In the world that we live in, it seems that everyone is afraid of getting sick. Diseases can be scary. Some kill a person fast, and some take a long time. Some don’t kill at all, but make a person miserable. Some can be cured very easily, and some have no known cure. Sometimes people have been sick for a long time, but they didn’t notice the side effects. There is a disease that has left a side effect amongst professing Bible believing Christian people.

There is a side effect that I notice in my own life from time to time. Its not a sharp pain, its not a stomach ache, its not a fever or a cough. The side effect I notice in my life (and I see in others) is numbness. Yes, being numb, Having no feeling, is a side effect. A side effect of a prayerless life, of not spending meaningful time in the Word, not crying over lost souls. Sometimes it’s from a willful sin, other times it from sin of neglecting to do that which I know is right. What I do know is that when numbness sets in, there is a diseases that needs to be addressed.

There are a group of people that had grown quite numb to Jesus himself. They didn’t like their lives interrupted. This is the spiritual state of Israel when Christ was on earth. Luke gives us the account:

Luke 10:25-37 KJV

²⁵ And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

²⁶ He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?

²⁷ And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

²⁸ And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.

²⁹ But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

³⁰ And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

³¹ And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

³² And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

³³ But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,

³⁴ And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

³⁵ And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

³⁶ Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

³⁷ And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

The priest and the Levite were numb to the mans condition. They would be complacent to his death if it had not been for the Samaritan. They knew the law of God, but they had grown cold to it. They were unmoved by the state of the man half dead. Many of us are the same to men who are spiritually dead. We cannot speak as Paul did, we are guilty of blood of some. As the jews in Jesus’s time, we are numb to him.

While numbness is just a symptom of the greater underlying problem, it has become pandemic in the United States. People are numb to drunkeness, fornication, Idolatry,

and all kinds of wickedness. It is not a plague of just the loss. Christians have been desensitizes to their own sins. The world is in their heart and their heart is in the world. Because they can feel the pleasure of delighting in the TV show, they have lost feeling to the hour of prayer. Facebook has taken the attention of the mind and not The Book, God’s Word. We are alerted to every message that comes through our phones but we cannot hear the chiming of the Holy Ghost. We are numb. Desensitized.

The pain has become deadened by the drug of the hour. America has become numb to God. American Christians no longer have the feeling of pain. It is the plague of leprosy has deadened the pain of sin, and we don’t even know that we are hurting our bodies.

Revive us again, oh God.

S. T. 
Acts 20:24
"But none of these things move me..."