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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

When Truth Is Hard To Understand

Has anybody ever asked you a senseless question?

I mean, you just kind of pause and you say, what?

Maybe somebody had just asked that question 2 minutes before, and here's somebody asking the same question again, and the teacher so kindly says, you know, that question was just asked a few moments ago.

Yeah, I never have, but I feel sorry for you, Pastor Ferguson.

And You're the 1 that asked the question.

Is it cruel that the word lisp has an S in it?

Why is there no W in 1, but there is in 2, but we don't use it?

When at the grocery store, somebody sees you and asks, what are you doing here?

If the number 2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still number 2?

These are the kind of questions my kids ask me over and over and over.

Dad, why do my feet smell and my nose runs?

This morning, I want to look at a passage of scripture where somebody that really knew better asked a rather senseless question.

If not, there's a few Bible there in front of you.

And so turn with me and join me as we read here in Luke chapter 10, beginning verse 25.

And thank you, Spencer, for reading this for us.

Chapter 10, verse 25, it says, and behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, Jesus saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Now please understand, this isn't the type of lawyer that if you get hurt on the job or this happens or that happens, you call a lawyer.

This is a lawyer in the sense that he studied the law of God.

He knows the Scriptures backwards and forwards.

Now there is no New Testament, but as far as the Old Testament he knows it and he knows it very, very well.

And that's why they asked Him to ask the question.

This is like the 1 that has his PhD on the law asking Jesus, who wrote the law, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And so Jesus in verse 26 said to him, What is written in the law?

Verse 27, So he answered and said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." Now if you look at that, if you look at the footnotes in your Bible, you will see or you perhaps already know that this is not just 1 passage from the Old Testament, this is 2.

And so you think of the scrolls, you think of the Old Testament, and you don't even have chapters and verses, but this guy just pulls out of his memory, of his mind, this idea from Deuteronomy 6, verse 5, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.

And then he weaves it together with a different book entirely, Leviticus 19.10, and your neighbor as yourself.

I would submit to you that this is a great answer, because Jesus himself later on in a different place, and I'll let you stay here in Luke, and we'll look at this 1 on the screen.

In Matthew 22, verse 34, in a different instance, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Now this is unity for the sake of bringing down Jesus, isn't it?

Then 1 of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him and saying, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

And this time, Jesus' own words on Jesus' lips, his answer is this, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

And this is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." So here Jesus uses this same answer.

I would say that means it's a pretty good answer, wouldn't you?

On these 2 commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love the Lord with everything, everything, everything, everything, and your neighbor as yourself.

And so back to Luke verse 28, and he, Jesus, said to him, to the lawyer, you have answered rightly.

Notice the passage doesn't say, know this, it says, do this and you will live.

But then verse 29, But he, this is the lawyer, wanting to justify himself.

Wanting to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and here we have a very senseless question.

I would call it something else, but I'm not allowed to use that word in my home.

So here we have somebody who has probably memorized huge portions, if not the entirety of the Old Testament, who weaves these answers together, who knows the law, he's an expert, he's a PhD if you will, and then he asked Jesus this.

After answering with the perfect answer, he says, Yes, but who is my neighbor?

I don't know if I could have pulled the other 1 out, but I think I could have answered this 1.

He could have been sarcastic, but he's not.

Jesus tells the parable about a certain man who went down to Jerusalem, to Jericho.

He fell among thieves, he's stripped, and all these people, and they beat him, leave him for dead, rob him, all those things, and then a priest, and then a Levite, and then finally a Samaritan come by.

All these people from the church, they just pass on the other side.

All the ones that should help, they don't help.

And here, the Samaritan, the 1 that nobody would think would help, what does he do?

That's why we never just call him the Samaritan.

And so at the end of this parable, that really probably didn't need to be told, Jesus asks in verse 36 very kindly, so which of these 3 do you think was a neighbor to him who fell among thieves?

Pretty simple, pretty basic, but you asked the question, So I'm gonna try and help you.

He doesn't even want to use the word Samaritan.

Now there's nothing here in the story that says he went and he did likewise.

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When Truth Is Hard To Understand

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