The Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-37

The most important thing a HERO must have is LOVE

Jesus used parable's and stories to make his point. One such story is perhaps one of His most famous stories in the Bible.  Whenever someone asked Jesus which of the Old Testament commandments was the most important, Jesus said these two are the most important of all: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself."   "Love" can mean many different things, but the "Godly Christian Love" that Jesus talked about means treating others with that compassion, kindness and respect and helping them when they need it. It is the kind of love we do instead of the kind of love that we feel as emotions.

 The greatest thing in a Heroe's tool box which one can pocess is LOVE. "Love your neighbor as yourself" was part of the Old Testament Law (Leviticus 19:18) that was sacred to Jesus' kinfolk, the Jews. But, many people thought a "neighbor" meant only their fellow Jews. One day a lawyer asked Jesus, "And just who is my neighbor?" Jesus told the story of The Good Samaritian to answer his question in a way we can never forget.  Remember the scripture " For God so LOVED the world that he sent His only Son".  Before the world was, before we were created our God was and forever He will be a God of LOVE.    Remember that LOVE is the key to the tool box of a HERO.

                                      Lets go and read about this HERO.

 Heres how  the story goes.......

A Jewish man was taking a trip alone along a mountain path and was attacked by robbers. They beat him, robbed him of everything he had, and then left him nearly dead beside the road. After sometime as the man laid dying, a Jewish priest came along and saw the poor man lying beside the road. As a religious man, you would expect him to stop and do what he could to help. But, instead, he kept traveling his way and pretended he did not see this man along the road. Later, a Levite came along. Levites were assistants to the priests, so you would expect him again also to stop and help, too. But, he did just like the priest and kept on going.

Finally, a  man came by who was considered a enemy. He was Samaritian. Even though they both lived in the land of Palestine and shared a similar religion, the Jews and the Samaritans definitely did not think of each other as "neighbors." In fact, they hated each other. The Samaritans came from a different race of people than the Jews. They had considered each other enemies for hundreds of years and refused to even talk to each other!

You would have thought that of all the men passing  the Samaritan man would have been  the one man  who just would have passed on by without helping. Yes but Instead, this Samaritan man took pity on the injured Jewish man as he saw him and stopped. He bandaged his wounds and then put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he could be safe and recover from his injuries. Since the injured man had been robbed of everything he had, and had no money, the Samaritan man even paid his bill at the inn and paid the innkeeper to take good care of him!

After finishing  this story, Jesus turned to the lawyer who had asked him, "And who is my neighbor?" and said to him, "Now which of the three men that passed by was a neighbor to the injured man?" The lawyer was forced to admit that it was the Samaritan who treated the injured man as a neighbor, not his fellow Jews who did nothing to help. Jesus then said, "Yes, now go ye and do the same!"

Noah

Since the beginning in the Garden of Eden the descendants of Adam and Eve had become evil and wicked, and God was sorry He had ever created mankind. He decided the only thing to do was destroy them all and start over!  Of all the people of mankind there was one man, his name was Noah, who was obedient to God and found God's favor in His eyes.

God spoke to Noah and told him to  build a big boat, called an ark, and He told Noah exactly how to do it.  God told Noah that The ark was to be 450 ft. (137 m) long, 75 ft. (23 m) wide and 45 ft. (14 m) high. It was to have three decks, be divided into rooms and have a door in the side.  So Noah and his family started on this huge project that God had commanded him to set forth to do.

WHAT was to be put on this ark?

Noah was to find seven pairs of creatures, one male and one female of every kind of animal and bird and take them into the ark. Noah had a great task set before him as he also had to take food for all those animals. Could you imagine that  it took Noah and his family 120 years to build the ark and find all the animals to put in it, but Noah obeyed God and did just as he was told.

The Great Flood

In the days of Noah, people lived to be very old in age. Noah was 600 years old by the time everything was ready. Then God spoke to Noah when the ark was finished  God told Noah to go into the ark with his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. Then the heavens and the earth opened up and water came from the sky and the ground.  It rained without stop for forty days and nights! The water started to raise and the ark started to float. The water got so deep that even the mountains were covered. Every living creature on earth perished in the flood. But the ark floated on top of the flood waters and Noah and his family and all the animals in the ark were safe.

Noah knew the dove had found dry land when it returned to him carrying an olive branch.

It took nearly one year before the water started to go down again, and finally the ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. After being on the ark about 11 months, Noah sent out of the ark a dove to see if it would find land, but it found no place to rest and returned to the ark. Seven days later, Noah sent the dove out again. This time it flew back carrying an  green olive branch, and Noah knew it had found land. After a full year on the ark, God said to Noah,

Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you — the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground — so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it. (Genesis 8:16-17)

God Makes a Promise to Noah

After leaving the ark, the first thing that Noah built was an altar and worshipped God. Since Noah put God first this pleased God. So into the sky was placed a Rainbow of colors as a sign of the promise to Noah and his decendants. He promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood. Then God placed a rainbow in the sky as a sign of that promise. The descendants of Noah and his sons filled the whole earth with people again.