The Frost of a Cold Heart

After a speech, pro life activist Penny Lea was approached by an old man.
 Weeping, he told her that he had lived in Germany during the Nazi holocaust. The entire town had heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but like most people today in this country, they tried to distance themselves from the reality of what was really taking place. What could anyone do to stop it A railroad track ran behind their small church. One Sunday morning, they became disturbed when they noticed cries for help coming from the train as it passed by.  They grimly realized that the train was carrying Jews.
He then said, “Its was so terribly disturbing! We could do nothing to help these poor miserable people, yet their screams tormented us. We knew exactly at what time that whistle would blow and we decided the only way to keep from being so disturbed by the cries was to start singing hymns. By the time that train came rumbling past the church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears, we would just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more.
Years have passed  and no one talks about it much anymore, but I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christian and yet did nothing to intervene.”

The Bible forewarns us with the knowledge that the end days will be very difficult, dangerous and violent. With each passing day a new story emerges that reminds us of just how unsafe and unstable our world is as we stand in the shadows of the end of the age. In fact, we seem to have heard such stories so often that the shock value does not register as high as it once did.
However, to think such stories no longer have an impact on our lives would be false. In Matthew 24:12, Jesus said concerning the last days, “And because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold.” The word “iniquity” means lawlessness, rebellion and wickedness. The implication is that the more the world runs wild, the greater the risk we face of becoming hard and calloused. Whenever we hear of crime, conflicts and violence, we have a tendency to close up and go into self-preservation mode.

 We are afraid to open the door to those who are strangers. We look the other way from hitchhikers on the side of the road. We stand at a distance to avoid making eye contact with the homeless. We keep the doors of our churches locked and bolted. 

The lines are slowly being blurred between shyness and coldness, silence and indifference and being guarded and uncaring.

I like what A.W. Tozer wrote: “Keep me, Lord, from ever hardening down into the state of being just another average Christian.”

Consider with me the ways that we are growing cold.

The forming of selfish instincts.
In II Timothy 3:2, Paul prophetically pointed to a sign of misplaced love in the last days. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves“…. . It is describing someone too intent on their own interest. The moment a child is born, a self-love is firmly enthroned in their hearts. They yell. My ball!” “My spoon” or “My doll!” if that child is not taught to share, take turns or think of others, they will grow into adults who live for self and self alone. Such hearts become the breeding ground for aggressive, competitive spirits consumed with taking rather than giving.
The mentality of pursuing pleasure, success and material treasures at all cost has made idols of things and  devalued human life. 
On the one end of life, the vast majority of abortions are being performed out of selfish convenience. 
On the other end of life, I expect to see in my lifetime when caring for the aged and feeble will so cramp the lifestyles of their children that the aged will be removed so the inheritance is not wasted. Ultimately, to live at the expense or exclusion of others can only produce a miserable existence.

 Charles H Parkhurst wrote, “The man who lives by himself and for himself is apt to be corrupted by the company he keeps.” 
A man cannot help but grow cold when he has cut himself off from everything and everyone that could have provided warmth.

The fear of social injury.
In II Timothy 3:3, Paul registered a second sign of deformed love in the last days, noting they would be
“without natural affection…” It is describing someone unsocial and unloving towards even those of ones
own family: someone without a natural obligation of love.
 No matter whom we engage in life, involvement calls for investment and investment implies risk. Wherever love exists there is always the vulnerability of being hurt. 
We have all been used, conned, and manipulated and taken advantage of. Such experiences in life can leave us bitter and cynical. It then seems natural to begin seeking means to insulate ourselves from such hurt and disappointment. However the greater the attempt to keep our hearts unbroken, the more we are becoming unbreakable. 

When we talk of the changes in the last thirty years of the church, we can easily identify the worship styles, leadership styles and preaching methods. But, I wonder how many have noticed the dryness in our eyes? We no longer see tears born out of a sense of desperation. We are solemn at a time when there is so much which should cause us to weep.

 F.B. Meyer wrote, “ I believe that if there is one thing which pierces the Masters heart with unutterable grief it is not the worlds iniquity but the church’s indifference.” 

While the darkness may cast shadows and raise fears, it is not the night that brings death, but rather the chilling frost. 

Just because life can be hard does not mean that we have to be.

The forsaking of spiritual intimacy.
In II Timothy 3:4, Paul noted a final sign of declining love in the last days when he said they would be “…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God…” This does not imply that God is against honest pleasure. The psalmist said “..at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” The idea is that a love for God is replaced with a burning desire for pleasure. In Revelation 2, Jesus said that the church in Ephesus was a working, disciplined and persevering church. However, in spite of their activity, He said, “…thou hast left thy first love.” It was not they they stopped loving the Lord, but rather that they did not love Him as they once did.  The busyness had produced barrenness and their passionate fire was gone. The moment our service becomes hollow and habitual is the moment we risk it becoming hypocritical.

Ugandan minister Festo Kivengere said, “Spiritual indifference is always the result of losing God at the center and source of spiritual vitality.”

After Moses received the 10 Commandments, he had to wear a veil because of the glow of Gods glory on his countenance. Over time, the glow would fade from his appearance.

We seem to live in a world of veiled Christianity today. But perhaps, the veil is only to cover the shameful fact that the glow is gone. When a man has been with the Lord, he cannot hide it nor deny it.

In Matthew 24:7, as Jesus spoke of the signs of the last days, He noted, “and earthquakes, in divers places.”

 I’ve wondered, of all the natural disasters Jesus could have mentioned, why did He single out
earthquakes ?

Perhaps Jesus was signaling the fact that in the last days, men will be so hardened that there will be few things left to shake him. With all this happening in our world today, could it be that the Lord is trying to stir us?

The choice is ours to either respond or strike up the band and sing the 30th round of a chorus just a little louder, as the train car full of lost souls makes its way down the tracks.

A Crisis is Coming

President Obama recently made the statement, in effect, that anyone who tells us the economic situation in the United States is not getting better is "peddling fiction." This he said despite the fact that the debt clock is ticking at a rate that will soon have Americans and generations to come owing beyond $20 trillion. Extrapolated out over an extended number of years, some economists are saying unfunded liabilities of this nation amount to in excess of $200 trillion.

Like it or not, believe it or not, you and I are being swept along by the tide of human history toward something profoundly ominous. Hourly news accounts, no matter how much they’ve been doctored to try to present a recovering national and global economic picture, engender fearful concerns about things to come. It is almost impossible to grasp the causes and effects of the evil shaping and moving America and the world toward a destiny the supposed best minds on the planet can’t determine. However, that inability to define the problems, much less find solutions, doesn’t stop them from making seemingly wild stabs at trying to channel all of us into a drastically changed economic national and world order.

But, are their attempts really wild stabs, or is there method to their madness? History is replete with attempts to reshape national and even global economic realities. Money equals power and power exerts control upon this fallen planet. Power is the ultimate endgame of all who seek it for themselves. Henry Kissinger put it this way: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

The declaration can be understood in recalling the most ancient of accounts of an infamous personality seeking the greatest of all power:
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isaiah 14:13–14)

Humankind's determination to do the same—acquire the power to which the angel named Lucifer aspired—hasn’t changed since the serpent first told Eve that she and Adam would be like God if they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree (see Genesis 3:5). Tracing the serpent’s trail of power madness to a later time recorded in the Bible (Genesis chapter 11), Nimrod was the would-be one-world- order builder of his day, following the Great Flood of Noah’s time. He, like every megalomaniac since, lusted for God-like power.

Man’s lust for power continues to grow; he has not learned the lessons of the past because, as a whole, he regards the Word of God as irrelevant to the governance of the earth. One philosopher of renown, George Santayana, put it this way: “He who does not remember history is condemned to repeat it.”


The corruption that God saw and condemned in antediluvian times, which caused Him to destroy all upon the earth except eight people, has again reached a dangerous level.

Dictators prove the truth of another bit of philosophical wisdom, this by Lord Edward Acton: “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

In my estimation we see this level of power being sought in the words and actions of the current presidential administration. Circumventing the U.S. Constitution at every opportunity because this president has "a phone and a pen" poses a danger to this republic. To at the same time have another branch of government that is supposed to act as a check and balance to an out-of-control executive, yet does nothing to present opposition, creates real and present danger to this nation.

While mainstream media types of network and cable seemingly sway acceptingly in the mesmerizing economic flute notes of the charmer -- the real peddler of fiction -- the immediate future looks ominously bleak, according to true financial experts who are without the benefit of the mainstream's ubiquitous microphones and cameras to get out their warning. The nation and the world are about to experience economic collapse the likes of which has never occurred, is their message.

These are most all in agreement. There will come a trigger point, or a tipping point. This will be one moment in time, and it will prick the immense financial bubble that the money powers that be have manipulated to this point of crisis we face.

My own belief continues to be that it is God's great hand of control rather than the would-be economic masters that has prevented the bubble from bursting. The crisis awaits the moment in time when the Lord, Himself, will burst the bubble.

If one studies carefully the news of late, it becomes clear that the term "cashless system" is coming more and more into vogue.

The economic gurus at the highest levels -- in human terms and in supernatural, satanic terms -- seem to be preparing a system of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). They want to do away with physical currency and go to the cashless, computer system so they can carry out their sleight-of-hand, monetary machinations electronically.

The marks-and-numbers system of economics of Revelation 13:16-18 is more than just on the drawing board. We are seeing it come to pass in our daily news. All that is required for its implementation is the crisis that will bring it forward. I am convinced that crisis will be created by the Rapture of all who place their complete trust in the finished work of the Cross of Christ.