A Sermon—”The Good Samaritan.”

BY THE LATE REV. JAMES S. SINCLAIR.

Preached in St. Jude’s, Glasgow, 13th July, 1918.

“And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead,” etc. (Luke x. 30-35).

YOU find that words were spoken by Jesus to a certain lawyer who stood up and tempted Him, saying, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He referred this lawyer, in the first instance, to God’s moral law. “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” and he answered quite correctly, for he replied with the sum of the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” Jesus said to him, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” Jesus, knowing that the man believed more in the law than in the gospel, referred him to the law, told him that, if he would keep the law perfectly, he would live. The man, however, knew in his own conscience that he was not a keeper of the law, that he did not keep the law very carefully as to the second table, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and he put the question to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” The Lord Jesus then related to him an incident by which He taught him who was his neighbour, by which He taught him what was the neighbourly thing to do. He spoke to him of an incident concerning a certain man who went down from Jerusalem, who fell among thieves, and was left half dead. Certain men passed by, a priest and a Levite, but they paid little or no attention to the poor man; they allowed him to lie in his blood. The only man who showed him the necessary attention was a Samaritan, who came where he was, and, when he saw him, had compassion on him, and did for him all that was necessary to save him from death, and in order to make him comfortable afterwards. Then Jesus, after He told this incident to the lawyer, asked him the question, “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among thieves?” And he said, “He that shewed mercy on him.” Then said Jesus unto him, “Go, and do thou likewise.” Here we have the immediate lesson that was taught by Jesus to this lawyer who came testing Him with the question, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

I think, however, that this interesting incident, as related by Christ, is susceptible of certain spiritual interpretations and applications. We may find in it a picture of ourselves in our wretched and ruined condition, and we may find the good Samaritan to be the Lord Jesus Christ, who comes to the place where sinners are and binds up their wounds, and gives them to experience something of the height and the depth and length and

breadth of His salvation. It is from this point of view, then, that we desire to consider this narrative as here recorded, and we shall notice :—

1. The man who fell among thieves.
2. The priest and the Levite, and the treatment which they gave him.
3. The Samaritan brought under review.

4. The gracious attention which the Samaritan gave, and the provision that he made for the welfare of the man who fell among the thieves.

5. In the last place, let us make some practical applications.

6. In the first place, let us observe the case of the man that fell among thieves, and I observe, first, the journey upon which he was. We are told he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem was the place where God was worshipped. There was His temple, there He was accustomed to manifest Himself to those who waited upon Him. This man had for a season turned his back on Jerusalem; he was on his way to Jericho. Jericho was a city with a peculiar history. We find in the book of Joshua that, when Jericho was destroyed, a curse was pronounced upon the man who would dare to build the walls of Jericho again. This man, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, may be taken as the case of man at the beginning. He turned his back on God, and he went in the direction of the city of the curse and of destruction. And the first man fell among thieves when he departed from his Maker. He fell into the hands of the great thief, who is the devil. Satan promised to him that he would gain much by yielding to his suggestions, by doing the thing that he tempted him to do. That is the way with the devil still. He promises sinners great things if they will listen to his voice, if they will obey his evil suggestions; he professes to show the way to happiness, and then leads the poor sinner at last in the bottomless pit. The first man encountered this terrible thief, and fell under his temptation. He fell also into the hands of Sin. Sin took possession of his own breast; he became a sinner, a transgressor of God’s commands. Sin, my friends, is the destroyer of the immortal soul. Again, he fell into the hands of another thief, and that is the World. He preferred to eat of the forbidden tree rather than obey God’s command, and thus he laid himself open to the seductions of the world. We have as a race thus fallen among thieves who are seeking our eternal destruction.

Still, further, we are told concerning this poor man that the thieves stripped him of his raiment, and that was what the thieves did to our first parents when they yielded to their evil suggestions—they stripped them of their original innocence and righteousness. God made man in His own image: He clothed him with garments of purity and righteousness, but those thieves stripped him of these precious garments. They also inflicted grievous wounds upon the immortal soul, such wounds as would issue in eternal destruction if divine mercy prevented not. The thieves in the narrative left the man half dead. Well, my friends, there is a sense, and a very important sense, in which the world, and

the flesh, and the devil have left us—not half dead, but wholly dead, dead in trespasses and sins. Still it is possible for sinners to come under the power of a second death. There is a possibility of recovery from the spiritual death that has taken possession of us as a consequence of falling among thieves, and this man, being left half dead, may be regarded as a suitable figure of our case.

1. I pass on now, in the second place, to observe the priest and the Levite who came the way, and who passed by on the other side. There is no doubt but Jesus is here speaking forcibly concerning certain parties who were then in the Jewish church, and although they were in office they did not understand the real spirit of the office they sustained. They had no real regard for the welfare of the souls of men; in fact, they did not seem to have much regard even for their temporal interests. They were simply concerned about their own carnal self-interest. He speaks of a certain priest coming down that way, then He speaks of a Levite. We may take the priest to represent the moralist—the man who has nothing but outward morality, though he may make a high profession. Such a man does not understand the case of poor, guilty, fallen creatures, and does not enter sympathetically into their necessities. He has no real love for his own soul or for the souls of others. He comes the way, but he looks coldly upon the poor man perishing in his blood, and he passes by on the other side. There may be also a deeper lesson here taught. The priest may be taken to represent the law as a covenant of works. The law as a covenant of works has no provision for the rescue of perishing sinners, has no provision for the forgiveness of sinners. The Jews were very much attached to the law; they imagined that the doctrine of “Do, and thou shalt live” would save their souls for eternity; and the Jew in that respect is not dead even in gospel lands. That is the doctrine that is very widely taught in our time and generation—salvation by human works, salvation by morality, salvation by outward righteousness. Ah! vain is such a hope. The law has no provision for the salvation of guilty, perishing sinners.

Then the other man who came and passed by was the Levite, and we may take him to represent the ceremonialist. We are told that he came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. The Jews made much of the ceremonial law, and thought that, if they would attend to its ceremonies, they would, therefore, be saved. Well, Jesus represents the Levite here as taking a look at the man, and there is no doubt that the ceremonial law takes a look at sinners. Although it showed forth the way in which sinners may be saved, of itself it did not make any provision for our souls’ salvation. It takes a view of us, but it cannot meet our whole need. Ah! no; the legalist and the ceremonialist have nothing wherewith to save a guilty sinner from eternal death. They pass by on the other side and leave the sinner to perish.

1. I observe now, in the third place, the Samaritan. “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and

when he saw him he had compassion on him.” It is very remarkable, my friends, that the Lord Jesus describes the man who did the gracious part of a neighbour to the one who fell among thieves as a Samaritan. Christ Himself was spoken of as a Samaritan. “He is a Samaritan: He hath a devil.” His enemies could not get opprobrious enough epithets to cast at Him. Well, He says it was the Samaritan who came to the help of this poor man, and oh! my friends, this wonderful Samaritan still lives. He died and He rose again, and ascended on high, but He hath not forsaken the world altogether. He still goes forth in His word, in His gospel, with a view to save sinners from going down into the pit. He is still pursuing His gracious journeys among the fallen children of men. We do not see His goings perhaps in the measure that have been seen in days gone by, but He still lives. “The Lord liveth,” said the Psalmist, “Blessed be the Rock of my salvation.” The Son of God, Jesus Christ, is the good Samaritan, who comes exactly where we are. We are sinners that have been stripped of all our raiment by thieves, sinners that have been wounded even unto death, sinners ready to perish, and it is to such that the Son of God speaks in the Gospel.

1. Then we are told that when the good Samaritan came and saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds. This compassion was in the Samaritan already, and compassion was in the heart of the Son of God from all eternity, but when He looks upon poor souls ready to perish His compassion is drawn forth. In the exercise of compassion he went to the man and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The Lord Jesus carries with Him the oil and the wine of gospel relief and gospel consolation. With Him is the residue of the Spirit: with Him is the consolation of forgiveness, of acceptance, of cleansing. The Lord Jesus has an infinite fountain of consolation in Himself that He is able and willing to communicate unto needy souls. Oil is used in Scripture to symbolise the Spirit of God in His enlightening and comforting influence, and Christ, as the Mediator of the new covenant, administers this divine consolation. He also carries with Him the wine of gospel comforts that symbolises the precious blood of atonement that cleanses from all sin. Oh! my friends, if we have been brought low, and if we have been made sensible of our sinful and perishing condition, we stand in need of these precious things which Christ has provided. Christ binds up the wounds of sinners by the promises of His own word. These give strength, these give encouragement unto the sinner who is ready to give up all hope, ready to perish in the far country. He bound up his wounds, and when he has so far met that man’s case, we are informed that he set him on his own beast—he provided means whereby he would be conveyed to some place of refuge. Now, we say that this may be taken to refer to His word. The word of Christ, the word of God, is that which can carry you if you have been rescued by the power of God’s grace from a perishing

condition. He has provided a substantial source of help in His own precious, living word. He is able to sustain you and carry you through all the ups and down of life until the end of the day. He set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn. This inn may be taken to represent a gospel church. This is the inn where souls are fed and nourished under the gospel, but it is to be feared that there are not too many such in the times in which we live, not too many gospel churches where poor sinners may be fed as to their immortal souls. It would seem as if in our time there was a famine in more senses than one—a famine not only of bread, but of the word of the Lord. Ah! but Christ, the good Samaritan, will bring people to the place where their souls will be fed and nourished. It is very remarkable sometimes how people whom the Lord has met with, perhaps outside the ordinary means of grace, are brought in His providence to a place where the truth, as it is in Jesus, is taught and proclaimed. He will take care of His people, and He will see to it that they have the necessary provision, the necessary nourishment, for their immortal souls on the way to eternity. The good Samaritan kept very near to the poor man for the first night after he was rescued. We are told that on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host. My friends, the Lord is usually very nigh to a soul when He first rescues him from the grip of the destroyers, when He first gives him to taste the sweetness of pardoning mercy and redeeming love, when He first fills him with the oil of joy instead of mourning. He gets into close fellowship with that soul. But the Samaritan did not always continue in such nearness. We are told he went away on the morrow, and so Christ has His own ways and His own times with those whom He calls effectually by His grace. He gives His own people at the beginning earnests of eternal happiness, He gives them the place of the child, dandling them, as it were, on the knees, drawing them near to Himself in the embrace of His everlasting love. He holds pleasant communion and fellowship with them, then He departs. However, we see that, although the good Samaritan departed, he did not leave the man without a helper. He left him in charge of the host of this inn, and who are we to understand by the host? Well, there are two views that one might take of the host from a spiritual standpoint. Who is the principal host of the gospel church? It is the Holy Ghost, it is the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of the living God, and, my friends, if we have not that host, we are poor indeed, for without His presence and power we shall have nothing but dry formality. The gospel ministers may also be described as the host. It is their duty to care for the spiritual needs of those who come under their hands. The Samaritan left the poor man under the charge of the host, and he took out two pence. He made provision for his necessities. My friends, it is the glorious Samaritan of the new covenant, the Mediator between God and man, who has all the means we all stand in need of. “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.” We may say about the two pence that one penny is providence for the body, and the other

penny grace for the soul. He made complete provision for man’s need. Of course, a penny in those days was of much more value than it is to-day, and two pence would go a good distance then. However that may be, the spiritual meaning bears out that the Samaritan gave to the host all that was necessary for the support and comfort of the man, and promises that when He would come again he would repay anything more that was spent on him. Oh! my friends, that is what Christ does for those whom He saves. He undertakes to supply all their needs out of His own unsearchable riches.

1. Now, then, let me endeavour to make some more particular application of what is brought before us in this incident. You, my friends, who are still far from God and righteousness, see in the case of this poor man a picture of your own guilty and fallen condition. You have fallen among thieves, whether you believe it or not. The world and the flesh and the devil are thieves, and they will carry your soul away to eternal destruction if you are not rescued, if you are not saved by Christ. The sooner you come to recognise how you are and where you stand the better. People in our time have such a superficial view of the condition of man as a sinner before God. You would hardly think that there was such a thing as sin in the world or a devil in hell. Oh! what a dreadful delusion. “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness.”