Well, we're in Luke 10, and today's
message is entitled, Jesus, the Church's Good Samaritan. It's
found in Luke 10, verse 28-37. Remember that we had this certain
lawyer that stood up and tempted the Lord about what was going
on. He says, Master, what shall I
do to inherit eternal life? And the answer of the Lord to
him was in verse 26 was, what is written in the law? How readest
thou? And the lawyer answering said, and he quoted Deuteronomy
chapter 6 here, he said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and
with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. So there's kind of
two parts to that law, the loving the Lord. and your neighbor. And one of the things we kind
of look at was, you know, how would we appear as neighbors
to the Lord in our natural condition? We kind of wouldn't fall into
that category as one that we would consider being a neighbor. And the Lord answered and said
unto him, thou has answered right. So he gave him, he gave him the
correct answer. What shall I do to inherit eternal
life? And he read him that from Deuteronomy. So thou has answered right, this
do. and thou shalt live. And our
last lesson was, he was pretty much in love with the doing of
the other parts of the law, all the Ten Commandment part and
the tithing and the sacrifices and all that. All those more
physical and more visible aspects of the law. And then he says
something interesting here in verse 29. He says, but he, the
lawyer, willing to justify himself, that was his attitude. He was
willing to justify himself. He said, who is my neighbor? And Jesus answered him, said,
and then he gives what's known as the parable here of the Good
Samaritan. Actually, this is found in Ezekiel
chapter 16, the roots of it, but we'll read through here in
verse 30. 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. And by chance there came down
a certain priest that way, and when he saw him, he passed by
on the other side. And likewise, the Levite, when
he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on
the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he
journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion
on him 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 the
inn and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed,
he took out two pence and gave it to the host and said unto
him, take care of it. And whatsoever thou spendest
more when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these
three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the
thieves. And he said, he that showed mercy on him, then said
Jesus unto him, go and do thou likewise. What an interesting
parable. There's just quite a lot to unpack
there. And we have the continuing theme
of grace versus self-righteous works. And as we learned in our
previous lesson, in love with doing, it was apparent that this
lawyer prided himself as others did in keeping the law. I've
kept all these from my youth up. What lack I?" is what one
said to him. I've done all that stuff. And
again, Jesus answered him and said, What's written in the law? How do you read the law? How
is your understanding of the law? What do you perceive of
the law? And it kind of reminded me of
that Ethiopian eunuch that he was reading it, but he didn't
get it. And he says, do you understand what you're reading? And he said,
well, how can I unless some man guides me? And that's kind of
the position of this lawyer. And he had all the words, probably
had a lot of it memorized. that the application, the spiritual
application of it was beyond him. So we have this similar
set of circumstances found in, let's turn over to Luke chapter
16 for just a couple of verses here. Luke chapter 16. And one of the things that we
notice about this man is he has a view of God that's
just substandard. He just has no idea of who he's
dealing with. But there's a verse here in Luke
16, 14 and 15, He's been talking to, in the
beginning of that chapter, there was a certain rich man. So, it's
another parable to illustrate a situation. At the end of it,
the Pharisees, in verse 14, the Pharisees also, who were covetous,
heard all these things, and they derided him. And he said unto
them, ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God
knows your heart. God knows your heart. For that
which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight
of God." And then he goes on to say about the law and the
prophets testifying Christ until John then, and then John came.
But anyway, the principle is the same. This young lawyer,
he tempts Christ by asking him this test question. He thinks, He thinks that God is kind of
like himself. The nature of man always emphasizes
self and de-emphasizes God. And they clearly have no understanding
of themselves, nor of the power and nature of God Almighty. God
knoweth your hearts. And it's much the same with this
particular lawyer as stated in verse 29. He was willing to justify
himself And ask another question. Who's my neighbor? What shall
I do to inherit eternal life? Who's my neighbor? And the Lord,
he answers him with this, what's generally recorded as a parable
regarding, again, a certain man and what befell him as he traveled
from Jerusalem to Jericho. And it may not have been a parable.
We don't, it doesn't say here's a parable. It just says a certain
man. So it could very well have been. recorded something that
actually happened. But it's interesting that this
parable, if it is such, is directly aimed at this certain lawyer.
And it kind of reminded me of much the same way that Nathan
brought similar principles to David back in 2 Samuel chapter
12, when Nathan came to David and said, There were two men
in the city. And one of them was really rich
and the other one was really poor. And the poor man had nothing
except one little ewe lamb. And the rich man, he had flocks. And I'm sure you're all familiar
with that story. And the rich man stole the lamb
from the poor man and fixed it up for supper for this guest
that he was having. And Nathan says, well, here's
the moral of that story. You are that man. Well, it's
kind of the same principle here that the Lord presents this parable
to this guy and kind of see where he fits in here. Are you one
of those priests? Are you one of those Levites
that pass on the other side? Are you one of those ones that
say you love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind? With your tongue you worship
me, but he says your heart is far from me. Where do you fall
in on all these things? Kind of a self-examination question,
we'll say. But again, he thinks that God is like man,
and he attributes our qualities and abilities to Him erroneously. Natural man always thinks like
that. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 13, it says, neither is any creature
that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and
open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. You know,
that's pretty clear all through the Old Testament. A lawyer person,
you'd think that made their living off of knowing all this stuff
would say. I'll bet I can't hide anything
from God, but yet we see time after time in the Old Testament
where the unregenerate, that's all they do, and it never works
out. You know, Psalm chapter 50, verse
21 says, These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Thou
thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself. but I will
reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes." You
know, the Lord knows our hearts, and He's able to quickly and
pointedly bring to our attention our shortcomings that are rooted
in self-righteousness. And this parable, it quickly
cuts to the heart of this lawyer's self-justification as he said
he was willing to justify himself. Those with whom he most identified
with in his self-justification were those of the religious sect,
and those of the law, the priests and the Levites. So, this subject of a certain
man here. You know, with the Lord, everything
is always on a much deeper spiritual plane than maybe meets the eye
on the surface, and there's always a deeper lesson to be learned.
There's always a deeper subject. There's always something to do
with himself and the redemption of the church. There's always
a higher spiritual value to things than just, well, Here's a good
story. I'll tell you this story. It
has good social and moral value so you can apply it in your life. If you're driving down the highway
and you see a person there that's been beat up and robbed, here's
what you should do. It's, it's more than that. It's,
it's very much more than that. And so as we look at it, and,
and kind of look at it from a spiritual vantage point, this certain man
here, it's really just an accurate description of our natural state
resulting from the fall. And as I kind of delved into
this, I thought, wow, here, look at this picture. A certain man
went down. Boy, whenever you see the word
went down in Scripture, it always talks about moving from a higher
place to a lower place. And this man went down from Jerusalem,
the holy city, he went down from Jerusalem, a picture of a place
of fellowship with God, just much like we find in the garden
in Genesis chapter 3. He went down to Jericho. And
you know what it tells us about Jericho? It says that was a cursed
place by Joshua. The walls fell down. Remember
all that? Anybody that rebuilds this place
will curse on their head and all that. The Canaanites were
in control of that place. It wasn't a good place. You can
find that in Joshua chapter 6 if you want to go read about that
episode. He went down from Jerusalem down
to Jericho, and he was on a road that was frequented By thieves
and robbers, you know, and that's where the road we're on in our
natural state. It's we're robbed. We're robbed
of everything spiritual in the fall. We've been we've been everything
taken from us. says he was stripped of his garments. Well, that's what happened. You
go back to Genesis chapter 3 and what happened to Adam and Eve.
Oh, we're naked. We've lost our garments. They were found naked. He was
wounded. He fell among thieves which stripped
him of his raiment and wounded him, and then they left him. leaving him half-dead. They departed.
You know, that's what happens in the falls. Like, you're dead. You're spiritually dead. There's
nothing else to do. Can't do nothing else to you.
You're already spiritually dead. He was wounded in the most serious
way that leads to that spiritual death. And you know, it says
without external help, he would end up dying this And spiritually,
we would say the second death without that external divine
help. And then here comes some things. Let's start there in verse 30,
and we'll read it, verse 30 through 32. A certain man went down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves, which stripped
him of his raiment, stripped him of his righteousness, stripped
him of his fellowship with God, and wounded him, and departed,
leaving him half dead. And by chance, and we know with
God there's nothing that's just by chance, for this narrative,
he says that, by chance there came down a certain priest that
way. And when he saw him, he passed
by on the other side. You know what it tells us here
is that along comes religion in the form of a priest. And
religion didn't help that man. You know, religion gives you
a lot of things to do and a lot of words to say and a lot of
things that never work. You know, the very scriptures
that the priests professed to know, they didn't know. They
knew the words, but they didn't know the Jesus of the words. The very Christ of the scriptures,
the Christ of whom the scriptures testified, the Christ whose tender
mercies would have healed this man, they didn't know him. Therefore, not only were they
of no help, they were worse than no help. You know, Jesus, if you go back
in the Gospels and you look at this area around Jericho, which
was kind of north of Jerusalem a ways. He did a lot of stuff
there. He healed a lot of people there. That's the place where he called
Zacchaeus to come down out of that tree. He went there on purpose
to call that guy and say, you come down because I must come
to your house today. Now along comes the law in the
form of Levite there in verse Verse 32, and likewise, a Levite,
when he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed
by on the other side. You know, I was talking to Norm
this morning. If you go back in the Numbers
and Deuteronomy, you'll find there's a lot of Scripture that
talks about things that are allowable and things that are not allowable. The Scriptures say, well, if
you touch a dead man, you're unclean for seven days. And if you do this, you're unclean. If you do that, you're unclean.
So, you know, one of these people that are willing to justify themselves, They said, well, this guy's not
dead yet, but if he happened to die while I was ministering
to him, it'd be on my head, and then I'd be unclean seven days,
and then I couldn't do my sacrifices. I couldn't do all the things
that I'm required to do, and so I'm not taking the chance
here. I don't want anything to do with
it. So, you know, the law just didn't help that guy. It's just
a picture of that. In Romans 8.3, it says what the
law could not do. was help that guy. What the law
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned
sin in the flesh." Boy, there's no condemnation to those that
are in Christ there at the beginning of that chapter. So we have these
two pictures of the things that we're most likely to run into
in life. Religion and the law and the
things that we need to do according to them. And we find out that
they're not helpful to us in our condition. Our condition
that's beyond mortal help there. And then the good part comes. The good part, verse 33, but. You know what you run into that
word, but in a lot of times when it's dealing with God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. But God, who is rich in mercy,
but God who loved us while we were unlovable, but God, but
God, but God, we find that just a lot countering all the things
that went previously. But ye who were sometimes dead,
in trespasses, and you who were among everyone else in the world,
but God, who's rich in mercy, he loved us. But a certain Samaritan,
as he journeyed, came where he was. Boy, just in that one sentence,
there is a lot. The Samaritan is journeying and
he came where that person was. And when he saw him, he had compassion
on him 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. 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." Boy, what a picture of the Lord just
redeeming the church. A certain Samaritan as he journeyed.
We've covered a lot of verses in our Bible studies that we
note the Lord purposing to journey. As we've mentioned, He said He
had to go to Jericho to reel in Zacchaeus, the tax collector
guy that was kind of a crook. And we noticed that I must needs
go through Samaria to meet that woman. And many such lessons we've looked at there
in John 4 about that woman at the well. And all of his journeys
are according to his purpose. He never went anywhere just by
accident. He purposed. His time here was
purposed every second, every minute, every hour, every day
of his time here was purposed for the purpose of redeeming
the church. And everyone that he met, everything
that he did, his face was set like a flint to accomplish that,
and he did. all of his journeys are for the
redemption of his people. You know that it says he came
where he was. And you know religion is always
trying to get you to do the coming, you to do, and it says he came
to where he was. Jesus came, the Samaritan came
to where that man was, and that man couldn't go nowhere. He was
kind of like Lazarus, you know, he's laying there on the old
tomb. This guy's laying there in the ditch. They left him for
dead. They thought he was probably
dead or he was going to die pretty darn quick. He couldn't get up
and flag down help or get out his cell phone and call 911 for
an ambulance. He couldn't do anything. He had
compassion on him. It says, he went to him. It tells
us that two times. There came a certain Samaritan
as he journeyed and came where he was, and in verse 34 says,
and went to him. It emphasizes that point that
he went to that person, not the other way around. He had compassion
on him. He went to him. He bound up the
wounds. pouring in oil and wine, all
these things. You know, it's kind of like the
I wills that we read about in Ezekiel. I will do this, and
I will do that, and I will. And we're going to read a little
bit from Ezekiel 16 here in a minute on a different, not the one that
we usually read, but different one, but that one that has more
to do with this specifically. But it's again, it's the I wills
of God in taking care of his people. He poured in oil and
wine, so symbolic of grace and the shed blood. He picked him
up and transported him to an inn. Kind of reminds you of that
Mephibosheth person. He couldn't walk, he was lame
in his feet, but they loaded him up on a litter and took him
to the palace. And then he paid all that was
owed and that would be owed by the man. Isn't that a thing that
we love? And we say, boy, you know, I
racked up a big debt in my life. And then when the Lord saved
me, he didn't just take care of the problem that I had before.
He took care of my problems from then on. So whatever else that
man occurs in the way of debt, when I come again, I will repay. Hallelujah for that. All these things are pictures
of the Christ of the law that this man should have known, this
lawyer. All the picture of our Lord as He undertakes for all
His people, who by nature are all in this condition of this
man that was waylaid and robbed and wounded, left for dead, stripped
of his garment, fatally wounded, no ability to help themselves,
entirely dependent on external mercy for life. You know, and
I just have an idea that this lawyer, since he was a lawyer,
makes a point of telling us that. He was probably an expert in
the Old Testament and the law and the prophets and Probably
went around spouting them off all the time. He likely was familiar
with this scripture of grace that's recorded for us in Ezekiel
chapter 16. If you turn over in your Bibles
there to Ezekiel chapter 16, we'll read 10 verses from Ezekiel
starting in verse 1. And again, the Word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know
her abominations. And say, Thus saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem. And it's just a picture of the
church there. Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan.
Thy father was an Amorite, thy mother a Hittite. Who's your
neighbor? Maybe somebody you don't expect. Maybe it's like Noah, or not
Noah, It would have lapsed in my memory
here, but swallowed by the whale. Jonah. Yeah, Jonah. The Lord
said, I want you to go and be a neighbor to the Ninevites.
And he goes, no, not the Ninevites. They're awful people. I don't
like them. Can't be neighbor to them. Thy birth and thy nativity is
the land of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite, thy
mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day that thou was born, thy navel was not cut, neither was thou
washed in water to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all, nor
swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee to do any
of these unto thee. Laying there in that ditch, left
for dead, stripped of your raiment. I saw thee polluted in thine
own blood. And I said unto thee, when thou
was in thy blood, live. I went to you. He went where he was. I said, live. Yea, I said unto
thee, when thou was in thy blood, live. I have caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen
great. Now art come to excellent ornaments, thy breasts are fashioned,
thy hair is grown, whereas thou was naked and bare. What a picture
of what happens to you in rebirth. All the nakedness taken care
of, all the sin evokes. Now, when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, Thy time was the time of love. I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness." You know, it was his skirt that covered
the nakedness. It wasn't that he gave him something
else and said, here, take care of yourself. I spread my skirt
over thee, and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord, and thou becamest mine. I washed thee with water, Yea,
I washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with
oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. Boy, what a good
illustration of what the Lord does for his people. Takes care
of us when we're just unlovable, unnasty looking, Someone we wouldn't want for
our neighbor. I mean, I loved you from eternity. And I only see you as without
splot and without blemish and without wrinkle through Christ. That's how I see you. And I says,
I loved you. Our time was a time
of love. And with God, the time of love
is an eternal time. It's, I've loved thee with an
everlasting love. Not just, well, once you clean
up your act, get yourself cleaned up and clothed and get your money
back and get your life in order, then I'll love you. And if you
do all the good stuff and take care of the giving and tithing
and all that other stuff, then I'll love you. He loved us when
we were the most atrocious, when we were the most unlovable. He
already had loved us. You know, the good Samaritan
comes to us and saves us, paid what we owed, what we may owe
in the future with his own blood. You know, this lawyer, he says,
Go thou and do likewise. Well, you know, he couldn't spiritually
do what our Good Samaritan did. But he could start at that same
scripture in Deuteronomy and preach unto them Christ. He could preach about the Good Samaritan who
could. So we'll stop there and we have
one more little part in Luke chapter 10 dealing with Martha. And we'll take a quick
look at that and then we'll move on to chapter 11. So meantime,
thanks for your attention and go and be free.