Day 27.

Many great spiritual lessons are learned from life’s experiences. The winter passed, My time working in the grounds of the hospital came to an end when the gardener returned from his long service leave. The summer came and the harvest began. Because I was “the boy” with the least experienced I was given the old header that was towed behind a tractor and driven by a PTO shaft. There was no air conditioned cab. I just sat there in the glaring 40 degree as I striped the wheat and periodically transferred my load to the trucks. My job was to steer a straight and cut the crop at the right height. My job also was to keep a watch on what was going on behind. On one of these backward stares I was horrified to discover that the crop was on fire in a long line from where I had been stripping the wheat. Stubble in my cutting comb had accumulated and the friction had ignited. I had not noticed what was now 20 metres of burning crop as my header had dragged the fire up the line I was working.

I lept from my tractor and grabbed a sack and began beating the fire metre by metre back along the line. It wasn’t long before I was joined by others doing the same ritual. Just when it seemed we had the fire beaten (excuse the pun) a strong wind would blow and the fire would take off again. It was exhausting, my arm ached and my tongue cleaved to my jaw from dehydration. By now several hectares of wheat had parched the earth black. An older person told me to move my tractor onto the scorched earth where the fire had burned, to save the tractor from the vagaries of the wind. Others had done the same, with 100s of thousands of dollars of equipment now shielded on the black earth.

The battle raged until help arrived from a neighbour who had seen the smoke. Fearing for his own crop, he had hooked up his plough to his 4 wheeled articulated tractor and driven his huge wheels straight over the top of the boundary fence between the two properties, not wanting to waste the time travelling around by road. He proceeded to plough around where we were beating the flames. In no time at all it seemed, the fire was deceased and the flames illuminated. I lost my job that day because the old header I was driving was ‘retired’.

As I reflected on the incident a significant application began to emerge. The safest place to be in a fire, is where the fire has already been. The safest place to be when the fire of God’s wrath against sin is finally executed, is where that fire has already burned. When you accept the exchange offered by God in Christ, you will realize that Jesus has taken you death penalty upon himself. The wrath of God against sin was poured out on Him. “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us.” (Galations 3:13) “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men…” Romans 1:18RSV – the NLT has ‘anger’. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth …” (Romans 2:8NLT).