"Where Are The 9”

“Where Are the 9”

Scripture: Luke 17:11-17:18

Intro: 10 lepers were healed but only one returned.

Are we part of the nine, or are we the One?

Those who truly worship and serve the Lord are few in number compared to the many who are blessed.

The time was drawing near for Jesus to pay the price of our sin upon the cross.

He is in his last days upon the earth,

The Bible tells us not to be overly concerned or worried about what may happen tomorrow.

The question was raised in the news this week.

Has a Christian Holocaust begun?

Are we living in the last days?

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Passover for the last time on this earth!

His journey with his disciples was just about over.

But Jesus never lost sight of the moment to meet the needs of others.

He saw all men as lost sheep.

He knew that people are really eternal beings.

Just as He would be raised from the dead,

these mortal human beings who would be raised either to new life without Christ or new life with Christ.

Jesus could never miss an chance to meet their needs!

The compassion, love, mercy and love for man was always at the forefront of everything that Jesus did!

Luke 17:11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

Everywhere Jesus went, he went with a purpose.

To the casual observer of the day, it may have seemed that Jesus was just a wanderer without any specific plan or goal in mind because his path often led into places where most Jews wouldn’t go,

and his ministry carried him to every part of Israel, even into areas where any “good” Jew wouldn’t go.

There was a lot of prejudice among the Jews.

The nation was divided between Jews in the south and Jews in the north in the area of Samaria.

The Samaritans occupied the area that once belonged to the tribes of Ephraim and the half of Manasseh.

The capital city of the region was Samaria, which had once been a large and splendid city.

When the Jews were carried away into captivity to Assyria,

the king of Assyria sent people from four different idolatrous nations to inhabit Samaria.

These foreign people brought their believes, and religion into the Jewish population

that was still in and around Samaria.

These foreigners at first worshipped the idols of their own nations,

See 1 Kings 13:32:33 32 For the message he declared by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”

33 Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places.

Being troubled with lions, they supposed it was because they had not honored the God of that territory,

so a Jewish priest was sent to them from Assyria to instruct them in how to observe the Jewish religion.

They were taught the Law of Moses but they mixed Judaism with their own idol worship

and corrupted the religion of the Jews.

Because of the unlawful marriages between Jews and idol worshippers, and their corruption of the Jewish religion, the rest of the Jews considered anyone who lived in Samaria as “half-breeds” who were to be despised and rejected as heretics.

In addition to all of this, the Samaritans were considered to be rebellious

because they had tried to stop the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple under Nehemiah.

The Samaritan were not allowed to worship in the temple in Jerusalem because of their idolatry,

so the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim

and claimed that Moses gave them authority to build it and that it was the only place to worship;

not in Jerusalem.

Sanballat, who had opposed Nehemiah so strongly,

had set up his own son-in-law, Manasses, as the Samaritan High Priest.

That really ruffled the feathers of the High Priest in Jerusalem.

There could only be one true High Priest, and only one true temple;

and the Jews of the 10 tribes in the south claimed it had to be in Jerusalem;

not the outlaw country of Samaria.

In time, the region of Samaria became a safe haven for all of the outlaws that came out of Judea to the south.

The Samaritans welcomed these criminals and refugees who had violated the laws of the Jewish religion and had been excommunicated according to the Law of Moses.

That really fueled the flames of hatred and division,