Verse 25, And behold, a certain
lawyer stood up and tempted him, this is talking to Jesus, saying,
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him,
What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering
said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy mind.
and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, thou hast
answered right, this do and thou shalt live. But he, willing to
justify himself, said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor? 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. 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 a 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 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. 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. In verse 25, we'll begin reading. And behold, a certain lawyer
And what is meant is not an attorney, what we would call a lawyer,
as we'd use the word, but rather it means a devout student of
the Old Testament law. Here's a man, a Jew, he is very
knowledgeable in the Old Testament, but he knows nothing of Christ
in the gospel. He knows nothing of the way of
salvation. And he's not come to Jesus to
learn anything. That verse says that he came
to tempt or to test Jesus, to try and trap Him. He thinks it's
all about a match of wits and knowledge. I mean, so many think
like that today. You know, if I know more than
you, I'm better off than you. That's not how it works. That's not how it works. The
most ignorant man in the country that's teachable is better off
than the most learned man in the country that's not teachable.
And this man was not teachable. I hope I am. I hope you are. And the Lord has given me this
one more opportunity on this Sunday morning, May 31st, 2015,
to tell you what the Lord has shown me from
his precious word about the way of salvation. And I'm delighted
that you're here to listen. I hope we're teachable. I hope you're teachable. We might
not be. You know, most of us think like,
well, we've pretty well got the bull by the horns. We can handle
anything that comes along. And we don't need anybody for
anything. That's dangerous country. Dangerous
country. So this fellow asked the Lord
a question. And he begins with the word master, which meant
teacher. And this is extreme hypocrisy
on the man's part. He don't consider Christ as his
master. But he asked him, what must I do? What shall I
do to inherit eternal life? The Lord says to him in so many
words, you tell me. I'm sure you know. You know,
you can tell when somebody asks you a question if they're wanting
an answer or if they're wanting to give you their answer. That's
what this fellow was doing. So the Lord said in so many words,
you tell me. Verse 26, he said, What is written
in the law? How readest thou? What does the
Bible say about it? What does the Old Testament say
about it? The New Testament was not written at that time. So
the man quotes from Deuteronomy 6.5, and he said this, What it
says is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, with all thy mind,
and thy neighbor as thyself." Now there's churches and there's
preachers all over this country this morning that are pounding
people with this very thing. See? You do this now. Love the Lord with all your heart,
all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and thy neighbor
as thyself, and that'll get the job done. And it will. But there's
a problem with it. There's a problem with it. So
this man quoted this to the Lord. Those religious Jews, they could
quote the Old Testament. And the Lord said to him, thou
hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live. You've asked a question. You've
answered it. The problem is, you're no better
off. Your answer said, all you have
to do to have eternal life is be perfect. That's all. That's
all you have to do. Now if the fellow had just been
honest then and there and confessed, yes, that's what it says, but
I absolutely can't do it. And no child of Adam can. I can
be religious and I am. I can stop some bad habits and
I have. I can start some good habits
and I have. But the standard is not better
or even best. The standard is perfection. God has never settled for anything
less and never will. You say, well, what chance do
I have? In that, you've no chance. None
whatsoever. So this fellow says, you know,
if he'd have been honest and had just said, to love the Lord
with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength and
all my mind, Do you see that four alls in that verse? All
my heart, all my soul, all my strength, all my mind to love
the Lord. If Edith just said, I just can't
do that. I just don't do that. And neither
do you. And love thy neighbor as much
as you love yourself. Don't lie about it. You don't.
This is number one. And that's number one in the
mirror. So what is he saying? Human merit. And goodness is out of the question. Because the standard is perfection.
And we're not perfect. Born too late for that. This
is so simple and yet it is so difficult for us. The religious world that we grew
up in and are in now, it is so works oriented. It is so unscriptural. Now, if I mash my finger and
cuss and you mash your finger and don't cuss, You're better
than me. Says who? If you drink a beer and I don't
drink a beer, I'm better than you. Says who? I try not to cuss and I don't
drink beer. Never tasted it. But I don't
do anything or I don't refrain from anything to earn God's approval. And until you get that out of
your head, there's no hope for you. I'm telling you, until you get
that out of your head, there's no hope for you. The Lord is going to teach this
man the gospel in this story, the way of salvation. Whether
he gets the message, I don't know. I don't believe he does.
But he could not confess his inability to perform well enough
to win God's smile. And that might be hard for you,
but you've got to do it. Confess your inability to perform
well enough to win God's smile. Because perfection is all it'll
do. And you don't got it. That's good English. You don't
got it. So what does the guy do? He starts
manipulating and defending his self-righteousness.
The law said, be perfect. And as if this guy says, well,
I don't have a problem with that, really. I just need to clear
up one little technicality. I want to be real clear about this.
Exactly who is my neighbor? Is it those that live within
a quarter of a mile of me? Or those that live within a half
a mile of me? Or maybe even a mile? I just want to get that. This
fellow's a million miles off course. This is extreme hypocrisy. And
really, he's no worse than probably us lots of times. We come up
with every way imaginable to avoid exactly what God's Word
says. I hear people twist it every
day. I hear preachers twist it every day on the radio. I read
in books where men twist it every day. But we do this. We twist things. We come up with every way imaginable
to avoid exactly what God's Word says. And we say, oh, I know
it says this about such and such over here, but I'm over here. My case is a little different. Your case is not a little different. And the Lord proceeds to tell
this man, this story that we read, it's a story with several
characters. And if you're not familiar with
it, you ought to be Luke 10. And all these are potential neighbors. But in the end, there's only
one neighbor. And that's our message this morning.
That's the thrust of the message this morning. One neighbor. This passage is often referred
to as the parable of the Good Samaritan. But usually when Christ
spake parables, the Bible tells us it's a parable. And it don't
say this is a parable. I'm guessing this thing, this
happened many times probably. And according to history and
what I've read, it still happens today. There. But it's not a parable. Actually,
if you look at it now, actually it's a true story about every
one of us. We're all in this story. Verse 30, a certain man went
down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem, throughout the Old
Testament, was the place of God's blessing. God said, it's the
place I've chosen to put my name. It was a place of God's blessing.
Jericho, on the other hand, was a place of God's cursing. He
destroyed it once. You remember when the walls fell
down flat? And when he did that, he said,
cursed is the man that builds it back. But they did. They built
it back. So it's from blessing to cursing. That's the direction this man
is going. And that's the history of Adam's
race. When man fell in the Garden of
Eden through disobedience, we were all there, representatively
in Adam. Now, you can't say I would have
done differently from what Adam did. No, you wouldn't. You are
Adam, reproduced. You are what Adam was. Adam was
what we are. with the same sinful, rebellious
nature that he had after he sinned. That's who we are. So this certain
man here is all Adam's race. And so when you read this, instead
of reading a certain man, put your name in there. Tommy went down from Jerusalem
to Jericho. Jim went down from Jerusalem
to Jericho. Robert went down from Jerusalem
to Jericho. The preacher went down from Jerusalem
to Jericho. Yeah, this is all of us. It was
about an 18-mile trip with almost constant descent downhill. I want us to consider four characters
here. Number one, the rebel within. Who is he? Well, He's every one
of us. The rebel within. It is depraved,
fallen nature, sinful nature that makes any of us choose to
go from the place of blessing to the place of cursing. It's
the thing that makes every young person want to get out and sow
a little wild oats. It's a place that makes any adult
want to just cross the line from Jerusalem to Jericho. It's nature. By nature we run from God, not
to Him. And everybody that won't confess
that is lying to themselves. You see, Adam and Eve, in their
nakedness, You can read the story, they made them some fig leaf
aprons, but they still knew that wouldn't work. And when the Lord
came walking in the garden, they ran and hid. And that's what
all men still do by nature. Nobody chooses to be hemmed up
and hemmed in by the Lord. Some of you feel hemmed up here
this morning. But I'll tell you this, when and if He ever hems
you up, Your life will never be the same. And if He don't,
you'll go to hell in spite of everything and everybody. So that's the way all humanity
is headed downhill. Why? There's a rebel within. In your own breast. In your own
sinful, wicked heart. Jeremiah said, the prophet Jeremiah
said, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Whose heart was he talking about?
His own and everybody else's. Not only the rebel within, but
secondly, in this story, there were the robbers without. We
read in verse 30 that he fell among thieves which stripped
him of his raiment and wounded him. and departed, leaving him
half dead. By going down this road, he was
exposed to danger. He was exposed to powers greater
than he was. And so are you. So am I. We are no match for the powers
of hell. and demon spirits that plague
you in life, in your home, in your family, all the time. All the time. See, we grew up
with the idea that the devil is out yonder somewhere. He's
way out yonder at the beer joint or the nightclub. No, he's wherever
you are. Making sure you don't see the
light and call on God. That's the devil's game. See,
you may not realize this, but you don't live your life. Not
at all. You're either in submission to
the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is greater than Satan, or else
the demons of hell are having a heyday in your heart and in
your life. And you know which one it is. This man didn't, on the one hand,
he didn't choose to be robbed and beaten, and yet by making
this journey down this road, he did choose it. Once he starts down that road,
what happened was bound to happen. They used to tell us young folks,
be careful that you don't get started down the wrong road,
honey. The Psalmist David said, I was started down the wrong
road from my mother's womb. I was in a mess when I was conceived
in sin, shapen and iniquity. It's in here. Oh, it may not
come out while you're a nice little child, but it'll come
out. It'll come out. So the fella gets in trouble
going down this road. Let me read you something by
an old writer about this particular road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was written by a man named
D.D. Whedon, and this volume I'm holding
was printed in 1866. It's in really good condition,
and I cherish this volume. He says, this man proceeds down
the road, once the channel of a stream and now a deep ravine. And at about 10 miles from the
city, he enters that gloomy road through the desert wilderness
called by St. Jerome the Bloody Way, that's
what it's called. And which from that time to the
present has been the haunt of Arab and other robbers. The ravines, The almost inaccessible
cliffs, the caverns, furnish admirable lurking places for
robbers. They can rush forth upon their
victims unexpectedly and escape as soon almost beyond the possibility
of pursuit. Scarce a season at the present
day passes in which some murder does not vindicate its title
to the name of the bloody way. Most people I know are living
on that bloody way, beaten, bleeding and dying. You say, not me. I'm running my life. I got my
act to get. No, no. You're on this bloody
way, beaten, bleeding and dying. Eating, drinking and being merry,
yes, but beaten, bleeding and dying in the bloody way. Not only the rebel within and
the robbers without, but thirdly, notice in this story, the religion
that's withdrawn. Verse 31, and by chance, That
is, it just so happened, by chance, there came down a certain priest
that way. And when he saw him, that is, saw this man beat up
in the ditch, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite, when
he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on
the other side. These are religious men. Did you know religion cannot
help you? The law of God said to be perfect. And you can't. Religion can't
help you. The priest and the Levite here
represent the Old Testament law. A priest was not supposed to
touch a dead body. And of course, the Levites were
the tribe or the family from whom the priest came. And God
commanded they wouldn't touch a dead body. Well, they didn't
know what this fellow was dead. They weren't going to go over
and touch him. They couldn't. They were forbidden by the Lord
to touch him. They couldn't help him. And just
a dose of religion can't help you. I tell you what good religion
can do, and you can get this about any way you want to drive.
If you want to drive east, west, north or south, it doesn't matter.
They can feed you pizza, fill your belly. They can put you
on a softball team and entertain you. They can put you on a committee
and make you feel important. They can put you on a bus and
haul you all over the country, but to help you concerning your
beat-up condition before God, they'll cross the road and leave
you to die in your own blood. That's all they can do. That's
all they can do. A good dose of religion can feed
rotten flesh and make you feel good about yourself. People brag on you for all you
do. But you'll die and you'll sin following that mess. So your own nature, the rebel
within, is not your neighbor. The robbers without are not your
neighbors. The religion withdrawn is not
your neighbor. But there is one neighbor, the rescuer, that's willing And
there's just one in all the world. And this one is not a son of
Adam. He's the son of God. Verse 33 said, but a certain
Samaritan. The Jews despised the Samaritans. For those of you that don't know,
Samaritans were high breeds. And the Jews despised them. And
our Lord deliberately makes the good guy in this story a Samaritan. He's nailing this Jewish legalist
to the wall. That's what he's doing. A certain Samaritan, as he journeyed,
he journeyed. He's going somewhere. See, the
other, the priest and the Levite guy, they just by chance, they
just wandered out. They're going the wrong way,
too. They came down, it said. They're going in the same direction
the fellow's beat up is going. That's why religion can't help
you. Everybody's in the same boat. But this certain Samaritan,
as he journeyed, he's going up the road. Came where he was. When he saw
him, he had compassion on him. I'm just now getting to where
I'd like to start. People say, oh, I've got some good neighbors.
And some of you say that, and maybe you do. I hope you do in
the sense that that sense of the word. But what I'm saying
is the shape you're in spiritually, the shape we're all in before
God, when it comes to facing God someday, there's not but
one neighbor. Just one. He had compassion on
him. And that's the only hope for you
is for this one to have compassion on you. Nobody else did. Nobody else really does. And
the quicker you learn that, the better. I done seen it happen
too many times before the flowers fade on your grave. 99% of this
world that you think loves you will forget you ever existed.
That's how it works. That's how it works. But we're
all going to meet God one of these days. Now there's something in this
story that today's religious world hates and you might hate
it. And people hate me for mentioning it. But it's right here and it's
everywhere else I read in the Bible. This fellow beat up, in
verse 30, says they left him half dead. Did you ever wonder
what that means? Half dead? It means he cannot do anything
for himself. Left to himself, he will die. He's a goner. But if he had a
friend, if he had a neighbor, somebody to help him, there's
hope for him and there's healing for him. And I'm going to say
something now that some of you may have never heard in your
life. Contrary to modern religious thought, The Lord is not wringing
his hands, pleading with folks to come to him. No, no. You can't come to him. You're
beat up. You've been left for dead by
the enemy. You're bleeding to death and
don't even know it. The buzzards of hell are circling your dying
carcass as I speak. And if Christ don't come to you,
if he don't come to you, it may be lying in your bed in the midnight
hour. It may be riding down the road in your vehicle. It may
be sitting under a shade tree. I don't know. But if he don't
find you, you won't find him. This one neighbor is all there
is. He's the good shepherd. He's
the one that goes out in the night and finds his lost sheep. The lost sheep never find the
shepherd. The shepherd finds the sheep. When I was a teenage boy, out at night, come in late, very
late sometimes, everybody in bed, quiet, very quiet. And I'd hear
Mama whispering. And she was praying. And sometimes I'd hear her call
my name. And you know the one thing I'd
do? The one thing I'd do? I'd whisper to myself, Lord,
I don't want to go to hell. I wasn't interested in doing
anything about it. And preachers had lied to me
and said I could do something about it if I wanted to. Trouble
was, I couldn't make myself want to. And neither can you. Neither can you. A crazy man
don't know he's crazy. And a man perishing in his sins
without hope, don't know he's perishing in his sins without
hope, because so many lying preachers have told him all he's got to
do is just say, you believe Jesus died on the cross? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, you say it. Unless this one neighbor, one
neighbor, the only neighbor this world has ever known comes to
you, there's no hope. No hope. If Almighty God don't change
your heart, you will die saying, maybe later. I'll take my chances
for now. There are no chances now or ever. Salvation is not by chance. If God don't bring you to cry
to Him, you never will. That's the story. Verse 34, He
went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, cleansing
and healing. He went to him and he went to
work on him. He didn't stand on the other side of the road
and sing an invitation hymn. He didn't pitch him a Bible or
a gospel tract to cross the road. He came to him. He came to him. And if He don't come to you,
what I'm saying is, the rebel in you, the robbers around you, the religion
around you, will put you in hell. Whether you go to church or not,
who cares? You say, I wish you wouldn't
use that word so much. It's offensive. Yeah, it is.
Old Preacher Kirkendall used to say, it's the devil that makes
that offensive to you. He don't like you talking about
his daddy's old home place. See, if you belong to him, the
devil, that word hell is your daddy's old home place. And you
don't want to hear that. But I thank God this morning
because of this one neighbor, the Lord Jesus Christ. This world
is the nearest thing to hell I'll ever experience. I'm thrilled
about that. And if this one neighbor don't
penetrate and shatter that rebellious bitter, wicked heart of yours. This world is the nearest thing
to heaven you'll ever experience. We can talk about the weather.
We can talk about baseball. We can talk about car racing.
We can talk about politics. We can talk about the economy.
We can talk about retirement. We can talk about everything
under the sun. But I want you to know this this morning.
I am not ashamed of who I am and whose I am. I'm a child of
the King and I'm on my way home. I'm pretty beat up right now,
but I've had a heart transplant and I'm waiting in line for a
full body replacement. I'm ready to leave here and praise
God forever. Hello, I'm preaching. Listen.
And live forever with this one neighbor, the only one this world
has ever had, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's stand together.