PRAIRIE FIRE

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1

​When I first started in the ministry, I heard one of the greatest illustrations ever concerning how we are eternally delivered from God’s judgment on our sins. When wagon trains first began to cross the great plain states on the trails headed west, one of the worst disasters that they could face was a prairie fire. These could be started by lightning, a campfire, or a cowboy’s tossed away cigar. But, once they began, they could stretch for miles and could race across a wide prairie before a wagon train could get out of the way.

​It sounds contradictory, but the best way to not get burned up in a prairie fire was to start one behind you. Once it had burned away, the wagons would be pulled into the area where the fire had already burned. Once the approaching fire reached where the fire had burned, there was no fuel left for it to burn, and it would go out.

​Similarly, the best way for us to avoid God’s judgment on our sin is to find a spot where that sin has already been judged; that place is in the cross. Our sin cannot be judged by hell’s flames because it was already put on Jesus Who “became sin for us” (II Corinthians 5:21). He already suffered that fire that we might go free. We just have to stand where the fire has burned: in the safety of the cross of Christ.

Davy L. Troxel