Spiritual Hypothermia

The steamship Titanik was plowing through the waters of the North Atlantic ocean on its maiden voyage from England to New York. A little before midnight, some of the more than 2,000 passengers and crew aboard the Titanik heard and felt a shock as the ship scraped along the side of an iceberg. They had no way of knowing it, but in two hours and twenty minutes, the Titanik, that supposedly un-singable ship, would sink the surface as lunged almost two and a half aions to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.

Out of 2,220 passengers and crew, only 705, roughly a third, found their way onto life. However, the others on the ship had a kind of life preserver, much like our modern life preservers that wrapped around the torso, to keep a person from drowning. The Titanik slowly began seeking, and there was no room on the lifeboats filled up.

Many passengers jumped up the water, lying on their life preservers to save them. What they didn't know was that every single person on the Titanik was not able to make it onto one of the lifeboats. It was doomed the moment they hit the water. Most of the people on the Titanik didn't drown, which sounds unusual to us. But when the first boats, risky boats, arrived on the scene here, they found literally hundreds of bodies bobbing their in the water, held up by their life preservers. What the people on the Titanik didn't know is that once they hit the water of the north of lightning, and the temperature of the water was just a little bit before freezing, the people in the water had somewhere between 15 and 45 beds to live.

They were doomed to die of hypothermia. How many of you have seen the movie, Titanic, one of the most popular movies here a number of times? You may remember the closing scenes on the Titanik when all these people were thrashing around the water, looking for debris, and so on to find some way to stay afloat there. And in the closing minutes, it gets quieter and quieter. The voice is crying for help and rescue and so on.

And that's a very accurate depiction of what happened because one by one, the people succumbed to hypothermia there. And again, when the lifeboats came back among their all they found were bodies and bodies, hundreds of bodies. And that's a very accurate depiction of what happened on that tragic night. And hypothermia is a term that most of us have probably heard about, particularly if you've lived out here in the Mountain West for very long. Hypothermia is the number one killer of people who are involved in outdoor activities every year. Activities like hunting, hiking, boating, and that sort of thing. And here in Colorado, we typically hear of several cases each year of people dying of hypothermia.

And it's only been in recent decades that scientists, researchers have come to understand how the process of how a person dies from hypothermia. Maybe you remember when I was growing up and a young man, we would hear cases of what was called exposure. Somebody would get lost in the woods and they would die of exposure. That was the term that was called back then.

Now, researchers know that what was commonly called dying of exposure decades ago was cases of people dying of hypothermia. So what is hypothermia? Hypothermia is a condition where the body loses body heat faster than it can generate body heat. And as the body loses the heat, and as it grows colder and colder, the body actually begins a systematic process of shutting down.

And different parts of the body shut down in sequence. The key parts for the body—and God designed this this way—are the heart and the lungs, because it's what keeps the body alive. The heart keeps the blood beating and circulating. The lungs keep us breathing. So in the process of hypothermia, the body takes heat away from the extremities. And that's why when it gets cold, what gets cold first?

Our fingers, our toes, our ears, the outer parts of the body. And it's designed that way to channel the heat to the internal organs, to the heart, the lungs, to keep the body alive and functioning that way. And that is a defense mechanism that's built into the body to keep us alive.

So the body sacrifices the heat going to our fingers and toes and ears there. And losing this body heat can be—and it is—deadly. Our normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees. But if our body drops to only 90 degrees, what happens? Well, the heart starts slowing down to about two beats per minute. And we basically stop breathing at 90 degrees, only a drop of a little over eight, nine degrees. At 77 degrees, body temperature, the body simply can no longer function anymore. The heart stops and the person is clinically dead at 77 degrees.

Losing that much body heat can take anywhere from several hours to as little as 15 minutes, depending on various factors—the temperature, the type of clothing the person is wearing, whether the person is wet, and things like that.

Hypothermia kills somewhere between several hundred and several thousand people a year. No one is sure exactly how many people it kills, because in a lot of cases the deaths appear to be caused by other things. For example, in the example of the Titanic that I mentioned earlier, the official cause of death listed for two-thirds of those people on the ship was drowning. Even though when they recovered the bodies, most of them had no water in their lungs whatsoever, which proves that they didn't die of drowning.

They died of hypothermia. We know that now. People didn't know and understand that then. It's possible that as many as half of all modern-day drownings occur not from drowning, but from hypothermia, where somebody falls out of a boat and they can't manage to climb back into the boat, their body starts getting cold because of the water, and they start losing their abilities to control the body.

They simply slip under the water, and apparently they drown, but they've really died of hypothermia. Same thing with hunters and hikers. A lot of deaths are listed as heart attacks or heart failures, when in reality they died of hypothermia. The body just shut down. The heart stopped. Yes, it was heart failure, but it wasn't caused by a heart attack. It was caused by hypothermia. We just don't know about a lot of those cases here. But why should we be concerned about hypothermia? What does it have to do with us here today?

Does hypothermia have anything to do with our lives as Christians? As we'll see in the sermon today, hypothermia has a lot to do with us and our lives as Christians because hypothermia has taken the lives of thousands of people in God's church over the years. And it will probably take the lives of many, many more. But I'm not talking here now about physical hypothermia. I'm talking about spiritual hypothermia. Spiritual hypothermia has claimed the lives of many thousands in God's church over the years. And this is the title of today's sermon, the danger of spiritual hypothermia.

Spiritual hypothermia is something that God warns us about repeatedly. Something that prophecy says is going to happen as the time of the end draws near. And it's something that we need to be sure to guard against, to be aware of, to know about so we can prepare ourselves against it.

So just what is this condition of spiritual hypothermia that I'm referring to, and what does God's word say about it? Let's begin over in Matthew 24 and verse 3. Matthew 24, a very familiar prophecy to us that Jesus Christ gives shortly before his death. And what does it tell us about the spiritual condition of God's people as the time of the end draws near, leading up to Christ's return?

Let's begin in verse 3. And we read, Now as he, Jesus, sat on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem, the disciples came to him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of this age? And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows. So Jesus is here talking about the conditions and the trends that will exist and intensify at the time of the end of the age. And there are many horrible things that will take place because, as he says here, these are the beginning of sorrows. They get much worse after this. But now Jesus shifts gears from what he is talking about here. He's been talking about the world as a whole, but now he shifts gears and starts talking directly to his people, to his followers, his people in the end time.

Because notice his change of wording. He says, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you. And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. The love of many will grow cold. And that's what I'm talking about, this spiritual hypothermia here, growing cold. And Christ did not say that the love of a few would grow cold, or the love of a scattered handful here and there would grow cold, but that he said the love of many will grow cold.

The Greek word that is used here means a large number, or a large multitude. The new international version translates this as, the love of most will grow cold. So this will affect a large number of people, not just a few scattered here and there. So it's a very sobering warning here that we ought to pay attention to. We find another warning about this over in Revelation 3, verse 15. And this is part of God's warning to the Laodicean church. But at the same time, reading through, the book of Revelation is clear in chapters 2 and 3, and the messages to the seven churches, as Mr.

Jones brought out in his series on this, a while back, that these messages apply to all of God's people throughout all history, throughout all times. And God here describes the spiritual problem of this particular group of people.

He says, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish that you were cold or hot. So then, because you were lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Not a pretty sight. It's pretty graphic, pretty blunt language here.

So Jesus is here in this message talking about church members who are lukewarm. How do you get lukewarm? Well, there's two ways. If you've been to L you know what is being discussed there. Two types of water. It had hot water source from hot springs that would come to the city.

But the distance was such that the hot water on its way to the city became lukewarm because it cooled off and was tepid by the time it ran through the pipes and aqueducts and reached the city. In the same way, the city also had access to cool water from snow and nearby mountains. But that water also became lukewarm by the time it got to the city. So you're talking about cool, refreshing water or hot, soothing water, and they were both lukewarm by the time they got to the city of Laodicea.

This is what is being alluded to here. So you can take something that is cool and refreshing, the cool snow melt water, and it becomes lukewarm and bitter tasting. The water did have a lot of minerals in it, so it was bitter tasting. Or you can have hot water from these hot springs that has cooled off to the point that it's tepid and has lost its therapeutic values there. So that is what is being referred to here. And those living in Laodicea certainly understood that because they deal with this water every day.

So Jesus has some very harsh things to say here about those. This Laodicea is an attitude because they become lukewarm. They start out zealous, they start out committed for God's work, for his way of life, but they let that love grow cold. They let that flame burn out. And they grow lukewarm. And this is a spiritual hypothermia that I'm talking about something. So it's something that we do need to take very seriously and something that can take away our eternal life if we are not careful.

I began this sermon with a pretty lengthy background on physical hypothermia because the spiritual hypothermia that Jesus Christ is talking and warning about here and in Matthew 24 works the same way. The parallels between physical hypothermia and spiritual hypothermia are striking. And the safeguards that we take to prevent physical hypothermia are actually the same safeguards we use to prevent spiritual hypothermia.

And this subject is important to me, is very near and dear to my heart, because I'll talk about this a little later in the sermon. Several decades ago, I found myself in a situation with a group of high-packers, where several of us came very close to dying of hypothermia.

So this is a deadly, serious subject to me because of that personal experience. So let's now go through some of the aspects of how hypothermia occurs and what we can do to protect ourselves against it. And also, how to treat ourselves if we are already afflicted with it. So the first point in preventing hypothermia is very simple. See, old boy Scout motto, be prepared. Be prepared. Hypothermia comes unexpectedly.

Nobody goes out deer hunting or elk hunting expecting to get lost and to freeze to death. Nobody goes out hiking expecting to be caught in a sudden storm and to get wet and cold and to die before they can get back down off the mountain. Hypothermia comes when you're not expecting it. People get caught in unexpected circumstances.

They don't have the right kind of clothing. They aren't prepared, and it ends up killing them. And the same thing is true of spiritual hypothermia. We have to realize that spiritual hypothermia is a very real, a very present danger. It's a threat to our eternal life, and we need to be prepared for that. But how do you prevent hypothermia? Most people die of hypothermia because they're not wearing the right kind of clothing. They're not wearing the right kind of clothing. So what kind of clothing should we be wearing to prevent spiritual hypothermia? God's Word specifically talks about the kind of clothing that we should be wearing as Christians.

One place we find that is Revelation 19 and verse 7. This is a prophecy of the Church, of the spiritual body of Christ, and of our future, and of what we have to be doing right now to have a part in that future. Revelation 19, verse 7. Sorry, I have 17 up there, but it's actually verse 7. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. And his wife, referring to the Church, has made herself ready.

And to her it was granted to be a raid and fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. So God's Word pictures his Church as being clothed with what? With righteous acts. In other words, with good works. There, that is the clothing that the Church is depicted as wearing at the marriage supper between Jesus Christ and his Church. This is the kind of clothing that God expects us to be wearing. We are to be clothed with righteous acts.

That is to be a characteristic of our lives. Is it important that we wear this type of clothing? The Bible tells us something else about our clothing in another event, a parable by Jesus Christ, talking about this same marriage supper in Matthew 22, verses 11-14. We find a parable about this, a parable of the wedding feast, as it is commonly called.

This gives us more detail about this same event, about this marriage supper, to Jesus Christ and the Church that we just read about in Revelation. It talks here about how a king, who is the king in this? The king is God the Father, and he arranges a great wedding feast for his son, who is the son. The son is Jesus Christ, of course. The king invites many people, all kinds of people, to the wedding feast. But one of the guests is in for a big surprise.

He thought he was ready for the wedding feast, but he wasn't. So we pick up the story here, Matthew 22 and verse 11. When the king, picturing God, came in to see the guests who were gathered there for the banquet, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So this particular guest is not dressed appropriately for this wedding feast. So he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And the man is speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. So in this parable about the wedding feast, the marriage supper of Jesus Christ, this man shows up without a wedding garment. He's unprepared. He took this invitation to the feast lightly, the invitation to be married to Jesus Christ. And in this parable, what happens to the man? As we read here, he's thrown out, not just thrown out. He's thrown out into outer darkness, oblivion, you might say, because he did not come prepared.

He did not think it was important enough to wear the right kind of clothing. He was not prepared. He wasn't wearing, as we read about earlier in Revelation, the righteous acts of the saints. So our first step in preparing, preventing spiritual hypothermia is to be sure that we are wearing the right kind of clothing to prevent spiritual hypothermia.

We need to be clothed with righteous acts, with good works. We need to make sure that we don't grow weary in well-doing. Or for some reason, as happens in case with hypothermia, people have been documented to actually remove their clothing because their brain isn't functioning right. And they actually hasten their deaths in doing so.

Or in some cases, they simply never put on the clothing to begin with as the man and the parable that we just read about. So these are some of the ways we leave ourselves vulnerable to spiritual hypothermia. What's another factor in preventing hypothermia? We've covered the importance of proper clothing.

But another factor in preventing hypothermia is to eat enough of the right food. To eat enough of the right food beforehand so your body has the fuel that it needs to generate heat. Our human body is magnificently designed, but it basically functions like any other engine. What happens to an engine when it doesn't have enough fuel? It runs out of gas and it shuts down. And it stops. Our bodies are like that as well. When they don't get enough fuel, in the case of hypothermia, where external factors are causing it to run slower and so on, that process has accelerated it. When our bodies are not a fuel, we call it starvation.

But when a person has hypothermia, the definition of hypothermia is when the body is losing heat faster than it can regenerate that heat. And if a person doesn't have enough fuel inside himself or herself to generate the heat, to generate the energy to keep the body functioning, he gets colder and colder and colder, and the body starts shutting down, as I described earlier.

And if nothing happens to intervene or halt or reverse that process, the person dies. What does the Bible say about what we eat and what we drink? How that can help us prevent spiritual hypothermia. Let's notice over in John 6 and verse 32, and here we find some details about the kind of spiritual food that we need.

And to give you some context for this, this happens not long after Jesus performs the miracle of feeding several thousand people through the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish. So, we'll pick up the story here.

That's the background for this. So verse 32 of John 6, Then they send him, Lord, give us this bread always. They're referring there to manna and the miracle there. And these people are wanting another meal like Jesus had performed by miraculously multiplying the loaves and fishes. But Jesus tells them something important here about what the true bread is that they should be desiring to eat. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, So what he is saying here, obviously some take this as meaning you literally eat the body of Christ as is taught in one major religion, but what he's talking about here is we need to have a personal relationship with him, a very deep and close personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And that is the only way that we can have eternal life. We have to come to Jesus Christ. We have to believe in him. We have to believe him. We have to follow him. And we have to maintain that close and deep personal relationship with him. And that is partaking of the bread of life. Very important, very key to our ultimate salvation and to preventing spiritual hypothermia.

There's another kind of spiritual food that we need to be partaking in. And we find this over in Matthew 4, verses 1-4. This is where Jesus was being tempted by Satan the devil in the wilderness, just as he is about to begin his public ministry. And at this point, Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. He certainly knew what it meant to be without food. So picking up the story, Matthew 4, verse 1, Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry. You bet he was hungry, absolutely. I've been in that environment there, and it is hot, it is humid, it is miserable even under the best of circumstances. Now when the tempter came to him, the tempter said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But Jesus answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So what he says here, very plainly, is we need more to sustain our lives than just the physical food that we partake of, physical bread or other kinds of physical food.

We also must live by every word of God. By every word of God, we need to be looking into the Bible. In other words, we need to be studying God's word. We need to be learning more about it every day, because it is God's instruction manual for us.

And that will help provide us the spiritual food, the spiritual nourishment that we need to prevent spiritual hypothermia. And God provides us that spiritual food through His word, through the Bible, through many other forms, through the various resources the Church provides. Many other wonderful tools are available to us to learn more about God's word, the Bible, and how to apply it.

So we need to be really drawing close to God through studying and applying and living by His word, through the words that He has provided for us, and also through having that close relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the second key here to help prevent spiritual hypothermia, to be sure that we are eating enough of the right kind of food through our personal relationship with the bread of life and through partaking of God's word. Another aspect of preventing hypothermia is that we also need a proper amount of water.

Why is this important? Well, our bodies are, I don't remember the percentage, something like 80% water. And the water balance in our body is very important to keeping our bodies functioning properly. Very, very important there to not only function properly in normal circumstances, but also to help prevent hypothermia as well. Let's notice a spiritual application of this over in John 7 and verse 37. And here we read something in the Bible about the spiritual water that we should be taking in to keep our lives functioning properly.

Setting for this is the Feast of Tabernacles. We read this every year at the feast or on the eighth day. Verse 37, on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

But there's a little more into the story. Jesus is talking here about a physical act that took place there at the end of the feast where there was what was called the water-pouring ceremony. And this takes place. And apparently Jesus is talking about this water-pouring ceremony there to make a bigger spiritual point to the people of Israel. It's fairly long and involved. No one takes the time to get into that. But then it's the context for what Jesus is talking about here. So he says, Let him come to me. If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water, life-giving, refreshing water.

But this he spoke, what he's really talking about, is the Spirit, the Spirit of God, which those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So we see here there is another type of nourishment that we need. Other than the physical bread and physical food, we need to be taking in of God's Spirit as well to properly prevent spiritual hypothermia. We need to be allowing that Spirit to work within us, to change us, to convert us, to feed us, to draw us nearer to God the Father and Jesus Christ.

We may continually be becoming more like them every day. So to prevent spiritual hypothermia, we need to do several things that we've talked about here. We need to be wearing the right kind of clothing. We need to be eating enough of the right kind of food. But we also need to be drinking enough of the right kind of water, utilizing God's Spirit within us.

The kind of water that He provides for us, and the kind of food that He provides. So these are some of the tools that we need to prevent hypothermia. But that's not enough. You can still have the right tools, but you can still die of hypothermia.

Because in addition to taking these steps to prevent hypothermia, we also need to recognize the symptoms of it. And this is very important, too. Because the main reason that hypothermia kills so many people is that they don't realize what is happening until it's too late.

They don't realize what's happening until it's too late. One of the more tragic stories that I came across in researching this message was a case where a couple, husband and wife, went cross-country skiing. They had their two-year-old son strapped in a carrier on the father's back. They were out cross-country skiing. Everything was going fine. Beautiful day. They stopped for a rest, and they noticed that the boy in the father's back, their two-year-old, seemed tired, seemed sleepy. But they didn't think much about it, so they keep going. They stopped for another rest break, and the boy is dead.

The boy is dead because they didn't recognize the symptoms of hypothermia. They just didn't realize what was going on, and it cost their son's life.

Do we recognize the symptoms of spiritual hypothermia? I like to go through the symptoms of physical hypothermia. This is, again, rather amazing because the parallels with spiritual hypothermia are amazing. I'll read through some of these and see if you recognize these possible symptoms in yourself. The first symptom of the onset of hypothermia—I alluded to this earlier— is losing heat in the extremities of the body. Again, the way hypothermia progresses is it draws the heat away from our fingers, our toes, our ears, and so on. This applies not just to our physical bodies, but to the spiritual body as well—the body that we are a part of. For many years, we have talked about the importance of staying close to the trunk of the tree. In other words, staying close to the major and the majors. Pay attention to the important things. Don't get off on the branches of the tree where the twigs are out there. Don't get obsessed and spend so much of our time and effort on those things that really aren't all that important. Stay close to the trunk of the tree where it's solid and stable and the branches aren't going to break off and leave you falling to the ground there. We mean by that that those who are close to the trunk of the tree, who are solidly grounded in the truth and paying attention to that, aren't going to be out on a limb where it's easy to get shaken off or the limb breaks off. All too often, those who give up on this way of life are those who are out on the fringes, really focusing on unimportant, twiggy things. They're much more vulnerable out there. The cold, again, sets in first in the body at the extremities, the very outermost parts of the body. So we need to avoid that in our lives. We need to remember the bigger picture and always keep that in mind. A second major symptom of the onset of hypothermia is lethargy, lagging behind, and losing interest. The same comments apply here. If we are losing interest in our spiritual growth, if we're losing interest in the church, and being an active part of the body for not participating to the extent that we can, and we should, for not growing in grace and knowledge, for not studying God's Word, the food that I talked about earlier, for not building a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, as we talked about earlier, those may be symptoms of spiritual hypothermia sitting in, for not praying and studying as we should. We need to take a good, long look at ourselves and see whether we may be in danger of spiritual hypothermia.

This leads to a third major symptom of spiritual hypothermia and physical hypothermia. That is confusion and clouded judgment. Confusion and clouded judgment. People who are experiencing hypothermia often don't realize that's what is going on. They don't realize what is happening to them. Their documented cases of people with hypothermia, who their judgment is so clouded, they literally start taking off their clothing, which only hastens the onset and the symptoms of hypothermia and ends up costing their lives.

They didn't realize what their affliction was, and it had so affected their thinking that they started getting rid of their only protection, the last protection they had, their clothing. They didn't realize that they were in the process of dying. They actually hastened their death by not recognizing the symptoms. I'd like to read to you a section of an article that I read in preparing this. It says, there are many symptoms of hypothermia, but it is usually another person who recognizes them.

Frequently, the person experiencing the symptoms becomes too disoriented to realize what is happening. Ignore a victim's protest that everything is okay. Denial of being cold is common, and a hypothermic person may truly believe everything is alright. The victim's judgment is impaired, and he usually wants to drift off to sleep, which could be permanent. I want to tell you a personal story. Again, I've been thinking about this subject for several decades. This concerns a backpacking trip in the Wind River Range of Wyoming many years ago.

My wife and I were there, along with six other people. It was a week-long backpacking trip on this particular day. This was our second day in, I believe. On this particular leg of our week-long trip, that particular day was a very rough day. We had a long, 1,000-foot climb up out of one valley, and then we had to cross a plateau, and then drop down. We were going to camp for the next night over in the adjacent valley.

We had this long, hard slog up out of this valley. As we were climbing up, several storm fronts blew through. We got rained on, we got sleeted on as we were hiking up the mountain. We were already above tree line, so we had to hunker down because we're up above tree line. We got struck by lightning, so we got delayed quite a while on our climb up over to this plateau.

Then on top of the mountain, this plateau, we had this long snow field. This is in July, and the snow field really bogged us down. There was no way around the snow field because we have a mountain on this side, then the snow field, and then it drops off in a sheer cliff. Several feet down on the other side. There's no way to get around the snow field. We've got to go through it. Again, this is July. This is pre-internet days, so we didn't know that the previous winter had been a particularly heavy snowfall up there, so the snow is still really deep, even in July. It took us several hours to get across this snow field because as we were walking along, we would every so often break through the hard crust of the snow, the icy crust, and sink in up to our waist.

We don't know how deep the snow is, we just know that we'd sink in up to our waist. I learned later there's a term for this called post-holing. If any of you have ever dug post-holes, you walk along in the snow and boom, your leg creates a post-hole. You sink in up to your crotch and your waist, and then you have to reach back behind you and dig your foot and heel out of the snow and pull yourself forward.

Take another few steps, then same thing again. Take another few steps, happens again. And this kept happening again and again and again, every few steps. As we're crossing this long snow field here, we'd crush through the ice and up to our waist. And of course in that process, we're getting exhausted, we're cold, we're wet, because we're wearing blue jeans and stuff like that, totally inappropriate clothing for those conditions. And on top of all that, a wind starts coming up and the wind chill starts increasing there. And so we're stuck here, making very slow progress across this mountain, and it's getting darker.

Not dark yet, but we realize we have to get down into the next valley because that's where our campsites are, that's where treeline is, and so on. And I realize as we're going through this, by the way, these are not my photos. I was too busy trying not to die to take photos at that moment. So these are just some for illustrative purposes here. But I realized we're in real trouble. And the thought hit me that we can't keep doing this, taking a few steps and crashing through the crust of the snow.

So I took off my backpack, which I weighed before we left. It was over 70 pounds. And I took off Connie's backpack, and I took some cord and tied them together. Because I realized, concentrating the weight on one foot after another, that's why we're crashing through. So I figured we've got to spread out the weight. So I tie our backpacks together, and I get down on my belly and start crawling and pulling, crawling on one hand and my knees and feet, and pulling the two backpacks with the other hand.

And that's the only way we could make progress, getting across the snow field here. So by spreading out the weight, it worked. So the eight people in our group all got very cold, very chilled, very wet, from crawling through the ice and the snow. And again, the wind is picked up now. It's starting to get dark. The wind is blowing across there. There's no trees.

There's no shelter. There's no anything to protect us. And we realized we've got to get down off this mountaintop or we're going to die. And about that time, some members of our group started showing the symptoms of hypothermia, this lethargy, this exhaustion, this lagging behind. And it was more than exhaustion.

Some of them just stopped thinking clearly. Their judgment was becoming confused and clouded. We still had a long way to go because the trail finished over the plateau, but then went angled down into this valley, to the head of the valley, and then angled back. And down way below us, we could see the lake and the tree line and where we were going to camp the next night. But if we kept going on that trail and it was still largely snowed in, there's no way we were going to get there before dark. So we had to make a tough decision.

Do we keep doing that? When some of our people are already starting to shiver uncontrollably, literally, their lips are turning blue, and we realize we don't have time for that. So we had to make a beeline down this boulder-strung scree slope, straight down, as straight as we could, picking our way through these boulders to get down there to start a fire and to cook some food and to get in our sleeping bags and warm up. And some of those who were the worst symptoms of hypothermia didn't want to go on. They just wanted to lay down and rest. And it could have been fatal to do that.

It would have been fatal to do that. I won't go into the details, but we finally had to force. Some of the members of our group to do what was the only logical and rational thing to do, because their thinking had become so clouded with hypothermia that they weren't thinking straight. They couldn't make rational decisions.

So we had to scramble our way down. Unfortunately, we did. We got down there after dark, and were able to build fires, to set up our tents, our sleeping bags, and saved our lives. But any or all of us could have died of hypothermia. They're on that remote mountain in Wyoming. And this is what happens. I go into this story because it's a great illustration of what happens with those who are suffering from spiritual hypothermia as well.

Because all too often the person experiencing that doesn't recognize the symptoms in himself, even though it can be pretty obvious to others who are around there. Other people can talk to them, try to help them understand the problem, but the person just doesn't see it.

They just don't understand it. It's very difficult when we see someone in these circumstances because we can see the problem, but the person doesn't want to be helped. They don't think there's a problem. Or they don't want to help. They don't want to be helped. And it's sad. It's frustrating to see that and to deal with that. But over our course of time, we've probably all seen circumstances like that. People do get overcome by spiritual hypothermia, and they don't realize what is taking place in them. So we've talked about how to recognize the symptoms, but the last point I'd like to talk about here is how to treat hypothermia. How to treat hypothermia if you have it or if you see someone else with these symptoms.

Well, what do you do? If you're getting hypothermia, what do you do if you see someone else recognize the symptoms and someone else? Well, first of all, we have to realize that hypothermia is an emergency life-threatening situation. And I don't see that lightly. It's an emergency life-threatening situation. Again, I live through that.

Barely live through it, I might say. In hindsight, a story I just read, some of us were probably within an hour of dying, maybe within a half hour of dying.

So this impacts me very, very deeply and has for decades now. But hypothermia is an emergency life-threatening situation. It doesn't go away by itself. It doesn't go away by itself. Something must be done to start that body heat going again. So the first step in treating hypothermia is we have to start generating some heat before spiritual hypothermia gets the best of us. We have to start generating some heat before hypothermia gets the best of us. Paul talks about exactly what we need to do over in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 6. Paul is talking about his younger mentor and mentor relationship between Paul and Timothy. He says, Before I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands, what is the gift from God that comes through the laying on of hands? It's God's spirit. That is the gift. So Paul tells Timothy to stir up God's spirit which is within him. But it's not immediately obvious exactly the terminology Paul is using here. This stir up in Greek is referring to taking a cool ember of fire, an ember that's turning cold, and to make it burst into flames again. The new international version translates it this way. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands, to fan it into flame. Now if you have a wood burning fireplace or stove, or if you've ever built a campfire, you've done exactly what Paul is talking about here. You had to stir up the fire from time to time because it gets cool. Eventually the fire goes out. You just have warm colds and eventually gray cold colds. So this stir up, what Paul is saying here, is fan it into flame again. You fan it, you blow on it, you add new fuel to get the fire going again. That's the metaphor that he is using here for what we need to do with God's spirit within us. He's telling Timothy he needs to stir up God's spirit to get that flame going again, to get that fire and that passion for God's word and for God and for his way of life. That's something we all need to do when we feel that flame starting to die down inside. That's his whole point here, to get that spirit stirred up. Don't let it die out. Get it burning into flame again. But there's another lesson here when we consider the context of Paul's words. Same book. Let's turn over a few chapters from 1 Timothy 1 to 1 Timothy 4. What were the circumstances when Paul wrote this letter to Timothy? Paul is in prison awaiting execution.

He knows that his time is short. Several years ago, at the feast in Italy, my wife and my mother and I were able to visit the Mamertine prison in Rome. It's off the end of the Roman Forum there. You can actually go and visit a room of what was the prison, city prison, in the first century. A number of authorities think, and I think it's reasonable, that this isn't the exact cell. They try to play it up, as this being the cell where Paul was imprisoned. You can't prove that in any way. But it gives a very good feel for the conditions in which Paul was kept when he writes this letter. Several of his letters are called the prison epistles because they're written when Paul is in prison awaiting execution.

As I was able to visit this cell, I don't think my mother or Connie went because it's a very narrow, winding stairway to get down there in that. But as I was standing in that cell, I was thinking about Paul's words here in this epistle. The words from 2 Timothy 4 and verse 6 came flooding back into my mind. Let's read those words. Paul writes to Timothy near the end of this epistle, I am already being poured out as a drink offering in the time of my departure, not his departure from prison. Well, it was his departure from prison through execution. Is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day. And not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. So when Paul writes this letter, he knows that he is going to die soon. He doesn't know exactly when, but he knows some day the guard is going to come to his cell, tell him it's time, come with me, and it's over.

But Paul, it's remarkable, he's not focusing on his own impending death here. He is focusing on Timothy, and trying to encourage Timothy. Timothy is obviously having a rough time. Sometimes we think we have it rough, and we do. We know that from the prayer request. But consider what Timothy is going through as Paul is writing this letter. You may want to go home and read through this letter. Paul is in prison. There are false teachers springing up here and there among the churches that Timothy and Paul have worked in. Members and ministers alike are abandoning the truth. Right and left. You can read about these things scattered throughout the letter. Things are looking really bad. And they're looking really bad for Paul. But what is Paul's focus? His focus, again, is trying to cheer Timothy up, to encourage him, to inspire him, to keep his mind focused on the right things, on the really important things. So how does Paul start this letter? We've read near the end of it. Now let's go back to the opening words and see how Paul starts this letter to Timothy. And he says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus. Paul is not focused on his impending death. He's focused on life. The promise of life. Which is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, a beloved son. So Paul assures Timothy that he loves him just like he was his own son, whom he loves so deeply. He says, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

This was a time for Paul and Timothy of anything but peace.

Because again, Paul is in prison. False teachers are springing up everywhere. The church is falling apart, chaos and confusion everywhere. But Paul is thinking about the grace and the mercy and the peace that come from God the Father and Jesus Christ.

And then he continues to Timothy, I thank God whom I serve with a pure conscience, as my forefathers did, as without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears that I may be filled with joy. When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. So Paul, even though he's on death row, is doing what? He's cheering up Timothy. He's encouraging him. He tells Timothy that he thanks God every day for Timothy in his prayers. And this is the context in which leading up to the passage we read earlier, verse 6, Therefore I remind you to stir up, to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So this is the context in which Paul tells Timothy, get that fire going again. Stir up that flame, that gift of God's spirit that is within you through the laying on of hands. Why does Paul write these words to Timothy? Well, he seems to have sensed that... My take on this is that Timothy, Timothy obviously is feeling discouraged, maybe ready to give up. Maybe he's showing symptoms of spiritual hypothermia. And Paul tells him he should not be showing fear and discouragement, but power. The power that comes through God and his spirit, and love, and a sound mind. Not a muddled, confused thinking that comes with spiritual hypothermia, but the sound mind that comes through being led by God's spirit. So we see from these words of Paul a really great example of how to help someone who is struggling with this kind of spiritual problem. Paul concentrates on cheering up Timothy, on encouraging him, on complimenting him, on telling Timothy, I thank God for you every day for your example, for your family. Timothy is very good to read when we're discouraged or when we want to see how to help someone else who is discouraged.

So after generating some heat, again on the subject of how to treat someone with spiritual hypothermia, we're being impacted. After generating some heat, as in this example, this leads us to the next point about treating spiritual hypothermia. The standard medical treatment, you may have read or heard about this, but it's to warm up the person as quickly as possible. To warm up the person as quickly as possible. You do this to restore, to start regenerating body heat.

The standard treatment, if you're backpacking, camping, or hunting, and you don't have a cabin or a car or something like that where you can generate heat in. You take that person with hypothermia into a tent and a sleeping bag, and you put one or two other people in there, maybe in the sleeping bag with the person, to share that body heat. To help the person's body, to help their core temperature start rising again, and to warm them up. So you warm up the person as quickly as possible. And there's a principle. That is a principle we should use here.

If we are experiencing the symptoms of spiritual hypothermia, we need contact with other people. Close contact with other people. Instead of our natural inclination, which would be to withdraw from other people or avoid other people, we need to draw close to them to start getting warmed up again. And we do that by getting involved, not by withdrawing. It's the exact opposite of what we might naturally be inclined to do in cases like that.

And if we see others who are impacted by spiritual hypothermia or exhibiting some of these symptoms, we need to go to them. We need to encourage them, as in Paul's words to Timothy that we just read, to help get them warmed up, to encourage them to stir up God's spirit within them as well. And we find this principle brought out in scripture repeatedly.

One of the scriptures most familiar to us is Galatians 6, verses 9 and 10. And here Paul obviously recognized some of the symptoms we've been talking about in some of the people that he knew, in the congregations he was familiar with. Some people were getting tired, getting lethargic, focusing their minds on other things. So he writes, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith, those within the body, within the spiritual body that is the church.

And it's also important to consider the context of this statement. Because just before this, just two verses previously, in verse 7, there's another vital principle, and that is, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. And we tend to view this through a negative lens, which is right. You do dumb, stupid things. The saying goes, do stupid things, win stupid prizes.

You reap what you sow. So there's a negative side to that, but there's also a very positive side to that, which Paul brings out beginning in verse 9, just two verses later. Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. So what he's saying? He's saying, if you sow good, you're going to reap good. And it's win-win. Everybody benefits when you do that. So he's following up on that same statement, if we sow good, among God's people we're going to reap good.

Everyone is blessed. And the only way we can do that is when we have contact with God's people. We aren't going to be able to sow good if we ourselves are withdrawn and not sharing that warmth that we should have as a part of the body, if we are an island unto ourselves.

So the way to treat hypothermia is to start generating some heat to warm up the person as quickly as possible. So to summarize this entire sermon about the danger of spiritual hypothermia, let's go back to one of the messages we read earlier. Read the context of that, the entire message to the church at Laodicea. Revelation 3, verses 14-22, and we'll conclude with this. And to the messenger of the church of the Laodiceans, write, These things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know your works, that you are neither hot nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. That is the passage we read earlier. These are people who are afflicted with spiritual hypothermia. They have lost their body heat. And it is draining away, and they don't realize it. They don't recognize the symptoms that we've talked about here.

Continuing on, we see their attitude. He says, because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing, and you don't know that in actuality, in reality, you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. These people, in other words, do not recognize the spiritual danger that they are in. They are naked. They are not wearing the proper clothing. They are not prepared for the spiritual hypothermia that is affecting them and that is overtaking them.

And it continues, verse 18, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich. In other words, they need to get involved. They need to take an action. They need to show some action. They need to get themselves stirred up. Buy gold and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. He tells them they need to put on the right clothing to combat this spiritual hypothermia. We've talked about the right kind of clothing. You need to be clothed with fine linen, clean and bright, which is the righteous acts of the saints. And anoint your eyes with eyesab that you may see. Why does he say that? Well, because their judgment is clouded. They're lethargic. They don't recognize the symptoms of the spiritual hypothermia that is affecting them and the danger that they're in.

Continuing, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. In other words, same thing we read in Paul's instruction to Timothy, to stir up God's Spirit, to get involved, to repent of this spiritual hypothermia. Before it's too late.

And then he concludes verse 20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me. So in other words, we need to be taking in the spiritual nourishment that prevents spiritual hypothermia. We need to be partaking of the true bread of life. Partaking of the Word of God and building that personal relationship with our Lord and Master and Savior Jesus Christ and living by every word of God. To him who overcomes, I will grant with me, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To him who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.