Come before winter
Second Part

And the answer is: Oh, Timothy, don't you know? Did not anybody tell you? Paul was beheaded in December. You know, Timothy, every time the jailer put the key to the door of his cell, he thought you had come. Before he died, his last words were: "Please tell Timothy, my son in the faith, that I love him. Tell him that when he comes."

What is the message to us at a decisive time as a New Year-"Come Before Winter"? The message is that we should come before winter, that is, we should respond at the right time to every opportunity for love and service that God opens to us, and to every opportunity for newness. In other words we don't procrastinate, we don't dillydally, we don't postpone it. For in many ways the words of the poem are right: The clock of life is wound but once,

And no one has the power To tell just when the hand will stop,

At late or early hour Now is the time we have;

Live, love and work with a will,

Don't wait until tomorrow; For the clock by then be still.

What are some of the situations in our life today that prod us to "come before winter," to do something now while it is still possible, to do something before the clock is still?

The most fundamental thing for us to come to terms with before it is too late has to do with our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our poem last Christmas season which says to us a million words about personal relationship with Christ is this:

Though Christ a thousand times In Bethlehem be born,

If he's not born in thee,

Thy soul is still forlorn.

The cross on Golgotha

Will never save thy soul.

The cross in thine own heart

Alone can make thee whole.

My friends, Jesus is the most important Reality in our lives. And yet we could be sitting in the pew in this Church Sunday after Sunday all these years, but our lives have not been given over to Jesus Christ. There are great names that we name; there are those persons dearest to us in life; but no one can ultimately take his place. For it is from an abiding experience to be able to declare that Jesus Christ stands all-supreme, all-sufficient, all-adequate for you and me - whether we be young or old, poor or rich, whether we be ignorant or wise. St. Paul wrote: "No one who believes in Christ will be put to shame." So as someone said to me recently:

As long as the human heart has passions, as long as the Human spirit is assailed by temptations, as long as sin and Death inflict their powerful wounds, Christ is absolutely my Master and Lord. (TO BE CONTINUED)*

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