Where's your hiding place?

In the movie "Hidalgo" there is a really good part. The basic storyline is that there is this cowboy who ends up taking his mustang, Hidalgo across the ocean to race in this really long trek across the desert to win some money. They go on for days and days riding through the hot sun and lots of sand and they face all sorts of obstacles and challenges. At one point in the movie, they are riding along and they see the other guys in the race come zooming past, galloping along full speed ahead. The cowboy says, "whoa there boys, it's a long way to Damascus" (Damascus was where the finish line was...) Soon as he says that he turns and looks and there is this huge tidal wave of sand creeping towards him. It's like a WALL of sand and wind and it blocks out the sun and it is steadily picking up speed and headed right for them... He starts bookin it. There are remants of an old city just ahead and Hidalgo and the cowboy gallop through the archway of a door just in time to avoid the wall of wind and sand that comes crashing all around them.

When I saw that part of the movie, it made me think about the wrath of God. The wrath of God is coming. Colossians 3 has some things to say about that. Sometimes I forget about or choose not to think about the fact that it really is coming. What is the wrath of God anyway? Maybe if you grew up around church talky people you'd say it is because of sin. This is true. But why? And why should we care? Vs. 5 says "because of these...sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire and greed, which is idolarty... the wrath is of God is coming."

Sin is like cancer. Cancer can't just BE, it has to be in someone. Just like cancer makes us sick, so does sin. It makes us so sick, and just like cancer, a lot of times we can't see it even if we are just eaten alive with it. God hates sin so much. He promises to erradicate the world of it. He is that good. He will come once and for all and he will wipe it all out. Since sin can only exist in people and God is good enough to destroy it, you know the rest..

Here's another story:
back in the day, there used to be these wagon trains that would travel west across the prairies. There'd be a few families that would have everything they owned, all their livestock and children and everything and they'd group together and make the trip west for land. The prairies are made up of grass that stretches for miles and miles... lots of times there won't be any trees or bushes or anything around. Sometimes, lightening would strike the dry grasses and start a fire in the prairie. If the fire started behind the wagon train, the wind would sweep it along the land, consuming everything as it blazed along. The families would be desperate for somewhere to hide. They had no hope for survival otherwise. But in the grassland, there was no place of refuge. At some point they figured out if they went ahead a ways and lit another fire in the grass, the wind would carry the flame ahead of them. They could stand in the place that was already burned and the fire from the lightening would have nothing more to burn. It would still approach them, but they'd be safe.

Vs. 3 says, "...your life is now hidden with Christ in God."
God's wrath is coming. Like the fire sweeping through the prarie, we have no place to hide. In his mercy and love, the fire of God's wrath has been lit before us and consumed the land that is Jesus. He was burned for us. We can go forth and stand on Him, knowing full well the wrath is coming, assured there is nothing left to burn. We are safe in Him.

God desires the perfect world he made too much to leave it cancer eaten. Jesus asks us to give him our cancer eaten body in exchange for his healthy perfect one. God destroys the cancer in His own precious son and in the process destroys His son.

He gives us shelter from the sand storm that is God's wrath.

Oh to live in light of this...

and if you think you don't need a hiding place:
Isaiah 28:14-19
Isaiah 8:14 *footnote from my Bible: "either the Lord is the cornerstone of our lives or he is a rock over which we shall fall"