EVANGELISM: A BOLDNESS BORN OF DESPERATION -- Devotional for February 1, from "Good Seeds"

If we go into the city, we'll die there in the famine; if we sit here, we'll die here. So, let's go pay a visit to our enemies. They may spare us. But if they kill us, well, better to die a warrior there than a worrier here! (II Kings 7:4, paraphrased).

Leprosy was the dreaded disease of Bible days, striking the same fear in the heart as aids or cancer does today. Although leprosy is highly contagious, making its victims permanent social outcasts, lepers in Bible days were almost never seen alone. Misery loves company, and those condemned to the slow maiming and debilitation of this disease lived in little packs, for mutual comfort and fellowship. One day a group of ten lepers dared to approach Jesus and begged for mercy – and He immediately healed them all! Hundreds of years before a smaller leper gang found themselves in the curious quandary of being condemned to starve to death before their disease could ever have a chance to finish them off. The Jewish city of Samaria was under siege by the Syrians. Water was scarce; food was gone. In desperation some of the citizens had resorted to a cannibalism of unimaginable proportions: eating human flesh – and not of their enemies, but of their own children! It is interesting to see how different people react to the same desperate conditions. This little leper pack reasoned: “If we’re going to die, let’s not do it inch by inch, cowering shamefully behind high walls and in dark corridors, starving to death right along with our disease-free but unfriendly brothers. Instead why don't we make a radical raid on the Syrian’s camp. Maybe we can get a tasty morsel to eat and die with a sweet taste in our mouths, before they shish-kabob us on their swords! Though more violent, a swift and exciting death would sure be a lot better than the boring, miserable, predictable end we are now facing. So let’s go for it! Let's go for broke, and go out in a blaze of glory! What can we lose? Well, our lives, of course, but who knows what we might gain as we go?” Desperate circumstances can elicit extreme boldness. As it turned out, the Lord had routed the enemy, in answer to Elisha’s prayer, and when this “fearsome foursome" came upon the camp they became the sole proprietors of more booty than they ever dreamed existed! But in the midst of their self-indulgent eating and drinking their consciences pricked them, and they said: “Here we are, gorging ourselves on this glorious food, while our countrymen are still devouring one another, totally unaware that the enemy is defeated. What do you say we go and tell them the good news!” By the way, isn’t this the same motive behind a Christian sharing the Good News of salvation with the self-destroying world all around him?
eva