Did You Forget To Say Thank You? Every Day Is Thanksgiving Day

Weekly Message/Devotion

October 13, 2019

Luke 17:11-19

Did You Go Back and Thank Him?

Sermon Prayer: “Heavenly Father, I stand before Your people, to deliver Your message. Though the words are mine and I prepared this message, I pray that this message is Your message in its entirety. I pray your blessing and anointing on its delivery, its reception and most of all its application in our lives.” Amen

The Reading

Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this

foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Dr. Luke is sharing this event in the travels of Jesus. Here, Jesus is making His way to Jerusalem and has just arrived at the border between Samaria and Galilee. There He is greeted by ten men who were stricken with one of the most dreadful diseases of that time – leprosy.

We understand that those stricken with leprosy, were automatically shunned and lived as outcasts from villages and tribes, due to the fact that the disease is highly contagious.

That makes it understandable that they stood at a distance to call out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

Jesus immediately recognizes their plight and instructs them to go and present themselves to the priests. And just like that, as they turned and went as they were instructed, they were cleansed.

One among the ten realized that he was healed and returned to Jesus, praising Him in a loud voice. He humbled himself in a very demonstrative way by throwing himself at the feet of Jesus thanking Him. Here Luke tells us that this fellow was a Samaritan.

We read and hear references to the Samaritans frequently in the New Testament.

Rather than add little tidbits of information, please allow me to quote a very good overview from that wonderful World Wide Web:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Samaritans.html

Question: "Who were the Samaritans?"

Answer: The Samaritans occupied the country formerly belonging to the tribe of Ephraim and the half-tribe of Manasseh. The capital of the country was Samaria, formerly a large and splendid city. When the ten tribes were carried away into captivity to Assyria, the king of Assyria sent people from Cutha, Ava, Hamath, and Sepharvaim to inhabit Samaria (2 Kings 17:24; Ezra 4:2-11). These foreigners intermarried with the Israelite population that was still in and around Samaria. These “Samaritans” at first worshipped the idols of their own nations, but being troubled with lions, they supposed it was because they had not honored the God of that territory. A Jewish priest was therefore sent to them from Assyria to instruct them in the Jewish religion. They were instructed from the books of Moses, but still retained many of their idolatrous customs. The Samaritans embraced a religion that was a mixture of Judaism and idolatry (2 Kings 17:26-28). Because the Israelite inhabitants of Samaria had intermarried with the foreigners and adopted their idolatrous religion, Samaritans were generally considered “half-breeds” and were universally despised by the Jews.

Additional grounds for animosity between the Israelites and Samaritans were the following:

1. The Jews, after their return from Babylon, began rebuilding their temple. While Nehemiah was engaged in building the walls of Jerusalem, the Samaritans vigorously attempted to halt the undertaking (Nehemiah 6:1-14).

2. The Samaritans built a temple for themselves on “Mount Gerizim,” which the Samaritans insisted was designated by Moses as the place where the nation should worship. Sanballat, the leader of the Samaritans, established his son-in-law, Manasses, as high priest. The idolatrous religion of the Samaritans thus became perpetuated.

3. Samaria became a place of refuge for all the outlaws of Judea (Joshua 20:6-7; 21:21). The Samaritans willingly received Jewish criminals and refugees from justice. The violators of the Jewish laws, and those who had been excommunicated, found safety for themselves in Samaria, greatly increasing the hatred which existed between the two nations.

4. The Samaritans received only the five books of Moses and rejected the writings of the prophets and all the Jewish traditions.

From these causes arose an irreconcilable difference between them, so that the Jews regarded the Samaritans as the worst of the human race (John 8:48) and had no dealings with them (John 4:9). In spite of the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, Jesus broke down the barriers between them, preaching the gospel of peace to the Samaritans (John 4:6-26), and the apostles later followed His example (Acts 8:25).