Words of Jesus Podcast - My Money My Neighbor My Sorrow

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Do you know this Parable? Jesus said one parable is the key to understanding ALL parables. A prerequisite understanding if you will. Do you know which parable he referenced? If not, go to your Bible and find it right away. Even with Jesus the Son of God, in physical form on the earth, there was an enemy and a communication barrier that required stealth implementation. There are hints of this in the Gospels. Also, remember Paul's words in 1 Cor. 2:7-8 "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." A DVD titled, "The Parable Paradox" is available online free to all at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnueHpgtz6g/ Or you may request your free copy of "The Parable Paradox" DVD via email from [e-mail].***58: The Parable Of The Good SamaritanLuke 10:25-37The Parable Of The Good SamaritanA Lawyer asked Jesus:            “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”            Jesus answered with a question, saying:            “What is written in the law? How readest thou?”            The lawyer replied:            “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.”            Jesus said to the lawyer:            “Thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live.”            Then the lawyer asked:            “Who is my neighbor?”            Jesus answered with a parable, saying:            “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. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, ‘Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.’ Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?”            The lawyer replied to Jesus:            “He that showed mercy on him.”            Jesus replied: "Go, and do thou likewise."

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris. Hello my friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host, and we're going to be going through some more red ink today. Matter of fact, last time we were in chapter 58 of our little book called The Words of Jesus, and we were dealing with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In reality, as I've mentioned before, the rich young ruler, the lawyer, who came to Jesus,

this story is mentioned four different times in three different Gospels. If you thought about the math, you thought, wow, is it the same story in one of the Gospels? Does it have it twice? Actually the i believe that it has the encounter in there twice because there are actually two subjects being dealt with um i was uh because having you know combined these stories together, I was intrigued with the fact that Jesus told this young man, yet thou lackest one thing. And in reality, well, not necessarily in reality, but at first glance anyway, when you're reading these stories and you're trying to put them together to tell one story. You're actually wondering

wait a minute, you lack one thing, well then why are you mentioning two things? Well, I just don't happen to believe that the Lord Jesus said things or because his promise was that these actions of his life were going to be recalled to the apostles so that they could record these things. I happen to believe that he didn't speak indiscriminately.

I don't believe that the Spirit of God had them copy these things down and them not necessarily make sense in this way. So naturally I'm trying to think, does he really lack one thing or does he lack two things? Now there are some people that believe that this was two separate encounters. I don't happen to believe that. I just think that one makes an emphasis that the other one does not make. We talked last time about this particular fellow

that Jesus said you lack one thing and that is that you are a rich man and you're going to have trouble entering the kingdom of God because you have a lot of stuff. And in this one he says he's explaining to him that you have a problem with prejudice. We haven't explained that yet, but I will. And so I'm thinking, well, Lord, that's two things. But I got to thinking about it and realizing that it very well could have been one root problem. When you decide to take my advice in your Christian life, in your Christian walk, in your Christianity,

that you are going to keep the Lord's commandments, that you are not going to disobey your conscience, and that you are indeed going to take time every day to hear the voice of God for yourself, these kinds of insights will begin to occur to you. You might think that you have two problems. You might think you have five or 50. I don't know. But I think what we have to do is open our spirit, our understanding,

to the point that we have the ability to understand that perhaps you have one problem that manifests itself in many ways. And I think that that is the situation here. The truth is is that this man didn't necessarily like money as much as you know at first glance you might think that this is his problem but his intention was not that he have a lot of money but that he not use it in proper ways because, frankly, he didn't love his brother. He wanted to believe that he did. And so, therefore, his question to Jesus went that direction.

Let's read what he has to say here in chapter 58. He said, what do I do to inherit eternal life jesus says well what's written in the law how do you read the law and the lawyer replied thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart soul mind and strength and thy neighbor is thyself jesus says you've answered right this do and thou shalt live. The lawyer asked, this is when it starts to tell on him, who is my neighbor? And why would he ask such a question as that? Because he just answered the Lord

with the little diatribe that he had obviously remembered that we would love the Lord God with all of our heart soul mind and strengthen our neighbor as ourself and there was that little flicker of conviction within himself that perhaps I don't love my neighbor as much as I should and then he got to thinking well no wait a minute I'm good to my brothers I'm good to my cousins I'm good to everybody here in Israel I'm good to you brothers. I'm good to my cousins. I'm good to everybody here in Israel. I'm good to, you know, anybody who loves the Lord, anybody who's Jewish. And so he's thinking,

wow, do I have to love people that I don't necessarily like? So he decides to answer the question or at least ask the question to the lord so okay i gotta love my neighbor well exactly who is my neighbor you see how this happened jesus says well let me ask let me tell you a story you tell me who your neighbor is this is very much like the lord does all the time that he would answer questions with questions. He would answer questions with parables. This is actually not necessarily the modus operandi of Jesus Christ alone, but we do find this a lot. I think it's an interesting comparison to think about David when David was in that sin with Bathsheba,

that the Lord had to send Nathan in to tell him a story. He told him a story about a man who came to visit, and he said, what's for dinner? And the guy says, well, I was thinking about putting together some mutton. And he says, I'm not in the mood for mutton. Let's have lamb. And he says, well, you know, we don't have any lambs in this year. Well, what about that one?

Well, that's my pet. This is the one my kids love, this lamb. This lamb lives in the house with me. He's like one of my own kids. As a matter of fact, Nathan told David it was like a daughter unto him. And the man says, well, there's a lamb. Let's do that. And he spared of his own flock. He spared of his own and took this man's lamb and had it slaughtered and they were going to eat it. David was incensed and said, this man's going to die for this. And Nathan had to tell him, okay, now that you've looked at the situation

objectively and not subjectively. See, David looked at the Bathsheba thing in a subjective way. I want her. And if I want her then you know all of my my reasoning is colored by that very thought by that desire by that lust and nate and so his judgment was off nathan had to pull him out of that subjective uh uh consideration of that of the situation put him into an objective situation and told the story of the lamb.

David, in an objective way, said that man should die for what he'd done. Nathan had the horrible task of having to look at David and say, David, you are that man. And David had to say, what do you mean, I'm that man? Well, you've taken one of your mighty men who has put his life on the line for you many times

and is your friend. And you've taken his wife and you had him murdered. David realized his sin because he was looking at his sin and his life objectively. Outside of his lust, outside of his desire, outside of his so-called love that he had for Bathsheba,

or any of the rest of this foolishness that does tend to color our judgment. And when he did, he saw how heinous his sin actually was. Jesus is going to do the very same thing to this man. And he's going to do it by telling him a story. He says 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. Now, let me say to you here that as we read this, I want you to understand that this is actually not just a stand-alone parable. This story is being told in answer to a question. many times we read the story of the good samaritan and we read in there and we read into it that jesus is saying you need to be good to everybody not what he's teaching at all he didn't he when he said go and do that likewise jesus was telling us how we're supposed to take care of our neighbor. Well, no, he's really not. He's answering a question, who is my neighbor? We know how to be good. We know what people need when they've been wounded. We don't need Jesus to tell us that this is the right thing to do. We know this is the right thing to do. We just don't

do it. Why? Because we don't know who our neighbor is jesus is trying to answer a question who is my neighbor and for us to read into this anything other than an answer to that man's question i don't think you're doing the the scriptures justice here and so he says that uh that 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 also 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 and on the morrow when he departed he he took out two pence and gave it to the host and said unto him take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again I will repay thee. A couple of things here that are interesting is that Jesus chose not just Jews in general, not just people of his own tribe or his own

nation in general, not just people of his own tribe or his own nation in general, but he chose religious men. You see, the priests were an order of the Jews that were looked upon as men of God. The Levite were looked upon as men who were servants to God. The Levite was a man who didn't own anything. He didn't own anything. And because of his dedication and service to the Lord, his dedication was without question. The priest, knowing the law, knowing the right thing to do, in touch with God, speaks for God, in some cases even prophetically. These kinds of men, you would have expected

that these kinds of men would have taken on a different attitude, a different action here, but they didn't. And then he said the N-word. I know, we live in an age where there's certain words that, you know, you just can't say, and I'm not saying those things are the right thing to say. I think we use those horrible epithets for one another because we don't love our neighbor. We don't love the people around us who are different than we are.

But I choose the N-word because it is so vile and so repulsive. You have to understand that when Jesus says, now a certain Samaritan, you've got to understand, this was absolutely repulsive to this guy. I mean, these people were repulsive to him. This man had a problem with prejudice. He had a severe problem with prejudice. He hated these people. He prejudged these people. He wanted nothing to do with those people. And the worst

kind of prejudice in the world is religious prejudice, without a doubt. These people were really of His own blood. Matter of fact, I got news for you. We are all of the same blood. The Bible says that God created us all, of all mankind, of one blood. Does that frighten you? Does that scare you? Is that something you've never heard before?

I know, you know, we think that there are races in the world, but, you know, that's just Darwinian garbage that got thrown into our language. There's no such thing as races in this world. We're all of one race. We're all of one blood. That's our family. This is our family around us. I don't care what color they are, how tall they are, how big or round they are, or anything about them, where they were born, what language they speak. We are all of one blood. There's no such thing as races. We need to quit talking that way, as a matter of fact.

Because, you know, naturally, when there's races, I don't know, it doesn't matter if it's a horse race or a dog race, somebody's got to win, somebody's got to lose. And we surely don't mind picking the loser, and it's usually not us. So as far as racism is concerned, I don't give it any consideration. Now prejudice, that's a different thing altogether.

That's judging a man unduly or not judging him at all, but, or I guess I should say not giving him a day of reckoning or a day of court or a day of judgment, but just going ahead and judging him as less than ourselves. The Apostle Paul said, we should never, ever esteem anybody as less than ourselves, esteeming ourself as greater than someone else. It's not a Christian thing to do. You're a racist? You're not a Christian. You're a bigot? You're not a Christian. Are you prejudiced?

You don't understand the spirit you're of. That's all there is to it. Well, you know, hey, it's my opinion. Do with it whatever you want, but you ought to take it as a sign that the Lord wants to do something for you. But please don't go around telling people that you're a Christian and hating people for no good reason. This is what he was talking about when he says, you know, if you hate your brother, you're a murderer. You need to understand that murder comes from hatred.

So, you know, let's deal with the hatred first. This man hated Samaritans. That's all there is to this. And when Jesus used the word Samaritan, it was so disgusting to this fellow to even think about that a Samaritan would do something good and that a Samaritan would be considered to be his neighbor it repulsed him from one end of his being to the other as a matter of fact I'll show you that when Jesus asked him

he goes on to say he says now which of these thinkest thou was a neighbor unto him who fell among the thieves? This fellow was so entrenched in prejudice, he couldn't even say the word Samaritan. He could have answered, well, the Samaritan was. But you see, it was such a deeply ingrained thing in him, he couldn't even say Samaritan. He said, well, I suppose him that had mercy on him. Jesus says, go and do thou likewise.

Go and do what likewise? Go out and find people that have been beaten by thieves and make sure you take care of them. Is that what he's teaching us? A lot of people read this and say, that's what Jesus wants us to do. Go and do thou likewise. What does that mean?

What does that mean? The Samaritan ministered to the Jew. And he's saying, you as a Jew need to minister to the Samaritan. You see, a lot of times you'll find, I know there's such a thing as racism in all colors and all kinds, and there are people who hate you because you're not one of them. It doesn't matter if you're considered to be white and black people hate you,

or you're considered to be white and black people hate you, or you're considered to be Haitian, or you're considered to be of some descent or some family and they don't like you because of it, it doesn't matter which way the racism goes. What you will find is that in a lot of cases, when those people that you esteem as less than you, you'll find in a lot of cases that they have a certain amount of humility that is way far surpassing yours.

They're willing to minister to you, and you're not willing to minister to them. When he says, go and do thou likewise, he's saying, I want you to do like the Samaritan did in ministering to someone for which he had no animosity whatsoever. That's what I want you to do. This is how I want you to live. I want you to live like the Samaritan does. Well, this was really aggravating this poor kid.

I say kid, but it was really getting to him because he figured that, yes, I'm good to my neighbor, but if it's okay with you, I'll define who my neighbor is. Jesus said, you can't do that. You're not allowed to do that. I'll define who your neighbor is. Now, we can look at this and say, no, who is my neighbor?

Well, according to Jesus, the Samaritan, the one who does you good, is your neighbor. So, am I supposed to be good to someone who doesn't treat me well? Who does ignore me? Who leaves me in the dumpster like this poor guy did

and doesn't help me? Am I supposed to consider him to be my neighbor? No. You're not supposed to consider the people who are bent on your destruction as your neighbor. Well, does that mean that I don't have to love them? No, it doesn't mean that either. Well, how could that be?

Because Jesus said, love your enemies. So even though this guy is an enemy, you're supposed to love them nonetheless. You know when you read this story you find that there's more to this story than just a monetary outlay on the part of this Jew, or on the benefit of this Jew by the Samaritan. You know, the Bible says that he took him to that inn, he stayed with him.

In that inn, the man stayed with him. He didn't leave until morning. He stayed with that poor guy to make sure he was going to make it through the night. You know what he did he violated if it were a jew staying with a samaritan he would have violated what that jew had been had grown up to believe was the law of god that god teaches that these people are supposed to be separated. You will find separation laws in the scriptures, but it was his intention for his people to be a pure people and to keep themselves from idols and these kind of things.

But, you know, even the Jews today will teach that. This might be, this language might be a little bit rougher or cruder than they would be willing to say it, but even the law of God is subject to the life of someone else. They teach that the law of god can be broken if it leads to or it's in the in the purpose of saving a life and um it's uh there's probably a lot more to it than than what i'm saying here but life is very important to the Jew. However, there was a time when the Jews, of course, even today, you know, the Bible says that if a man loses something and you find it, you'll return it to him, unless he's a Gentile. Then you don't have to you're not supposed to lie unless it's to a gentile because the truth

is is the talmud makes this very very clear it's why it's one of the most vile documents on the earth is because it talks about men people of our own bloodline people of the same blood men in the earth that don't meet whatever criteria they feel that they need to meet, are to be considered as pigs, chickens, or cows. Man, this is a real problem among the Jews today, and certainly among them in this day. We're not to have these kind of prejudices. And in this particular case, Jesus brought out the fact that he did that he had prejudices i want you to see also

i want you to see also that there were there was effort, and money involved in his ministering to this man. Time and effort and money was very important to the young man who had many possessions. You see how there is a root of prejudice? There's a root of of prejudice there's a root of uh spending your money on on people you deem worthy not spending it on people that you don't deem worthy you can see easily well perhaps easily that uh this this young man had a problem that was affecting other areas of his life.

And Jesus was trying to tell him that this is not the way to live. When this young man figured out, oh my goodness, you know, I don't love my neighbor like I should, then he is actually forced to, forced to confess to this, even within himself. And this is, this is very well could be the conversation that brought about from this young man. What am I i lacking what's wrong with me and jesus is saying here's the way we can fix this and that's when he explained to him perhaps you need to go and sell all you have and give to the poor not the the Jewish poor. Not the poor in your family. Not the poor that you like.

But give it to people who need something. You're not going to lack anything as long as you're with me. But perhaps we need to let some of these chains go. And this is when this man realized, I'm not in as good a condition as I thought. And I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, but I don't love my neighbor as myself. And Jesus is telling him, here's what you do. Sell what you have. Deny yourself. Be willing to die for what you believe. Follow me. I can regenerate you. This is the best news a man ever heard. But

he couldn't obey it. He walked away very sorrowful because he couldn't do what the Lord asked him to do. It's a shame he wasn't born in the 21st century. Shame he wasn't a member of your church. Somebody would have told him how wrong Jesus was here.

But you don't have to change. You just have to believe. Alright. Till next time, think great, my friend. Bye-bye. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you