The Efforts are Paying Off

It is sometimes referred to as simply the “C” word. It has been the source of great fear and the focus of endless medical research. It knows no favoritism and few of us have not been at least indirectly affected by it on some personal level. It is, of course, Cancer which presently causes about 13% of all deaths.

The battle to cure this scourge has been long and expensive. But now the Herculean efforts seem to be paying off. According to HealthDay News, reports now show rates beginning to shrink nationally. The recent statistics now reveal that, among the top 15 cancers for men and women, the overall death rates are declining. Dr. David Espey of the U.S. center for Disease Control, and an expert on the subject, calls the new findings “very encouraging”. And Dr. Corey Langer of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia said, "It's the first glimmer of hope in a long time."

We all pretty much know what cancer is and what it can do. But few of us ever stop to consider why it exists in the first place. The short, but profound, answer is simply human sin. Those who know and believe the Bible as God’s inspired Word know well the story of Genesis. They know how the first man and woman were handed a perfect body and world without the curse of disease or death.

But that blessed existence came to an abrupt end with the failure to adhere to just one specific requirement. Just one single act of disobedience brought catastrophic results. When God revealed in Genesis 2:17 that a failure to obey Him would bring death, he meant far more than what so many understand or care to believe. Along with a physical decline it meant the death of the soul forever. It meant something infinitely more terrible than all the diseases ever unleashed can bring. It meant a permanent separation from God and a punishment beyond our ability to fathom. But just after man’s tragic blunder, God speaks of a miraculous cure for sin and the devastation it brought.

In Genesis 3:15, speaking to Satan, He describes the brutal battle, but subsequent victory, of a coming Savior who would offer the ultimate remedy for a helpless and hopeless race. The impact of that prophetic verse can be seen in Romans 5:12-17.

Physical death is terrible. The Bible freely admits that. But those same Scriptures offer a hope beyond the grave irregardless of how well or difficult our physical life goes or ends. Speaking to a grieving sister who had just lost her brother, perhaps to some terrible disease of that day, Jesus said in John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Believing who Jesus said He was, and in what His sacrificial death achieved on the cross, can deal with a need far more dangerous and deadly than even the “C” word. Christ alone can address the “S” word. His cure repairs forever the effects of ‘Sin’ - the deadliest of all scourges and the one which destroys man's precious relationship with His Creator. In 1 John 5:11-13 the Apsotle wrote, “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life,”

The impact of saving faith in Jesus Christ is not just some incremental improvement, encouraging trend, or slice of potential hope. It is facing the events of life and the reality of death under the competent and blessed care of the Great Physician.


Bill Breckenridge