The Good Samaritan - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. This guy believes he saved himself, as all religious people believe. All religious people believe, I'll do something, God will be so impressed with what I do, he'll save me. So Jesus doesn't give them what we call the gospel because something is very important to Jesus. Jesus knows that if you're ever going to be saved by him, the first step is you have to know you need to be saved.

You have to know that. If you don't know you need to be saved, you'll never be saved. You see, the only way you can do that is I can't do this, I can't make it, I'm not justified, I'm not righteous, and I need a Savior. That's how someone comes to Christ. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Today I want to deal with probably the single most famous parable that Jesus ever taught. Everybody knows the parable. Unbelievers know the parable. Muslims know the parable.

Everybody knows this parable. Everyone has an idea about exactly what it means. And virtually almost everybody's wrong about what it means.

It's the Good Samaritan. I mean, you've heard it, you know it, and more than likely you probably really don't understand its meaning either. The problem with it is that we have always sort of misunderstood it because we always took it sort of out of context. Now, not as far out of context as, say, Origen. Origen was one of the great church fathers around A.D. 200. So he's very close to the time of the New Testament. And here's what Origen said this parable was about.

The man is Adam. That's the man who was beaten up and the man robbed. Jerusalem is paradise. Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers and demonic forces. The priest is the law. The Levite is the prophets. The Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience. The animal is the Lord's body.

The inn is the church. And the Samaritan's return is the second coming of Christ. Now, that's wrong.

Okay? That's just about as wrong as you can possibly interpret it. But every organization, especially social justice people, Marxists, everybody interprets this. The sojourners, for example, here's what they say. Here's the interpretation.

You only have so many days to embrace someone, to tell them how you feel. 47 million in our country are on food stamps and their benefits are decreasing. We need to reflect on Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. So according to them, Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan is you've got to help people who have less than you do.

It gets worse. Social justice advocates say getting to know people on the other side of the road so as to tear down the walls between us is essential. Jim Wallace, who represents the group, said there's a tremendous problem in understanding Good Samaritan. The problem is not just that the man was beaten up and left and another man came and met his needs.

But the real question is why did the robbers steal from the man and beat him up? And that's the answer that we need to have in our country. That's what Jesus was teaching. And so consequently, he said maybe in 100 or 200 years, even in Sunday school, they'll say, I never even knew people ever robbed people or ever did anything terrible to them because we have put that in our past now. That's not right.

OK, I'm sure 100 years from now, people will still be getting robbed and getting beat up. So Christians like us, we interpret the Good Samaritan and this will probably be you, but you won't shake your head yes now because you don't want me to see that. So and that is that the parable of the Good Samaritan is simply about kindness and compassion. That's what it's about.

It's not. That's not what it's about. We'll apply it that way in certain ways, but that's not the interpretation. So I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 10 and verse 25. Luke 10 and verse 25. And this is the context of the parable. It says, and a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

That's going to be the context. Now, notice who stands up. It's a lawyer. OK, not the TV advertising lawyer, not an ambulance chasing lawyer. In fact, it's not a lawyer at all like you and I think of a lawyer. He's a lawyer at likely a scribe. He's an expert, an expert on the law. He's an expert on the Old Testament. That's what it means to be a lawyer in Jesus day. That's his expertise.

He spends his whole life studying, especially the law of the Old Testament. So he stands up. And now look how disingenuous this question is.

It's lawyer stood up to do what? To put him to the test. See, that's what he's this is all about, trapping Jesus.

This is all about trying to get information that will hurt Jesus' cause and get more and more people on the leadership of Israel's side against Jesus. So he stands up to trap him. He wants to catch him. And the basis of this question, but he reveals something about himself in that verse. He believes that with all of his heart, he stood up, putting him to the test, and he said, teacher, what shall I do?

To have eternal life. Now, that's his question. He doesn't mean it the way you and I would mean it. He means I know eternal life is based on what I do.

So what do I have to do? This isn't, by the way, unusual. Remember Nicodemus in John Chapter three? He came to Jesus by night.

He was going to ask the same question. But before he could even ask it, Jesus said, you must be born again. And Nicodemus said, what? Jesus knew what he was going to ask. But Nicodemus, by the way, converted by the end of the gospel. By the end of John, Nicodemus is a believer. Remember the rich young ruler in Matthew 18?

Same thing. He comes to Jesus and said, what must I do to have eternal life? What they represent is the ultimate religious person. A religious person always has the same perspective. What do I need to do to get eternal life?

That's what I want to know. But he's doing it to trap Jesus because he's heard that Jesus talks about eternal life in a different way than the leadership of the Jewish people believe. So he asked it. And it's interesting that with Jesus, Jesus says to him, what is written in the law?

How does it read to you? So here's Jesus answer to his question. Two questions.

He asked one, Jesus asked two. Well, what's written in the law? Now, this guy's life is the law.

This guy knows the law inside and out. He said, how does it read to you? That's kind of interesting.

Well. He answers and he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbors as yourself. That's brilliant.

And it's right. Remember Jesus? Didn't Jesus say that? Wasn't Jesus asked what's the greatest commandment possible? And he said, love the Lord your God with all your might, souls and right and your neighbors yourself. He said the whole law is contained in that.

This guy, one of two things. This guy either heard Jesus say that and says it back to him or this guy said, that's how I summarize the law. Just like Jesus did. It's a brilliant answer.

In a way. You see, this meant tremendous question, what should I do? He combines Deuteronomy six and Leviticus 19.

But there's an implication here. So Jesus says to him in twenty eight, you've answered correctly. Do this and you live. Wait, is that the gospel? Is that what you and I would do?

Yeah, you just need to do that and then you live. No, it's not the gospel you and I would have. You see, what we want Jesus to say there is Jesus would say, you have to put your trust in me. You have to believe in me. But remember, this guy believes he saves himself as all religious people believe. All religious people believe I'll do something.

God will be so impressed with what I do. He'll save me. So Jesus doesn't give him what we call the gospel because something is very important to Jesus. Jesus knows that if you're ever going to be saved by him, the first step is you have to know you need to be saved. You have to know that if you don't know you need to be saved, you'll never be saved. You see, the only way you can do that is I can't do this.

I can't make it. I'm not justified. I'm not righteous.

And I need a savior. That's how someone comes to Christ. This guy does not believe that at all. He believes himself to be a very righteous man and that God's going to let me in.

And it's no different today. Just give the gospel to any religious person. And they'll give you some version of the same thing. Well, I know I belong to that church. I know I go at certain times and if I do certain things, I know I'm in.

And Americans who don't even go to church have their own version of not believing they need to be saved. Their view, what they'll say often to you is this. Look, you have to understand, I'm not a terrible person. You're not? No, I'm not terrible.

I'm not like Hitler. I get that. But God's going to grade us all on the curve. And I know I'm pretty good. So I'm in with God. You can't believe the gospel then. See, if I don't know I need to be saved, there's no way I can be saved. And Jesus wants to speak to that.

That's why he says to him, you do this and you live. Now, it was built right into what you and I see when he quoted the verse. He said you have to love God with how much?

All of it. And you have to love your neighbors yourself. In a sense, what those two verses combined mean is you have to have perfection. It's all. Now the question, does anybody love God that way?

No. No one does. You can't. I can't love God perfectly as a sinner.

I can't. And Jesus tells them, Jesus wants him to be able to say, you know, Lord, I can't. But he's not. He actually believes he can.

You see, it's like the rich young rulers. Remember, he said, Jesus said, you keep the law. And what he told Jesus, I kept it all.

I've kept all of it. I'm good. Jesus said, good.

Go sell everything you have and come and follow me. Well, I'm not doing that. You see, that's the same idea that Jesus has here. So he says, you've answered correctly, do this and you'll live.

Now watch. But wishing to justify himself. Notice how he's going to judge.

This is about me justifying me. He's a smart man. He's well educated. So he says, I'm going to throw him off a little bit here. He said, well, who's my neighbor? Wow. So that I may be able to get this here. Wait a minute.

Who's my neighbor? Now, you have to understand from his point of view as a Jew. According to Matthew Chapter five and in Matthew five, it actually says that Jesus said, you've been taught by the rabbis to love your love, your neighbors and hate your enemies. That's what Jesus said.

That's how you were taught. But I'm telling you, you have to love your neighbors and love your enemies. And they didn't like that at all. The typical Jewish leadership, typical rabbi, they hated almost everybody.

I mean, almost everybody. They hated Gentiles. They just hated them. They hated Jews, fellow Jews who weren't as righteous as they were. They called them darkened.

These are darkened Jews. I don't like that. I don't love those people. The only people I love are people just like me. That's who I love. And that's what this guy's thinking. Like, well, wait, who's my neighbor then?

Tell me who's my neighbor. Now, after saying all that, now Jesus gives the parable. Notice the context of the parable is in this conversation with the lawyer who wants to justify himself.

So that's when Jesus starts here with the way this works in verse 30. He says, And Jesus said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. That's a 17 mile walk from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem's three thousand feet above sea level. Jericho's one thousand feet below sea level. So it is a long and winding road down to Jericho. Even today, people have taken a bus trip along that particular, the old road, taken a bus trip down it and were terrified about just how terrifying it was. In other words, there's great drop offs.

There's all kinds of turning places. There's even there's even a pass in that area still today called the Pass of Adumim. And Adumim is the Hebrew word for blood.

It's the pass of blood. It's referred to in the Book of Joshua. In other words, people get robbed there, beat up there all the time. And so he says there was a man, he says, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell among robbers. They stripped him, they beat him and they went away, leaving him half dead. So that was a bad day for him.

In this parable, that's a really bad day. In fact, the word beat him is a present tense and it says they stripped him and they continued to beat him. They beat him, though he probably passed out. They probably took all his clothing off him. And they just left him along the side of the road.

This guy is in really deep, deep trouble. Now, after having said that, it said, and by chance, a priest was going down on that road, going from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And it says that when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Instantaneously, the word anti is used there. He would have, in a sense, decisively and quickly got to the other side of the road.

Hey, there's a I got to get over here. Wow, that's interesting. He's a priest. So here's this Levitical priest, and he's he didn't want any parts of him. Now, when you read about this, it's kind of funny to me.

Why did he do that? Well, here's what some of the speculation is. One, he knew if the man were dead and he touched him, he'll be ceremonially unclean.

He'll have to go back to Jerusalem and back to the temple and have another priest declare him to be clean again. Or another one said he looked around and he thought. There could be robbers, could Steve be here?

Wouldn't you think there could be robbers here? They could they could harm me. You see, and they give a whole line of speculations. Now, I can give you the absolute truth about this.

I can tell you exactly what he thought. Nothing. He doesn't exist. He's it's an apparel.

It's a story. He doesn't have this priest wasn't thinking. I wonder if he's unclean.

There is no thinking. There's no priest. This is a parable. This is a story Jesus is telling. He's just saying a priest.

He didn't have a thought process. The fact was, all you need to know is he went to the other side. That's what Jesus is telling us. This is a parable. This isn't this isn't a narrative of historical events.

Wow. And then it goes on and it says, likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed on the other side. A Levite is not a son of Aaron. Aaron is the priest, but he is a Levite. He works the temple. He has security in the temple. They take care of the temple grounds. They prepare all the temple offerings.

They do all the assistant work. He's a very religious man, just like the priest. So if you said to a typical Jew, who are the top spiritual people you know of? He said, well, obviously the priests are and so are Levites.

They represent the best of us. Notice what both of them did. They both just beat it to the other side. And then everything changes, but a Samaritan. And you know what you and I think? Nothing.

You know why? We have romanticized that term. He's a Samaritan. Do people in our culture be called good Samaritans? Oh, that's Samaritan. Yeah, I mean, one of the ministries that we really support, Samaritan's Purse, helps people everywhere.

You know why? Because Samaritans are so good. Samaritans are these really good people.

They're not. They're despicable, horrible people, especially to the Jews. It would be like today when he introduced a Samaritan, it'd be like today telling a story in Iran and then saying the hero of the story was a good Israelite. What? You see, it's completely, it's a complete contradiction.

Let me give you some background. The Samaritans are part of the 10 northern tribes called Israel. After Solomon died and the kingdom was split, Israel was in the north, Jude and Benjamin in the south. Every king of Israel, every king was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Every king. They were horrible people. So the Assyrians came down, conquered them and left a small portion of the Jews in the land, took all the rest back to Assyria. That's why they're called the 10 lost tribes. And the Assyrians brought people from another province of their kingdom and put them in the northern kingdom of Israel. So these became half breeds. They married with all of these pagan Assyrian plants in there and they formed their own religion, a completely different religion, such a different religion that they only really honored the first five books of the Bible.

There are a lot of things that go on. The Jews hated the Samaritans. If you remember and know the story of Nehemiah, when they went back into the land after the Babylonian captivity for the two southern tribes, when they got back into the land, it ended up that the Samaritans tried to stop them.

They wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans, and so that turned into something terrible. Then the Samaritans knew that the Jews hated them and they had rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, so they rebuilt their own temple. They built their own temple in Mount Gerizim, you see, in Samaria. And they had this pagan-like worship there. The Jews hated that so much that in 138 BC, they went up and tore the temple down because it was such an affront to God.

That's why they tore it down. Jews didn't speak to Samaritans. You never speak to a Samaritan, ever. In fact, Jews wouldn't walk in Samaria. When a Jew wanted to go to Galilee, which is north of Samaria from the southern tribe, they crossed the Jordan, went up the east bank, crossed again and went into Galilee.

They wouldn't even walk on their land. That's why the story in John 4 of Jesus and the woman at the well is so extraordinary. Jews don't ever walk into Samaria. Here's Jesus. Jews never talk to Samaritans, ever. Here's Jesus talking.

Jewish rabbis never speak to a woman publicly. Here's Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman. But a Samaritan, I mean, it'd be like if you said a terrorist. Or how about a serial killer? If I said that, that'd be getting a response. Well, there was a serial killer who came.

That's the response you'd get. We've romanticized Samaritans like, this is wonderful. They're the most wonderful people.

They're not. You see, they're despicable people, not from the Jewish point of view. And Jesus adds this, and I'm sure that got everybody riled up, but a Samaritan who was on a journey, he came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. The priest saw him, the Levite saw him, now the Samaritan sees him.

The priest and the Levite run to the other side. The Samaritan feels compassion. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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