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Luke's gospel, please. Chapter ten. Luke chapter ten. this is what is commonly known as the story of the Good Samaritan. Verse twenty five, and behold, a certain lawyer stood up tempting him. That's what a lot of people don't know about this story, that it was preceded by a man who thought he was pretty good and was going to test and tempt the Lord Jesus. What, master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, what is written in the law, how readest thou? And he answered and said, 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 neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do and thou shalt live. And he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Now here comes the story. 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. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side, and likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him 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. May God bless the reading of this passage with what you've heard already. I just want to speak for the last few minutes of this meeting on four words from this passage that we have read. They're found in verse number thirty three.
They're the last four words of the verse. He had compassion on him. Did you get that? There might be some of you here tonight trying to figure out how you can believe, how you can get saved, how you can make yourself better. Could I just, for the few moments that I'm speaking, get you to forget all that? And I would just like you to look at these four words. He had compassion on him. I just want to bring two things to your mind from these four words.
First of all, I want to look at the characters involved, the he and the him. And then I want to look at the compassion that's expressed. For he had compassion on him. There are four characters in this story. Actually, the Lord draws a fifth one into it. But there are four characters in the story. Two of them take themselves right out of it. So we're not going to talk about them. There's a priest and a Levite.
They walk in and they walk out. They did that to themselves. But if you noticed, I began reading at verse twenty five, and there was a certain lawyer. He's in the story. A certain lawyer. So he's one of the characters. And then there is, as the Lord Jesus told the story and it unfolds, one of the main characters is a certain Samaritan. A certain Samaritan. Let's look at this certain lawyer. For as the Lord Jesus starts to tell the story, and remember, this certain lawyer tempted him.
This same certain lawyer sought to justify himself. M- maybe that's like somebody here tonight. You're just trying to justify yourself. Often when the Lord Jesus told his parables, very pointedly and yet very graciously, he put his finger right on the man that he was speaking to. There was a certain lawyer that the Lord Jesus was talking to. But instead of being blunt and rude, because he's going to talk about having compassion, he very graciously says, there was a certain man that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
I want you to draw the connection that this certain lawyer had to draw, that the certain man in the story and the certain lawyer are the same people. They have a lot in common. Because the Lord Jesus wasn't just telling stories. It's not story time. He was seeking to reach a soul that's perishing. He was out to save a man from losing his soul. He was out to rescue a man from going to hell. That was his whole purpose. That's why he came, as you were hearing.
He came to seek and to save the lost. And so when this man stood up to tempt him, the Lord Jesus saw, here is a lost soul, a man that will spend eternity lost in his sins forever, unless he's saved. Anybody here like that tonight? You're going to spend eternity in hell? You need to be saved. So he tells this story, a certain man. You see, this certain man traveled downward. He was on a downward course.
Now the, the certain lawyer certainly didn't think he was on a downward course. He knew the law. He knew what God said. And yet, very graciously, the Lord Jesus was telling him, you're on a downward course, man. You're on the wrong road. Could I get that across to you if you are not saved tonight? You are traveling downward. It is not getting better. It will never get better. It will only get worse. You are on the road downward. It's the easiest road to travel, for you need to do absolutely nothing to continue the downward course.
The very course of nature will take you downward. The certain man in the story was a fallen man. The Lord Jesus tells how he fell among thieves, which stripped him and wounded him and robbed him and left him half dead. He was a fallen man. That was easy to see, for literally, physically, he fell. He was left on the side of the road. He's not standing, he's not propped up. He's down. He's dying. If he stays there, he'll be lost forever. He will die in his sins, die a a a a robbed man, bereft of all that he needs.
And yet it was not so easy for the certain lawyer to see that spiritually he was in the same condition. Now, if you were lying on the floor, grasping and gasping for your next breath. This whole audience would see that. You would be the focus of the attention of everybody if suddenly you toppled out of your chair onto the floor, gasping in pain, just trying to get one more breath. We would all know that you are a fallen man, dying.
There'd be no question. Ah, but my friend, there's some of you sitting here tonight, and physically you're sitting in a chair. Spiritually, you are a fallen creature, gasping, dying in your sins without a savior, fallen in your nature, far from God, ruined by sin, and should you die like that, you will be separated from God eternally. I wonder if the lawyer standing there ever got the picture, if he ever got the message.
I wonder if it ever got through to him that the Lord Jesus was graciously yet firmly putting his finger right on him and saying, man, you are fallen, you are lost, you have been robbed. All that you need to be right with God has been stripped away from you by a cruel enemy. Let's leave the lawyer. I wonder if you have ever got the picture. Have you ever seen it? That's me. I'm lost. I'm fallen. I'm in my sins.
I have nothing to meet God with. Let's look at the other character. A certain Samaritan. Amazing. The Lord Jesus takes a Samaritan, and he says, that's me. It's the Lord himself. The Samaritans? Now, it doesn't mean anything to us here, but if we lived back then, you would say, no, he he's not taking a Samaritan. You know who the Samaritans were? They were a despised and rejected people by the Jews. Were you listening as my brother Baker read from Isaiah fifty three?
He is despised and rejected of men. He's talking about himself, a certain Samaritan. No, he wasn't a Samaritan. He was a despised and rejected man. You see, there was a question about the birth. Whose son is he? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? What's the first question asked in Matthew?
Where is he that is born, King of the Jews? And there's men searching for where he should be born. There was a question about his birth. He's the Samaritan in the story. But the Samaritan, you'll notice, is journeying. No, he's not traveling the downward road. He's traveling upward. He's taking him, when he does rescue him, he doesn't take him downward, he takes him up to the inn. There's one man in the story that's going the other way. He's traveling, he's different from the others.
The priest is going downward, the Levite is going downward, the man himself was going downward when he fell among thieves, but along comes a Samaritan who's journeying upward to Jerusalem. He's traveling a different way. Can I tell you there was one man that traveled in this world, and he traveled differently than any other man. There was never one who traveled like the Lord Jesus. He traveled an upward road. In him was no sin. He knew no sin. He ate and drank with publicans and sinners and was never defiled by their sin.
He came in in amongst people that were filthy with sin, and instead of being contaminated by their sins, he cleansed them from their sins. He saved them from their sins. Every single person that he came in contact with that came to follow him never went downward again. Did you get that? All that the Father given me ha- shall come to me, and I've lost none. Everyone that came started on a different course, upward. Not one lost. All his followers saved.
He saved people. He was journeying. He's journeying a different road, and he came to save them. Did you ever question as you read this story? Come on, we've read this story so many times. Did you ever question, where was this Samaritan going? For he came, he finds the man, and it almost seems like the purpose of his journey was forgotten because now he just happened to find this man, so he picks him up, puts him on his beast, and takes him to the inn. Can I suggest to you this is why he came? He didn't forego his purpose because there was a man dead, half dead on the side of the road. He knew there was a man fallen on the road, and he came to save the man that was fallen on the road.
Oh my friend, the wonderful message of the gospel is this: there is one that left heaven with one sole purpose. He knows you. He knows your condition. He knows you're lost. He knows you'll die in your sins unless there's one who can save you. You need a savior. You need someone that can lift you from your sins. You need someone that can cleanse you from all your sin and filth. You need one who can give you life, for you're dead in trespasses and sins. And that's the whole purpose he came. It wasn't an accident.
He came on purpose. Why? For we read these four words. He, the Lord Jesus, had compassion on him. I hope you figured out who him is. Because him could be a her. And could be sitting right in your seat. He, the Lord Jesus, had compassion on him, the characters of the story. Ah, but look at the compassion expressed. Had compassion. Had compassion.
What does it mean to have compassion? I don't need to turn to a dictionary. I don't need to make up a story. The New Testament supplies all that we need to understand what the Lord Jesus meant when he said he had compassion on him. There are at least four— there's probably far more, but there are at least four very vivid pictures that the Lord Jesus paints of what compassion is. What does he mean by had compassion? If we had read in Luke chapter fifteen, same gospel, the Lord Jesus, I think, is drawing from the Old Testament, again from Isaiah fifty three when he says, what man of you, if he had a hundred sheep and lose one of them, doth not leave ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after, go after that which is lost until he find it?
We have heard read tonight again in our hearing, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord had compassion on us. He, the shepherd, has compassion on us, the sheep. What does it mean? It's the very heart of the shepherd revealed. That's why the Lord Jesus said, what man of you put yourself in this circumstance? There were shepherds standing there, and they knew what he was talking about. You couldn't pay a shepherd enough. Money wasn't the issue.
It was the heart of a shepherd. One sheep lost, I'll go. The hymn writer has captured it, is- hasn't he? Vividly in his poem, ninety and nine safely lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out on the hills astray. It goes on to say about the darkness and the storm and all that the shepherd would pass through to find the one that's lost. You get the picture? What does it mean to have compassion? It's just a little picture of how far would he go? What would he pay?
What would he not endure that you might be saved? Oh, my friend, can I tell you what he endured for you? The awful darkness of Calvary, the terrible suffering, not only inflicted by men, and they did their worst, the darkness of a noonday sun, when God himself, the Lord, laid on him the iniquity of us all. When, again, as the hymn writer takes from our scriptures, Jehovah bade his sword awake. O Christ, it woke against thee. How much would he endure?
He had compassion on him. But there's another picture painted in the New Testament, again by the Lord Jesus, when he says in Luke chapter five, I believe it is, that those that are whole need not a physician, but those that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Again, it's the compassion of the doctor to the sick. In the year two thousand, the last half of two thousand and the first two months of two one, I visited seven doctors, and I ended up with a bill of twenty five thousand dollars.
And then I met one doctor that I will never forget. He was different from all the others. I can still see that tall Egyptian man, for he was an Egyptian, standing my- by my bedside with tears running down his face. And I can hear the passion in his voice when he said, John, I live for moments like this. I have no question, no doubt that the other six doctors were very brilliant. They make me look like a kindergarten child, smart people.
But I met one of the seven that had compassion. And you want to know something? I never so much as got a bill from him. And I never met him before. He was a neurosurgeon that lived to heal people. It was his life. That's what the Lord Jesus is saying. He had compassion on him. It's the, the heart of the doctor that longs to heal the sick, that lives to heal the sick.
Do you understand what compassion is? He's not doing it for his own benefit. He's doing it because you're sick in your sins. It's the picture of the Samaritan kneeling in the dusty road beside this man, pouring in the oil and wine, cleansing his wounds, binding up his wounds. He longed to heal him. Can I tell you, friend, if you only, only just a little bit longed to be saved, like the Savior longs to save you, you'd be saved. It's his very heart!
Longs to heal you! And you remain in your sins. Quickly now, let's go to another picture, a little more vivid. Peter paints this one. First Peter chapter three and verse eighteen. He says, Christ also hath once suffered for sins. Here it is. The just for the unjust. The just for the unjust. Do you get the picture? It's the picture of someone being the substitute, the just, the innocent, the one without sin, stepping over into the place of those that are unjust and becoming the substitute and paying the price that the unjust deserve.
Why would he do such a thing? Because, boys, let me tell you, he had compassion on you. And in all your guilt, and in all your sin, you could not possibly stand before God. You are condemned already. There is no way that the justice of God could ever pardon you. Guilty before God, unjust, and into that guilty sinner's place, get the picture, steps the just one. Upon him almighty vengeance fell.
It was enough to sink this world to hell, but he bore it for a sinful race, and thus became our hiding place. He had compassion on him. One last picture, and this meeting is over. This is a picture that's found throughout the Gospels and stamped upon in Romans chapter one verse sixteen, The power of God unto salvation. He had compassion on him. Did you catch what he did?
He poured in the oil and wine, he bound up his wounds, and then look, I'll illustrate it for you. He stooped down beside that man. With strong arms, he lifted him up and set him on his own beast. What does it mean to have compassion? The man needed a savior. Someone with the power to save. Someone who was able to lift by his own power a poor sinner that was dead in trespasses and sins. Oh, I'm so thankful he had compassion on me.
I could not lift myself up. I could not present myself to God. There was nothing but death and sin. There was nothing but weakness. No, worse. No strength. Ungodly. Condemned already. Death. And he, by his power, lifted me up. Oh, I love those words. He had compassion on him. Could that be your story tonight, as this meeting closes? Oh, I can tell you, he's had compassion.
I'm looking into the faces of men and women and young people here, and you can say he had compassion on me. You know what it is to be lifted by his power. You know what it is to be saved by his power from your sins. And yet I'm looking into the faces of others, and you still don't know who he had compassion on. May you find him tonight and trust him as your very own.