It was a hot summer day and a forest fire raged along the slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. The fire was started accidently by the explosion of a dynamite charge from workers clearing out old stumps. It was soon out of control. Racing up the canyon, it spread from ridge to ridge, where it burned for days.
Old Indian Joe came riding up one of the canyons on his pony and stopped to watch the fire fighters at work on the mountainside. For some time he gazed at the flames and billows of smoke. But as he watched he did not notice the fire creeping up from another side of the slope. Suddenly he realized that he was surrounded by flames and could not go back down the canyon trail. The face of the cliff was too steep for him to climb any higher, but not too high for the fire to cross, and soon it was roaring up to the clearing where old Joe and his horse stood! The fire fighters saw what was happening, but were too far away to help him.
Old Joe had to act fast! Jumping off his horse, he took a leather strap and brought it down with a hard 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.
After seeing his horse disappear in the smoke, Joe quickly looked for a safe spot to hide. Jutting out from the cliff was a huge rock which had no grass or bushes growing underneath the overhang. Lowering his head, old Joe made a dive though the smoke and flames and reached the shelter of the rock where he crouched down protecting his face and eyes. Looking back, he could see the fire sweeping across the very spot where he had stood with his horse a few minutes before. He had acted just in time!
The fire fighters were certain the old Indian had been trapped and burned to death. But Joe was wise; he found protection—the shelter of the big rock. The flames raged all around him, and the rock itself was blackened and scarred, but Joe was safe through it all. Finally, when the fire died down, he came out from his hiding place. As he gazed at the scene of destruction before him, he was very thankful for the protection of the rock.
I would like to tell you about another Rock and another fire. We read of how “a man (the Lord Jesus Christ) shall be as a hiding place... as the show of a great rock in a weary land.” Isaiah 32:2. In 1 Corinthians 10:4 we read “that Rock was Christ.”
The fire is like God’s punishment against our sins. Now the Lord Jesus bore that punishment on Calvary’s cross for all who trust Him to be their Saviour. There the fire of God’s anger swept over Him, causing Him to cry out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46. The fire burned the brush all around the rock which sheltered old Joe, the Indian, but the rock remained. In the same way, after those awful fires of punishment swept over Calvary, the Rock (the Lord Jesus Christ) remained, but the sins of every believer in Jesus were gone—and gone forever!
The Bible tells us of still another fire—“the devouring fire...with everlasting burnings.” Isaiah 33:14. This is the end for those who reject the only Saviour of sinners and die still in their sins. “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:15.
If you are not saved, do you see the great danger you face? Make Christ your shelter now while you still have time. The Lord Jesus is waiting to become your Rock under which you may hide and be safe forever.
ML-11/21/1982