Our Lord Jesus, before His ascension to heaven, at the end of His last forty days on earth, spoke to His disciples in Mark 16:15 “ And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”. This is known by many as the great commission. but how many of us take this seriously? Here, the greek meaning of the word ‘world’ simply means the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family. But the greek root word has an action added to the original word. It means to (i) care for, take care of, provide for (ii) to carry, bear so as to (a) receive the promised blessing, (b) to receive what was previously one’s own, to get back, receive back, recover.To put simply, the disciples were told to bring recovery to those that lost their blessings. That is why the gospel is called good news, because it is taking back what the devil had stolen and restore it back to the person.
This brings us back to the creation of mankind in Gen 2. God created Adam and Eve and put them in the garden of Eden. He provided them all things and commanded them that they may freely eat of the fruits of every tree in the garden, except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, Eve was tempted by the devil, and she ate of the forbidden fruit and gave it to Adam also. This is the original sin of mankind, which is unbelief. It is not about acting against the law. Remember that the law was not yet given at this point of time. Let me explain what is unbelief. Unbelief is not the lack of knowledge. The lack of knowledge is ignorance. Adam and Eve had knowledge, but they chose to believe the words of the devil, and not the words of God. Therefore, unbelief is a choice made. They had thought that God had withold something, and not give them, but instead, God has blessed them with all things. The devil had deceived Eve into believing that God had withold wisdom. And by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she can be as wise as God. Don’t forget that God had blessed Adam with so much wisdom that whatever names he call the living creatures, that was their name. Unbelief is not trusting God, period. As a result of their unbelief, God had to cast them out of the garden of Eden, from the presence of God. Initially, God gave them authority, to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that move upon the earth. Now they lost that authority to the devil and also all their blessings. They now have to work hard to till the ground and eat of the fruits, and women have to suffer child bearing pain. Why do you think that our Lord Jesus had to rebuke the disciples of unbelief, before He gave them the great commission, just one verse before Mark 16:15.
Now, here is the good news. A few thousand years later, our Lord Jesus came into the scene. Born of a virgin birth, He came into the world and died for our sins on the cross, and forgave our sins. Moreover, He rose from the dead three days later and imputed to us righteousness. During that three days,He went to hell, vanquished the enemies and took back the keys of kingdom of heaven from the devil. That means He took back that authority from the devil and gave it back to the church. This is the greatest recovery story ever written in the history of mankind. That is why apostle Paul declared that “ I am not ashamed of the gospel, but it is the power of God unto salvation…”.Our Lord Jesus Christ had sealed the victory over Satan, by His death and resurrection. Hallelujah! Now, we the church is to enforce that victory by preaching the gospel.
Now, back to what apostle Paul said in Rom 1:16 that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jews first, and also to the Greek. See that it is first to the Jews. The church had done fairly well in evangelizing the lost, the non believers, but largely ignoring the believers. According to what we discussed earlier that we should care for, take care of, provide for the world. The church must first do it to our brothers and sisters in Christ, our family members. The early apostles, Peter, John and Paul, etc had no problem understanding this. We saw that they went about preaching the gospel, starting first in the synagogues. Till the unbelieving Jews persecute them, then they preach to the Gentiles. Our Lord Jesus shared in Luke 10:30 about a parable regarding a Jew on his journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell among thiieves, and was wounded. Well, a priest and a levite, saw him, chose to pass by on the other side. They could be on their way to the temple, and were afraid that he will die while saving him, thus making them unclean, as they cannot touch a dead body., according to law. They have the upmost concern about religious temple affairs, than to concern about a brother in need. But a certain samaritan, who had compassion on this wounded Jew, bound up his wounds, took care of him, took him to an inn, and provided his stay. The Samaritan put the priest and the levite to shame. He, who is not a Jew, and had no association with Jew, took care of the needy Jew. Has the church become so indifferent to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ? Has the church leaders get so obsessed with expanding church buildings and church programs, yet they forget to feed the poor in our church. Has the church forget that our lord Jesus will one day judge the nations, based on whether we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in a stranger, cloth the naked, visit the sick, visit the persecuted in prison. Our Lord Jesus added that you do it to the least of the brethren, you do it to Him. These are the questions the church need to ask ourselves. Remember that apostle John said in 1 John 4:20 that he that love not his brother, whom he have seen, how can he love God, whom he had not seen. We need to repent of our hypocrisy!