Jesse Gaskens certainly knew the rules. He was a volunteer firefighter and surely knew that, as a “first responder,” he was duty bound to protect himself first and foremost. What good was an injured or killed rescue worker, needing help himself? So he had learned the rules by heart — but where would that have left Gayla and Kaci?
Gayla and her little daughter Kaci were canoeing—and the canoe tipped over. Somehow Gayla lost her life jacket, and neither she nor Kaci knew how to swim. They were able to catch hold of an overhanging branch and to cling to it, but Gayla was losing her tight hold on both the branch and Kaci.
Jesse was eating his lunch in a park on the Peace River. Usually the river was just as peaceful as its name signified, but recent heavy rains had turned it into a treacherous, rain-swollen torrent. He saw their dangerous position and jumped into the rushing water and caught and held them both against the branch until a rescuer in a boat might arrive.
Park officials were unable to enter the “much too dangerous river” until the proper equipment arrived. They had rules! That sounds like the old, old story of the Good Samaritan. When the man who “went down from Jerusalem to Jericho” was robbed and left half dead by the side of the road, both the priest and the Levite “passed by on the other side [of the road].” It was against their rules to touch a possibly defiling dead body.
At last (after 45 minutes!) a man arrived with a boat, and the three were lifted out of the water and into the boat. What a relief that must have been! And what a picture of our Good Samaritan, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came where we were, helpless in the rushing river of this life, and who lifts and holds securely everyone who trusts in those everlasting arms.
Those arms are still outstretched—welcoming, healing, and forever sheltering all who have believed and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. The unshakable promise in Romans 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9) is that “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved!” That is absolute safety.