Let's open our Bibles today to
Luke chapter 10. We're going to read and study
today from our Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan. We begin our reading in verse
25, Luke chapter 10 and verse 25. And behold, a certain lawyer
stood up and tempted or tested him, saying, Master, what shall
I do to inherit eternal life? Before we read the rest of the
parable, let's just stop and think about this. Here's a man
who recognized that when you die, That's not the end of your
existence. That there is such a thing as
eternal life, and contrary-wise, there is such a thing as eternal
death. This man recognized that. Do you? Do you recognize today
that death is not the end of your existence, that you are going to spend long,
long, long eternity either in the presence of God or under
the judgment and wrath of God Almighty. This man recognized
he had a soul. and his soul that he would continue
to live, to exist after death. Let's continue reading. He said
unto him, that is, this man said, Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? He, the Lord Jesus Christ, 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,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor
as thyself. And the Lord Jesus 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, 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 showeth mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him,
go and do thou likewise. If you watched any of the news
reports this past week showing some people being rescued from
high water, you probably heard or you saw the caption, the good
Samaritan or a good Samaritan. And that makes me think that
the character in this parable of our Lord, the character, the
good Samaritan is probably the best known character in any of
our Lord's parables. with maybe the exception of the
prodigal son. But I want us to look at this
parable today, and there's four things that I want to bring out
to us from it. First, the parable was prompted
by question. The Lord spoke this parable because
of the question, who is my neighbor? Now this question was asked by
a man who was a lawyer. And he just before this had asked,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord Jesus Christ sent
him to the law. He was a lawyer. Now he wasn't
a lawyer like we think of lawyers today, lawyers who have studied
the laws of the country, of the state, the city in which they
practice. This man was a lawyer who spent
his time He spent his life studying the law, but it was the law of
Moses. And the only reason the law is
called the law of Moses, it's actually the law of God. But
it's called the law of Moses because God gave the law through
Moses. God came down upon Mount Sinai
and spoke through Moses to the nation of Israel. In other words,
he was a mediator between God who gave His law and the people
to whom it was given. Now, in the Lord's Sermon, which
is called the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ said six
times, ye have heard. You have heard that it hath been
said. He says this six times, and the
last time He said, you have heard it hath been said, love your
neighbor and hate your enemy. This lawyer, this man who asked
this question, he was of the group of people who would have
taught that. When the Lord Jesus Christ said,
you have heard, and this is what you've heard, love your neighbor
and hate your enemy. They would have heard that from
a man like this lawyer, because that was his work. He was part
of the scribes and the Pharisees. He studied the law. Our Lord
said, you have heard that it hath been said, love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy. Now, part of the law Definitely,
this is found in Leviticus chapter 19, the law said, thou shalt
love thy neighbor. If you saw your neighbor's ox,
for instance, if you lived at that time and he had an ox, and
you saw it straying away out of love to your neighbor, you
would take the ox and lead it back or keep it until he came
seeking it. you would show your love to your
neighbor. The law required that, and that's
just one example. But the law said love thy neighbor,
but the law never said hate thy enemy. You can search through
the law, you'll never find that. How then, when you stop and think
about it, how then did these men, These religious men, all
of them, how was it that they were able to teach the people,
common people just like you and I, how was it they were able
to teach the people, love your neighbor but hate your enemy? Our Lord called them blind leaders
of the blind. But still, how did they get away
with this? How is it possible that they
could teach something that did not come from the law of God? Hate your enemy. How could they
do that? The law, remember this, the law
was given, I assume, in Hebrew. That's the way the language,
the Hebrew language. That's the way Moses received
the law. That's the way it was written.
That's the way the first five books of the scripture, the Pentateuch,
was written in Hebrew. When the nation of Israel was
carried into captivity, into Babylon, they began to hear and
to learn the language which is called Aramaic. Aramaic. And when they came back out of
captivity, most of the people, they didn't speak Hebrew. They
didn't have a Bible to begin with, but if they had had a Bible,
the Old Testament, that's all they would have had. It would
have been written in Hebrew with a few exceptions. There are just
a few verses in the Old Testament which were written in Aramaic. But basically, in all the law,
was written in Hebrew. But here these people spoke Greek
now. And they couldn't read Hebrew,
even if they'd had a copy of the law. And so these people
who studied the law, they could read Hebrew, I assume. They studied
the law, they taught the law, they taught the people, and they
said, the Lord Jesus Christ said, you have heard, it hath been
said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. That's how they
got away with it. Most of the people couldn't read
Hebrew. You know, when you read church
history, especially church history concerning Europe, you see the
very same thing happened. The very same thing happened
when in the fourth century, the scripture was translated into
Latin. Jerome's Latin translation of
the Bible. It became the official Bible
of the Roman Church in Europe. Well, the people couldn't read
Latin. Most of the people didn't have a Bible anyway. But if they
had had a Bible, they couldn't read Latin. The clergy, as they
were called, liked to be called. The laity couldn't read Latin.
And so they were able to teach these false teachings about praying
for the dead. I'm just giving some examples
here. You know you have a Bible, you've read your Bible, and you
know the Word of God does not teach that we should pray for
the dead. We pray for those who are alive.
Yes, we must do that. We want to do that. But when
a person has left this life We don't pray for that person's
soul. That person is either in heaven
or in hell. How in the world did the church
then begin to teach praying for the dead and this matter of holy
water? You read through the Old Testament,
you read through the law, and yes, in those ceremonies and
the cleansing of lepers and things like that, water was used, but
it's never referred to as holy water. and the burning of the
candles? You won't find that in the scriptures. The mass, the mass where supposedly
the priest has the power going through his ceremony to change
the bread into the actual body of Christ and the wine into the
actual blood of Christ so that those who take communion literally
eat the body and blood of Christ. How was that able to be taught
and to be believed? And as far as relics, someone
said one time there were so many pieces of the cross in the various
churches scattered over Europe to have made a hundred different
crosses. But yet people were taught there's
something special to make a pilgrimage to this temple where there's
a wooden piece there. And you go there and you pray
or you do something there and that's going to help you. Someone
else said, if the actual cross of Jesus Christ could be found
today, the best thing that could be done with it would be to burn
it. To completely burn it. It's not
that wooden instrument upon which the Lord Jesus Christ died that
has power to save, but it is rather the Christ who suffered
and died upon the cross. You say, well, people wouldn't
do that today. Well, what about the Shroud of
Turin? What about the Shroud of Turin?
All the works. and all the emphasis to prove
that that was the shroud in which the Lord Jesus Christ, his body,
was buried. So what if it were? Do you think
a piece of cloth could help to save a person's soul? Of course
not. And yet, people, and this is
the reason in the Protestant Reformation, what was the one
thing that every Protestant reformer, no matter which language he spoke,
German, Martin Luther, English, William Tyndale, or Wycliffe,
or Hungarian, any language that they taught, French, John Calvin,
let's get the scriptures into the language of the people. Let's
get the scriptures into the language that the people can read for
themselves and see what the Bible says, what God says, and not
be dependent upon someone like this man in our Lord's parable
here, who was charged with studying the law. And he answered right
when the Lord asked him, What does the law say? The law says,
I must love the Lord with all my heart, all my soul, all my
strength, and all my mind. And the law also says, I must
love my neighbor as myself. The Lord said, then do that and
live. Why did the Lord send him to
the law? By the law is the knowledge of
sin. That's what Romans chapter 3
tells us. You go to the law and what do
you learn? Do you learn how you can earn
your salvation? Oh, no. You learn that you have
sinned and you need a savior. The law may serve as a schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. Well, this man, he answered correctly. told the Lord what the law says. And the Lord said, well, do this
and live. But then he said, but who is
my neighbor? If I am to love my neighbor,
then who is my neighbor? The Lord Jesus Christ, he finished
that statement there in that message. You have heard it hath
been said unto you, love your enemies, and hate, or love your
neighbors and hate your enemies. But I say unto you, love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute
you. So this parable, first of all,
it was prompted by a man who asked this question, who is my
neighbor? He asked it because, as the scripture
here says, he was willing to justify himself. He was looking
for a way that he could make himself righteous before God,
justify himself. So he wants to know, who is my
neighbor? If I've got to do this, who is
it? Now, you know, a Samaritan among the Jews, they looked upon
the Samaritans as the worst dogs. That's the way they looked, the
Jews at that time looked upon the Samaritans. The Samaritans
were maybe part Hebrew and part from wherever. When the Assyrians
conquered the ten northern tribes and carried them away and repopulated
that area with these people. These are the ones who were called
Samaritans. Remember, our Lord spoke to one
in John chapter four. She said, you people say that
in Jerusalem is the place to worship. Well, that's what the
law said. But she said, our fathers say in these mountains. That's
what they had been taught. But our Lord told them the hour
is coming and now is when neither in Jerusalem nor in these mountains
shall the true worshipers worship God. For they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth. The second point I
want to make, this parable illustrates what men have come to call the
golden rule. The golden rule is the name that
men have put upon the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he
said, Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do
to you, do you even so to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Now that is just saying we ought
to love our neighbor as ourself. Our Lord said this, and men have
come to call that the golden rule. Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you. Everyone who might experience
what this man in this parable experienced would want to be
helped. If you were beaten and robbed and put over there, thrown
over there in the ditch, what would you want? Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you. What would you have men
do unto you? You would have someone come and
help. That's what you would have. Now two men, our Lord said, rather,
two men passed by this man. One was a priest and one was
a Levite. Levite, of course, was the tribe
from which the priests came. They were involved in the service
of the tabernacle and the temple, the Levites were. One was a priest
and one was a Levite. And the first one, the priest
came by and he went over and he looked and he passed on by. The Levite comes by, he looks,
he passes on by. Let me ask you something. Every
person here, let me ask you this. What would cause a person to
do that? What would cause a person to
see someone hurting, someone in need, and just pass by. Do you think Adam, as he was
created holy and in the image of God, do you think he would
have passed by someone like this? You know he wouldn't. What would cause two men or one
man to do something like this? The Bible teaches the fall. The fall. A holy man, like Adam,
would not pass someone by in need. But a sinful man, yes. And we are all, when we come
into this world, sinful men and women. The scripture tells us
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is
none righteous, no, not one. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. What would cause men to do this?
Sin. Sin. Something we all know something
about by experience. Sin. We must not preach and presume
that everyone that we preach to and everyone we witness to
and our neighbors and our friends, people we work with, we must
not presume that everyone is saved. They may be moral, they
may be what the world calls and what we would call good people,
yes, absolutely. But that doesn't mean that this
matter of sin, the sin question, has been dealt with. This is
what all of us have inherited from our father Adam, a sinful
nature. And we come into this world in
the kingdom of darkness. And only the Lord Jesus Christ
is able to save us and deliver us out of the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of His dear Son. Only God is able to do that. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. It's impossible for men in the
flesh to please God. And that brings me to the third
point of the message, the parable. When we look at it and read it,
it may illustrate to us several truths about the Savior, about
the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation. You know, at one time, in derision,
it's true, but in one time, the Jews referred to Christ, said,
He's a Samaritan. He's a Samaritan. That's what
they called him one time, a Samaritan. We know that wasn't true. He
was of the seed of David. But let's point, let's look at
four things here quickly. First of all, the Samaritan was needed. He
was needed, wasn't he? He was needed. Everybody else
passed this man by. He's hurting. He's needed. The Samaritan was needed. So
the first thing, he was needed. Why? Because the man fell among
thieves. That's what we're told. He was
going from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves. Satan. The devil, he came in the Garden
of Eden and he came as a thief. He came as a murderer, yes, but
he also came as a thief when you think about it. What does
a thief do? A thief seizes something, he
takes something that's not his, it's somebody else's. He takes
it for himself. So Satan came to steal away Adam's
loyalty from God. God had created Adam. His loyalty
was to God. But here comes Satan along as
a thief. And Adam fell to this thief. And he disobeyed God. He lost
that holy image of God in which he had been created. And notice
this, this man that fell among thieves, he was left half dead. You say, well, now, preacher,
men are dead in trespasses and sins. Absolutely. But think about
this. When Adam sinned, he died spiritually. But he continued to live physically
for several hundred years. He was half dead, we might say. So this man in the parable, he
was half dead. The Lord came to rescue. He was half dead. Man is both
body and soul. And Adam died that very day spiritually,
that communion, that fellowship that he enjoyed with God. And
I can't say much about this. I don't have time. And I don't
know much about it. We're not told much about it.
But all I can say, my friends, is the fellowship, the communion,
the joy, the blessedness that Adam had with God before he fell. We can't even begin to imagine
that. And that's what we look forward
to one day in the future. The Samaritans helped because
he fell among thieves. So the second thing we see about
this, the Samaritan came where he was, in verse 33. The Son
of God came into this world by taking into union with himself,
his person, the body that was prepared him by the Holy Spirit
from the Virgin Mary. And notice what it says in verse
34. He went to Him. He went to Him. He's still coming. The Lord Jesus Christ, He's still
coming to sinners. And He's coming to sinners where
sin has left us. Religion tells people, take the
first step and God will take the second. That doesn't help
a sinner. No, He came, the Samaritan came
to where this man was. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes
to His people dead in trespasses and sins, and just like in His
parable of the sheep, He comes and He seeks until He finds His
sheep. He comes to where the sheep was
lost, and He comes to us. Religion tells people, well,
straighten up your life, clean up your life, clean up your act,
you know, and then God, no, no. just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me. In the hog-bin of sin wherever,
look to Christ. Look to Christ. The third thing, the Samaritan,
notice what he used in the healing of this man. He used oil and
wine. Now, oil is most often a type
of God the Holy Spirit, and wine is at least sometimes a type
of the gospel. And the Holy Spirit, through
the ministry of the gospel, He comes, He convicts men of their
need, of sin. Have you ever been convicted
of sin. When the Spirit of God comes,
our Lord said he shall convict men of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment to come. Have you ever had any conviction
of sin in your experience? Or did you just take up church?
Just take up church? Or do you know something about
what it is to be lost? to be sinful, to be in need of
a Savior. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. He does it through the preaching
of the gospel, yes. You know, the Samaritan here
in this parable, He picked up the man, and yes, he carried
him to the inn on his beast, but we might as well say he carried
the man. The man couldn't carry himself.
It was the Samaritan's beast. The Lord Jesus Christ, when He
finds one of His sheep, He places that sheep on His shoulders,
the Scriptures say, and He carries it all the way home. And he calls
his neighbors together and says, come on, rejoice with me. I found my sheep. Our Lord said there's more joy
among the angels over one sinner that repented than over 99 just
persons who need no repentance. We sang that hymn, Ring the Bells
of Heaven, every time one of his sheep is
found. I believe the bells of heaven
are set ringing, don't you? And the angels are rejoicing,
I found my sheep. And this Samaritan told that
innkeeper, whatever, he gave him two pence
and he said, now whatever more you spend, just, I'll pay you. When you read those words, He
said, when I come again, I will repay thee. It sounds to me much
like Paul's words to Philemon when he was speaking to Philemon
or writing to Philemon about his runaway slave who had been
saved. You receive him as a brother
and however much he's wronged you, you just put that on my
account. I'll pay it. Oh, what a type,
right? What a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. To every one of His sheep, whatever,
whatever we owe God and His justice, He said, put that on my account.
I'll pay it. And He paid it. He paid it. He paid it all, just like this
man. He paid it all. And the fourth thing I noticed
about this man, he said, when I return, he didn't say if I
return, oh no, when I return. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ has told us, isn't it? I will come again and receive
you to myself, unto myself, that where I am, there you may be
also. So this parable, there's beautiful
pictures of our Savior and of the saving of a sinner. Let me
close with this, the fourth thing. The parable should first of all,
when we read this parable, it should first of all convince
us, I need a Savior. I need a Savior. The law requires
that I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and
love my neighbor as myself. I have failed. I am not able
to do that. I need a savior. Here he is. There's only one, Jesus Christ
the Lord. And secondly, when we read this
parable, it should It should encourage us, that golden rule,
do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We should practice
that. Not to be saved, but because
we have been saved. When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke
those words and said, you have heard But I say unto you, those
people didn't realize when they, when he finished his sermon that
the people, the scripture said they were astonished. They were
amazed. They've been hearing men preach
for years, I suppose. But when they heard him preach,
they were amazed. Why? Because he spoke as one
who had authority. They didn't realize it. But the
God who gave the law on Mount Sinai, was the God who was speaking
to them in the person of Jesus Christ. You have heard but I
say unto you. The same one, same lawgiver. The lawgiver came to redeem his
people from the curse of the law. It's a beautiful parable,
isn't it? And I thank God for all of those
Good Samaritans this past week who, when they saw somebody in
need, they jumped to work, didn't they? I'm so thankful for the
Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ, who came to save sinful people, needy people. He'll save you. He has the power,
and he's willing to save. Let's sing a hymn, number 354,
and oh yes, what a friend we have in Jesus.