EVANGELISM: THE SAMARIA SCENARIO -- Devotional for February 2, from "Good Seeds"

We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent. If we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell (II Kings 7:9).

“Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.” This practical definition comes from the scenario painted for us in II Kings 6 & 7. The citizens of Samaria were not dying of leprosy, but they were dying nevertheless. They were not outcast beggars, but beggars still, just of another sort. Oh, they had plenty of money, enough to offer 80 shekels of silver for one donkey’s head (suitable for mounting...but for eating??? – see 6:25). Sooner or later we will all discover that no amount of money, or any other human resource, can buy what we need most and crave at the deepest primal level. A glance at the world around us today shows this same Samaria scenario: There are just two kinds of people: 1) the lepers – the down-and-outers; and 2) the beautiful people – the up-and-outers. Whether we’re up or down, we’re all out: out of eternal resources, out of fellowship with God and therefore on our way out of this world unfulfilled, undone, and unprepared to meet our Maker. When someone comes to faith in Christ, he begins to discover the fabulous wealth he has become heir to, and he lustily sings with his new brothers and sisters, “Heaven came down and glory filled my soul!” Of course it’s right and good for Christians to express their gratitude to God, and count their multiplied blessings. But shame on us if we find ourselves reveling – wallowing, even – in the rich booty that accompanies our blood-bought victory over sin and death and hell, and yet living out our days with not the least twinge of conscience to go to the teeming masses of the unsaved with the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ! Look at the verse again: “This is the day of Good News!” Those four lepers came to realize this news of rescue and release was for everybody, not just for them, or any other elite class of self-proclaimed privileged characters. Up to this point they had been keeping it, hoarding it, to themselves. It’s not just a dirty shame to keep silent about Jesus, it’s a downright sin! What was true for them then is just as true for us now: If WE wait...it may soon be too late! We have all of eternity in which to praise God, but only this earthly life in which to share Christ. Now, therefore, fellow believer – enriched beggar – isn’t it time for you to go and tell someone else where to find the only food that feeds the soul, and the only Savior who rose – and raises – from the dead?