The good Samaritan looks him over, and sees all the wounds that need to be bound up. But he has nothing to do this with. I can see him now, tearing the lining out of his coat, and with it binding up his wounds. Then he takes him up and lays him on his bosom until he is revived, and, when the poor fellow gets strength enough, the good Samaritan puts him on his own beast.
If the Jew had not been half dead he would never have allowed the Samaritan to put his hands on him. He would have treated him with scorn. But he is half dead, and he can not prevent the good Samaritan treating him kindly and putting him on his beast.
Did you ever stop to think what a strong picture it would have been if the Samaritan had not been able himself to get the man on the beast--if he had needed to call any assistance?
Perhaps a man would have come along, and he would have asked him to help him with the wounded man.
“What are you?”
“I am a Samaritan.”
“You are a Samaritan, are you? I can not help you--I am a Jew.”
There is a good deal of that spirit today--just as strong as it was then. When we are trying to get a poor man on the right way--when we are tugging at him to get his face toward Zion--we ask some one to help us, but he says: “I am a Roman Catholic.”
“Well,” you say, “I am a Protestant.”
So they give no assistance to one another.
The same spirit of old is present today. The Protestants will have nothing to do with the Catholics; the Jews will have nothing to do with the Gentiles. And there was a time--but, thank God, we are getting over it--when a Methodist would not touch a Baptist nor a Presbyterian a Congregationalist; and if we beheld a Methodist taking a man out of the ditch, a Baptist was sure to ask:
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Take him to a Methodist church.”
“Well, I’ll have nothing to do with him.”
A great deal of this has gone by, and the time is certainly coming when, if we are trying to get a man out of the ditch, and they see us tugging at him, and we are so faint that we can not get him on the beast, they will help him. And that is what Christ wants.
Well, the Samaritan gets him on his beast, and says to him:
“You are very weak, but my beast is sure-footed; he’ll take you to the inn, and I’ll hold you.”
He held him firmly, and God is able to hold every one He takes out of the pit. I see them going along the road, he holding him on, and he gets him to the inn. He gets him there, and he says to the inn keeper:
“Here is a wounded man; the thieves have been after him; give him the best attention you can; nothing is too good for him.”
I can imagine the good Samaritan as stopping there all night, sitting up with him, and attending to his every need. And the next morning he gets up and says to the landlord:
“I must be off; I leave a little money to pay you for what the man has had, and if that is not enough I will pay what is necessary when I return from my business in Jericho.”
This good Samaritan gave this landlord twopence to pay for what he had got, and promised to come again and repay whatever had been spent to take care of the man, and he had given him, besides, all his sympathy and compassion.
Jesus tells this story in answer to the lawyer who came to tempt Him, and showed that the Samaritan was the neighbor.
Now, this story is brought out here to teach church-goers this thing: It is not creed or doctrine that we need so much as compassion and sympathy.