“Who Is My Neighbour?” (Luke 10:29)
Chapter 8
“Who Is My Neighbour?” (Luke 10:29)
No doubt you have frequently read the story of the good Samaritan. In this parable, Christ highlights four men. He draws the picture so vividly that the world will never forget it. Too often, when we read the Scripture narratives, they don’t reach our hearts, and before long we forget the lesson the Master wants us to learn and remember.
We find that when Christ was on the earth a group of people who gathered around Him continually found fault with everything He said and did. We read that on this occasion a lawyer came asking Him what he could do to inherit eternal life. Our Lord told him to keep the commandments − to love the Lord with all his heart and his neighbor as himself. The lawyer asked, who is my neighbor? Christ told him who his neighbor was and what it was to love him.
It seems to me that we’ve been finding out who our neighbor is for a long time. I think in the parable of the good Samaritan Christ taught us very clearly that any man or woman who is in need of our love and our help − whether worldly or spiritual − is our neighbor. If we can provide them any service, we are to do it in the name of our Master.
At the start of this parable, we see two men. Each of them passed by a man in great need who had fallen among thieves and was stripped, wounded, and left to die. The first man to come down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a priest. As he went along the highway, he heard a cry of distress. He looked at the unfortunate man and could see that the poor suffering man was a Jew. Perhaps he’d seen him in the temple on the Sabbath. But then he wasn’t in his own district now. His work was in the temple, and for now, it was finished. He was a professional man, and he had gone through all that was required of him. He was in a great hurry to get down to Jericho. It may be they were going to open a new synagogue there, and he was to dedicate it. A very important business, and, of course, he couldn’t stop to help this poor wounded man lying on the side of the road. So he passed on.
Maybe as he went along, he reasoned with himself in this way: “I wonder why God ever permitted sin to enter the world at all. It is very strange that man would be in this fallen condition.” Or his thoughts may have taken another turn. He may have said to himself that when he got down to Jericho he would form a committee to look after these unfortunate brothers. He would give something toward the expenses. Or he’d try and get a policeman to go and look after those thieves who stripped him. But all this time, he didn’t think about the poor wounded man dying on the side of road who, by this time, was probably crying for water.
There might have been a brook running nearby to the spot where he lay that he couldn’t get to. Yet this priest never stopped to give him a drink. His religion was all in his head and never reached his heart. The one thought in his mind was duty, duty. And when he finished with what he considered his duty, he believed his work was done. But God wants heart service. If we don’t give Him that, we can give Him no service at all.
Next, we read that a Levite came along the highway where this wounded man lay in his helplessness. As he passed along, he also heard the man’s cry of distress. He turned aside for a moment to look at the poor fellow, and he could see he was a son of Abraham − a brother Jew. But he also had to hurry on to Jericho. He possibly had to help in the ceremony of opening the new synagogue. Perhaps there was going to be a convention down there on “How to reach the masses,” and he was going to help discuss the topic. I’ve noticed that many men nowadays will go to a conference and talk for hours on that subject, but they don’t lift a hand to reach the masses themselves.
The Levite’s thoughts probably took another turn. He might have said to himself, “I will see if I can’t get a bill through the legislature to prevent those thieves from robbing and wounding people.” Some people think they can legislate men back to God − that they can prevent sin through legislation. Like the priest, this Levite never stopped to give the poor man a drop of water to quench his thirst. He never attempted to bind his wounds or to help him in any way. He passed along the highway, probably saying something like, “I pity that poor fellow.” Today we see a lot of that kind of pity, but it comes only from the lips, not from the heart.
The next one to come along that road was a Samaritan. Now in those days, a Jew wouldn’t speak to a Samaritan. The very presence of the latter was considered a pollution to an orthodox Jew. No Jew ever entered the house of the hated Samaritan. He wouldn’t eat at his table or drink from his well. Nor was a Samaritan allowed to come under his roof. No religious Jew would even buy from or sell to a Samaritan. You know a Jew must have a very poor opinion of a person if he won’t do business with him, when there is a prospect of making a profit from him.
Not only was this the case, but the Jews believed the Samaritans had no souls − that when they died they would be annihilated. Their graves were dug so deep that not even the sound of Gabriel’s trumpet could wake them on resurrection morning. The Samaritan race was the only one under heaven that couldn’t become proselytes to the Jewish faith and become members of the Jewish family. Repentance was denied them in this life and the life to come. Even if a Samaritan professed the Jewish religion, the Jews would have nothing to do with him. That was the way they looked at these Samaritans, yet Christ used the despised Samaritan to teach these bitter Jews the lesson of love to their neighbor.
In this parable, a third man came along. A Samaritan. It says that the priest so happened to come down that way – by chance, but we aren’t told that the Samaritan came by chance. He represents our Lord and Master. We are told he came to where the poor wounded man lay, got off his beast, and stooped at the side of the wounded man. He looked at him and saw he was a Jew. If their roles had been switched, he would most likely have said, “Serves you right. I only wish the thieves had killed you outright. I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you, you poor wretched Samaritan.” But no. He didn’t utter a word of criticism or blame.
Let’s learn a lesson from this. Do you think drunkards need anyone to condemn them? There is no one in the wide world who can condemn them as they condemn themselves. What they need is sympathy − tenderness, gentleness, and kindness. This Samaritan didn’t pull a manuscript from his pocket and begin to read a long sermon to the wounded man. Some people seem to think all the world needs is a lot of sermons. The truth is people today have been almost preached to death. What we want is to preach more sermons with our hands and feet − to carry the gospel to the people by acts of kindness.
Nor did he read this poor Jew a long lecture, endeavoring to prove that science is better than religion. He didn’t give the injured man a long speech about what geology could do for him. What the poor man needed was sympathy and help. Therefore, the first thing the Good Samaritan did was to pour oil into his wounds. How many wounded men there are in our midst who have need of the oil of pity and sympathy, but many Christians seem to always carry a bottle of vinegar with them, which they bring out on all occasions.
The Samaritan might have said to the man, “Why didn’t you stay at Jerusalem? What business takes you down this road bringing about all this trouble?” Sometimes this is the type of thing said to a young man who has come to the city and gotten into trouble. They scold with words like, “Why did you ever leave your home and come to this wicked city?”
You are never going to reach people and do them good in that way, or by putting yourself above them. You have to come down to where they are and enter into their sorrows and troubles. See how this Samaritan came where he was, and instead of lecturing him, he poured the healing oil into his wounds.
Following are twelve things mentioned in Luke 10:30-37 that the Samaritan did. We can dismiss in a word all that the priest and the Levite did − they did nothing.
- He went to him (v. 34). The Levite went near the place where he was, but we are told that he, as well as the priest, passed by on the other side (vv. 31-32).
- He bound up his wounds (v. 34). Perhaps he had to tear up his own garments in order to bind them up.
- He treated the fainting man’s wounds by pouring in oil and wine (v. 34).
- He set him on his own beast (v. 34). Don’t you think that this poor Jew must have looked on the Samaritan with gratitude and tenderness as he was placed on the beast and his deliverer walked by his side? All the prejudice in his heart must have disappeared long before they got to the end of their journey.
- He brought him to an inn (v. 34).
- He took care of him (v. 34). I was greatly touched at hearing about a Christian worker in one of the districts in London who met a drinking man at the meeting. He saw that the man had been drinking, so he took him home and stayed up all night with him. The next morning, when the man became sober, he talked with him. Many people are willing enough to talk with drunkards when they are sober, but how few go and hunt them up when they are in their fallen condition, and stay with them until they can be reasoned with about their salvation.
- And on the morrow he asked the host to take care of him (v. 35).
- He took out two denarius and gave them to the host (v. 35).
Nothing I can think of in all the teachings of Christ brings out the whole gospel better than this parable. It is a perfect picture of Christ coming to this world to seek and to save the lost.
Do you want to know how you can reach the masses? Go to their homes and listen to them and feel what they are feeling. Tell them you have come to do them good, and let them see you have a heart that feels for them. When they find that you really care about them, all that’s in their hearts against God and against Christianity will be swept out of the way. Atheists may tell them that you only want to get their money, and that you don’t really care about their happiness. We have to contradict that lie by our lives – our example − and send it back to the pit where it came from.
We aren’t going to do it unless we go personally to them and prove we really love them. Hundreds and thousands of families could easily be reached if we had thousands of Christians going to them in kindness and sympathy regarding their troubles. That is what they desire. This poor world is groaning and sighing for people to care. I am quite sure it was that which touched the hearts of the common people in Christ’s life. He made Himself one with them. He who was rich for our sakes became poor. He was born in the manger so He could put Himself on a level with the lowest of the low.
I think that, in this matter, He teaches His disciples a lesson. He wants us to convince the world that He is their friend, but they don’t believe it. If the world grasped this thought, that Jesus Christ is the friend of the sinner, they would soon flock to Him. I am sure that ninety-nine in every hundred of those who are not in Christ think that, instead of loving them, God hates them. How are they to learn they are wrong? They don’t attend our churches, and if they did, in many churches they wouldn’t hear it.
Do you think if those poor prostitutes walking the streets of our cities really believed that Jesus Christ loved them and wanted to be their friend − that if He were here in person and didn’t condemn them but took sides with them and tried to lift them up − that they would go on in their sins? Do you think the poor drunkard who reels along the street really believes Christ is his friend and loves him? The Scripture plainly teaches that even though Christ hates sin, He loves the sinner. This story of the good Samaritan is given to teach us this lesson. Let’s proclaim the good news that Christ loves sinners and that He came into the world that He might save them.
A man who lived in one of our large cities died quite suddenly, and it wasn’t long before his wife followed him to the grave. They left two boys as orphans and a wealthy citizen took the more promising of the boys and adopted him. The other boy was placed in the orphanage. He’d never been away from his father and mother while they were alive, and he’d never been separated from his brother. Every night, he fell asleep crying for his younger brother.
One night they couldn’t find him. The next morning, they found him under the steps of the house of the wealthy banker who had adopted his little brother. When they asked him why he left a good comfortable bed at the orphan home to stay out there all night in the cold, he said, “I wanted to get near Charlie.” He knew if he rang the bell and they found him at the door, they would send him back to the orphanage. It comforted him to be near Charlie, even if he had to pass the night out there. His young heart craved sympathy, and he knew Charlie loved him as no one else in the world did. If we can convince poor lost souls that someone loves them, their hearts will be moved.
During the war, a little boy, Frankie Bragg, was placed in one of the hospitals. He said, “It’s so hard to be here away from everyone who loves me.”
The nurse attending him bent down and kissed him and said, “I love you.”
“Do you love me?” he asked. “That was like my sister’s kiss. Kiss me again.” The nurse kissed him again, and he smiled. “It’s not hard for me to die now, when I know someone loves me.” If we had more sympathy like this for the lost and the sorrowing, the world would soon feel our influence.
Can’t we learn a lesson from the Good Samaritan? Let us hear the voice of the Master saying, Go and do thou likewise (Luke 10:37). We can all do something. If we can’t reach the older people, let’s try to win the young. It is a blessed privilege to be used of God to bring one little lamb into the kingdom. If we are the means of saving only one child, our life won’t be a failure. We will hear the Master’s voice: Well done, good and faithful slave (Matthew 25:23).
Two years ago, a lady started a hospital for sick, crippled children in Edinburgh. I asked her if she had been blessed in the work. I’ll never forget how her face lit up. She attended one of our recent meetings in London, and her face beamed as she told some very interesting stories of conversion among the children. What a privilege to lead these suffering ones into the kingdom of God.
A little boy just six years old was brought to Edinburgh from Fife. There was no room in the children’s hospital, and so they took him to the general hospital. His father was dead and his mother was so sick she couldn’t care for him. They brought him to the hospital in Edinburgh where one day, my friend the Rev. George Wilson sat at the bedside of the little sufferer. He told him the doctor was coming on Thursday to take off his little leg.
You parents can imagine if your six-year-old child was away from home, in a hospital, and told that the doctor was coming on a certain day to take off his leg. He’d panic at the thought. Of course, the news greatly troubled this little fellow. The minister wanted to know about his mother, but learned she was sick and his father was dead. The minister longed to comfort the boy. He said, “The nurse is such a good woman. She will help you.”
“Yes.” The boy nodded. “And perhaps Jesus will be with me.” Without a doubt, He was. The next Friday the man of God went to the hospital but found the boy’s cot empty. The poor boy was gone. The Savior had come and taken him to heaven.
Aren’t there hundreds and thousands in our great cities in some need of human sympathy? That sympathy will speak to their hearts much louder than eloquent sermons. Many won’t be moved by an eloquent sermon, but will give in to tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy.
The great Dr. Thomas Chalmers said:
The little that I have seen in the world and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look on their errors in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and think to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through − the brief pulsation of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the scorn of the world that has little love, the desolation of the soul’s sanctuary, threatening voices within, health gone, happiness gone − I would gladly leave the erring soul of my fellow man with Him from whose hands it came.
You may ask, “How am I to express sympathy to those in sorrow?” That is a very important question. Many people go to work for God, but they seem to do it in such a professional way. I will tell you how you can be brought to feel pity and sympathy. A rule which has proven to be of great help to me is to place yourself in the place of the sorrowing and afflicted ones with whom you want to sympathize. If you do, you’ll soon gain their friendship and be able to help them.
God taught me a lesson a few years ago that I will never forget. I was superintendent of a Sunday school in Chicago with over fifteen hundred students. In the months of July and August, many deaths took place among the children, and as most of the ministers were out of the city, I had to attend a great many funerals. Sometimes I had to be at four or five in one day. I grew so used to it that I did it almost mechanically. I could watch the mother take her last look at the child, and see the coffin lid closed without being moved by it.
One day when I came home, my wife told me that one of the Sunday school children had been drowned, and the mother wanted to see me. I took my little daughter with me and we went to the house. I found the father in one corner of the room drunk. The mother told me that she took in washing in order to make a living for herself and her children, while her husband drank up all his wages. Little Adelaide used to go to the river and gather the floating wood for the fire. That day she had gone as usual. She saw a piece of wood out a little ways from the bank and as she stretched out to reach it, she slipped and fell into the water and drowned. The mother told me her sad story − how she had no money to buy the shroud and the coffin, and she wanted me to help her. I took out my notebook, wrote down her name and address, and the measurement of the coffin, in order to send it to the undertakers.
The poor mother was so distressed, but it didn’t seem to move me. I told her I would be at the funeral, and then I left. As my little girl walked by my side, she said, “Papa, suppose we were very poor and Mama had to wash for a living, and I had to go to the river to get sticks to make a fire. If I were to fall into the water and get drowned, would you feel bad?”
“Feel bad! Why, I don’t know what I would do. You are my only daughter, and if you were taken from me I think it would break my heart.” I hugged her to my chest and kissed her.
“Then did you feel bad for that mother?”
How that question cut me to the heart. I went back to the house where the dead child’s mother grieved and took out my Bible. I read the fourteenth chapter of John to her, and I prayed with her and did my best to comfort her. When the day for the funeral arrived, I attended it. I hadn’t been to the cemetery for many years, because I had thought my time too precious, and it was miles away. There, I found the father was still drunk. As we were laying the coffin in the grave, another funeral procession came up, and the corpse was going to be laid nearby.
As we covered up the coffin with dirt, Adelaide’s mother said, “Mr. Moody, it is very hard to lay her to rest here among strangers. I’ve moved about a good deal and have lived among strangers, and I have never had a burying lot. It’s very hard to place my firstborn among strangers.”
I said to myself that it would be pretty hard to have to bury my child in the strangers’ field. By this time, I fully sympathized with the poor mother.
The next Sunday, I told the children in the Sunday school what had taken place. I suggested that we buy a Sunday school lot, and when any of the children attending the school died, they wouldn’t have to be laid in the strangers’ field, but would be put in our own lot. Before we could get the title made out, a mother came and wanted to know if her little girl who had just died could be buried in the lot. I gave permission, and I went to the funeral. As we lowered the little coffin, I asked her name. “Emma,” the mother said. That was the name of my own little girl, and I couldn’t help but weep as I thought of how I would feel if it were my own Emma.
Very soon afterward, another mother came and wished to have her dead child buried in our lot. His name was Willie, which at the time was the name of my only boy. I thought about how it would feel if it were my Willie who was dead. So, the first children buried there bore the names of my two children. I tried to put myself in the places of these sorrowing mothers, and then it became easy for me to sympathize with them in their grief, and to point them to Him who shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Revelation 21:4).
About the first thing I did when I returned to Chicago nine years ago was to drive up to and see our children’s lot. I thought it would take many years to fill that lot, but it was almost full, because many of my old Sunday school students had died while I’d been away and their bodies rested in this lot until the great day. However, I learned the children of the Sunday school were about to purchase another lot, larger than the first, which would suffice for many years under ordinary circumstances. Many little ones are laid there, waiting for the resurrection, and I would like to be buried beside them. How sweet it would be to be in their company when we rise and meet our Lord.
If you want to be fully sympathetic with others, put yourself in their place. May God fill our hearts with the spirit of the Good Samaritan, so we can be filled with tenderness, love, and compassion.
I want to share a motto with you that has been a great help to me. It was a Quaker’s motto:
“I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I will not pass this way again.”