MEDICINE FOR THE SICK 

MARK 2:13-17

          Jesus was often chastised by the scribes and Pharisees for hanging around with publicans and sinners.  As often as I have read this and other passages I assumed that publicans meant common poor people.  I thought that this accusation against Jesus was just the expression of class and economic prejudices by the scribes and Pharisees.  However, when I looked up the word publican I found that a publican was a tax collector.  He was considered the worse type of sinner; even worse than prostitutes and murderers.  This was because the tax collector charged the people too much tax and kept the overage for themselves.  They were cheating the people and getting rich from being dishonest in their profession.  Jesus was being accused of not only hanging around common everyday sinners but of mingling with the low life scum of the society.  These were the people who were not welcome in the synagogue. 

          Not only did Jesus associate with them, he often would elect to go to their houses rest rather than the home of one of the respected community leaders.   In Luke chapter 19 we find Jesus inviting himself to the home of Zacchaeus, another tax collector.  Here in Luke we find him eating at the house of Matthew (here called Levi) the tax collector.  Not only does Jesus eat with this dishonorable man, but he later names him as one of his disciples.  Here in Mark chapter two Jesus replies to the accusation of the scribes and Pharisees by saying “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  In other words Jesus is saying that he came to bring medicine for the sick.

          The world that we live in is sick.  It is sick with a variety of diseases.  It is economically sick and out of balance.  The peoples of the world are sick emotionally, being burdened down constantly with the cares of this world.  And of course the world is sick in sin and getting sicker each day.  The sad part in all of this is that the sickness is growing worse and worse even though the medicine needed to stop the sickness is available.

            “The Zimbabwean government said here on Friday the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been moved by the magnitude of the AIDS crisis in Zimbabwe and released 10.3 million US dollars to the government to fight the epidemic.  The funds will be directed to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, which will in turn disburse them.  Health and Child Welfare Minister, David Parirenyatwa, said the bulk of it would go toward HIV/AIDS prevention among the youths, acquisition of antiretroviral drugs and community home-based care.    The Fund had sidelined Zimbabwe for no apparent reason since 2000. Although no concrete reason has been given, it is widely believed politics was largely responsible.  Zimbabwe is on a collision course with a number of western countries, especially Britain, particularly over its land reform program which it embarked on in 2000 to resettle landless people.  Zimbabwe had received no donor relief toward HIV/AIDS in 2004 to 2005 from the main donor initiatives of US President's Initiative on HIV/AIDS and the World Bank MAP Initiative.  Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the region at 24.6 percent and an estimated 1.8 million people in the country are living with the virus.  About 90 percent of the infected people are not aware of their status while 600,000 of those carrying the HIV virus have the signs and symptoms of AIDS and require varying degrees of care and support.  About 3,000 Zimbabweans succumb to AIDS-related illnesses each week and 70 percent of bed occupancy in hospitals is taken up by AIDS patients.”

          When we read news like this we get angry.  Sick people are dying when medicine is available.  The medicine is being withheld for political reasons, the British want their land; or its being withheld for racial reasons, who cares if these Black people die; or economic reasons, the people can not afford to pay for the medicine.  We get angry at the drug companies who make the medicine because we know that they make enough off of the medicine to afford to give away medicine to poor countries.  We get mad because their greed is allowing people to die when medicine is available.

          Aids is a terrible sickness but an even greater sickness is sin.  Aids robs a person of physical life, but sin robs him of life in this world and eternal life with God in the next world to come.  The medicine for sin is also available.  But each day thousands die and slip into eternal death because they do not have the medicine.  When we hear of people dying in their sin, at whom should we be angry?  I believe that the answer to that question is The Church.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:18-21

          God has committed to the Church as a whole and to each Christian individually the ministry of reconciliation.  We are to announce to the world that the medicine for sin is available.  But the church is just like the drug companies we offer a bunch of lame excuses for why we don’t do our job. 

Excuse 1.   I am afraid.

2 TIMOTHY 1:7

          When we stand before God and He as us individually “why didn’t you speak up for me and witness for me more” and you answer I was afraid, I can imagine him saying “did I give you the spirit of fear?” No. Well where did it come from?  OF course you will answer the devil.  Didn’t I tell you in Ephesians 4:27 to “give no place to the devil?” Yes sir you told me that but I thought it meant that I should not let him make me sin.  Is disobeying you a sin? Yes God, certainly it is.  Well did I not leave instructions for my disciples to go into all the world and preach the Gospel?  Yes God you did.  You do claim to be a Christian don’t you?  Well yes.  And Christian means disciple of Christ doesn’t it.  Yes God.  So Ms. Disciple of Christ, did you go and spread the gospel.  That right, no you didn’t because you gave place to the Devil and acted in fear. 

Excuse 2.  I don’t know what to say.

EXODUS 4:10-12

          This is the same excuse that Moses used when God commissioned him to go back to Egypt and confront Pharaoh.  But look at what God told Moses.  He said, “Didn’t I make your mouth.  Go and do what I told you to do and I will teach you what to say.

LUKE 12:4-12

          When we go out on God’s behalf as He has asked us to do, we should not be worried about what to say.  The Spirit of God will lead us in what to say.  Many times I think that Christians are afraid that God will leave us out their hanging and that we will end up looking stupid.  The crazy thing to me is that members of all other religions will pound on doors, walk up and down the street, stand on corners and aggravate you to no end trying to push their erroneous doctrine on the world, but we who know that we have the truth keep it to ourselves.  Why aren’t they afraid of looking stupid?  Could it be that they have taken the time to know what they believe and to know how to share their belief with others.  II Tim. 2:15 says, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” If you are really studying the Bible and you still don’t know enough to lead a person to Christ, then maybe you are studying the wrong thing.  We did a Bible study on witnessing almost 2 years ago.  Maybe it is time for us to pull that study back out, dust if off, and begin to practice witnessing again.  After we have studied we must learn to trust the Holy Spirit to bring back to our memory those things that we have studied. 

Excuse 3.  No one seems interested in getting saved.

I CORINTHIANS 12:3

          We should be neither worried nor discouraged by the lack of large numbers of people getting saved when we share the gospel.  Our task is to plant seeds.  It is the job of the Holy Spirit to produce fruit from the seeds we plant.  He may use us to help water and nurture the seeds, but He must break up the hard ground of their hearts and cause them to respond positively to the seeds we plant.  Though the Holy Spirit must draw the person to Christ, He cannot do His job if we Christians don’t do ours.  It may seem like no one is interested, but believe me there are those who are.  If there was no one else to be saved then the Church would be raptured because there would be no reason for us to be here.  You will never know who that one person might be that responds positively.  Each time we share the gospel and get a negative response we should treat it like a practice run in preparation for that one person that really will need to hear the gospel presented by you.

Excuse 4:  I witness by the life I live and my actions

ROMANS 10:13-17     

          Note that this scripture did not say that faith comes by seeing the Word of God in action.  But rather that faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  Yes as Christians we are to live holy and upright lives, doing only those things that are pleasing in the sight of God.  Yes the unsaved world is watching us and we must live a life before them that glorifies God and can be used to draw others to Him.  But we must also learn to talk about the goodness of God because Romans 2:4 says the goodness of God leads a man to repentance.  But people will not recognize the goodness of God in your life just from looking at your life.  They must hear that you know that God is working on your behalf.  They must hear that you have faith in God and that it is that faith that keeps you going in the tough times.

       The bottom line is this.  It does not matter what excuse you plan on offering God, there is no acceptable excuse for not witnessing and sharing the love of God with the lost.  The truth of the matter is the church is failing badly in carrying out its task.  And while we are failing and using excuses for our lack of action, people are daily slipping into hell.  The Church has the cure for the world’s sickness but we are sitting on it, offering it only to those who will come to church.  We often say that Jesus is the cure for all that is wrong in the world today.  But we tend to be saying it to each other, to those who have already taken their first dose of medicine and are now on a steady regiment of the Word of God and commitment to God.  Jesus told the Pharisees and scribes that “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick do: He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” The church must find a way to reach the sinner and offer him medicine for his sickness.