A YOUNG couple got married and was on their way home from the honeymoon. A tractor-trailer pulled out in front of them suddenly and the young groom swerved to avoid it. The car went into a tailspin and crashed. The groom was okay, but his new bride was bleeding profusely. He knew if he didn’t get his new wife to a doctor, she was going to die. He got out of the car and saw a sign just a little ways away: “The Office of Dr. Rufus Jones—Internal Medicine.” He picked up his beloved and struggled up the hill toward the doctor’s home. He began knocking on the door. An old man came to the door and the groom said, “Dr. Jones?”
The man said, “Well, yes?” He said, “My wife is bleeding. She’s dying. Please save her!” Much to this young man’s surprise, Dr. Jones said, “I’m sorry, son, I can’t help you. You see, son, I stopped practicing medicine many years ago. I don’t have any equipment here. I don’t have medical supplies. I stopped practicing medicine a long time ago.”
Distraught with frustration and grief, the young man said, “Dr. Jones, if you can no longer help hurting people, then please take down the sign.”
We’ve got a world out there bleeding to death. We tell people to come to the church where we offer Dr. Jesus, the medicine of the Holy Spirit, and the healing power of the Word of God. We tell people to come to the hospital. But if we’re not going to be the hospital, then we need to take down the sign. There’s no need in having a sign that says “Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, Church of the Living God,” if when people show up, they don’t get surgery. Let’s either be the real hospital or take down the sign. Let’s not have everybody thinking that we’re a hospital and practicing physicians and when they show up they die at our doorstep because we stopped being a church a long time ago.
Let’s be the church—the authentic representation of that which Christ gave His life for.159
Evans, Tony. Tony Evans' Book of Illustrations (p. 64). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.