The Cold Within

By Larry Pasley

Six humans trapped by happenstance
    In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
     Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs
     The first man held his back
For of the faces round the fire
     He noticed one was black.

The next man looking cross the way
     Saw one not of his church
And couldn't bring himself to give
     The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
     He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
     To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
     Of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
     From the lazy shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
     As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
     Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
     Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
     Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hand
     Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without
     They died from the cold within.
                    --James Patrick Kinney
    It may seem odd to us that people would hold back from others that which would save their own lives but stranger things have happened.
    Spiritually it is much more prevalent. Some become soil analyzers rather than seed sowers and determine that some people are not worthy of the gospel or salvation. They hold back the gospel from them and by doing so endanger their own soul.
    There are some people that only you can reach with the gospel and when you don’t teach them they are doomed to eternity in hell. God says in Ezekiel that he will hold that one accountable who does not warn the lost.
Ezekiel 3:18-19 When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. [19] Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
    Are you holding back from someone that which would save their life for eternity?
    With love and concern,

- Larry Pasley serves as a minister with the Jackson Street church of Christ in Alexandria, LA. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at http://www.JacksonStAlex.com