February 16, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to turning point. The more mercy you're shown by
those above you, the more merciful you're likely to be
toward those around you. Today, Doctor David Jeremiah considers this
truth and other Biblical insights on mercy, teaching us as
Jesus did through the power of storytelling, from how to
Be Happy According to Jesus. Here's David to introduce his message,
(00:29):
happy are the Helpers.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, friends, we've been learning about happiness and joy from
our Lord, and we're discovering that what he has to
say doesn't fall in line with much of what we
hear today. Today, we're going to learn that one of
the secrets of joy and happiness in our lives is
how we deal with other people, how we minister to them,
(00:51):
how we have mercy on them. And we'll look at
the fifth chapter of Matthew in just a moment, as
we open our Bibles together, here is the resource for
the month of February, twelve Habits of Truly Happy Christians.
This is a wonderful book. I want you to have this.
It's a way for you to take inventory of your
(01:12):
own life and maybe find some information that will spur
you on to greater heights at your walk with the Lord.
I hope that's true. I know it will be an
added value to your Christian walk. Here's how you get
your copy. Send a gift of any size to Turning
Point during the month of February and ask for your
copy of the book Twelve Habits and it will be
(01:33):
honest way to.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
You right away.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now, today, we're going to learn about what happens when
we reach out to other people, how that has an
impact on ourselves, our own happiness.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Happy are the helpers.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Some time ago, Christianity Today reported that students from a
certain seminary were a bit red faced over an article
that was published in the Human Behavior magazine.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It all started out like this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
A couple of researchers decided to find out if seminarians
are really good Samaritans, so they met individually with forty
ministerial students under the pretense of doing a study on
careers in the church. Each one of the students was
instructed to walk to a nearby building and to dictate
(02:28):
an impromptu talk into a tape recorder that was there.
Some of the students were told to talk on the
good Samaritan parable and others were told to talk about
their career goals. Meanwhile, the researchers who had set up
this little experiment planted an actor along the path, and
as the seminarians approached, this actor would groan and slump
(02:52):
to the ground. More than half of the students walked
right on by, and for some reason, the ones who
were planning their dissertation on the good Samaritan literally stepped
over the slumped body as they hurried along to record
their little message. The article was not very charitable to
(03:13):
the seminary or its students, But I suppose we shouldn't
be too surprised at that, because we live in a
generation of the closed heart, in the closed hand, and
the closed house. We have shut up ourselves to ourselves
because we're so afraid to risk involvement. What are the
(03:35):
traits of our day, the hard, uncompassionate, isolated characteristics of
our society, which say, don't worry about anybody else, make
sure you take care of number one, don't open your
eyes to the needs of people. You might get involved,
and you'll be sorry. And into that context Jesus comes
(03:58):
with his dynamite words, Happy are the merciful, for they
are the ones who will receive mercy. The Greek word
for mercy in the New Testament is the word elion,
and it is a word which means to be compassionate
(04:18):
and full of pity. It is a word that describes
somebody who has a sympathetic heart. For instance, in the
Book of Matthew, in the ninth chapter, it's used to
describe Our Lord's compassion for two blind men. In the
fifteenth chapter of Matthew, it is the compassion for a woman.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Whose daughter is vexed with a demon.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
In Matthew eighteen, the word is used to describe a
person who is deep in debt and the compassion that
someone has for someone in that condition. In Matthew twenty
it describes mercy extended to two blind men.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And on it goes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Showing mercy in the Biblical sense of the term is
the ability to manifest practical, compassionate, cheerful love towards the
suffering members of.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The Body of Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
In most of the incidents that I was able to study,
the word, it seems to describe somebody ministering to those
that we would consider to be less fortunate than ourselves.
In our world today, it would be the deformed and
the crippled, and the sick, and the aged, and the
mentally ill, those who do not have the advantages that
(05:36):
we might have. And the Lord says that when we
extend mercy to them, we are happy and we are blessed.
I have had a very difficult time getting my arms
around this concept, because it is an intangible it is
somewhat abstract, and the best way I know to explain
(05:59):
to you what this truth means is to tell you
some stories. The first one is a story we all
know well. We call it the story of the Good Samaritan.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
It is the.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Story of priests, Levites, and Jews and one beaten and
bruised member of society who desperately needed their help. I
do not intend to read the story, or even to
go back and tell it in all of its detail,
but simply to remind you that this familiar record in
(06:37):
the Book of Luke reminds us that there are different
ways to approach the problems of people. It is quite
intriguing to me that the men who passed by the
person who was beaten, all of them, in some form
or another, represented institutional religion, but their concept of dealing
with some fallen brother, some broken person does not hold
(07:03):
up religion for very good reviews. They passed by. On
the other side, they wanted nothing to do. They didn't
want to get involved in the story that Jesus told.
He put a lot of pressure on those other characters.
Because the hero of the story is a Samaritan. Jesus
couldn't have chosen anyone more loathsome to those who were
(07:25):
to hear his story. Samaritans were hated and despised by
the Jewish community. They were considered half breeds who had
set up a foreign religion in competition with godly Judaism,
and the hero of the story is one of those,
the good Samaritan, and Jesus forever memorialized that because all
(07:47):
over the world today there are good Samaritan hospitals, reminding
us that this was the one who stopped to meet
the need of the fallen. Now in the story, all
three of the men who passed by looked at the
wounded traveler, but only one really saw him with eyes
of compassion. The word compassion is a word which means
(08:11):
a deep moving within.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It is literally the outworking of mercy.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The Bible says that Jesus saw this man through eyes
of compassion, and when he saw this man in trouble,
he reached out to him. The Bible tells us that
he cleansed his wounds, that he poured alcohol on them
as an antiseptic in oil to soothe the pain. Then
(08:38):
he bound the wounds with care so that the man
would heal. Rather than coldly going through the motions of caring,
the Samaritan that day exhibited real mercy and love by
gently and carefully taking care of the man's needs. And
it wasn't easy, and it wasn't free. You can't love
someone without costing you something. He can't show mercy and
(09:02):
not have it come to take something from you. If
you read the story, you will discover that when the
good Samaritan helped this man, he gave up his transportation
by giving it to the man who was in need.
He gave up his alcohol and oil by tending to
the wounds. He gave up his schedule by taking the
time to care for the stranger. He gave up his
(09:23):
money because he paid for his stay at the inn.
When you love somebody and you're going to show mercy
to him, it will cost you something and Jesus exhibited
that as he is obviously the hero of the story,
he himself is the good Samaritan. And the thing that
is most interesting to me is that he touched him.
(09:44):
He went over and physically helped him. He touched him.
He didn't worry about the uncleanness, because God is more
concerned with the inward heart than the outward appearance. Now,
when you get down to the end of the story
which I have summarized, for there is a very interesting
truth that Jesus gives to us that ties right back
(10:06):
into the beatitudes. So go with me if you will.
To Luke chapter ten and verse thirty six, Jesus is
asking the lawyer who had posed the question at the
beginning of the parable this question. He says, so, which
of these three do you think was neighbor to him
who fell among the thieves? And he said, he who
(10:28):
showed mercy on him. And Jesus said to him, go
and do likewise. The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus'
exposition of this beatitude. Blessed are the merciful, for they
(10:49):
shall receive mercy themselves. Rebecca Manly Pippert, who is a
wonderful writer had an article published in Campus Magazine, and
in the article, she tells about a young nurse who
took her pilgrimage to understanding mercy in these ways.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
She was just getting.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Started in her nursing career when she was thrust into
a situation where there was a patient who could show
no appreciation or response to her care.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The patient's name was Eileen. She was totally helpless.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
She had had a cerebral aneurysm, broken blood vessels in
the brain, and it left her with absolutely no control
over her body. As near as the doctors could tell,
Eileen was totally unconscious, unable to feel pain, and unaware.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Of anything going on around her.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was the job of the hospital staff and Eileen's
nurse to turn her every hour to prevent bed sores,
and to feed her twice a day. And the way
they fed her was with a kind of mush that
was sped through a stomach tube. Caring for Eileen was
the most thankless task you could have on the hospital staff.
(12:15):
One day, an older nurse came to this young lady
who was just getting started, and she said to her,
when it's this bad, the only way you can deal
with it is to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You just have to be cold toward it. You can't
get involved.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Because if you do, you will just be discouraged and distressed.
And so the girl who was so unfortunately crippled was
treated more and more as a thing, and more and
more as a vegetable, more and more as a non human.
But for some reason, the young nurse about whom Rebecca
(12:53):
Pippert has written, decided not to take the low road.
She decided to take a approach. She decided that she
would not treat this person like everyone else.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Had treated her.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So she would come into the room when she was
on duty, and she would sing to her, and she
would encourage her and bring her little gifts, which she.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Knew could never be opened.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
One day, when things were especially difficult, and it would
have been easy for the young nurse to take out
her frustrations on the patient.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
She was especially kind.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It was Thanksgiving Day and the nurse said to the patient,
I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because
it was supposed to be my day off. But now
that I'm here, I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted to
miss seeing you on Thanksgiving Day? Do you know this
is Thanksgiving? And just then the telephone rang, and the
nurse turned to answer it and looked quickly back at
(13:51):
the patient, and suddenly she saw something that they had
never seen before. Eileen was looking at her, and she
was crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she
was shaking all over. That was the only human emotion
that Eileen ever showed to anybody on that staff, and
(14:16):
a few days later she died. The young nurse closed
her story in the campus magazine by saying, I keep
thinking about her. It occurred to me that I owe
her an awful debt. Except for Eileen, I might never
have known what it is like to give myself to
(14:37):
someone who could never give anything back.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
That is mercy.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Mercy is reaching out to those who cannot do anything
for you. Mercy is reaching out to those who have
nothing to give back to you. Mercy is loving them
through the love and mercy of our God. And the
(15:07):
Bible says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
The beatitude ends with the promise, as they all do,
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And
here is an inescapable principle that is laid down in
the Word of God by Jesus Christ. With what judgment
(15:30):
ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure
ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew
seven verse two. If you forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive
not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
(15:51):
James two thirteen says he shall have judgment without mercy,
that hath shown no mercy. I don't understand all of
the trade offs, but there is a principle in the
Word of God that says, somehow the way we exhibit
the graces of God to others is determinative in the
(16:12):
way we ourselves receive them, or to put it backwards,
we have the ability to express the mercy and grace
of God for one simple reason, and that is that
we have ourselves experienced the mercy and grace of God
(16:36):
in our lives. There are two stories, and I told
you the one. The other I want to read to you,
and if you will let me do it, I'd like
to read it from Eugene Peterson's the message. This is
a story that you will remember as I read it
to you. From this rather contemporary version. Eugene Peterson has
(16:57):
put it in the language of the street, in the
language we understand so easily. It is found in Matthew eighteen.
Just listen to me as I read it to you.
At that point, Peter got up and got the nerve
to ask the question master, how many times do I
forgive a brother or a sister who hurts me?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Seven?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Jesus replied, seven, hardly, try seventy times seven.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The Kingdom of.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
God is like a king who decided to square accounts
with his servants. As he got under way, one servant
was brought before whom had run up a debt of
one hundred thousand dollars. He couldn't pay up, so the
king ordered the man, along with his wife, his children,
his goods, to be auctioned off on the slave market.
The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, Oh,
(17:48):
give me a chance, and I'll pay it all back.
Touched by his plea, the king let him off, and
he erased the whole debt. Well. The servant was no
sooner out of the room when he came upon one
of his fellow servants who owed.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Him ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
He seized him by the throat and demanded, you pay up,
and pay up right now. The poor wretch threw himself
down and begged, give me a chance, and I'll pay
it all back.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
But he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
He had him arrested and put in jail until the
entire debt was paid. When the other servants saw what
was going on, they were outraged, and they brought a
detailed report to the king. Now listen up. The king
summoned the man and said, you, evil servant, I forgave
your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn't
(18:38):
you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant
who asked for mercy. The king was furious and put
the screws to the man until he paid back his
entire debt. That's sort of a modern way of saying
what he did right there, and then the scripture says,
and that's exactly what my father in Heaven is going
(18:58):
to do to each of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally
anyone who asks mercy from you. Wow, blessed are the merciful,
for they shall receive mercy.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Do you see the point of it?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
How dare we not extend mercy to anyone who comes
to us for mercy when so much mercy has been
extended to us? Do you get the point of the story.
We are the one who was forgiven one hundred thousand dollars.
It could have been ten hundred thousand dollars, ten million dollars.
The point of the story is the debt was so
(19:37):
great that it could not possibly have been paid in
any human lifetime, and so the King who is our
father in heaven, just erased it. Jesus paid it all
all to him. I owe. Now, we who have been
forgiven such a great debt, walk around through life, and
(19:59):
everywhere we oh, we see people who need mercy, and
sometimes we recoil from the need, don't we. Let's just
be honest. Have you bumped up against an incorrigible recently?
Have you been next to an unlovely in the last week?
Has someone come up and tried to hug your neck
and you couldn't stand the stench of them, so you
(20:19):
push them away? You say, I don't like to be
around people like that. Mercy is doing for others.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
What God has done for you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Mercy is just being a little God in your world,
if I can use that term. It's just being the
God of mercy and grace to the people who need
the mercy and grace that you can give. Do you know,
men and women, we are so hard on each other.
We are really hard on each other. We don't allow
too many mistakes, do we. We're pretty tough on one another.
(20:58):
I love this old bit of doggroll that I have
in my file from years back. It goes like this,
there's so much good in the worst of us and
so much bad in the best of us, that it
hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest
of us. You know, I kind of like that. That
kind of gets to the core of the way we are.
(21:19):
We need to be merciful and gracious to one another.
We need to cut each other some slack. As one
of my friends says, we got to give each other
some wobble room. There was a pastor who had a
deacon in his church who was a perfectionist about everybody
and everything, and he heard something about a church member
(21:40):
which he did not like. And this particular church member
had been asked to teach a Sunday school class. Well,
the pastor said, he got a phone call from this deacon,
and the deacon wanted to have a specially called deacon's
meeting to expose some matter concerning his fellow member who
was asked to.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Teach a Sunday school class.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The thing he wanted to expose was absolutely nothing of
deep significance. And as the meeting opened, the pastor said,
I began to see what was going on with this perfectionist,
unmerciful deacon. So I said, I'll be happy to hear
the rest of the story if I can tell you
a story first, And this is the story that he told.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
In one of the great and largest.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Churches in Christendom, a man was asked to preach a sermon.
The man, known as a loud Mouth, was sometimes sincere,
but mostly in trouble, and it was known among his
associates that, under emotional pressure, on one occasion, he had
uttered some curse words. In fact, on one occasion he
had been heard taking the Lord's name in vain, and
(22:45):
he had led some believers astray from Christ teaching into
a wrong doctrine, and the preacher said, I asked the
deacons if they thought it proper that this kind of
a man should have been asked to preach the sermon
in that church, and they looked at one another and
could not believe that I would even ask them such
a question. Altogether, they said, no, Sir, a man like
(23:05):
that is not fit to be preaching. Gentlemen, I said,
the man I have just described is the apostle Peter,
who preached the first sermon in the Jerusalem Church on
the day of Pentecost. Several weeks before that occasion. He
denied the Lord he cursed using profanity. He led the
disciples back to fishing when they've been told to go
(23:26):
and preach, and God set him aside to preach the
inaugural sermon for the Christian Church. I sure am glad
God doesn't treat me the way some folks do, aren't you.
He's the God who comes and takes the broken pieces
of our lives and makes.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Something beautiful out of the relics.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
God is merciful, well blessed, or the merciful. That's what
the scripture says. And Jesus Christ is an illustration of
how that works out in everyday life joined us today.
Turning Point has a lot of ways that we touch
people through the radio, through television, through the Internet, but
(24:08):
one of the ways we often neglect to talk about
is through our magazine. Every month, I get a copy
of this magazine on my desk and I'm just overwhelmed
at the beauty of the design. The content is built
around devotions for every day of the week Monday through Friday,
and one for each weekend. There are articles in there
(24:28):
to help you grow in your faith, and it's all
kind of tied together with what we're doing on the radio.
So if you're not getting the magazine, you need to
write or call or get on the internet and say
please send me Turning Points Magazine. You'll get the next
issue that comes off the press, and I think you
want to have it going forward. I'll see you right
here tomorrow. I'm this good station for the next edition
(24:50):
of Turning Point. I'm David Jeremiah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series How to Be
Happy to According to Jesus, please visit our website, where
we also offer two freeways to help you stay connected.
Our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional
sign up today at Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's
Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio, or call us at eight
(25:18):
hundred ninety four seven nineteen ninety three. Last for your
copy of David's valuable book, Twelve Habits of Truly Happy
Christians with Jesus Prescription for Happiness, It's yours for a
gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah
Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New
King James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor
(25:39):
Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you
visit our website David Jeremiah dot org slash Radio. This
is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue
how to Be Happy according to Jesus on Turning Point
with Doctor David Jeremiah
Welcome to turning point. The more mercy you're shown by
those above you, the more merciful you're likely to be
toward those around you. Today, Doctor David Jeremiah considers this
truth and other Biblical insights on mercy, teaching us as
Jesus did through the power of storytelling, from how to
Be Happy According to Jesus. Here's David to introduce his message,
(00:29):
happy are the Helpers.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, friends, we've been learning about happiness and joy from
our Lord, and we're discovering that what he has to
say doesn't fall in line with much of what we
hear today. Today, we're going to learn that one of
the secrets of joy and happiness in our lives is
how we deal with other people, how we minister to them,
(00:51):
how we have mercy on them. And we'll look at
the fifth chapter of Matthew in just a moment, as
we open our Bibles together, here is the resource for
the month of February, twelve Habits of Truly Happy Christians.
This is a wonderful book. I want you to have this.
It's a way for you to take inventory of your
(01:12):
own life and maybe find some information that will spur
you on to greater heights at your walk with the Lord.
I hope that's true. I know it will be an
added value to your Christian walk. Here's how you get
your copy. Send a gift of any size to Turning
Point during the month of February and ask for your
copy of the book Twelve Habits and it will be
(01:33):
honest way to.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
You right away.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now, today, we're going to learn about what happens when
we reach out to other people, how that has an
impact on ourselves, our own happiness.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Happy are the helpers.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Some time ago, Christianity Today reported that students from a
certain seminary were a bit red faced over an article
that was published in the Human Behavior magazine.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
It all started out like this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
A couple of researchers decided to find out if seminarians
are really good Samaritans, so they met individually with forty
ministerial students under the pretense of doing a study on
careers in the church. Each one of the students was
instructed to walk to a nearby building and to dictate
(02:28):
an impromptu talk into a tape recorder that was there.
Some of the students were told to talk on the
good Samaritan parable and others were told to talk about
their career goals. Meanwhile, the researchers who had set up
this little experiment planted an actor along the path, and
as the seminarians approached, this actor would groan and slump
(02:52):
to the ground. More than half of the students walked
right on by, and for some reason, the ones who
were planning their dissertation on the good Samaritan literally stepped
over the slumped body as they hurried along to record
their little message. The article was not very charitable to
(03:13):
the seminary or its students, But I suppose we shouldn't
be too surprised at that, because we live in a
generation of the closed heart, in the closed hand, and
the closed house. We have shut up ourselves to ourselves
because we're so afraid to risk involvement. What are the
(03:35):
traits of our day, the hard, uncompassionate, isolated characteristics of
our society, which say, don't worry about anybody else, make
sure you take care of number one, don't open your
eyes to the needs of people. You might get involved,
and you'll be sorry. And into that context Jesus comes
(03:58):
with his dynamite words, Happy are the merciful, for they
are the ones who will receive mercy. The Greek word
for mercy in the New Testament is the word elion,
and it is a word which means to be compassionate
(04:18):
and full of pity. It is a word that describes
somebody who has a sympathetic heart. For instance, in the
Book of Matthew, in the ninth chapter, it's used to
describe Our Lord's compassion for two blind men. In the
fifteenth chapter of Matthew, it is the compassion for a woman.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Whose daughter is vexed with a demon.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
In Matthew eighteen, the word is used to describe a
person who is deep in debt and the compassion that
someone has for someone in that condition. In Matthew twenty
it describes mercy extended to two blind men.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And on it goes.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Showing mercy in the Biblical sense of the term is
the ability to manifest practical, compassionate, cheerful love towards the
suffering members of.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
The Body of Christ.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
In most of the incidents that I was able to study,
the word, it seems to describe somebody ministering to those
that we would consider to be less fortunate than ourselves.
In our world today, it would be the deformed and
the crippled, and the sick, and the aged, and the
mentally ill, those who do not have the advantages that
(05:36):
we might have. And the Lord says that when we
extend mercy to them, we are happy and we are blessed.
I have had a very difficult time getting my arms
around this concept, because it is an intangible it is
somewhat abstract, and the best way I know to explain
(05:59):
to you what this truth means is to tell you
some stories. The first one is a story we all
know well. We call it the story of the Good Samaritan.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
It is the.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Story of priests, Levites, and Jews and one beaten and
bruised member of society who desperately needed their help. I
do not intend to read the story, or even to
go back and tell it in all of its detail,
but simply to remind you that this familiar record in
(06:37):
the Book of Luke reminds us that there are different
ways to approach the problems of people. It is quite
intriguing to me that the men who passed by the
person who was beaten, all of them, in some form
or another, represented institutional religion, but their concept of dealing
with some fallen brother, some broken person does not hold
(07:03):
up religion for very good reviews. They passed by. On
the other side, they wanted nothing to do. They didn't
want to get involved in the story that Jesus told.
He put a lot of pressure on those other characters.
Because the hero of the story is a Samaritan. Jesus
couldn't have chosen anyone more loathsome to those who were
(07:25):
to hear his story. Samaritans were hated and despised by
the Jewish community. They were considered half breeds who had
set up a foreign religion in competition with godly Judaism,
and the hero of the story is one of those,
the good Samaritan, and Jesus forever memorialized that because all
(07:47):
over the world today there are good Samaritan hospitals, reminding
us that this was the one who stopped to meet
the need of the fallen. Now in the story, all
three of the men who passed by looked at the
wounded traveler, but only one really saw him with eyes
of compassion. The word compassion is a word which means
(08:11):
a deep moving within.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It is literally the outworking of mercy.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The Bible says that Jesus saw this man through eyes
of compassion, and when he saw this man in trouble,
he reached out to him. The Bible tells us that
he cleansed his wounds, that he poured alcohol on them
as an antiseptic in oil to soothe the pain. Then
(08:38):
he bound the wounds with care so that the man
would heal. Rather than coldly going through the motions of caring,
the Samaritan that day exhibited real mercy and love by
gently and carefully taking care of the man's needs. And
it wasn't easy, and it wasn't free. You can't love
someone without costing you something. He can't show mercy and
(09:02):
not have it come to take something from you. If
you read the story, you will discover that when the
good Samaritan helped this man, he gave up his transportation
by giving it to the man who was in need.
He gave up his alcohol and oil by tending to
the wounds. He gave up his schedule by taking the
time to care for the stranger. He gave up his
(09:23):
money because he paid for his stay at the inn.
When you love somebody and you're going to show mercy
to him, it will cost you something and Jesus exhibited
that as he is obviously the hero of the story,
he himself is the good Samaritan. And the thing that
is most interesting to me is that he touched him.
(09:44):
He went over and physically helped him. He touched him.
He didn't worry about the uncleanness, because God is more
concerned with the inward heart than the outward appearance. Now,
when you get down to the end of the story
which I have summarized, for there is a very interesting
truth that Jesus gives to us that ties right back
(10:06):
into the beatitudes. So go with me if you will.
To Luke chapter ten and verse thirty six, Jesus is
asking the lawyer who had posed the question at the
beginning of the parable this question. He says, so, which
of these three do you think was neighbor to him
who fell among the thieves? And he said, he who
(10:28):
showed mercy on him. And Jesus said to him, go
and do likewise. The parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus'
exposition of this beatitude. Blessed are the merciful, for they
(10:49):
shall receive mercy themselves. Rebecca Manly Pippert, who is a
wonderful writer had an article published in Campus Magazine, and
in the article, she tells about a young nurse who
took her pilgrimage to understanding mercy in these ways.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
She was just getting.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Started in her nursing career when she was thrust into
a situation where there was a patient who could show
no appreciation or response to her care.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The patient's name was Eileen. She was totally helpless.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
She had had a cerebral aneurysm, broken blood vessels in
the brain, and it left her with absolutely no control
over her body. As near as the doctors could tell,
Eileen was totally unconscious, unable to feel pain, and unaware.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Of anything going on around her.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was the job of the hospital staff and Eileen's
nurse to turn her every hour to prevent bed sores,
and to feed her twice a day. And the way
they fed her was with a kind of mush that
was sped through a stomach tube. Caring for Eileen was
the most thankless task you could have on the hospital staff.
(12:15):
One day, an older nurse came to this young lady
who was just getting started, and she said to her,
when it's this bad, the only way you can deal
with it is to detach yourself emotionally from the whole situation.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
You just have to be cold toward it. You can't
get involved.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Because if you do, you will just be discouraged and distressed.
And so the girl who was so unfortunately crippled was
treated more and more as a thing, and more and
more as a vegetable, more and more as a non human.
But for some reason, the young nurse about whom Rebecca
(12:53):
Pippert has written, decided not to take the low road.
She decided to take a approach. She decided that she
would not treat this person like everyone else.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Had treated her.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
So she would come into the room when she was
on duty, and she would sing to her, and she
would encourage her and bring her little gifts, which she.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Knew could never be opened.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
One day, when things were especially difficult, and it would
have been easy for the young nurse to take out
her frustrations on the patient.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
She was especially kind.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It was Thanksgiving Day and the nurse said to the patient,
I was in a cruddy mood this morning, Eileen, because
it was supposed to be my day off. But now
that I'm here, I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted to
miss seeing you on Thanksgiving Day? Do you know this
is Thanksgiving? And just then the telephone rang, and the
nurse turned to answer it and looked quickly back at
(13:51):
the patient, and suddenly she saw something that they had
never seen before. Eileen was looking at her, and she
was crying. Big damp circles stained her pillow, and she
was shaking all over. That was the only human emotion
that Eileen ever showed to anybody on that staff, and
(14:16):
a few days later she died. The young nurse closed
her story in the campus magazine by saying, I keep
thinking about her. It occurred to me that I owe
her an awful debt. Except for Eileen, I might never
have known what it is like to give myself to
(14:37):
someone who could never give anything back.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
That is mercy.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Mercy is reaching out to those who cannot do anything
for you. Mercy is reaching out to those who have
nothing to give back to you. Mercy is loving them
through the love and mercy of our God. And the
(15:07):
Bible says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
The beatitude ends with the promise, as they all do,
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And
here is an inescapable principle that is laid down in
the Word of God by Jesus Christ. With what judgment
(15:30):
ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure
ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew
seven verse two. If you forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you forgive
not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
(15:51):
James two thirteen says he shall have judgment without mercy,
that hath shown no mercy. I don't understand all of
the trade offs, but there is a principle in the
Word of God that says, somehow the way we exhibit
the graces of God to others is determinative in the
(16:12):
way we ourselves receive them, or to put it backwards,
we have the ability to express the mercy and grace
of God for one simple reason, and that is that
we have ourselves experienced the mercy and grace of God
(16:36):
in our lives. There are two stories, and I told
you the one. The other I want to read to you,
and if you will let me do it, I'd like
to read it from Eugene Peterson's the message. This is
a story that you will remember as I read it
to you. From this rather contemporary version. Eugene Peterson has
(16:57):
put it in the language of the street, in the
language we understand so easily. It is found in Matthew eighteen.
Just listen to me as I read it to you.
At that point, Peter got up and got the nerve
to ask the question master, how many times do I
forgive a brother or a sister who hurts me?
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Seven?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Jesus replied, seven, hardly, try seventy times seven.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The Kingdom of.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
God is like a king who decided to square accounts
with his servants. As he got under way, one servant
was brought before whom had run up a debt of
one hundred thousand dollars. He couldn't pay up, so the
king ordered the man, along with his wife, his children,
his goods, to be auctioned off on the slave market.
The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, Oh,
(17:48):
give me a chance, and I'll pay it all back.
Touched by his plea, the king let him off, and
he erased the whole debt. Well. The servant was no
sooner out of the room when he came upon one
of his fellow servants who owed.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Him ten dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
He seized him by the throat and demanded, you pay up,
and pay up right now. The poor wretch threw himself
down and begged, give me a chance, and I'll pay
it all back.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
But he wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
He had him arrested and put in jail until the
entire debt was paid. When the other servants saw what
was going on, they were outraged, and they brought a
detailed report to the king. Now listen up. The king
summoned the man and said, you, evil servant, I forgave
your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn't
(18:38):
you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant
who asked for mercy. The king was furious and put
the screws to the man until he paid back his
entire debt. That's sort of a modern way of saying
what he did right there, and then the scripture says,
and that's exactly what my father in Heaven is going
(18:58):
to do to each of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally
anyone who asks mercy from you. Wow, blessed are the merciful,
for they shall receive mercy.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Do you see the point of it?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
How dare we not extend mercy to anyone who comes
to us for mercy when so much mercy has been
extended to us? Do you get the point of the story.
We are the one who was forgiven one hundred thousand dollars.
It could have been ten hundred thousand dollars, ten million dollars.
The point of the story is the debt was so
(19:37):
great that it could not possibly have been paid in
any human lifetime, and so the King who is our
father in heaven, just erased it. Jesus paid it all
all to him. I owe. Now, we who have been
forgiven such a great debt, walk around through life, and
(19:59):
everywhere we oh, we see people who need mercy, and
sometimes we recoil from the need, don't we. Let's just
be honest. Have you bumped up against an incorrigible recently?
Have you been next to an unlovely in the last week?
Has someone come up and tried to hug your neck
and you couldn't stand the stench of them, so you
(20:19):
push them away? You say, I don't like to be
around people like that. Mercy is doing for others.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
What God has done for you.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Mercy is just being a little God in your world,
if I can use that term. It's just being the
God of mercy and grace to the people who need
the mercy and grace that you can give. Do you know,
men and women, we are so hard on each other.
We are really hard on each other. We don't allow
too many mistakes, do we. We're pretty tough on one another.
(20:58):
I love this old bit of doggroll that I have
in my file from years back. It goes like this,
there's so much good in the worst of us and
so much bad in the best of us, that it
hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest
of us. You know, I kind of like that. That
kind of gets to the core of the way we are.
(21:19):
We need to be merciful and gracious to one another.
We need to cut each other some slack. As one
of my friends says, we got to give each other
some wobble room. There was a pastor who had a
deacon in his church who was a perfectionist about everybody
and everything, and he heard something about a church member
(21:40):
which he did not like. And this particular church member
had been asked to teach a Sunday school class. Well,
the pastor said, he got a phone call from this deacon,
and the deacon wanted to have a specially called deacon's
meeting to expose some matter concerning his fellow member who
was asked to.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Teach a Sunday school class.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The thing he wanted to expose was absolutely nothing of
deep significance. And as the meeting opened, the pastor said,
I began to see what was going on with this perfectionist,
unmerciful deacon. So I said, I'll be happy to hear
the rest of the story if I can tell you
a story first, And this is the story that he told.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
In one of the great and largest.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Churches in Christendom, a man was asked to preach a sermon.
The man, known as a loud Mouth, was sometimes sincere,
but mostly in trouble, and it was known among his
associates that, under emotional pressure, on one occasion, he had
uttered some curse words. In fact, on one occasion he
had been heard taking the Lord's name in vain, and
(22:45):
he had led some believers astray from Christ teaching into
a wrong doctrine, and the preacher said, I asked the
deacons if they thought it proper that this kind of
a man should have been asked to preach the sermon
in that church, and they looked at one another and
could not believe that I would even ask them such
a question. Altogether, they said, no, Sir, a man like
(23:05):
that is not fit to be preaching. Gentlemen, I said,
the man I have just described is the apostle Peter,
who preached the first sermon in the Jerusalem Church on
the day of Pentecost. Several weeks before that occasion. He
denied the Lord he cursed using profanity. He led the
disciples back to fishing when they've been told to go
(23:26):
and preach, and God set him aside to preach the
inaugural sermon for the Christian Church. I sure am glad
God doesn't treat me the way some folks do, aren't you.
He's the God who comes and takes the broken pieces
of our lives and makes.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Something beautiful out of the relics.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
God is merciful, well blessed, or the merciful. That's what
the scripture says. And Jesus Christ is an illustration of
how that works out in everyday life joined us today.
Turning Point has a lot of ways that we touch
people through the radio, through television, through the Internet, but
(24:08):
one of the ways we often neglect to talk about
is through our magazine. Every month, I get a copy
of this magazine on my desk and I'm just overwhelmed
at the beauty of the design. The content is built
around devotions for every day of the week Monday through Friday,
and one for each weekend. There are articles in there
(24:28):
to help you grow in your faith, and it's all
kind of tied together with what we're doing on the radio.
So if you're not getting the magazine, you need to
write or call or get on the internet and say
please send me Turning Points Magazine. You'll get the next
issue that comes off the press, and I think you
want to have it going forward. I'll see you right
here tomorrow. I'm this good station for the next edition
(24:50):
of Turning Point. I'm David Jeremiah.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series How to Be
Happy to According to Jesus, please visit our website, where
we also offer two freeways to help you stay connected.
Our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional
sign up today at Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio. That's
Davidjeremiah dot org slash Radio, or call us at eight
(25:18):
hundred ninety four seven nineteen ninety three. Last for your
copy of David's valuable book, Twelve Habits of Truly Happy
Christians with Jesus Prescription for Happiness, It's yours for a
gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah
Study Bible in the English Standard, New International, and New
King James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor
(25:39):
Jeremiah's decades of study. Get all the details when you
visit our website David Jeremiah dot org slash Radio. This
is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue
how to Be Happy according to Jesus on Turning Point
with Doctor David Jeremiah
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