The Good Samaritan’s Compassion

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan’s Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

A certain lawyer ask two questions of Jesus “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers both questions in one awesome parable of the Good Samaritan. Missionary Harris to Colca Canyon, Peru, reminds us that South America is our neighbor. My son is a missionary to Cajamarca, Peru, so his message rings close to home. Unlike the priest of organized religion, unlike the Levite of ‘works’ religion, the Samaritan had compassion. The true born again Christians in America need a revival of Christlike compassion. The Good Samaritan was so filled with it that he made the sacrifice it took to help. He gave up the time, the transportation, and the talent it took to make the difference. He became a giving man who wrote, as it were, a blank check for the salvation of his neighbor. The bigger picture in this parable, aimed at answering the bigger question, is a portrayal of what Christ did for fallen man who could not do for himself. But the clear application for those who would be Christlike is that His compassion in us will cause selfless sacrifice and the issuance of more blank checks to accomplish the commission we have been given. America has had the Gospel of Jesus Christ saturated throughout. It has been rejected on the larger part, only agnosticism, hedonism, and humanism being taught to our children. There is a remnant who received that Gospel and that remnant needs a new fire of compassion to help us answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” and answer it on a national level. People need the Lord, and some nations are still hungry to hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Rally behind a missionary, they need your support.

Posted at http://www.GSBaptistChurch.com

Shame! Shame!

by Bill Brinkworth – www.openthoumineeyes.com

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” Ephesians 5:11-12

The Bible clearly commands Christians to keep far away from the luring hold of sin. We are not only to do our best not to commit sin and avoid those that are involved in it, but we are not even to talk about the iniquities others are involved in.

This last principle has not only been ignored by most, but the opposite is practiced. Many, instead of obeying God’s command, “educate” the masses about certain behavior. Their hopes are that knowledge of the side-effects of certain socially unacceptable practices, often what the Bible identifies as sin, will help people stay away from them. Unfortunately education about something one should not do often stimulates an interest in trying that very thing.

Programs to educate youth about not doing drugs quite often put the ideas in their minds about doing it and show them how to do something they never would have known about, if they had not been shown how or introduced to it by “education”.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D. A. R. E.), a publicly-funded program that uses law enforcement resources to help children resist drugs and gangs, illustrates this fact. Instead of reducing the number of children involved in those things, it has been found that there has been an increase in their involvement in drugs and gangs. The Family Counsel of Drug Awareness reports, “Since its curriculum (D. A. R. E.’s) went national, two patterns have emerged: more students now do drugs, and they start using drugs at an earlier age.” Education, about something that should not even be talked about, many times increases the practice, not decreases it.

Billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money have been spent over the decades to give young people a sex education under the guise that knowledge will help them keep from making “mistakes”. Instead, the education about sex has increased and encouraged its practice at an early age before marriage. Birth rates quickly prove this fact. In 1950, when sex outside marriage was not openly talked about, especially in the school curriculum, birth rates for unmarried women were about 30 per 1,000. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that birthrate has decreased from previous years, but it is now still 450 per 1,000 unmarried women. The CDC also notes that abortions in 1970 were 10 per 1,000 and have increased to 70 per 1,000, not including the effects done by increasing usage of birth control, including the day-after “emergency” birth control drugs. Again, education about not doing something has become a “how-to” and an invitation to “do”.

Other once unwelcomed behaviors are also on the increase. There was a time when few even knew a divorced couple; now it is difficult to find couples that have not been divorced. Perhaps, the exposure in movies and television about divorce and adultery has made a once feared occurrence to be a ho-hum common one. Homosexuality, imprisonment, poor-parenting, lack of respect for Christianity, crime, and hosts of other once frowned-upon activities are so common in public-school lesson plans and media “entertainment”, that they have lost their social stigma and are now acceptable and even encouraged in some areas. Knowledge of taboo areas again have contaminated society by going against God’s commandment of discussing something that should not be even whispered about.

The world often defends their efforts in “educating” by belittling God’s command and labeling it as making the masses willfully ignorant or “censoring the truth”. The truth, however, is that in most situations, speaking of practices that should not be committed only puts the idea in one’s head, and it does not take much thought to develop the idea to, “I’ll just try it this once”. Once it is experienced, inhibitions are worn-away and more frequent practice is easily accomplished.

The human brain is an amazing organ. It seldom completely forgets what it has been exposed to. Conversation about doing improper things often is where the idea to commit them originates. God’s wisdom warns us not even to talk about sin, because it won’t be long until you are neck-deep in it — paraphrased, of course. God’s commands are always the best. If heeded, they will keep you from the hurtful consequences of sin.