Four Seasons Of Life Part 1 Series

Four Seasons of Life – Part 1

Scripture: Genesis 8:20-22; Matthew 24:12; Ecclesiastes 4:9-11

On Monday September 28th I was drinking my coffee on my deck and just thinking about life and the changes of the seasons. It was a quiet, fall morning and there was a slight chill in the air. As I sat there thinking about life and the message that would come out of my time of reflection, the Spirit spoke to me about the seasons of life. As He spoke I looked around and noticed how the trees were starting to lose their leaves. I noticed the position of the sun as it came through the screens on the deck. I noticed the chill in the air and how the humidity was much lower than it had been just two days before. As I looked at all of these different elements of the seasonal changes, the spirit said to me – “You go through seasons just as the earth does.” Now this was not a new revelation to me as I know we go from one season to another, but the Spirit was not done. He then told me to look up the four seasons and the reason the change throughout the year. Once I had done that He said the following: “The further you are away from Christ the colder you are and the colder you become. Remember, love is warm.” The title of this series is “Four Seasons of Life.”

I’ve heard people say for years that as we get farther and farther into the last days that you will not be able to tell one season from another. I am not sure where this teaching came from but the Bible makes it clear that this is not the case. In the eighth chapter of Genesis when God brought Noah and his family out of the ark, the following is recorded in verses twenty through twenty-two. It says, “And Noah built an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled a sweet odor; and the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:20-22) God declared that He would never destroy everything on the earth again with water and that as long as the earth existed, so would seasons. So even though we are living in a time when it seems like the seasons are running together, believe me when I tell you that where we live there will always be four seasons. Now notice I said “where we live.” So let’s begin with what the Spirit showed me as I briefly examine “our” four seasons. In this series of messages I will utilize our understanding of the earth’s natural seasons to illustrate our spiritual seasons.

Let’s start with the definition of a season. A season is a period of the year that is distinguished by special climate conditions. The four seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, follow one another like clock work. Each has its own light, temperature, and weather pattern that repeat annually. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter generally begins on December 21 or 22 and represents the time of the year with the shortest periods of daylight. Summer begins on June 20 or 21, which represents the days with the most daylight. Spring and Fall, or autumn, begin on equinoxes, which have days that have equal amounts of daylight and darkness. The seasons in the Northern Hemisphere are the opposite of those in the Southern Hemisphere.

Now listen to the reason that we actually have seasons. Seasons occur because the Earth is tilted on its axis relative to the orbital plane, the invisible, flat disc where most objects in the solar system orbit the sun. Earth’s axis is an invisible line that runs through its center, from pole to pole. Earth rotates around its axis. In June, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, the sun’s rays hit it for a greater part of the day than in winter. This means it gets more hours of daylight. In December, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, there are fewer hours of daylight. The tilting of the Northern Hemisphere towards the sun determines how much daylight there will be in a given season. If you are a gardener you know that seasons have an enormous influence on vegetation and plant growth. Winter typically is cold, with little daylight, and limited plant growth. In spring, plants sprout, tree leaves unfurl, and flowers blossom. Plants grow quickly in the summer because it is the warmest time of the year and has the most daylight. In autumn, temperatures drop and many trees lose their leaves. All of these changes take place on an annual cycle or rotation as the earth tilts towards or away from the sun.