, "I will be the last of that."

So now go to 2 Corinthians 5:17. Some of you know this stuff by heart, but here we go. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." He is not a redo. He is a new creation like Adam was created. So if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. "Old things have passed away"—all the Adam stuff is passed away—"behold, all things have become new."

So when you are born again, the second man is who moves into your life and says, "Forget the Adam stuff." Yes, you still have that capacity because the enemy lies to you, but you're a new creation. All that old stuff's passed away. Everything's new. You can live the life that Adam, when he was made and was multiplying, what he was supposed to have. But sin entered the picture. I have corrected all that, made it possible to live the life that I intended from the beginning. But it couldn't happen without me coming down here, born of a virgin, physical man, dying on a cross, being buried and raised from the dead. Now it's possible. But it's not possible to live that life unless you're born again, and it's impossible to get into heaven unless you go through the door. And there is only one door that gets you into heaven, and it is a person named Jesus.

One more, maybe two more. Galatians 4:4. "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." Born and starts it all over again in himself.

Things that Paul used to say: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." What was he talking about? What he's saying is when Jesus died, he died because he is included in the Adam bunch, the Adam family, so to speak. From Adam to the last Adam, Jesus. So Jesus dies and covers all of that bunch—people who had been born before, born at that time, and hadn't even been born when he did it.

Is everyone clear? Physically there's a door, a woman's womb. Secondly, a door into heaven—that's Jesus. No other way into heaven but through that door. The last door is this: Revelation 3. Now, I grew up with a pastor dad, evangelist dad, missionary dad, and even he misquoted this. If he were still alive, I'd go, "Dude, you got this completely wrong." I have heard these verses I'm about to read you used for evangelism so many times, and they're completely out of context. Do not jerk verses out of context because it sounds good.

Revelation 3, this angel writes to seven churches. Verse 14: "And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write," so these are a church, these are Christians. "These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: 'I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.'"

God hates lukewarm. Do not be a lukewarm Christian. When I meet someone who is hell-bent on running from God and they're a Christian, I have more respect for that than some idiot who just sits in church, stares at you and listens and gives a little money and cares nothing about anything. It's lukewarm. You make him want to spit, vomit.

"Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." He said that's your true condition. "I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see."

Verse 19: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent." So if you won't repent and you fit this description of just this Laodicean church, then he goes, "Look, I love you. I'm going to rebuke and chasten you." You say, "Why is God after me?" He may be trying to get your attention. Rebuke, chasten so you'll repent. Be zealous and repent.

And then the verse 20 that I heard so many times: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." What is that talking about? That's not becoming a Christian. That is a Christian who has locked him out of the room.

So you may be, first of all, knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door, and he opens the door and you agree that he's the door and you're going to make heaven. But then once you've cleared that, then you decide you don't want him in your house. You don't want him in your room. You don't want him fellowshiping with you. So you lock him out.

There's a famous painting about this somewhere in Europe. I've seen this little painting, and it depicts this. It shows a guy on the inside of the house, Jesus on the outside of the house, Jesus knocking on the door. And if you look really close to the painting, there's a latch on the inside but nothing on the outside. Jesus cannot get in that room unless you open the door. And he's not going to kick the door down.

So ask yourself: if you're a Christian, do you hear him knocking on the door of your life going, "This is what I want. You say you hear me, then open the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me"? I want fellowship with you. I want a relationship with you.

So you wouldn't be here if you weren't born physically. You could be born spiritually because you acknowledge that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life; he's the door. But now that you're a Christian, you may be just locked up and lukewarm and all this stuff applies, and you're like, "I don't want him in my life. I'm going to do what I want to do. Yeah, I'm going to make heaven, but I don't want him telling me what to do." And you hear him knocking, and you know his voice, but you will not let him in. And then you wonder why your life sucks because you're living in sin.

Then the good news in these verses is he rebukes and chastens those that he loves. So he's coming for you. You say, "I don't want that," then repent. Be zealous and repent. "Okay, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be whooped anymore."

So what are the doors? Physical door, spiritual door number one where it's heaven or not, and then door number three is: are you giving him access to fellowship in your life? Or are you just another lukewarm Christian that makes him want to vomit?

Guest (Male): Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to listen to Richard Ellis Talks. We know these programs encourage and inspire you because we hear from so many of you about them. Richard has such a unique way of speaking right to the heart because it always comes straight from his own heart.

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