We are told that as Jesus stood with His disciples a man, a lawyer, stood up and tempted Him.
The lawyer asked Jesus this question:
“Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He asked what he could do to inherit eternal life--what he could do to buy salvation.
Jesus answered his question by asking another question: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?”
To this the lawyer answered:
“Thou shalt love the Lord 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.”
“Thou hast answered right. But who is ‘thy neighbor?’”
Then Jesus drew a vivid picture, which has been told for the last eighteen hundred years, and I do not know any thing that brings out more truthfully the wonderful power of the Gospel than this story. It is the story of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and who fell among thieves.
Jerusalem was called the City of Peace. Jericho and the road leading to it were infested with thieves. Probably it had been taken possession of by the worst of Adam’s sons.
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN AT THE INN
From the Painting by Gustave Dore.]
[Illustration: DAVID.--From Statue by Angelo]
I do not know how far the man got from Jerusalem toward Jericho, but the thieves had come out and fallen upon him, and had taken all his money, stripped him of his clothing and left him wounded. I suppose they left him for dead.
By-and-by, a priest came down the road from Jerusalem. We are told that he came by chance. Perhaps he was going down to dedicate some synagogue or preach a sermon on some important subject, and had the manuscript in his pocket.
As he was going along on the other side, he heard a groan. He turned around, and saw the poor fellow, lying bleeding on the ground, and pitied him. He went up close, took a look at him, and said: “Why, that man is a Jew! He belongs to the seed of Abraham. If I remember aright, I saw him in the synagogue last Sabbath. I pity him; but I have too much business, and I can not attend to him.”
He felt a pity for him, and looked on him, and probably wondered why God allowed such men as were those thieves to come into the world. Then he passed by.
There are many men just like this priest. They stop to discuss and wonder why sin came into the world, and look upon a wounded man, but do not stop to pick up a poor sinner--forgetting the fact that sin is in the world already, and must be rooted out.
Soon another man came along, a Levite, and he also heard the groans of the robbers’ victim. He, too, turned about and looked upon him with pity. He felt compassion for him. He was one of those men that, if we had him here, we would probably make an elder or a deacon. He looked at the suffering man and said: “Poor fellow! He is all covered with blood! He has been badly hurt; he is nearly dead; and they have taken all his money and stripped him naked! Ah, well; I pity him.” He would like to extend help, but he, too, has very pressing business; and so he passes by on the other side. But he has scarcely got out of sight when another one comes along, riding on a beast. He heard the groans of the wounded man, and went over and took a good look at him.
The traveler was a Samaritan. When he looked down he saw the man was a Jew.
Ah, how the Jews looked down upon the Samaritans. There was a great, high partition wall between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews would not allow them in the Temple; they would not have any dealings with them; they would not associate with them.
I can see him coming along that road, with his good, benevolent face; and as he passes he hears a groan from the poor fellow. He draws in his beast, and pauses to listen. “And he came to where he was.”
This is the sweetest thing, to my mind, in the whole story.
A good many people would like to help a poor man if he was on the platform--if it cost them no trouble. They want him to come to them. They are afraid to touch the wounded man; he is all over blood, and they will get their hands soiled.
And that was just the way with the priest and the Levite. This poor man, perhaps, had paid half of all his means to help the service in the Temple, and might have been a constant worshiper; but they only felt pity for him.
This good Samaritan “came to where he was,” and after he saw him he had compassion on him. That word “compassion”--how sweet it sounds! The first thing he did on hearing him cry for water--the hot sun had been pouring down upon his head--was to go and get it from a brook. Then he goes and gets a bag, that he had with him--what we might call a carpet-bag or a saddle-bag in the West--and pours in oil on his wounds. Then he says to himself: “The poor fellow is weak.” So he goes and gets a little wine. He has been lying so long in the burning sun that he is nearly dead now--he had been left half dead--and the wine revives him.