We are told that as Jesus stood with His disciples a man, a lawyer, stood
up and tempted Him.
The lawyer asked Jesus this question:
“Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He asked what he could do to inherit eternal life--what he could do to
buy salvation.
Jesus answered his question by asking another question: “What is written
in the law? How readest thou?”
To this the lawyer answered:
“Thou shalt love the Lord 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.”
“Thou hast answered right. But who is ‘thy neighbor?’”
Then Jesus drew a vivid picture, which has been told for the last
eighteen hundred years, and I do not know any thing that brings out more
truthfully the wonderful power of the Gospel than this story. It is the
story of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and who fell
among thieves.
Jerusalem was called the City of Peace. Jericho and the road leading to
it were infested with thieves. Probably it had been taken possession of
by the worst of Adam’s sons.
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN AT THE INN