What Kind of Monster...
Imagine you wake up tomorrow to the sound of sirens and screaming outside!
You jump out of bed and run to the window where you see a horrific sight.
Bodies are laying dead in the street, some even covered with white sheets already.
You have no idea what’s going on but you begin to feel the panic inside your chest as you wonder if you and your family are next.
Suddenly your son comes walking into the room crying that he doesn’t feel well and starts to cough! You hold him and tell him, “it’s going to be okay, son. I’m going to figure out what’s going on and get you some help.”
Your brain is finally beginning to wake up and you remember that your next door neighbor is a well-respected doctor. You kick yourself that it took you this long to realize this fact.
Hurriedly throwing on a robe and some slippers, you run down the stairs, flinging open the door, and running outside, covering your mouth, as though that will protect you.
You bang on your neighbor’s door frantically, hoping he has not been taken by whatever this sickness is.
Finally, after what seems like forever, the doctor’s wife answers the door.
“Is your husband here?” You cry.
To your delight, she says, “Yes he’s here. And he has found the cure to this disease! He has even taken it and found it to work great!”
Your anxiety begins to melt away as you feel hope for the first time since your abrupt awakening just minutes ago.
“Where is the doc?” You ask. “I need to see him! My son has the disease!”
She replies, “Oh, you can’t see him right now. After he cured himself, he decided to take a nap. He is resting, sleeping.”
You cannot believe it!
What kind of man sleeps at a time like this?
What kind of MONSTER finds the cure to a disease that is killing and has killed so many, only to sleep while people die!?!?
Now, clearly, this seems absurd.
You couldn’t possibly know anyone like this, right?
Surely you don’t know of any monster so terrible as to sleep through a tragedy so severe and devastating, all the while having exactly what is needed to remedy it, right?
Charles Spurgeon once told a story much like this one, partnered with 1 Thessalonians 5:6:
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
What if I told you that you do know a monster exactly like this doctor, maybe many of them.
You possibly see one in the every morning…as you look in the mirror.
The truth is, that people all around you are dead, in their trespasses, according to the Word of God (Colossians 2:13).
Spiritually and eternally there are multitudes around us laying in the dust, soon to return to dust themselves, and all the while you and I have the cure for what ails them!
We know the answer to the dreadful curse of sin.
We know that in Christ they can be made well.
They can even be made alive!
If you were disgusted at the doctor in the story who decided to sleep instead of saving others dying around him, and you yourself have never gone to others with the gospel - never begun to make disciples as we are commanded by Christ - then redirect that disgust back toward its accuser, yourself!
Does your faith in Christ drive you to tell others about the hope you have found?
Or are you asleep, content to let the world around you burn?
If we want the world to see and understand why we believe the way we do, why we worship the way we do, why we live the way we do, why would we not share with them the good news so that they might believe, worship and live with us in unity and on mission to make much of God and help others live!!