Have you ever seen a hay field or forest on fire? If so, you know how wildly exciting it is. All the men living nearby go out to fight the fire, which comes rushing along at such terrific speed that sometimes houses and barns are caught in the path of the flames.
Some friends of mine told me two incidents connected with a grass fire last summer. The flames were rushing up a hill with a sound like the roar of the sea. Halfway up the hill was a clump of bushes where a hen pheasant was sitting on a nest. No one could get near the bushes because of the heat of the approaching flames, but they did all they could to make the bird leave her nest. They shouted, threw stones, struck the bushes with long sticks, but all to no purpose. The brave mother bird still sat on her precious eggs.
On swept the cruel flames and reached the bushes. Alas, poor bird—but no! Just as the fire almost touched her, she flew up with a loud cry, and so escaped just in time! The nest and eggs were burned, but she was saved.
A few minutes later one of my friends saw a snake coiled round fast asleep, just where the fire must come. He tried to wake it so that it might have a chance to escape, but in vain. It only just moved in a dazed way. It would not escape, and so perished.
There are ever so many people in the world like that poor snake. Their souls are fast asleep—perhaps having beautiful dreams—while ever nearer and nearer, like the grass fire, judgment is coming. Oh, dear readers, don’t any of you be like that! Wake up! “Flee from the wrath to come!” Escape to the Lord Jesus, the sinner’s refuge, and you will be safe forever.
ML 12/05/1965