Six miles northeast of Avery, Idaho, William Rock was in charge of a crew of seventy firefighters. They had been directed to this strategic location in order to halt the progress of a very large forest fire which had already utterly destroyed thousands of acres of prime wilderness forest.
When the fire swept up to their fire line, it was dreadfully apparent at once that with their shovels and mattocks they were pitiably overmatched. The swiftly moving blaze was being fed by strong winds. Like a giant tidal wave of orange leaping flames, it was engulfing everything in its path of destruction.
William Rock had never seen a forest fire of this magnitude before. He knew the safety of his men depended on him. If they tried to stay and fight the fire, they would be swallowed up in its flame. If they broke and ran, the swiftly moving flames would overtake them on the rough terrain. Desperately he pitched about in his mind for a way to save his men. Then he remembered the area that had been burnt by a spot fire the day before. His men had been able to control that burn, and the small area had nothing left in it that might be fuel for the fire.
He led his men to this already burned-over area. Soon the area was surrounded by high walls of leaping flames. Smoke spiraled high into the sky. Ashes and embers rained down on the already burnt area, but, having nothing to feed on, they died out. So terrible was the sight all around them that one man panicked, bolted, and tried to outrun the fire before the area was surrounded. He was the only casualty among the crew in the terrible fire of that day.
If William Rock had tried to stay and fight the fire or tried to flee on foot before the firestorm, his crew would have been lost. But he led them to an area where the fire had already been, and it turned out to be a place of absolute safety.
Because God is omniscient, or all-knowing, there is no use in pretending we haven’t sinned. Because He is omnipotent, or all powerful, no one should believe they can withstand His anger in their own strength. Because He is omnipresent, there is no use trying to escape His wrath by running away or hiding from Him. “Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?” (Psa. 139:77Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? (Psalm 139:7)). Each one of us will have to give an account of our lives to a holy God.
Our only hope is to stand where the fire has already been. The Son of God, the Creator of the universe, in love and mercy became a man and went to the cross and died for us. God’s wrath in all its awful power fell on Him in wave after wave. Of all the men who have ever lived, He only was able to bear the sins of others, for He had lived a perfect life and never sinned. In the last three hours of darkness on the cross, the Lord Jesus bore in His own body the sins of all those who would afterward believe on Him.
God is worthy of the highest praise from every heart for what Christ has done on the cross. Because Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, we can find a place of absolute safety. When we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we stand, as it were, in the place where the fire has already been. We go free, because the Lord Jesus paid the supreme price for us.
You may not flee God’s wrath in the sense of finding someplace to hide where God will never find you. You may not extinguish His wrath by doing “good works” even as the firefighters in the story were not able to put out the towering flames by throwing shovels of dirt at it, but by God’s grace alone, you may come to the Lord Jesus Christ who paid sin’s awful price. By coming to Him as a sinner and trusting Him with all your heart, you will stand in the place of absolute safety.
This disobedient and unbelieving world is soon to pass into fiery judgment. Only the long-suffering of God holds back His wrath as He waits for sinners to repent. But the long-suffering of God will not hold back His wrath forever. The only place of safety is to stand where the fire has already been by trusting the Savior. Oh, do come to the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners, before it is forever too late and the fire of God’s judgment breaks over you!