Pulling Them Out of the Fire

Jude, the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, wrote a brief but explosive epistle in which he commanded the saints to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered. Near the end of that letter, he distinguished three categories of persons needing ministry: those who are doubting, those who are in immediate danger, and those who are so deeply corrupted that the very garments of their sin must be hated even as the sinner is loved. Of the second category, he wrote: “And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 1:23).

I have never read that verse the same way since February 4, 2021. Before that night, the phrase “pulling them out of the fire” was a metaphor to me—a vivid image of evangelistic urgency, certainly, but still an abstraction. After watching Miami drag Jorge’s semi-unconscious body out of a burning cell, the metaphor became flesh. The men in 118A were literally in the fire, literally being pulled out. And the spiritual reality that Jude describes is, if anything, more urgent than the physical one. The smoke of eternal judgment is thicker than any smoke that filled those hallways. The locked doors of sin and unbelief are harder to open than any padlock. And the men trapped behind those doors are more helpless than any machucado—for no amount of screaming and door-pounding will liberate a soul from the dominion of sin. Only the sovereign grace of God, working through the proclamation of the Gospel, can open those doors.

This is what prison ministry is. It is crawling on your hands and knees into dark, dangerous, smoke-filled places where most people would never go. It is fumbling with keys in the blackness, hands shaking, eyes burning, because there are men dying on the other side of the door. It is dragging unconscious souls out of the fire—not by your own strength, for you have none, but by the power of the Spirit working through the foolishness of preaching. And it must be done “with fear,” as Jude specifies—not the paralyzing fear that keeps you in your cell, but the holy fear of God that compels you into the hallway, knowing that the Judge of all the earth will require an account of whether you went in or stayed behind.

The state will not save these men. The gendarmes arrived late on February 4, 2021, and they will arrive late on the Day of Judgment as well—which is to say, they will not arrive at all. The government that claims custody of prisoners’ bodies has no interest in their souls, no plan for their rehabilitation, no concern for their eternal destiny. The church must go where the state will not. The church must crawl where the state will not even walk. The church must pull men from the fire while the state is still counting heads and filing reports.

I left that night shaken but confirmed in my theology. The God who ordains the fire also ordains the rescue. The God who permits Jorge to strike the match also ensures that Miami’s cell door is unlocked. The God who allows men to scream in smoke-filled darkness also sends someone—often the most unlikely someone—to open the door. This is not a contradiction. This is Providence. And the man who understands Providence—who truly grasps that God is sovereign over every detail of every moment of every life—will never lack the courage to enter the hallway. For he knows that the same God who sent him in will bring him safely out, and that the souls he is sent to rescue were chosen for rescue before the foundation of the world.

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” our Lord said in Matthew 6:34. In prison, this verse takes on a literalness that comfortable Christians in comfortable churches can scarcely imagine. Each day brought its own new grief, its own fresh emergency, its own unique combination of danger and absurdity. There was never an entirely calm, predictable, or certain day in terrestrial hell. But neither was there ever a day in which the Providence of God was absent. Even on the worst night—the night the prison burned—His hand was at work, His purposes were being accomplished, and His people were being preserved. To Him alone be the glory.

Action Steps

Develop an emergency preparedness mindset for ministry contexts. If you minister in a prison, a shelter, or any institutional environment, learn the emergency procedures—or discover, as I did, that none exist. Advocate with the administration for basic fire safety protocols. Do not assume the institution has the competence or the will to protect its own population.

Study the doctrine of Providence deeply and personally. Read the relevant chapters of the 1689 London Baptist Confession (chapters 3 and 5), or the Westminster Confession if you are of that tradition. Providence is not an abstract theological concept. It is the lens through which every event in your ministry—especially the terrifying ones—becomes intelligible. A minister who does not understand Providence will be paralyzed by the first crisis he encounters.

Be the man who enters the hallway. In every ministry context, there are moments when the comfortable option is to stay in your cell and let someone else handle the emergency. Resolve beforehand that you will be the one who goes in. This does not mean recklessness; it means readiness. Train yourself, physically and spiritually, so that when the smoke appears, your instinct is to move toward it rather than away.

Build trust with the hardest cases before the crisis arrives. My ability to speak with Jorge after the fire—to hear him confess his intentions openly—was not the result of that single conversation. It was the accumulated result of months of consistent, visible Christian conduct: sharing food, playing chess, teaching the Bible, and treating machucados with basic human decency. When the crisis comes, you will only have access to people who already trust you. Build that trust now.

Hold the state accountable without trusting the state. The gendarmes’ failure to protect prisoners that night was not an anomaly; it was the norm. If you minister in institutional settings, document failures, advocate for reform, and support the prisoners’ right to basic safety. But never place your trust in the institution to do what only the church is called to do. The state manages bodies. The church rescues souls.

Discussion Questions

The unlocked cell door that allowed Miami to act was the result of a guard’s early rounds and a worker’s late return—seemingly trivial circumstances. How does the doctrine of Providence help us interpret events that appear random or coincidental? Can you identify similar “unlocked doors” in your own ministry experience?

Jorge told me, “What does it matter if five or six machucados get killed anyway?” What does this statement reveal about the human heart apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit? How should this reality shape our urgency in evangelism?

Jude 1:23 commands us to save others “with fear, pulling them out of the fire.” What is the nature of this fear? How does it differ from the paralyzing fear that keeps us from engaging in difficult ministry? What does it look like practically to minister “with fear” in a prison context?

Miami’s heroism—crawling through smoke and darkness to open doors for trapped men—serves as a powerful image of Gospel ministry. In what ways does evangelism resemble entering a burning building? What are the “locked doors” and “thick smoke” that the prison minister must overcome, and what resources has God provided for navigating them?