Know Your Fire Escape!
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fire Administration, relates the following facts concerning fire.
The highest rate of death do to fire in the industrialized world is in the U.S., with 14.9 deaths per million due to fire.
Some 25,100 individuals are injured annually while some 1100 deaths are reported. Each year 100 firefighters are killed do to fires.
Every year more Americans are killed by which of the following....
Accidents...
Natural Disasters.....or
Fires.
Answer: Fires
Over 2 million fires are reported each year, with an estimated property loss of some $8.6 billion.
The reason for fires:
Cooking, Careless Smoking, Heating, Arson.
Who are the most at risk?
Senior Citizens aged 70 or older.
Children under the age of 5 years.
Handicapped.
How lives can be saved:
Have several working smoke alarms, on each floor.
Have sprinklers installed if possible.
Have an annual fire inspection of your home.
Have an annual furnace inspection.
Do not over load electrical connections.
Put cigarettes out upon retiring.
In a high rise, airplane or train, know your fire escapes.
Countless lives could be saved every year if Fire Escapes were known and taken advantage of! Know your Fire Escape!
Now, just as real as this caution is in the Natural, it is also true in the realm of the Spiritual. Do you know where your Fire Escape is?
There is a fire burning, and the fire is the wrath of Almighty God!
Psalm 97:2,3 “[2] Clouds and darkness are round about Him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne.
[3] A fire goeth before Him, and burneth up His enemies round about.”
Isaiah 9:18,19 “[18] For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke.
[19] Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.”
Malachi 3:2,3 “[2] But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: [3] And He shall sit as a refiner and purifer of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
II Thessalonians 1:7-9 “[7] And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
[8] In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
[9] Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; “
Hebrews 12:29 “For our God is a consuming fire.”
Well, why is God's fiery wrath kindled against mankind?
Habakkuk 1:13 “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: ...”
Psalms 5:4 “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.”
Psalms 11:5 “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.”
Simply put, God hates sin! And the scriptures tell us...
Ezekiel 18:4 “...the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
God is holy, and He cannot look at sin, He hates it. And the reason why God hates sin is because of the destruction that He knows it causes.
Proverbs 8:36 “But he that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate Me love death.”
Because of Adam's sin (The first man) all mankind is under the deadly spiritual virus of sin.
Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; “
As sinners we earn (deserve) the wrath of God.
Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
You and I were born under the curse of sin, and deserve judgment. But God in His mercy has not left us to judgment.
II Corinthians 5:21 “For He hath made Him (The Lord Jesus Christ-the Saviour) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
I Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath ONCE suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: “
Some one has taken our place in judgment, and that someone is the sinless Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our way of Escaping the Fiery Wrath of God, is acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son.
Proverbs 28:13 “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
I John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
John 1:12,13 “[12] But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name:
[13] Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Friend, do you know your Fire Escape? Confess your sins and ask the Blessed Lord Jesus into your heart and life today.
Revelation 3:20 “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him,...”
