Most everyone has seen tigers, if they have ever visited a zoo. But how many of you have ever been face to face with a tiger? In China, there are many tigers living in the mountains. They live in the caves and ravines, which make good hiding places.
The hills around the cities of China are covered with graves. This is where the people who have died in the city are buried. Long grass grows around the graves and on the hills. Men and women often go up to cut it. The cut grass is left on the ground to dry. Then it is tied in bundles. They carry the bundles down into the city and sell them either as food for cows or as fuel for cooking and heating. Wood is very scarce and expensive. Since the people are very poor, these bundles of dried grass are mainly used for fuel. Sometimes you can see six or eight people coming down from the hills, each carrying two great bundles of dried grass. The bundles are fastened at each end of a pole which is carried across their shoulders. As they walk toward you, all you can see is a big hat and two big bundles of grass.
One day many years ago, a poor woman went up to the hills to cut grass. She had her baby tied on her back and her other little girl was walking beside her. She carried a sharp sickle for cutting the grass. Just as she reached the top of the hill, she heard a loud roar! Oh, how it frightened her and the children. The next moment, a mother tiger sprang at her! Since the tiger had two young cubs with her, she probably thought the woman was going to harm them. The woman quickly slashed at the tiger with her sharp sickle, trying to protect herself and her children.
This poor Chinese mother had never been to a gospel meeting or a Sunday school. She had never seen a Bible, nor could she read. While walking down the street of the village a few days earlier, she had heard the name “Jesus.” A missionary was talking to some other women about this man, Jesus. She heard him say, “Jesus is able to help you if you are in trouble.”
As the tiger tore her arm and shoulder with its sharp claws, she remembered this wonderful story. Desperately slashing at the tiger with her sickle, she cried out, “Oh, Jesus, help me!”
Do you think the Lord Jesus heard her cry? Yes, He did! His ears always hear our cry, and His prose is, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Psalms 50:1515And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15).
We sometimes make promises and then break them. Perhaps we forget, or perhaps we find we cannot do what we promised. But the Lord Jesus is not like that. We read in Romans 4:2121And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. (Romans 4:21), "... what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” We may be sure of that promise, too, just as this woman learned.
She kept fighting the tiger with her sickle and crying, “Oh, Jesus, help me!” In just a few seconds, her answer came. The tiger, which so easily could have killed her and the children, turned and ran away.
The woman had many gashes and wounds on her arm and shoulder, but her children were safe. They struggled back to the village. Then her friends carried her to a missionary hospital where she was cared for until she recovered.
Best of all, in the hospital she learned more about Jesus who had saved her and the children from a horrible death. She also learned that He wanted to save her from eternal death. She was told how He loved her and that He had died for her sins on the cross. It wasn’t long before she accepted Him as her own Saviour. How glad this poor Chinese woman was to find such a wonderful Saviour, who had done so much for her.
ML-07/05/1981