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‘And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves.”
Luk_10:30
I. How uncommon is love to our neighbour.—We might have thought a Priest and Levite would give help, good men apparently (Deu_18:7; Heb_5:2). But deeds show what religion is worth (2Ti_3:5; Tit_1:16). Doubtless they said ‘We don’t know him.’ ‘No time.’ ‘Enough of our own to see to.’ This is what the world says. It has no love (1Jn_3:10). It regards persons (Jam_2:1-9; Jud_1:16). Love is the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal_5:22; see 1Jn_4:7). And no matter what other signs there may be, this is the test of discipleship (Joh_13:35; 1 Corinthians 13).
II. Who the neighbour is whom we are to love.—The only one who helped the wounded Jew was a Samaritan, one whom the Jews would avoid (Joh_4:9). He does not think of this. He only sees a man in trouble. So our neighbour is everybody (God loved the world: Joh_3:16), though of course we shall be more closely drawn to those who are believers with us (Gal_6:10; cf. 1Ti_4:10). A Christian will act as Christ (Mat_5:43-44; 1Pe_3:8-9); but in love there is to be no respect of persons. See what the wise man says on this subject (Ecc_11:3-4).
III. In what way we are to love that neighbour.—The Samaritan not only felt for, but also laboured for the wounded man. Real love is seen in action (Joh_14:15; Phm_1:5-7). See the case of Jacob (Gen_29:20). This is what St. Paul calls the ‘labour of love’ (1Th_1:3); not in word only, but in deed and in truth. Look at Christ (2Co_8:9; Act_10:38). Does not a word like this show us how little we know of true love? Let us not dismiss it without praying to have more of the mind of Christ in this respect (1Pe_2:21). Oh, to be less selfish! to see in every man a soul for whom Christ died! to say I must do for Him as Christ would do! He is my neighbour.
—
Bishop Rowley Hill.
Illustration‘It remains a sadly disappointing fact that the wounded man still lies dying by the roadside. Take some of the most serious evils which prey on human nature, are they diminishing? I do not mean are the examples, the cases of injury less, but is the appeal which they make to human weakness, the fascination which they exercise over the victims whom they attack, less? Are we making any way, for instance, in the matter of purity? Those who have to do with our homes for the fallen say they feel that more and more the attempt is being made to patch up the victims of this sin, and to send them out with a veneer of respectability into the world to earn their living, rather than submit them to the longer, more penetrating, more efficacious remedy of the penitentiary. Look at the state of society. Can any one say that it is sound and healthy in this respect? The divorce courts still pursue their course, slowly and surely sapping the family life. A glance at the list of cases which are down for trial at our sessions will show in these cases which come to the surface a deep-seated corruption which shows no sign of diminishing, but rather of going off into worse and more degraded development. Look, again, at drunkenness. Much, thank God, has been done by devoted effort on the part of temperance societies, and yet do they do more than keep at bay this terrible evil which seems to mock at all schemes of social improvement, and to destroy the life and self-respect of the nation? Look, again, at dishonesty in its various forms, gambling and betting, and all the associated evils, which pull men down beneath the cruel knife of the destroyer. Are offences against property, lying, and deceit, less able than they were to appeal to the evil in man and help him to work his own ruin?’
THE WOUNDED TRAVELLER
Look back to the Jerusalem from which you started, and you will see that some things have gone which you cannot recover, and it may be you are wounded, it may be you have received on that road the blow which is sapping your spiritual strength, in sins which you are powerless, as it seems, to throw off, until you have acquiesced in their presence, and bowed to what you conceive to be the inevitable.
I. The strength and vitality of sin.—In this aspect of the parable, viewed, that is, as we are viewing it now, there stands forth with startling clearness the strength and the vitality of sin. When a man is on the full flood of temptation, he does not pause to listen to advice. He sees the better cause and approves of it; he follows the worse. Many of the excellent schemes which are propounded do not touch the root of the matter. How are we to deal with the dread power of temptation, which throws all sense of prudence or restraint to the winds? The battle has to be fought within the soul, and the enemy to be vanquished there.
II. The greater power of God.—It is when we are tempted to despair that we must realise the greater strength of Christ. ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty.’ Great issues are wrapped up in that word ‘Almighty.’ We somehow have brought ourselves to believe that there are two powers in the world, one good and one evil, between whom we are bandied about, and that evil is sometimes more potent than good. This is not so—there is only one Almighty, and that is God; And if we realise, as we should realise, the immense power of evil, let us also realise the greater power of God. Why does that God lay bare His arm and rise up to save? Satan forces himself on us, he comes unbidden to our inmost thoughts, he spoils our greatest joys, and tempts us by fierce, unwelcome onslaughts. Why does not God compel us? Why does He not take us, as the angel took Lot, and draw us out of the evil? Because He respects our free will; because He asks for our trust and co-operation with Him. Think how the whole Church system is charged with strength. Is not this the very thing which our effete materialism needs, and our poor weak wills demand. The whole secret surely of the salvation of man, as he lies bleeding to death on the road of this life, consists in giving him strength, helping him to get away, to walk, to stand upright. We have got so into the way of thinking the Church to be a well-ordered system, to which we give an intellectual assent, one among many sects which we prefer, that we have forgotten that it is the way of salvation.
III. Christ the Good Samaritan.—Let us fall back more completely and earnestly on Christ our Good Samaritan. It is dangerous to stay outside His loving tenderness for us. There has come to be a sort of feeling, I know not how, that His arm is shortened, that He cannot save. People who never read themselves, or have the capacity for understanding if they did, the attacks of reckless criticism made on the Holy Scriptures, have got an uncomfortable feeling that the Bible is discredited and damaged. It is not so; there are hundreds and thousands yet who are content to accept the Bible as our Lord and Master and the saints and Apostles accepted it, not as a literary puzzle, or as a book of mere antiquarian interest, or as a fable book of moral stories, or of poetry and history which can be expurgated for a provided school. People have become weary of the controversies which surround the Church and her doctrines, and are tempted by scares of Sacerdotalism and Romanism, instead of making proof of the treasures of God’s grace therein stored. But one thing is clear, and every day makes it clearer—namely, that only the Good Samaritan can help the wounded traveller.
Rev. Canon Newbolt.
THE SAMARITAN’S DEED
I. Who he was.—It was to one of a hated race that the priest and Levite left their wounded countryman. Many a bitter gibe and sneer had this Samaritan suffered of the Jews; but now with that wretched man in his hands his hour of vengeance had arrived. Nobly he avenged himself. He approaches and bends over the dying man; but not to finish what the robbers had all but completed. Risking his property, venturing even his life, he treats a fallen enemy as if he had been a wounded brother—his own mother’s son.
II. What he did.—Conquering his prejudices and those fears for his safety which, amid such scenes and with such a sight before him, were not unnatural, he hastes to the rescue. By this story Jesus teaches us to do good to all men as we have opportunity, and to rejoice in the opportunities of doing it.
III. From the Samaritan to Christ.—Here we turn from contemplating Christian love in the Samaritan to contemplate it in the Saviour—its celestial source and perfect pattern.