Clinging to the Cross

“Dear Lord, are you taking me home right now?” That is what resonated in the mind of Clara Gantt as she barely survived the historic and record-setting flood that ravaged Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015. On the first Sunday of October, Gantt was driving to church when a sheet of water plowed into her car. Panic immediately set in as flood waters threatened her life. After dialing 911 and receiving no answer, she called her grandson, but by the time he arrived, her car had floated backward into a submerged field while water rolled and rushed around her. Her grandson, Travis, waded to his grandmother with a harness and rope and pulled her out of the vehicle, but there was nowhere they could go.

Miraculously, Gantt’s car had gotten caught on a large red cross near a little church in the area. Travis wrapped the rope around the cross and they clung to the cross for hours in the raging waters while they waited for emergency personnel to arrive. Travis and Clara were rescued five hours later and here’s how she summarized the experience: “I was literally, after I got out of the car, holding onto the cross. I was clinging to the cross.” The only way they were saved from the turbulent flood was by clinging to the cross.

This story is a perfect illustration of how your only hope of being saved from the flood of God’s wrath is by clinging to the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s righteous wrath against sin and sinners is like a mighty and unstoppable flood. It is described as, “a deluge of rain” and as a storm with wind, rain, and floods (Ezekiel 13:13; Matthew 7:24-27). In fact, God used a literal flood to express His wrath and displeasure with man’s wickedness (Genesis 6:9-9:17). The good news is that you can avoid the flood of God’s wrath because it was poured out in full measure upon Jesus. Not one drop of God’s eternal wrath will touch you because Jesus absorbed it all on the cross. He swallowed every drop of the cup of God’s divine anger (Luke 22:42).

Are you clinging to the cross of Christ? It is the only way for your soul to be saved from the flood God’s divine displeasure. Good intentions and good works are not sufficient for salvation—His wrath will wash those away. You must do what is beautifully written in the hymn, Rock of Ages: “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” Cling to the cross, dear friend, by coming to Jesus in repentance and faith. Acknowledge your sin before Him and trust completely in His finished work as the only means of salvation.

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Bible Gleanings is a widely-read weekend devotional column, written for the Murray Ledger & Times in Calloway County, Kentucky.