The danger of being cold

Some retrograde say : "I can reconcile myself with the Lord as soon as I decide. It's just that I'm not ready for now. I am not angry with God. I just need time with my friends, time to have fun. I know that God is full of love and merciful, so when I am ready, I will come back to Him. I will know when this time will come." I hear these thoughts especially among the young people who have gone away.

The Holy Spirit urged me to show you the danger of being cold. It is not that God turns away from those who are retrograde ; His grace is continually offered. The blood of Christ to sinners will never lose its power, but the spiritual coldness to a powerful and predictable effect. It leads to the hardening of the heart.

The term "hardening" indicates a condition that is insensitive to the influence of any action of grace, any persuasion on the part of the Holy Spirit. It starts with coldness - a self-inflicted exclusion of God, with no intention of obeying the call of His gospel. To continue in coldness when one hears the voice of God - remaining distant from the Holy Spirit - will lead to a hardening.

Paul speaks of this when he says that before the return of Christ : "Apostasy must have come before" (2 Thessalonians 2: 3). He speaks of a mass apostasy, which will be followed by the liberation of the spirit of the Antichrist. Those who "have not received the love of truth" (2:10) will fall under a great seduction. They will take lies for the truth. And those who turn away from Him who is the truth will perish (2:10).

The Epistle to the Hebrews offers this warning : "Take heed, brethren, that one of you has a bad and incredulous heart, to the point of turning away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as one can say : Today ! So that none of you will harden by the seduction of sin" (Hebrews 3: 12-13).

David Wilkerson