014. Come Before Winter

The year is 66AD, the place – the Mammertime Prison, a dungeon underneath the city of Rome.  Cold, damp, musty and dark – I’ve been there.  The stone blocks in the walls are black with age and mildew.  The silence is eerie.

The prisoner – an old man who’s nearly died many times.  His body is scared from many floggings.  The chains hurt.  His pale weathered face is kind, despite the hardships.  His name is Paul.

He’s writing a letter to his friend, Timothy.  (We all need a friend, don’t we?).  It’s the second letter he’d written to Timothy and as far as we know, the last.  It went something like this:  

“ Timothy, I need my cloak.  I left it at Carpus’s home in Troas.  Please Timothy, bring it before winter.” 

I imagine he would have explained a few details about it so Timothy could recognise it.  “Timothy, it’s an old coat;  it’s been soaked in the salt of the great sea.  It’s been white with the snows from the treacherous Pamphylian Mountains.  It’s gritty and brown from the dusty Ignatian Road and you’ll see a lot of blood stains on it Timothy, from where I was stoned over there in Lystra and from those awful cuts from the lash.  I need it Timothy, because winter’s coming.  Timothy, please – come before winter.” 

Please turn to 2 Timothy 4:9  page 1368.  Paul’s writing to Timothy and he says in verse 9, “Be diligent to come to me quickly;.”  We would say “Do your very best to come to me quickly.”    Then in verse 13 Paul tells Timothy to “ Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come – and the books, especially the parchments.”    Now just in case Timothy doesn’t quite realise the urgency of the matter, what does Paul say next?  Verse 21 – “ Do your utmost to come before winter.”  

Why does Paul ask Timothy to come before winter?  Did he need his old coat?  Did he need his books?  Did he need comfort from his friend Timothy?

From Pauls own experience, he knew that if Timothy didn’t get back before winter, then he’d never get a ship until the spring came.  Sailing in the winter was too dangerous as Paul well knew from his own shipwreck experience.  Maybe Paul had an idea that he wouldn’t be alive in the spring – that he’d be executed before spring.  So his plea had gone out to Timothy “.... come before winter.” 

For us, winter is only a few weeks away.  There are some things that are so important to get done before winter.  Once winter comes it can be too late.  There are golden opportunities that are open to everyone of us today while it is still today.  But then comes the cold, bleak winter.

Friends, winter is coming, not merely as a season on this earth, but possibly in another way too.  When our chance to decide has passed – when our chance to act has passed – then the long bitter winter begins.  In fact it reminds me of the statement made by Jeremiah the prophet in the Old Testament.  Let’s open to it.  

Jeremiah 8:20  page 878 -  “ The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” 

What a tragic verse!  “ The harvest is past, the summer is ended and we are not saved.”  The summer of opportunity will have ended for those who have not acted on their God given conscience.  Those who have not acted on what they know to be right.  The cold winter frost of indifference will slowly take over their hardening heart and the desire for holiness will slowly die.  God’s Holy Spirit will no longer be able to penetrate the hardening heart.  The harvest time will be over.  The summer will be ended.

As Paul writes from that Roman dungeon to ask Timothy to come before winter, there’s a lot of pleading to Timothy in that letter to make sure his life is right.  A lot of pleading that Timothy’s life is moulded by God’s Holy Word and not moulded by the unholy mould of peer pressure.

In the great steel works, the white hot metal is liquid.  As it comes out, the men channel that hot liquid metal into the moulds.  If that metal was allowed to cool just a little, then it refused to be moulded.  So it is with life.  There is a time when life’s metal is molten and it can flow and be moulded.  It’s a time when right opportunities present themselves.  And if we act then, our characters will be moulded as God wants them to be.  If we delay and delay and refuse the mould, then we tend to fall into a state of fixation and it’s no longer possible to do right.

You may remember the story in the New Testament of the angel that supposedly came down and moved the waters of Bethesda.  The story goes that if you were able to get into that pool before anyone else, then you were healed of whatever health problem you had.

Friends, there are times when the angel comes along and stirs the pool of our life.  If we act then, if we accept, then our lives are changed.  That is the time to act.  But if that golden moment is allowed to pass, it could pass forever.  

-----   Right now, before winter, I believe we are receiving a golden opportunity to step out strongly to follow Jesus.  The old devil binds us down with different things.  For some of us it could be a bad habit.  I think of a young man whose bad habit was drinking.  He was sitting in his hotel room when the urge came to ring the room service bell and get the waiter to bring him another drink.  Just before he pressed that button, a voice seemed to say, “This is your hour.  If you give in to the temptation now, it will destroy you.  If you conquer it now, you will be its master forever.”  That man obeyed the voice of conscience and is free today.

---- I know another young man who sat in his bedroom drinking apple cider.  The voice of conscience said, “Do you want to pass this example on to your kids?  Pour it out the window.” – And he did.  And today, Ray Archer, virtually an alcoholic at age 18, is free from the habit that was crushing the life out of him. --  eternal life, physical life and mental life. ----  

----- The voice of conscience comes to each one of us.  Sometimes it comes in the form of a mysterious urge to want a better life.  It may come through an appeal in a church service.  And I’m appealing to you today to come before winter.  It may come from our children, urging us to live a better life.  It may come from our parents, husband, wife.  But every time, this voice of conscience pleads with you and me to turn from the course that’s leading us to destruction.

---- Sadly, for some people, they refuse to obey the voice of conscience and their hearts harden.  The days and months roll by and it becomes harder and harder to do right.  Finally, winter sets in and it’s too late.  Friend, if you’re fighting your conscience today, then come before winter.

How can I illustrate this?  My eyes!  Right now my eyes are reasonably good.  But if I was to cover up one of my eyes with a bandage for a long time, what would happen?  After that long time I would take the bandage off and the different parts of that eye would have atrophied and I would no longer be able to see properly out of that eye.  The same with my ears.  My ears are good now, but if I would have sealed one of my ears over for any length of time, the nerves and the mechanism would atrophy and I would no longer be able to hear properly out of my ear.

It’s the same with the conscience.  We continue to put a bandage over our conscience and not let it work properly until finally our conscience atrophies.  It’s paralysed.  It cannot respond.  You see the human being has its favourable, mouldable moments, and God has His accepted time.  When God says, “Now”, and a person continues to say, “No”, then that person is gambling with his or her eternal life.  

When Timothy had received that letter from old Paul there in the Mammertime Prison, let’s suppose he reasoned this way.  “Well, I’m very busy at the moment.  I’m running this preaching series and I’m organising several different church programmes.  I’m really busy at the moment.  I know I should go to Paul, but I’ll put it off a little while longer.”   Friends, if Timothy had delayed, he would have finally gone down to the ship, only to find that winter had come and the ship couldn’t sail until the spring.  Then getting on the first ship to sail in the spring, he’d finally arrive in Rome, head on up the old Appian Way, then meet those Christians.  I guess he would have talked to Claudia, Pudens, Narcissus, Mary and Anplias, and he asked them where he might find Paul.  “Oh” , they say, “You’re Timothy?  Don’t you know that Paul was executed last December?  Every time the jailor would put the key in the door, Paul thought it was you.  And the last message he had Timothy, was for you.  He said, ‘ Give my love to Timothy, my beloved son, when he comes’.”  ------ 

----- Friends, if Timothy had waited until winter, how he would have regretted it.  But regret it as he might, it would still - be - too - late.  “Come before winter, come friend, before it’s forever too late.”  ------

-----  I’ve often thought as I’ve read the gospels through, how Jesus went up to Peter and Andrew and John,  and He said, “ Come and follow Me”.  The Bible says, “ Immediately, they left all and followed Him.”   I’ve thought about the note of urgency that must have been in the voice of Jesus as He called those disciples. -----

----- When DL Moody was preaching in Chicago, he noticed night after night a young man coming along to the meetings.  One particular night, after the meeting was finished, he noticed that the young man was somewhat troubled.  So he stepped down from the platform and went and spoke to him, and Moody urged the young man to give his heart to Jesus now.  

The young man said, “No, not now.  I’ll do it later.”  Then each week Moody noticed that the man wasn’t there so he decided to try and find out where he lived.  Finally, on the third floor of an apartment building, he found where the man was, very sick with pneumonia, and he pleaded with the young man to give his heart to Jesus.  The young man said, “Look Mr Moody!  If I give my heart to Jesus now, people will just think I was scared.  When I get well, then I’m going to give my heart to Jesus.”

Some weeks later, Moody just happened to stumble into him down the street in a shop and he looked perfectly well.  Moody said, “You promised that when you got well, you’d give your heart to Jesus.  What about it?”  “The man said ‘Look Mr Moody!  It’s like this at the moment.  Since I’ve seen you I’ve bought a new block of land over there in Michigan.  I’ve also just had a beautiful peach orchard given to me and I’ve mortgaged it to build a house.  As soon as I’ve arranged my financial situation, and I see my way clear, I’m going to step out and accept Jesus.”   Moody pled with him to do it now.  But the young man put it off.  He said that he would do it in the future.

More weeks went by and Moody heard that the young man had moved to his new property and he wasn’t well.  So late at night, he caught the ferry across the harbour.  He made his way up to the house.  It was on top of a big hill – nice place.  He arrived just before sunrise.  He had heard that the man was at the point of death.  As he made his way into the house, there beside the young man was a nurse and a doctor.  The sick man could hardly talk.  Moody pleaded with him to give his heart to Jesus.  “Not now Mr Moody.  It’s too late.” 

Moody wrestled with him and he said “Don’t you remember the story of the thief on the cross?  He accepted Jesus at the eleventh hour.”   

“Mr Moody,” the man whispered, “it’s not the eleventh hour with me.  It’s midnight and the clock is striking.”  Moody pled with him.  And he wept with him and he noticed his lips moving and he bent down to listen to the faint whisperings of that young man on his death bed.  These are the words he heard the young man saying with his last breath.  “The summer is ended, the harvest is passed, and I – am – not – saved.” -----

-------  Friends, what a tragic way to finish life.  We need to remember, every one of us, what winter feels like – it’s cold.  And in another way, we need to come to Jesus before it gets too cold.  We need to decide before the terrible winter freezes in on our heart and we no longer want to respond to God.  You see, each of us has only so many breaths, we have only so many heartbeats, so many days, so many minutes, so many seconds.  Today we can see, today we can hear, today we can respond, today we can decide.  Today is the hour of decision.

Today we can all hear the voice of Jesus through Paul and Silas as they spoke to the Philippian jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”   We can hear the words of Jesus as He says to Nicodemus, “Accept Me Nicodemus.  Nicodemus, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  And in John chapter 6 and verse 37 Jesus says, “....the one who comes to Me, I will by no means cast out.”   Jesus says, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done.  Come to me just as you are and I’ll accept you, I’ll love you, I’ll encourage you to move forward, I’ll help you to get your life together.  I will not cast you out.”

And today we can read in Romans 8:1, “ There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus....”    That’s the reason why all through the Bible God says “ Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”  (Heb4 :7)  Accept Me today!  Never, ever, does Jesus say, “Wait ‘til tomorrow.”  Never!  ------

-----  Today, Jesus stands at the door of our heart and knocks.  Are we keeping Him out of some part of our life?   Here’s an example.   Let’s say we have a nice clean house except we’ve got a dead rat in the cupboard.  If we keep the door closed the smell can’t get out but it’s still there.  Do you have any dead rats in your life?  Any dead rats in my life?  What is your dead rat?  What is my dead rat?

What is ‘our friend’ Satan asking us to put off until tomorrow?

Is he asking you not to forgive someone?  Is that the dead rat in our life?   In Matthew 6:9-13 we read how Jesus taught His disciples to pray.  We are His disciples too.  So this prayer is for us too.  In that prayer Jesus taught us to pray, ‘forgive us for our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’  And then after He finished explaining that prayer, He added a little comment in verse 14, “for if you forgive men their sins against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you for your sins.  But if you do not forgive men for their sins against you, neither will your Father forgive your sins.” -----

Here’s a little poem that says it very well.  Its title is – 

‘I couldn’t go in ‘cause Jim was there.

Jim and me had a tiff one day

We used hard words in angry play

More than we meant to I guess

And things you see got in a mess

Neither was wrong. What could I do?

Why, hold the grudge and see it through.

 I had a dream of heaven one day

A dream of where the angels play.

Play golden harps, and ever sing

In honour to their mighty king.

I looked within the gates so fair

But I couldn’t go in ‘cause Jim was there.

It was a sight, the truth I’ll tell

That held me breathless with a spell.

Gold streets with pearly gates I saw

And not a thorn, and not a flaw.

The angels beckoned, all was fair,

But I couldn’t go in ‘cause Jim was there.

Yes, walking with the angel band

Was Jim, a harp within his hand.

Marching in beauty o’er the street.

Without a care, in joy complete.

Bright as the morning and just as fair, But I couldn’t go in, ‘cause Jim was there.

Outside I heard the angels sing

I longed to go and see their King.

Just longed to walk those streets of gold

Where never a man or thing grow old.

Oh, it was beyond compare

But I couldn’t go in, cause Jim was there. ------

-----  Friends, whatever it is, get it right today, before it’s too late.  Come before winter.  Heaven and the new earth will never be same without you.  Come before your heart goes properly cold.

----  Jesus stands at the door of our heart and knocks.  Will we let him in today, before winter?  I pray that your answer, and my answer is  --  “Yes Lord, before winter, today!” -----

Song:    Lord I’m Coming Home

              (sit and listen to soloist)

Stand and Pray

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