And if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbor next unto his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man’s eating ye shall make your count for the lamb. Exodus 12:4. The children of Israel were to leave none of the lamb until the morning; they were to eat all of it. If there was too much for one family, they were to invite their neighbor in to help them eat it, for they had to eat the entire lamb that night.
This has a significance. It means there should be no un-appropriated provision in Christ that we have not partaken of. We are not to leave anything that Christ is to be to us until the morning, without sampling or appropriating it or taking it to heart. We take it all. We eat it. We partake of it. If there seems to be more blessing than we can handle, we must invite our neighbors to come in and enjoy the blessing with us. This opens our thinking to a concept we will call “the neighbor next to thee.”
The Scriptures very clearly outline the two greatest commandments. The first …thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:5. Jesus said there was a second commandment like unto it, which He quoted out of Leviticus 19:17, 18: Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord.
It was this passage that Jesus quoted to those who asked Him about the greatest commandment. He said that the second is like unto the first. Yet they seem to be completely unrelated. One commands whole-hearted love unto God, the other that you love your neighbor as you love yourself, which is quite another plane of love. Are they in contrast with each other? No, because God has ordained that you shall be like unto Him, and you can never really love the Lord with all your heart and not be the channel from which His love flows outward. No water can come through a faucet that is shut off. It is only when the faucet is turned on that the water flows. Likewise, the flow of God’s love to you depends upon your being turned on, as far as loving your neighbor, blessing him, and being an encouragement to him, is concerned. The two principles work together. You cannot say you love God if you hate your brother. You cannot do it. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples because you have love one for another” (John 13:35). If you do not have that love, there will be no characteristic or identification to show that you really love the Lord.
Love for God is not unrelated to your neighbor, to your children, to your family, or to the world at large. There is some manifestation of that love because when you love God, you reflect His love; you become a mirror of it. In many cases those of the world have no way of seeing that God loves them except through the life of a believer.
Luke 10:25–29 raises an important question: And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy 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. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
Every truth has to have a practical application. One thing I like about this walk is that the truths are so ethereal, so mystical. We have never known any movement in the history of the Church that has had such a mystical aspect to it as this walk, yet at the same time we have never known anything so practical. The Scriptures say we are seated in the heavenly places, yet our feet are solid on the ground, for this is a real walk with the Lord. The impact upon the world, as they see what is taking place in the lives of those who are dedicating their lives to the Lord, is going to be most fantastic. The dedication is there. God has prepared the hearts. We are going to move out to the ends of the earth with a living word from God. It will be difficult, going against everything of the old nature, but that is all right; we will crucify it and go ahead.
In Luke 10:30–37 we read the parable that Jesus told to answer the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” …A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down that way (according to tradition, Jericho was a rather exclusive abiding place for the priests and Levites): and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
He did this in spite of the terrible antipathy existing between the Samaritans and the Jews. I imagine this Samaritan would not have been allowed to stay in Jericho after sundown without them making it very difficult for him. A kind of racial prejudice existed between the Samaritans and the Jews. During the times of captivity, the Israelites were intermingled with other nations. The Samaritans, a kind of half-breed nation produced through this intermingling and intermarrying of Jews with other nations, were despised by the Jews. The Samaritans would not accept any of the Old Testament except the law of Moses, yet they worshiped and glorified God for their father, Jacob (according to the fourth chapter of John). The woman at the well asked Jesus, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan?” In his gospel account of this incident John added, “For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (John 4:9).
And on the morrow he took out two shillings, and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again, will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor unto him that fell among the robbers? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. Luke 10:35–37. How beautiful! The priest who was the first to see the man in need no doubt would have stopped and taken care of him, but he was hurrying to Jericho where the priests were having a meeting to discuss the brotherhood of man. The Levite probably had to help officiate in the worship of the Lord at the temple. He could not be bothered with that poor man because it would interfere with his service to God. But the Samaritan did not have to worry about any of these things. The priests would not let him attend that meeting, and the Levites would not even allow him in the temple, let alone officiate in it. He had plenty of time to take care of the wounded man.
Who is your neighbor? He is always close at hand, but the problem is that you have a big job on your hands fighting the tendency of this age to avoid involvement. People cannot be bothered. They shove aside any kind of involvement. This tendency can even take hold of leading apostles. Can you hear them shouting, “Get out of here, you little kids. Go on, get out of here!” Jesus said, “Wait a minute. Suffer the little children to come to Me. Forbid them not” (Mark 10:13, 14). He was not too busy for them, even though He had many things to do, many glorious truths to proclaim. In only a few short months He would be crucified, and what He turned loose until then would set the course for all the ages to come; but still He had time to lay His hands on a little child. It was not just an afterthought; His perpetual compassion tended toward involvement.
We are going to be involved. In the wisdom of God we have been restrained from a church program that promoted soul-winning. People have asked about this lack of emphasis on soul-winning, saying we were lost without it. Such people cannot built up their spiritual egos without doing some little work to impress others. We have been restrained from that, but we are in a period of the most glorious witnessing that this move of God has ever seen. There will be no end to it. Just by walking down the street we will accidentally bring people into a walk with God. God has just ordained it. This is a good time for us to be filled with the compassion of the Lord and a willingness to become involved.
Suppose we were to follow some old-order, soul-winning program and go down to skid row to witness to the bums. We would probably give them a meal ticket, and after they had listened to a sermon, we would serve them some bean soup as a reward for listening to the sermon. We might think, “We gave them the Word, and we also met their material need,” but all we really would have done is give them some bean soup. We would not have met their real need, for we would not have dealt with the problems that made them alcoholics, nor would we have brought deliverance to them. All we would have done is help them continue in an existence without any life to it at all.
In this walk with God, we become involved with each other. In the communal homes, many young people who have been on drugs are taken under someone’s wing and helped. This involvement, this neighbor principle has never been formulated and proclaimed as clearly as it is being brought forth now.
Who is my neighbor? I love him as I love myself. I can not love the Lord without loving my neighbor and helping him. We do not sit back and criticize some young person because he comes in with long hair and smelly feet, with eyes staring into space and a mind that is not as alert as it should be because it has been blown with drugs. We stay with them, and one by one they come through. I wish we could say like Jesus said, “All that Thou hast given Me, I’ve lost none.” Out of this group of young people will come apostles and prophets, God’s company that will go out and shake the world. There will not be a professional among them.
Those priests and Levites passed by on their way to Jericho, but the people of God have become involved. They have met the Lord because they have been willing to be involved in His ministry. The best way for a man to have a meeting with the Lord is for him to get on his knees and make a dedication to minister to the Body of Christ with all of his heart. When he does that he will make his way right to the heart of the Father. “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matthew 25:40).
Another incident involving the Samaritans is found in Luke 9:51–56. And it came to pass, when the days were well-nigh come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he were going to Jerusalem. The Samaritans would meet a traveler at the city limits to find out if he was going to stop and be neighborly or if he was going on to Jerusalem. If he was going to Jerusalem they ushered him right out of town. They did not want anything to do with him then.
And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? Is this John, the apostle of love? It doesn’t sound like the apostle of love at all, does it? But he turned, and rebuked them. And they went to another village. The margin adds the verse which is still found in the King James version, which I like to include in this passage: Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
“What have we done?” James and John wondered. “Didn’t Elijah bring fire down out of heaven?” Yes, but the judgments that will come upon the earth must come through channels of perfect love. It cannot be that one half of the Church is ministering the love while the other half ministers judgment. Judgment will be committed to those who perfectly do the will of the Father with perfect love. It will not come through people who are vindictive in their action and vindictive in their thought. James and John had vindictiveness in their heart against the Samaritans because they did not receive the Lord. They could have used that as an excuse for their action, but Jesus said, “You don’t know what spirit you are of!”
As we cry for God to bring judgment, it should be with such a perfect love, with travail and prayer, because when Babylon comes down, someone must have love and compassion for those who come out of Babylon.
Determine in your heart, “I will be like that Samaritan. I will be the kind of neighbor the Lord described—not the friendly person who lives next door, but someone who appropriates the blood of the Lamb for the needs of the people. I will not see the faults and sins of the one next to me without interceding and crying out for God to meet him through my appropriation for him, for my faith will be set to loose him.”