(A parable by Jim Plueddemann)
Once upon a time, in a city not too far away, people were slowly dying of a plague. The plague didn’t kill its victims immediately but it produced many strange side effects. As individuals became infected, they gradually became selfish, rude, depressed, and angry. Families fell apart as crime, violence, and deceit filled the streets. Armed robbery, drugs, and rape increased as the plague spread. Philosophers pondered long and hard over the problem while politicians spent billions of dollars trying to find a cure. Sociologists blamed oppressive social structures. Economists asserted that the root problem was poverty. Psychologists argued that the problem was caused by low selfesteem. Biologists conducted research to show that the plague was caused by genetic defects. All of the scholars analyzed the plague and claimed to have explanations for the problems of pain, injustice, and evil.
Various religious leaders proclaimed that they had found a cure for the plague. One religious master taught that life is an illusion and the solution is to learn to live with pain. Another teacher claimed that pain and suffering are the fate of humankind and people must blindly submit to a god who created pain. Another instructor created a religion with hundreds of rules to guide behavior, claiming that if people were good enough, God would help them to fight the problem of evil.
Since people couldn’t agree on the solution, they began to fight and kill each other. Finally there was so much fighting and killing over proposed solutions to the problem of selfishness that people decided to accept everyone’s solutions. They agreed that there were no right and wrong answers to the problem of the plague. The whole society became dogmatically relativistic.
One day a small group of tattered pilgrims entered the city with the good news of a cure for the plague. They gladly proclaimed the only true cure-a cure with a 100 percent success rate; a cure that didn’t cost any money. They announced that the God of creation had provided the cure by sending His Son to die and come back to live in order to take away the horrible sickness. The joyful pilgrims talked to everyone who would listen.
When the people of the city heard the good news, they became furious. “Who do they think they are,” the people said, “coming into our city and telling us that our cures are wrong and that their cures are right? Do they think they can cram their medicine down our throats?”
Millions of people rejected the free medicine because they wanted to remain openminded about truth. Perhaps the plague was making them insane. But many listened and accepted the free cure, and their lives were changed. They began to be more loving, more joyful, more kind, and less selfish. As pilgrims traveled around the world telling the good news, millions received new life.
The Bible message is clear. Jesus is the only cure for the horrible problems of the world. Scholars can provide valuable insights into the needs of the world, but only Jesus can cure a selfish heart and bring hope and joy to a suffering world.
Billions of people have never heard about the cure for sin. They have no hope in this life or in the next, and they are still trying other cures.
If Jesus is the only cure, why is it that so many people who have received the Good News, sit back, thinking only of their own comfort? How can we enjoy the cure for ourselves, and not be torn apart by the fact that most of the world is dying?
No sacrifice is too great for sharing the only answer to the greatest problems of the world. No life is more wasted than the one that hoards the medicine while people are dying all around us. No task is more fulfilling, no life is more joyful than one spent taking the Good News to a dying world.
As we see humanity’s failing solutions all around us, let’s recommit ourselves to the purpose of evangelism-taking God’s free, eternal medicine to all, praying that they will gladly receive it.