Why Do We Need to Tell People About Jesus?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

We've been talking during these weeks about why we should tell other people about Jesus and particularly why we should tell people of other religions, like Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism, about Jesus. The first answer we shared was because other religions give only part of the truth about our Creator simply because their leaders are just ordinary men who are simply summarizing what God has revealed to the Jews about himself, whereas Jesus himself is the unique Son of our Creator.

So when we study his life, we see exactly what our Creator is like. That's the first answer we shared. The second answer concerns mankind's greatest problem: selfishness. His own perverted personality is so radically twisted that it needs to be remade. Other religious philosophers and leaders cannot do that. All they can do is modify man's selfishness, tamper with it a little, but only in Jesus, did our Creator remake our selfish personalities.

So Jesus does something that other religions cannot do; in him it is possible for our selfishness to be completely transformed and cleansed and changed. Other religions can simply tamper with it or modify it. It's as if mankind was chained to the wall of the dungeon of his own perverted selfishness and Buddha comes by and says, "Pretend the chains don't exist." That's really what Buddhism does. It says, "Negate the self. Pretend the self doesn't exist."  So mankind tries to pretend that the chains don't exist.

Then Mohammad comes by and gives us a set of rules so that the hindrances of the chains are less obvious and less of a nuisance to us, so mankind tries to obey that set of rules. Long, long ago, the Hindus explained to mankind in his dungeon, "Your chains are caused by supernatural forces outside the dungeon. Now, try to please these supernatural forces and perhaps in the next life you'll be freed from the dungeon." And mankind has tried to believe that.

But do you see that all other religions leave mankind trying to believe or trying to obey? Jesus comes by, comes into the dungeon of our own selfish nature and takes the chains of our greed and our envy upon him and breaks them and then stands up and goes to the door and unlocks it, then sends his messengers to us to tell us, "Your chains are broken, stand up. The door is unlocked, come out."  That's the vast difference, loved ones, between what Jesus has done for us and what other religious leaders have done, and that's why we need to tell the whole world about this Jesus, because in him something supernatural happened that has freed us from our own selfish sin.