The Whole World is Waiting for Good News
More than any other time in recent memory, the entire world is fighting the same battle and the entire world is looking for the same victory.
The impact of the Coronavirus is even more expansive than the two “World Wars” of the 20th Century! That is not to say the death toll or the suffering of the Coronavirus will be same as World War I and II, but history does not give too many examples of every continent and every country being pulled into the same fight.
The battle against this virus is global. Pestilence does not respect nations, ethnicities, ideologies or borders. Pestilence “stalks in the darkness” (Psalm 91:5-6) and cannot be fought with guns, tanks and missiles. In our war against global pestilence we look for victory in a remedy.
Can you imagine the joy felt around the world if a remedy was found today? Can you envision the headlines of global good news after weeks and months of bad news?
When the Bible uses the word “Gospel” it actually refers to good news. It was a word that the unbelieving world used as well. “Gospel” (euangelion) was used in Homer’s Odyssey: “Odysseus will come home; and let there be a good news for me straightaway, as soon as he comes.”
“Gospel” was used by the Roman Empire in The Priene Calendar Inscription (9 BC): “Since Caesar by his appearance surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings, not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god was for the world the beginning of the good tidings through him.”
After being invaded and enslaved by Persia, Greece won two decisive battles at Marathon and Soli. Greece sent out heralds, who were also called evangelists, to proclaim the good news to the cities. Greece proclaimed, “We have fought for you. We have won. You are no longer slaves!”
Thus, the early church used this term of “Gospel” to proclaim the true, lasting, global good news of Jesus Christ. There is freedom from slavery, which does not come by trusting in Caesar or Alexander, but trusting in the Kingdom of God and our true Savior, Jesus Christ!
Through Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross and His glorious resurrection, our victory over sin, Satan and death is secure and sufficient, final and eternal. Caesar and Alexander remain dead, but Jesus Christ is alive forevermore!
The Apostle Paul proclaimed in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
While we pray for a medical breakthrough to win the battle with the Coronavirus, there is a global disease even more deadly than this virus - the cancer of sin. We are all infected with this virus and it has a 100% fatality rate. Thank God, there is remedy.
The Apostle John heralded this remedy in 1 John 4:9-10, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Would we run to Christ in the same way we look for a remedy to the Coronavirus.
Would we celebrate the same victory over sin as we would in our victory over the Coronavirus.
Would return to the best news the world has ever heard: Jesus Christ has won!
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