OK. Good day. Luke, Chapter 10. Now, as I said earlier, we're
looking at the story of the Good Samaritan, but the Good Samaritan
story in Luke 10 fits into a context. The context in verses prior to
and verse 17, which is there before you, is that the Lord
has sent out the disciples and The seventy returned with joy,
saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.
He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions
and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any
means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice
in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice
because your names are written in heaven. In that hour, Jesus
rejoiced. That's the only time in the New
Testament where it's recorded the Lord rejoiced. He rejoiced
in the Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent
and revealed them to babes, even so, Father, so it seemed good
in your sight. All things have been delivered
to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the
Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to
whom the Son wills to reveal Him." Then he turned to his disciples
and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things
you see, For I tell you that many prophets and kings have
desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to
hear what you hear, and have not heard it." And so here we
have just a great description of the Lord's way of saving His
people. God's children have their names
written in heaven, This comes not through wisdom and prudence,
because we come to meet with a lawyer who comes to the Lord
Jesus with great wisdom and prudence, such wisdom that he can even
test and tempt, as it is, the Son of God. And of course salvation,
as the Lord Jesus says in John 17.3, is knowing God. And all of God's activities are
done because it is good in the sight of God. It's seen good
in your sight. All things have been delivered
to me by my Father. The Lord Jesus is Lord of all. He's given him authority over
all flesh, that he would give eternal life to as many as the
Father has given him. And so salvation in verse 22
is the result of God's good pleasure, the Son's will, and the Son's
will to reveal the Father. We see God the Father in His
glory in the Lord Jesus. And these are blessed things
for us to see. Now I'm not sure that the lawyer
here or the scribe witnessed all these things, but God the
Holy Spirit has put them together because here we have a man who
stood up to test the Lord Jesus. And he seems, like the rich young
ruler in Mark, to be asking a really sincere question. What must I
do to inherit eternal life? But like the other questions
these men asked the Lord Jesus, that word, testing him, is the
same word that's used in Acts 15.10. where the apostles meet
to discuss what was happening in the churches in Jerusalem
and into Galatia, where people were coming and putting others
back under the law. It's called testing God, tempting
God. And so we see behind the veil
of this wise and prudent man, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life? The Lord has just spoken about
eternal life being the Father's pleasure, the Son's will, and
by revelation, whereas this man comes to test God What shall
I do?" Now the lawyer here is not like the lawyers we have
around us today. He's a scribe who is a lawyer. And so their job was to be not
just the transcribers of God's law, but they were to analyse
it and to apply it and to preach upon it and to make judgments. All the judgments of Israel were
judgments to do with the law of God, because the law of God
encompassed all of life. And so these were hugely significant
men. And so the Lord Jesus, when someone
comes to Him, With the law, the Lord keeps taking him back to
the law. What's written in your law? What
is your reading of it? So he answered and said, now
this is something they said like the Catholics fiddle with their
rosary beads. They had it tied to their foreheads
and wrapped around their arms. was on the things that they call
phylacteries. And so they recited this every
day. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your
mind and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, verse 28,
Do this and you will live. do this, he says to the lawyer,
and you will live. But he, verse 29, wanting to
justify himself, if he had any semblance of knowledge of his
own heart, he knew that he was now snookered. And so it's fascinating,
isn't it, that rather than talking about how it would be wonderful
if he could love God with all of his soul, all of his mind
and all of his strength, and how it would be wonderful if
he could love his neighbour as himself. Like all legalists,
they try and find an escape route. like a trapped animal, they'd
look for a place of safety. The only place in all of these
words he can find any safety at all is, well, how do we define
neighbour here? Who is my neighbour? You see, anyone who wants to
test God and wants to justify himself, will adjust the law. Always they adjust the law to
a standard they can jump over. They always make the bar just
at the level they can manage. They always find the things in
the law that they can do, and they set the bar at the level
they can jump over, and then they look around at the rest
of the world and say, they can't do it, look what I'm doing. Look
how special I am. To justify yourself is just wickedness. And the Lord Jesus has this man
trapped. And so here we have this parable
from verse 30 down to 35, and it's remarkable when you
read the commentaries that this parable and was seen possibly
by me, I can't remember with any clarity, as something which
is talking about our obligations to each other and our obligations
to God. But in fact, this parable, like
all of Jesus' messages, are pictures of salvation. When they come
along to test Him, as we've seen in Mark's Gospel, when they come
along to test the Lord Jesus, not only does He deal directly
and honestly with their challenge, but every time, every single
time in the midst of it when He's answering their question,
he preaches the Gospel to them. And that's what this parable
is about. This parable is a parable of
salvation. This parable is a parable that
shows us that the law is utterly unable to help fallen man. unable to help them spiritually,
unable to help them morally. Its purpose was never to do so. So let's just read this story
and we'll go along fairly quickly. Jerusalem, of course, is a remarkable
city. It's a city where Abraham went
to sacrifice his son, the place where he went to sacrifice his
son, Isaac. It was the home of Melchizedek. The word Salem is the Hebrew
word Shalom, which means peace. And the first part of that word
probably means sacred, holy place. So Jerusalem is a place of peace. And the remarkable thing about
the spelling of that word is that in the scriptures we know
that there are two Jerusalems. There is a Jerusalem on this
earth, and there is a Jerusalem above, a sacred city of peace
which is above. And the last part of the word
in English spelling is actually plural, which is really fascinating,
isn't it? We have these two. And of course
Jericho, is a place of cursedness. You can read about it in Joshua
chapter 6, that if this place was cursed. And the way from
this place of peace to this place of cursedness is a wilderness. It's a really stark, bleak wilderness. And they called it the Red or
the Bloody Way. And so violent were the people
that lived along that road that they actually, the Romans, built
a fort and established a garrison there. Such was its danger. But of course, We need to look
beyond what we see physically, and what do we see spiritually
out of this? A certain man went down from
Jerusalem to Jericho. Who was a certain man? The certain
man was our father, Adam, went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Our father, Adam, fell among
thieves. The thieves that he fell among
were Satan and sin. He went from a place of peace
to a place of condemnation. He went from a place and took
all of his people with him, from a place of blessedness to a place
of cursing. He went from a place of happiness
to a place of misery. He went from a place of righteousness
to a place of sin. He went from a place of acceptance
with God to a place of separation from God. He went from a place
of communion and peace to a wilderness of pain and he was stripped of
all his clothing. He was stripped of all his righteousness. He was wounded and they left him half dead. That's what happened in the fall,
isn't it? We were spiritually dead. we were just left by Satan. And the self-righteousness of
this scribe is just typical of what self-righteous men do, who
have lost the righteousness of God. The one thing they'll always
do is seek to establish their own righteousness and justify
themselves. We have lost so much in the fall.
One of the tragedies of the fall is that we've lost so much that
we don't know how much we've lost. We've lost the honor of
being God's image bearers on this earth. We've lost what it
is to live for the glory of God in this world. And we are left
with our own filthy rags of our own works. And now we are naked,
ashamed, we have no covering, and we are left dead. Now the Lord Jesus explains what
the law does when it meets someone like this. The priest represents
the law in its sacrificial elements, and the Levite represents the
law and all its legal obligations. Verse 31, Now by chance a certain
priest came down the road. When he saw him, he passed by
on the other side. Likewise, a Levite, when he arrived
at that place, came and looked and passed by on the other side. See, the law comes to fallen
man, dead, dying, stripped, in wilderness, and leaves him
exactly as he was. It can do nothing to help him. The law is utterly unable to
help a fallen man. There is no mercy in the law. It is unbending. It demands perfection
or death. It was written on tablets of
stone, tablets of stone to signify that it's completely unbending. It demands absolute perfect holiness
and accepts nothing other than absolute perfect holiness. Perfection or death is what the
stone says. And to be written in stone means
it's to be never changed. God's holy law remains that way. It terrifies. but never comforts. I've been reading Pilgrim's Progress.
I just love the insights of John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress.
And as he's sent on his way out of the city of destruction by
the evangelist, he gets close to the gate that he's supposed
to go through, and then he meets a man called Mr. Worldly Wise. And Mr. Worldly Wise says, oh,
there's another easy way to get rid of the burden that's on your
back, the burden that he felt of sin. And he sends him on a
road off the way and he comes to this, he's to go to this town
just by this mountain and the closer he gets to the mountain
the bigger and more ferocious the mountain is and he's terrified
because he looks up and the mountain's about to fall on him. And Mr
Worldly Wise and all of his cohorts, Mr Civility, Mr Morality, Mr
Legality and all of these people seek to entrap him. An evangelist
comes along and rescues him and he shows him what the mountain
really is and he calls on God to show him what this mountain
is. And the mountain heaves and there is lightning and thunder
and great terror and a Christian realises what terrible, terrible
danger he was in. John Bunyan wrote that 400 years
ago. It's quite remarkable, isn't it, that we have lost sight of
all of those wonderful insights. I recommend reading it. I've certainly read it a hundred
times. It's worthy of much reading. Yet the war wounds, but it doesn't
give peace. And the law cannot come down
to where we are. The law cannot touch us. It just condemns or kills. For these men in real life, to
touch a dead body meant an exhausting process, a week-long expensive
ritual. The red heifer sacrifice was
required. It was a huge thing. And the
law like that with us will not touch us. It won't come to where
we are. But then a certain Samaritan,
that's the question for the night. Who is the Samaritan? Who is
the certain Samaritan? Just listen to the things that
this certain Samaritan did. So the Lord Jesus was accused
of being a Samaritan in John 48, a cursed person, and He was
treated as a cursed outcast from Israel. Just look as we read
along in verse 33 what this certain Samaritan does. He took a journey
God so loved the world that he sent his only forgotten son. He came to where he was. He comes to where we are. And when he looked, he had compassion. The others showed no compassion
at all. And He came to Him, verse 34,
He comes to us personally. We would never have gone to Him.
We were dying and dead and naked. He went to Him. He bandaged up
His wounds. He bandaged up the wounds of
his body, the wounds of his heart, his soul, his strength, his mind,
his emotional wounds and his spiritual wounds. And he poured
on oil and water. He poured on oil and wine, I
beg your pardon. He poured on the Holy Spirit.
represented in oil throughout the scriptures. And the wine
represents His blood, the cleansing of His righteousness and His
sin-bearing death. And He put Him on His own beast,
set Him on His own animal. He set Him there. The Lord Jesus
is pictured in Revelation and Zechariah was riding on a red
horse of his holy humanity in Zechariah 1.8 and in Revelation
and other places he's pictured as riding on a white horse, a
triumphant white horse of his gospel. So he sets this man there and he brought him to an inn. And that's what God does with
His children in this world, doesn't He? He takes them to an inn,
to the house of God. He takes them to His church. This is the household of God,
where God comes and ministers to them. And He took care of
him. It's a wonderful picture of what
the Lord Jesus does in church. He takes care of his people in
his inn. He provides shepherds, but the
wonderful thing about the shepherd's job is the shepherd's job is
to point to the saviour of the time. The shepherd's job for
those who need counselling is to point them to he who is the
wonderful counsellor. The shepherd's job for those
who need peace is to point people to he who is the prince of peace. The shepherd's job for those
who seek wisdom is to point them to him who is our wisdom, our
sanctification, our righteousness. He takes care of his people.
He is the good shepherd. On the next day he departed and
took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper. And the next words are quite
remarkable. And he said to him, take care of him and whatever
more you spend When I come again, I will repay you. It's an emphatic
declaration by the Lord. I will take full responsibility
for all of his care, for all of his healing. Whatever is in
this inn and in need of anything, put it all on my account. What a wonderful picture of our
Saviour. He put all of our salvation,
all of our righteousness to His account in the eternal covenant
before the foundation of the world. He came into this world
representing His people and took full account for their need to
live out perfect, holy righteousness before God. And remarkably on
that cross, He put all of our sins, all of
the sins of His people on His account and said, don't you trouble
them any longer, I'll take full responsibility for them. What
a wonderful declaration of the Gospel. Verse 36 is the Lord Jesus' question
to the self-justifying, hard-working lawyer. So which of these three
do you think was a neighbour to him who fell among thieves? And now, like a trapped animal
again, he can't bring himself to say the word, Samaritan. He
just says, He who showed mercy on him. And then Jesus said to him, the
question for anyone, the statement, the demand for anyone who seeks
to inherit eternal life, by something they do, he says, go and do likewise. In God's Gospel, when God comes,
God reveals and God makes himself known to people, we realize that
we are shut up to free grace. We are in the hands of God and
we depend upon God and His activities entirely for every tiny little
part of our lives. We have nothing. We can do nothing. We can't do holiness. We can't do perfection. We can't do the law. The just Live by faith, and cursed
is anyone who relies on the law. You have to be perfect before
God, perfect before man, before everyone, all of the time. It's a wonderful picture of the
Gospel the Lord Jesus presents to all of us here, isn't it?
What a word about a faithful Samaritan. Why don't we read Romans 3? It's
just really wonderful to read this passage of Scripture. The
Lord Jesus reminds people again of where they have fallen and
how far they have fallen. There is no one, no one, no one. Their throat is an open turn,
their tongues are practiced to seed. Their feet are swift to
shed blood. What a description of the thieves
in Romans 3, 10 to 18. The way of peace. they have not known there is
no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the
law says, it says to those who are under the law that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before
God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus
Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being
justified That next word should be underlined in your Bibles
and highlighted. Justified freely. It means justified without any
cause in yourself, Jamie. Nothing in what we do. We are
justified freely by His grace. That's what grace is. through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as
a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in the forbearance of God had passed over the sins
that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present
time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier
of the one who works like a little slave, the justifier of the one
who has faith in Jesus, not about the things that we do. Where
is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law
of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or
is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the
Gentiles, the Samaritans? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since
there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and
the uncircumcised through faith." And here's the answer. to the
Pharisee, to the lawyers, to all of them. Do we then make
void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary,
we establish the law, because the law has been established
as holy, righteous, just, good, in the personal work of our Saviour. May we be led to know the healing
balm of the gospel. May we be led by this good Samaritan
to his house to be cared for and comforted by him. Let's pray.