In January 1866, a wintry weather episode prompted Charles Spurgeon to preach a sermon titled “Frost and Thaw”. Snowflakes, ice crystals, frost, and wind can teach us truths about God. What can we learn from observing God’s power over nature?
Spurgeon first observed God’s operations in nature itself. By looking at His works in sending natural phenomena like ice and snow, we can learn about God’s character. “It seems to me […],” Spurgeon says, “to make the world so magnificent, to light it up with such a lustre and such a splendour, to think that God is in it, and that it is his ice, and his snow, and his wind, and his cold, and that everything is his […]” (emphasis added).
Secondly, Spurgeon observes how natural phenomena can teach us about God’s law and grace. Law, like a cold frost, cuts, chills, and discomforts as it exposes us, showing our corruption. Without the gospel, exposure to the law of God hardens the heart, leaving us hopeless and despairing. But grace, like a warm southerly wind, ushers in the sweetness of the gospel and God’s actions on behalf of hopeless sinners. The gospel softens the heart, awakens new life, and empowers for growth. Such truth brings the soothing warmth of joy and freedom when the sinner is united with Christ into the family of God.
Have you felt the cold sting of the conviction of sin? Thank God for it. But even more, thank Him for His thawing work of grace.
Excerpt:
Christian, be thou reminded of the goodness of God in the frost of adversity, which you feel this morning. Your losses and burdens are but God’s love dressed in black robes. Rest assured that when God is pleased to send out the biting winds of affliction, he is in them, and he is always love, as much love in sorrow as when he breathes upon you with the soft south wind of joy. Endeavour to see the loving kindness of God in every work of his hand! Praise him — he maketh summer and winter — let your song go round the year! Praise him — he giveth day and sendeth night – give him songs in the night! Despond not, for God is with you, and rejoice evermore in him. Cast not away your confidence; it shall have great recompence of reward. As David wove the snow, and rain, and stormy wind into a song, even so combine your trials, your tribulations, your difficulties, and adversities into a sweet Psalm of praise, and say perpetually —
“I will praise thee every day,
For thine anger’s passed away.”
Read the rest of the sermon here.