Perseverance and Healing

"If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?" (Prov. 24:11,12). It's just about the worst idea I can think of to have someone close to you who is under heavy affliction, and just basically do nothing but let them die in it. There's far too many folks who just don't get it, and I mean about the love of God. According to the scriptures that is not the mind of God at all: "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds" (Psm. 147:3). That sounds a lot like a story Jesus told about a despised Samaritan who did exactly that for a man who had been beaten, robbed, left for dead, and also passed up by a priest and a Levite who were supposedly men of God (Lk. 10:30-37). That my friend is the mind of God, and Jesus said that it was. That Samaritan, which Samaritans the Jews despised, simply saw someone in affliction and did exactly what our scripture from the Psalms says that God does. For some reason the ministry minded priest and Levite seemed to have more important business to tend to, probably 'ministry.' Seems to me like the Samaritan, who wasn't even a part of the covenant of God, out-ministered both the priest and the Levite, who were not only in covenant with God, but were highly called to teach and demonstrate the covenant to God's people. I don't think they were demonstrating much of God at all to the man who was afflicted. If they were on their way to teach others about the covenant of God, they were on their way to mass hypocrisy. They may have thought about some reason as to how the beaten man had just brought it all on himself, so passing him by probably made good sense to them.

The Samaritan on the other hand just thought about what was in front of him, and what was in front of him was a beaten and robbed man who needed a lot of help. That sounds a whole lot like Jesus to me, who never once asked anyone who came to him for healing or deliverance, "What did you do to get yourself in this shape?" Jesus simply dealt with what was in front of him, and as the scripture says, "[He] went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil" (Acts 10:38). The scripture also says of Jesus, "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench" (Isa. 42:3). That verse is not talking about bruised reeds and smoking flaxes my friend. It's talking about bruised hearts, and souls that are all but extinguished of life! The surest way to finish off a bruised heart or to extinguish a heart that is "drawn unto death" as our text verse states, is to do absolutely nothing for it at all when it is staring you in the face. In other words, if we want to be like the priest and the Levite who passed by the beaten man, then we can simply neglect the afflicted who are right in front of us like they did. Again the scripture says of God, "For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard" (Psm. 22:24). There are too many scriptures to cite, where the prophets reproved God's people for failing to attend unto the needs of those who were in affliction, whatever the affliction may have been. Isaiah summed up what God wanted from his people when he wrote about the 'true fast:' "And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day" (Isa. 58:10). So I believe it's safe to assume that if we do NOT "satisfy the afflicted soul," then we will BE in obscurity, and our noon day will BE darkness. I'm sure the priest and the Levite mentioned here, believed that they were the light of God's people. They were wrong. Amen.