Greetings Mike,

Hope all is well with you and the family. I see that your part of the world is quite cold (even lovely snow falling). Hope you all stay warm and snug in front of the fire with warm blankets. I love the cold weather much more than the warm summer we are experiencing at this time. Maybe it is because I was born in the winter. But thank God that we must go though all seasons of life and He determined when those seasons start and end:

Psa 74:17  Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter.

That is so comforting knowing ‘it all come to pass’ so that every scripture must be fulfilled in us who are pregnant with it. Nothing but the Word remains ‘forever’ and is happening in His generation. 

1Pe 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:

But the winter always reminds me of the warning that our ‘fleeing’ must not be in winter.

Mar 13:18  And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.
2Ti 4:21  Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren.

Like you always point out, Mike, everything has a positive and negative application in scripture; even the winter:

1Co 16:6  And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go.
Tit 3:12  When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter.
Joh 10:22  And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

It seems that winter is the time of darkness in our lives when we need the comfort and fellowship from the indwelling abiding Word and to hear that word from others who can ‘abide with us’. The elect must stay faithful to and abide in the scriptures to be in the right ‘haven’ in the winter:

Act 27:12  And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter; which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the southwest and northwest.
Mat 24:32  Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh

So spiritually I am learning to appreciate (rejoice in) the warm fire that God is sending on His elect, although the flesh (the winter) is not at all easy with it. God is ‘smiting the winter house with the summer house’ to destroy it:

Amo 3:15  And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

The new spiritual house (the summer) will destroy the old carnal house (the winter). The (first) spiritual fruit appears in the summer but the flesh profits nothing.

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Gal 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Jer 40:10  As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah to serve the Chaldeans, which will come unto us: but ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that ye have taken.

While we are in this flesh we must go through a ‘no ceasing’ process while we are being prepared with the fire to be the fire, just like He is a consuming fire.

Pro 6:4  Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.
Pro 6:5  Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
Pro 6:6  Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Pro 6:7  Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Pro 6:8 Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.
Gen 8:22  While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

But one day we will all return with the wine and summer fruit to be enjoyed by all:

Zec 14:8  And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
Jer 40:12  Even all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much.

Thanks for being there for all of us who are going through our winters. The ‘fig trees shoot forth, and the leaves start to appear and we know that summer is now nigh at hand’. And please enjoy the snow (something we never see in this part of our physical world).

Your brother in the Christ,
L____

Hi L____,

What a wonderful treatise on the spiritual significance of winter and its connection with the other seasons of our life!
I had never thought of that verse in Amos as you put it “God will destroy the winter house with the summer house” as using the one to destroy the other.

Amo 3:15  And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

I have always taken that to be saying, “I will smite the winter house [ along] with the summer house; and the house s [ summer and winter] of ivory shall perish, and the great house s [ summer and winter palaces] shall have an end.” Let me know what you think.
You are so very right when you say this.

While we are in this flesh we must go through a ‘no ceasing’ process while we are being prepared with the fire to be the fire, just like He is a consuming fire.

God really is opening your eyes, and I am so thankful to see that taking place. As long as we are in these vessels of clay (the earth), we will experience all the seasons of the year. King David was God’s elect anointed to replace God’s rejected anointed, and yet he committed adultery and killed a man to cover it up. That was surely the spiritual winter of King David’s walk, and it brought in the flaming sword to bring back the summer.

2Sa 12:7  And Nathan said to David, Thou [ art] the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
2Sa 12:8  And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if [ that had been] too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
2Sa 12:9  Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife [ to be] thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10  Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

There are those who think this could never happen to them, but they will learn that this is all in their own flesh, at their own appointed time.
Thank you for sharing your revelation with me. My prayer is that God will continue to open His word to you both. We are all very thankful for what God is doing with the two of you.
Your brother who keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book,

Mike