THE CURE FOR COLDNESS

“And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter...And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself.”

( Jn.10:22;18:18)

My mentor, Evangelist Dr. Joe Henry Hankins, used to say, “Peter was at the fire but not on fire.” This was not true of my teacher’s life. The old Methodist preacher, Fighting Bob Shuler, wrote in an introduction of one of Dr. Hankins’ books that he was “a steam engine in britches.” That old man’s wick burned all the way down to the end! Just before his death, while in a meeting, I asked him to preach a message just for me, a young evangelist. His answer, “I’ll do it, sonny boy.” That Sunday evening he preached on Caleb, “The man who served God eighty-five years and never failed Him once.”

The secret to long service is fervency; it will take care of any cold around you. When Jesus prayed, we are told that He sweat. Interestingly, it was in the cold of winter. As the Puritan said, “He was clothed in fervency.” It was the fervent prayer of a righteous man that James speaks of. Jesus’ service to His God was as a white-hot poker, if you please. It is said of David Brainard, missionary to the American Indian, that in winter he would wrap himself in a blanket to pray and that the snow around him would melt. Is this not what Paul teaches us when he admonishes us to be “fervent in spirit”?

We are told of the Old Testament sacrifice upon the altar, “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out,” Lv. 13:6. We need once again, as Isaiah of old, to have the Lord touch us with live coals from off the altar. Jeremiah had a holy fire raging within him for his God. As one old saint said, “The fire that is within me does not desire any water.” The early saints new nothing of artificial fireplaces; you weren’t left cold when sitting around theirs, you felt warm all over! Some of us need to, as my dad would do when I was a boy, stoke the coals in our old potbelly stove.

“The fire that was within the Martyrs was greater than that which burned without, at their feet.”

(rds)