It was a hot summer day and a forest fire raged along the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. Started by the explosion of a dynamite charge, the fire was soon out of control, and, racing up the canyon, it spread from ridge to ridge, where it burned for days.
Old Indian Joe came riding up the canyon on his pony and stopped to watch the fire fighters at work on the mountain side. For some time he gazed at the devouring flames and billows of smoke. Unnoticed by him the fire crept up from another side of the slope. Then suddenly he realized that he was surrounded by flames and could not go back by the way he came. The face of the cliff was too steep for him to climb, but not for the fire, and soon it was roaring up to the clearing where old Joe and his horse stood. The fire fighters saw him and called to warn him of his danger.
Old Joe had to act quickly. Jumping off his horse he took a leather strap and brought it down with a resounding slap on the horse’s flank. The startled horse took off on its own down the slope, going the safest way it knew, while Joe looked after it hoping it would reach safety.
Jutting out from the cliff was a huge rock, underneath which was a bare spot, void of all grass or bushes. Lowering his head, old Joe made a dive through the smoke and flames and reached the shelter of the rock; there he crouched in safety. Looking back he could see the fire sweeping across the very spot where he had stood with his horse a few minutes before. He was just in time. The fire fighters thought the old Indian was doomed, but Joe was wise. He sought the shelter of the big rock. The flames raged all around outside, and the rock itself was blackened and scarred, but Joe was safe through it all. Finally when the fire died down, he came forth from his hiding place, and as he gazed at the scene of destruction before him, how thankful he was for the shelter of the rock.
The fire is the judgment of God against our sins. Now the Lord Jesus bore that judgment on Calvary’s cross for all who trust Him as their Saviour. There the fire of God’s wrath swept over Him, causing Him to cry out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Psa. 22:11<<To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.>> My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? (Psalm 22:1). All that God is against sin broke over the blessed head of that spotless Substitute. And just as the fire consumed the brush around the rock which sheltered old Joe the Indian. Yet the rock remained; so after those awful fires of Calvary had spent themselves, the Rock remained, but the sins of every believer in Jesus were gone—and gone forever.
ML-09/16/1979