Spiritual Coldness
By Pastor Jim May
Matthew 24:12-13, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
Being from the South we have to get used to the heat. Right now though the seasons are changing and these past few mornings have been brisk. I’m ready for the cooler weather, but if there’s one thing that I really have a hard time with, it’s those really cold mornings when I have to get out of my warm bed, put on so many layers of clothes that I feel like a turtle when I move, and then have to walk outside to go to work. I feel sorry for those poor people who get to work from home. They never get to experience the thrill of freezing as they ride to work.
I can remember some years ago that I went deer hunting. Now you won’t hear me talk about deer hunting too much, and for a very good reason. I made a promise to the Lord that day, and I intend to keep my promise.
It was well before daylight, the temperature was hovering somewhere around 25 degrees. (In Louisiana, 25 degrees feels more like 10 degrees because of the high humidity) I remember one year that I worked at a local paper mill and we had a supervisor that had come down from Canada. After a few weeks of our Louisiana winter, he decided that it was warmer in Canada and left town.
It was still dark when my friend dropped me off in the middle of the woods, near a large fallen tree. My feet were already frozen from the ride on the four-wheeler, my nose was numb, my ears were about to crack and fall off, and my vision was blurred because my eyes were nearly frozen. But we were having “fun”. We were “hunting” and taking part in a great manly ritual, male bonding and all that!
I forgot to mention that I had been freezing all night. I had never been deer hunting in my life and I certainly never did any camping in the dead of winter, so I wasn’t very prepared. Oh I had a sleeping bag – but I think it was lined with ice cubes instead of goose down. I had thermal clothes but somebody must have turned their thermostat to air conditioning instead of heating, because all night long I lay there, wrapped up so that only my nose was sticking out, and I was still freezing. Those other fellows had nice warm sleeping bags and they were snoring loudly all night long.
When I finally did get warm enough to fall asleep, that’s when they jumped up and started getting ready to go hunting. I wanted to say, “Just let the poor deer alone. He’s probably freezing just like me. Live and let live. Let’s build a fire and sing songs around the campfire instead.” But it was not to be. I couldn’t stay behind, so off I went, shivering with cold and my hands sticking to the cold steel of the rifle barrel as I went.
That’s how it was, only now, not only was I cold, but I was left alone in the middle of the night, on a tree limb out in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where I was and I was at the mercy of the elements.
For 10 hours I hugged that tree. I can tell you that I am not a tree hugger to this day because of that deer-hunting trip. Starting at about 4 AM, all I could hear was the wind, and something moving in the bushes. Was it a deer? God only knows. All I could think of was how to find a way to get out of the cold wind. I didn’t care what was moving, whether it was a deer or a bear, just so I could get warm until the sun came up.
I don’t know what was moving, but if it was a deer, it was smart enough to come by in the dark and never come back. I think that it must have been an armadillo because I believe the deer were smart enough to stay low and keep warm. They weren’t as dumb as I was to be sitting up in a tree on a limb in the wind.
Along about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I had about as much of that tree as I could take, and I was mad at the deer for making me wait for nothing. The only deer I saw was a doe and a fawn and they were too cute to shoot. I could see it now, “Ignorant deer hunter arrested for killing Bambi and loses his Doe”. In utter frustration I promised God that If I ever got free from that tree limb, I would never go deer hunting again – and to this day I have not.
Just thinking of deer hunting reminds me of the coldest night of my life and that dumb tree with bark that felt like it was made of pinecones where I sat for so many hours. It makes me shudder to think of it even now.
As I think back on that day of being so cold, thinking that I might never get out of those woods again unless somebody came to my rescue, I think that there is a lesson that maybe we can all learn tonight, and that deer hunt won’t be a total loss.
THE COLD wind AFFECTED me in so many ways.
First, My Ears were freezing. I was so cold, and I couldn’t wear earmuffs because I needed to listen for the deer. I tried to put my hands over my ears to help them thaw, but my hands were as cold as my ears.
I see a lot of Pentecostal people, even in this church, who do this all the time because they are cold. When they are growing cold in the Spirit, they don’t want to hear what anyone has to say who is trying to turn them back to God. They do like the Pharisees did when Stephen was preaching. We can read a part of his sermon in Acts chapter 7.
Acts 7:51-57, "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord."
That’s the way people are who are cold in their heart. They develop spiritual deafness and they refuse to hear the Word of the Lord. And they are deaf to the voice of the Lord calling to them. They become the “Frozen Chosen”.
Secondly, My Nose was freezing.
I know that God made each part of our bodies to do a certain function like your feet to run and your nose to smell. But some times I’m backwards because my feet smell and my nose runs. I know that I must have looked like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that day and it was probably bright enough to warn any deer for miles around. I couldn’t smell anything.
When you’re cold spiritually, not only are your ears frozen to hearing but your nose is shut to sniffing out the will of God and realizing that God wants to start a fire of revival in your soul.
The funny thing is that when people are growing cold in the Lord, they can’t sense the moving and wooing of the Holy Spirit but they can sure sniff out anything that smells rotten in the congregation.
Thirdly, My Feet felt like blocks of ice inside rubber boots.
When my feet get cold, I’m cold all over. I have never had frostbite but I think I came really close that day.
I see Christians who get cold feet all the time. Every time God puts an opportunity in front of them to tell someone about Jesus or do a work for Him, they get cold feet and can’t move. They get Spiritually frostbitten and God has to begin to trim away the dead part of their heart and get them warmed up so He can use them again.
Fourthly, My Hands were nearly numb from the cold.
I can remember that trip like it was yesterday. In that cold I tried to move my fingers but they wouldn’t move. It was a struggle to even push my glasses back up on my face.
I see people like that in church all the time. They show every sign of being frozen like I was. They can’t lift their hands to praise the Lord. They can’t clap. They sometimes can’t even shake hands with other people, all because they are just cold in the Spirit.
The last thing about that cold was that it made Me Sleepy.
I have heard of people who died by freezing to death. A few of them kept journals describing how they felt when they were so cold -- so cold they wanted to go to sleep. They say when you’re cold, you should try to stay awake or you will die. I sure was sleepy sitting on that limb. I was just about ready to give it up and go to sleep because it was starting to get dark again when I finally heard those four-wheelers coming back to get me. I couldn’t wait to get back to a campfire and a warm place.
People who grow cold in the Spirit are in jeopardy of being lulled to sleep by the devil. They become oblivious to their spiritual condition and unless God undertakes and comes to their rescue, they will sit there and freeze to death in their sins.
We need to guard against becoming cold in the Spirit. Don’t let the devil cause you to freeze to death spiritually in this life, only to burn forever when this life is over. Let’s stay on fire for God. Only when we stay close to God can we feel the warmth of his love and the power of the fire of the Holy Ghost.
Are you feeling cold tonight? Not in the flesh, but in your spirit? It’s time to let God bring life back into you right now before you too become one of the “Frozen Chosen”.
