| Skeleton sermon -- add your own meat |
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
I'm from the South and I like hot weather and I like hot preaching and hot Holy Ghost services. I can't stand cold preaching or cold services. Our Lord told us in the text because of sin, folks would grow cold.
I can remember before I got saved when I hunted for elk in Colorado. Each man in the hunting party was about a 1,000 feet apart. All of a sudden a blizzard began to blow and I was completely covered with freezing snow. I couldn't see five feet in front of me. The mountains were already in an avalanche stage and we took our stand on that mountain. As I think back on that day of being so cold, thinking that I might die, I can see a resemblance of a cold human body - a church body that has become cold.
I was so cold, I put my hands over my ears. I see baptists do this all the time because they are cold. They do like the Pharisees did when Stephen was preaching in Acts 7:57 -- they covered their ears. When you're cold in your Christian life. You don't want to hear what may save your life.
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 looked like Rudolph that day I had snow blowing up my nose. I couldn't smell a campfire fifty feet away. When you're cold spiritually, not only are your ears frozen to hearing but your nose is shut to smelling Revival fires blazing away in your church.
When my feet get cold, I'm cold all over. I thought I had frostbite and may lose a foot. Did you know spiritually one of the first signs that your feet are cold is that you don't go out on visitation or visit the jails or hospitals. Maybe you're already frostbitten?
I can remember that blizzard like it was yesterday. In that blizzard I tried to reach into my pocket to take out my handkerchief to use like a bandanna over my face. But I just couldn't reach back there to get it out and use it. I see folks like that every Sunday who must be frozen like I was. They can't reach back and take anything out of that back pocket when the offering pan comes around. No matter how well you can present them a real need for their brother, they just can't reach back there. They must be froze.
I have seen in the National Geographic magazine where men died freezing to death who wrote in journals saying 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 honestly thought that I would die that day. I was so cold that I was numb and real sleepy. But a man from a rescue team was sent out to find us. Boy, oh, boy, he carried us where there was a big fire and plenty to eat.
I know that many are called and a few are frozen, but you don't have to be that way. It's your choice.
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