The Good Samaritan B

If this is what it requires for me to get in heaven, I'm not getting there.

I not only couldn't earn my salvation by loving like that, even as a Christian in whom the love of Christ has been shed abroad, who has a capacity to love like an unconverted person doesn't have, I still don't love like this. So we were saved by grace and we are kept by grace, are we not? Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said that the only thing worth having is that which I can have forever, that which death cannot tear out of my hand. Well, the fact is, you will face death one day, and when that day comes, the only thing that will matter is did you receive forgiveness from God and find freedom from the penalty of sin that death can't tear away?

Or to put it another way, what does it take to receive eternal life? That is precisely the question John MacArthur is helping you answer in his current study titled, What Must I Do to Be Saved? With the lesson now, here is John MacArthur. JOHN MACARTHUR This particular tale, this dramatic tale of the Good Samaritan is so well known that it has actually become an idiom for unusual sacrificial kindness. And I think...I think we may have missed the point of this story. Oh, we all know the story, but it's the point of the story that is the reason the story existed, the reason Jesus told it. It is a story for most people about helping someone in need.

That's not really the point. This is really a story about how one inherits eternal life because that is the question that initiated the entire conversation to which this story is the conclusion. The story is told to a non-believer, a self-righteous man who will not enter the Kingdom of God. The story is told to him as an evangelistic effort to bring him to the true sense of his sinfulness and consequently to cry for mercy. On the surface, the story seems like a simple story about being kind.

It isn't. It is far profounder than that. Let's look at the story, verse 30. Jesus replied, and that in itself is an act of grace. And He said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers and they stripped him and beat him and went off leaving him half dead. And by chance, a certain priest was going down on that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite also when he came to the place and saw him passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him and when he saw him, he felt compassion and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them and he put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him and on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, take care of him and whatever more you spend when I return, I will repay you. Now this is about loving your neighbor.

What can we conclude? The priest had no love for the man. So being religious, doing all the ceremonies, being Jewish, being circumcised, being a part of the whole system, being as tightly connected to the religious system as you can get, being a priest and a Levite isn't going to get you in the Kingdom of God. And when you look at the character of these men, they don't pass the test. The test is to love your neighbor as yourself. They went the other direction, wanted nothing to do with it.

And then the twist. Verse 33, but a certain Samaritan who was on a journey. In the context of Jewish-Samaritan relations, this could be the worst possible thing to happen. The man...we assume the man is a Jew because this is Israel and a certain man in Israel would be a Jew. There lies this Jewish man, here comes a Samaritan.

The animosity was profound...profound. Whenever a Jew traveled from north to south or south to north, the easy way would be to go through Samaria, they never did, they went around Samaria. The remarkable thing was that Jesus when He went on that journey and met the woman at the well, He said He must needs go through Samaria. Nobody went through Samaria. They wouldn't put the dirt of Samaria on their shoes.

The hatred ran so deep. So here is a man who by the definition of the lawyer would be the blood enemy of this Jew lying there near death. What is going to be the Samaritan's attitude toward this guy? If you're going to worry about who qualifies to be your neighbor, he doesn't qualify.

Not only is he a stranger, but he's an enemy and there's a tremendous amount of racism between the two. Well when the Samaritan comes along, the surprise. He came upon him and instead of going the other direction, when he saw him, he felt compassion.

Wow! Some have said, do I need to say this again? Was this man a believer? Was this man in the Kingdom? This man didn't exist, again I say. So we don't need to worry about his spiritual condition since he had none. But what is Jesus trying to say?

We're going to see that. Here's the simple point. Two men had no love, one did.

Can you get that? Two men had no love, one did. Two men were religious but had no love.

Therefore their religion did nothing to qualify them for the Kingdom. One man, on the other hand, was a heretic, an outcast and yet he loved. So this issue of loving is not a matter of one's religion.

It's something else. The Samaritan then takes center stage in the story and here comes the main point. Notice how this man loves. First of all, he saw him, verse 33, and then he felt compassion.

This is where it all begins. Everything in his heart just goes out to the man, a sadness, a grief, a sympathy, empathy, pain, a driving need to rescue and recover the man. And so verse 34 says, he came to him. And he discovered that the man had some wounds, the Greek word is trauma, he had some wounds, which indicates he was perhaps bleeding. He was perhaps with some broken bones.

We don't know cause Jesus doesn't put that in the story. But anyway, he had been pummeled and beaten and wounded. And so it says that after he came to him, he bandaged up his wounds, which indicates that the image here Jesus wants to convey is that he had open wounds, he was bleeding. And now the man is naked, he's stripped down to virtually nothing. So whatever this man used for bandages came out of his own bag, came out of his own clothing.

So he starts tearing up his own clothes and then he's binding up the wounds with bandages so that they don't get dirt in them and become worse. And he also, in the process of doing that, was pouring oil and wine on them. Wine was used because of its fermentation as an antiseptic. It was used to sanitize. It was used to cleanse whatever might have come in there that could create infection. And oil was used to lubricate, to soothe and to soften the tissue. And this was part of the healing.

And here was something everybody who traveled carried. You carried your own wine to drink, you carried your own oil to cook or to eat. And the man now is divesting himself of his own clothing.

He's divesting himself of his own provisions. And the word pouring here has a preposition on the front of it which intensifies it. Literally he just generously washes over the man with this wine and oil.

He's not dabbing it in there. It's the lavishness, it's the generosity of this that is being emphasized with the use of this...of this verb. He literally pours out the antiseptic, the disinfectant over the man, then he pours out the oil. And what you're seeing here is generosity. You're seeing a certain lavish care here. And then it says, he put him on his own beast. The man was unable to get on his beast, so the Samaritan picks him up and flops him over the back of perhaps a donkey or a mule so that he can get him somewhere where he can get some food and some water and some care and some rest. This is amazing. This is not a minimal care.

This is maximum. Compassion led him to come and examine and then he bandaged up his wounds. Then he poured oil and wine. Then he put him on his own beast. And then he brought him.

We don't know how far away the place was, but he takes a hold of the beast by whatever rope was attached and he walks while the injured man is draped over the animal, takes him to an inn, walking beside his living transportation, holding the man on to make sure he doesn't come off, while he finally gets him to an inn, pondokane in the Greek, starting with the word pon, all, a place for everybody. This would be the lowest level. Inn's were meager places at best. They were corrupt places normally. They were places of prostitution, graft, robbery. You really didn't want to be in one of those places unless you had no choice. Innkeepers were unscrupulous, evil, without compassion. But there was no choice here.

We don't need to get into all that. He took him to an inn which would be the place that he could find a mat to lie on and some water and some food and some rest. And then it says, wonderfully, and took care of him. Having negotiated the place to stay, took the man in, put him down to rest, continued to work with him with his bandages, with his wounds, providing food, sleep, comfort, water, and he did it all night.

You say, how do you know that? Well Jesus made the story say that, verse 35, and on the next day. He stayed with him all night. He set his whole agenda aside. He gave up his own clothes, his own supplies, his own time. This is amazing for a stranger who was his worst enemy. And he stayed all night by his bed, making sure he was cared for.

And that wasn't all either. Look at verse 35, on the next day, took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, take care of him. Wanting to go on his journey, he now put him in the care of an innkeeper, gives him two denarii.

What would that sort of be in terms of inn care? The lowest would be that an inn would cost one-thirty-second of a denarii. So he gave him enough for sixty-four days room and board. Now as I said, it's not a fancy place, but it's a place of shelter and food and rest. Probably the other side of the spectrum, some would say that an inn would cost one-twelfth of a denarii which would be twenty-four days' worth.

So somewhere between a month and two months room and board. It's pretty amazing, pretty generous. Never met the man, total stranger, doesn't know how he got in the condition he got into, doesn't ask how he got into that condition and Jesus doesn't put that part in the story, it doesn't matter. All that matters was, here was a man whose heart was so full of love that when somebody came across his path, it didn't matter who he was, there was never a question of qualification, there was never a question, is he my neighbor or is he not? The only issue was, how can I love that man to the full extent of his need?

Whether he was a friend or an enemy had no bearing. And that's not all. He said to the innkeeper in verse 35, take care of him and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you. He has now exposed himself to serious extortion. He's left an open account and he's saying, I'm going to where I need to go and you spend whatever you need to spend, give him whatever he needs for a full recovery and when I come back, I'll pay you for that.

Now what comes across in this? Generosity, would you say? More than generosity?

This is sort of over the top, would you say? You say, well I saw a stranger one time in need and I gave him five bucks. I think that deserves applause. Did you ever see a stranger in need, somebody you didn't know better yet, somebody who was your archenemy and you went over, ministered to all his needs, gave him everything he needed, stayed with him, took him somewhere, put him to bed, fed him, stayed all night to make sure that he was recovering appropriately, then paid for his care for up to two months and said, if it's more than this, when I come back, I'll give you all the rest. Have you ever done that for anybody?

I'll tell you, there's somebody you've done that for and it's you. That's how we care for ourselves, isn't it? Give me whatever I need, whatever I need, get me to the best doctor, get me to the best place, get me the best care I can get, take care of me as long as I need it.

We buy insurance policies, we get in HMOs, we do whatever we need to assure ourselves the best care. This is over the top for a stranger, over the top for an enemy. You might somewhere get close to this with a friend or a family member because you love them in the family, but we're not talking about family, we're talking about somebody outside of that. This is just not done. You say, well, are you saying nobody's ever done it? No, it could be done and some have done it and perhaps you've done something very generous like this on an occasion in your life. That's not the issue. The issue is, have you your whole life loved strangers like this?

Answer, of course not...of course not. Now we make sure we when we have physical problems or deprivation or are caught in a dangerous situation, we make sure we do whatever we need to get the best attention, the best care, have all our needs met, all our comforts called for and we are...we're basically without limit in taking care of ourselves as much as we're capable of, people will actually go into debt and sometimes bankruptcy in order to make sure they don't deny themselves anything they think they need. But who else do you love like that?

Yeah, nobody. This is about limitless love, see. This is about a man who said, I will care for this man with no limit. I will love this man though he is my enemy and another stranger to me. Whatever it is that this man needs, I will give to this man and there are no limits.

He has an open account. When I come back, you just tell me what it took and I'll take care of it. Let me tell you something, that's what it takes all the time to earn your way into God's Kingdom.

Anybody qualify? No. That's the point.

It's the point about eternal life. And sometimes we teach children, you know, share your lunch, be a good Samaritan. No. Share your lunch is fine. But don't confuse that with the good Samaritan. The good Samaritan didn't share his lunch, he basically expressed limitless love to a man he never knew who was a stranger and an enemy. Verse 36, then Jesus after the story says to the lawyer, which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor? Forget who is your neighbor. And let's talk about who's neighborly. Which of these three do you think prove to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands? You've been following me through the story. Who was the neighbor? And he said, the one who showed mercy toward him. He was right, wasn't he? Then Jesus said to him, go and do the same.

Can I add something? And you, if you do that, will earn eternal life. Only the catch is, you have to always do that. Go and do the same. What's that supposed to do? Produce what?

Conviction. Anybody in your path, any stranger in your path, even your worst enemy, love them lavishly, sacrificially, generously, tenderly, limitlessly, kindly with an open account. That's the way you love yourself. And so the man before the whole group of people says, well, the one who showed mercy, that's what Jesus meant to say. Now you understand what the Bible means when it says you have to love your neighbor as yourself? Is this how you love anybody in your path with a need? Go do the same. You want eternal life?

How are you going to get it? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, your neighbor as yourself. Okay? You say you love God like that, you don't even want to talk about that. Now you want to talk about loving your neighbor. You think you love your neighbor. Is this how you love your enemy, the stranger? Well, the man knew it wasn't true.

Go and do the same, he says. This isn't a command to a Christian. These are fictitious people. This isn't a command to a believer to love like this. This is an indictment of the whole of fallen humanity. You can't and you don't and you never will love like this. There may be a rare occasion when such love is expressed here and there. But what he's calling for here is a kind of limitless, lavish love toward anybody and everybody that is beyond our capability. We love ourselves like this, we don't love others like this. And he's giving this lawyer one more opportunity to say, Jesus, I don't love like that. I can't love like that. I never will love like that. I'll never get in the Kingdom if that's what's required. And to tell you the truth, if I don't love Him like that, if I don't love my neighbor like that, then obviously I don't love God with all my faculties either.

So why don't I quit the game and just admit it? That would have been wonderful, wouldn't it? If He had said that, if He had just said, I can't love like that, I can't love God perfectly, I certainly can't love my neighbor. If that's what it means to love your neighbor, and there's nothing about qualification, it's anybody who has a need even if it's your worst enemy. If that's what it means, I am so far from that limitless kind of love.

And so are we, aren't we? If this is what it requires for me to get in heaven, I'm not getting there. I not only couldn't earn my salvation by loving like that, even as a Christian in whom the love of Christ has been shed abroad who has a capacity to love like an unconverted person doesn't have, I still don't love like this.

So we were saved by grace and we are kept by grace, are we not? The Lord not only forgave me for my lack of love toward God and love toward others when He saved me, He continues to forgive me for my lack of perfect love toward God and others which is a part of my fallen life. I'll never be able to love God perfectly until I'm in His presence and I'll never be able to love others perfectly until I'm in His presence either and then they won't have any needs.

So it will be a different kind of expression of love. See what Jesus was doing here with this man was driving the same sword right back into his heart to convict him of his total inability to deserve the Kingdom of God and eternal life on his own. If he thought his Jewishness, his circumcision, his law keeping, his sacrificing and all of that was enough, Jesus ended that by his own admission that it was loving God and loving others. If he thought he qualified there, then he's going to have to say that I've always loved everyone in my path the way the Good Samaritan loved that man with that same kind of limitless, open-ended, lavish, generous, sacrificial care and he knew, as we all know, we don't love like that. By the way, that's how God loves us. This is not an allegory about that, but that is how God loves us. And there stood Jesus before him, ready to offer him mercy, ready to offer him grace, ready to offer him forgiveness, if he only would repent and admit what he knew was true. But as we move through the life of Christ toward the cross, the hearts get harder and harder and harder.

The end of the story, the end of the encounter is Jesus saying, go and do the same. Did he? No. Could he? No. Would he repent? Apparently not. Will he inherit the kingdom of God? Of course not.

Who will? Those who repent of their lack of love toward God and others cry out for mercy and forgiveness from the Christ who has paid the penalty for that forgiveness through his death on the cross. How can you receive eternal life? John MacArthur has been making that clear in his study, What Must I Do to Be Saved? Foundational stuff here on Grace To You.

Along with being the teacher on this radio program, John is also chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. A thought here, John, to wrap up this study. You explained the other day that the goal of evangelism is not to lead people in a sinner's prayer, and certainly that hasn't been the goal of this study.

But what is the goal? What do you hope this study would accomplish? Well, obviously, I hope it would accomplish what the gospel should accomplish, and that is that folks will come to saving faith in Christ. But realistically speaking, the vast majority of our audience are believing people. So my prayer and my hope is that this series will clarify the gospel well enough that people who listen, Christian people, will have a better understanding of the gospel in order to communicate it more effectively. I never cease to be amazed at how many quote-unquote professing Christians don't really know the first thing about the gospel. Oh, they know Jesus died, and you're supposed to believe in him, and they think it goes from there to a prayer.

But theologically, doctrinally, and in terms of even the texts of scripture, they can be woefully short on the essential truth. So anytime we go over the gospel on Grace To You, yes, we do that for the sake of those who don't believe that they might hear the gospel and be saved. But vastly more people are believing people, professing people, who need to have a full understanding of the gospel.

And that is the exact reason for us doing this. So that's why we've been going through the subject, What Must I Do To Be Saved, as you know, based on Luke chapter 10. We've been asking the question, what makes for successful evangelism and what are the elements of it? What Must I Do To Be Saved will help you understand the gospel and communicate it with conviction. It's available on four MP3 downloads exclusively from Grace To You.

The transcripts are available as well at gty.org. You can also get four CDs. Just ask for the same series, What Must I Do To Be Saved, when you contact us in CD form and we'll send it to you. So make sure you're clear on what it takes to be saved.

Make sure you can explain that truth to your family and others around you. Pick up the series, What Must I Do To Be Saved, available for you and others that you can influence from Grace To You. Thanks, John. And friend, if you know someone who might not know how they can receive eternal life, especially if that someone is you, download What Must I Do To Be Saved when you contact us today. What Must I Do To Be Saved is available free of charge on four MP3 downloads at our website, gty.org.

Transcripts are also available for those messages, and as John said, you can also purchase the series, What Must I Do To Be Saved, on a four-CD album, if that works better for you. To order the CDs, call 800-55-GRACE or go online to gty.org. Of course, at the website, you can also purchase John's books, including our flagship resource, The MacArthur Study Bible, or the classic volume, Anxious for Nothing, or one or all of the 33 volumes in the MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series.

You'll find a complete list of our resources online at gty.org, or call us at 800-55-GRACE, and our customer service representatives can help you find what you need. Now for John MacArthur and our staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today. Be here tomorrow when John shows you why it's vital that you put your trust in Christ alone in a compelling lesson titled, The Dangers of a Distorted Gospel. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.