No doubt as we all know, in the beginning Adam and Eve were created and Cain was the first child born unto them, and then his brother Abel; and Abel was the keeper of the sheep and Cain a tiller of the ground. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord, and Able the firstling of the flock, and God had respect unto Abel's offering, but of Cain he had no respict; and Cain was wroth and rose up and slew his brother and then when the Lord asked Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" Cain said unto the Lord, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
So we are going to notice some of the scriptures and see if the Bible bears out this subject, "Am I my brother's keeper?" God said the voice of thy brother's blood crieth out to me from the ground. Doesn't it seem strange that the first man born into the world would be a murderer. Not so strange when we see sin had entered into the parents when they were in the garden, and now it is showing up in their posterity.
The first scripture, of which there are so many (we can only touch on a few), is found in Galatians 6:2. "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fufill the law of Christ." I don't think it necessary to touch on the burdens (what they are), for they are many, and the Bible says to help one another to bear them, and in so doing fulfill the law of Christ. Now what is the law of Christ? Let us turn to Matthew 22:37-40. This is where the lawyer asked Jesus which is the great commandment in the law, Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two comandments hang all the law and the prophets."
There are many more scriptures simular to this, but we see that God's law is love, all the way through the scripture, and God Himself is love, so love is the fullfillment of the law. God's law in the first covenant was written on tables of stone, and the second covnant was written on fleshly tables of the heart. He says He gives us a new heart, a new creation; so we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. So with the love of God in our hearts, and His law written there, how can we be anything else but our brother's keeper. We know we have passed from death unto life because we love the bretheren. All down through the ages God has called on men to be keepers of their bretheren, or we might say, shepherds of the flock.
God chose Moses as a leader to lead Israel, his bretheren, out of Egypt, and Moses, like so many of us, began at once to make excuses. Why he couldn't even talk, and to go up against Pharoh, king of Egypt, and to lead such a multitude of people seemed an impossibility to him. Moses was like we are so many times, looking to his own strength and not at the power of God.
We today have the command to go and He will be with us even unto the end of the world, and we sit idly by and do nothing; and someone steps in and receives that blessing that might have been ours, and we wonder why we never received any blessings.
Luke 10:30-35: And Jesus answering said, "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." The Priest and the Levite had not the love of God in their hearts, but the Samaritan had, so he was a friend to him. He was his brother's keeper.
The Christian life is, or should be, a life of duty first to God then to our fellow man. Now let us see in what respect, the apostle Paul was his brother's keeper. 1 Corinthians 8:13.
If Paul was his brother's keeper then shouldn't we be?
In Phillippians 3:14 Paul sayes, "I press toward the mark of high calling in Christ Jesus." Notice Paul sayes he presses toward the mark, then Christ must have placed a mark for us to reach. What could that mark be? I must say that mark is nothing short of perfection. Jesus said, "Be ye perfect." Then Paul must have been pressing toward perfection and so should we for the nearer we are to perfection the happier we will be; then Paul says in II Timothy 4:7 as he was nearing the end of his life, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Paul must have meant he was fighting for a just cause with all the zeal he had, and following a course trying to attain perfection, and lastly he had kept the faith, faith to believe that Jesus is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
Now, lastly we come to our Saviour, our elder brother, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 6:39: "And this is the Father's will which sent me that of all which He has given me I should lose nothing but raise it up again at the last day." So we see that Christ was His brother's keeper. Shouldn't we be?
Colossians 3:3: "For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." Then, when, we truly know that we have been born again, and sum up all the promises that are left to us, we can safely say, safe in the arms of Jesus, and if we were to base our argument on love alone, we must, if we have the love of God in our hearts say, "I Am My Brother's Keeper."
WILL YOU TAKE A POSITIVE STAND FOR LANDMARK DOCTRINES, HISTORIC BAPTIST INDEPENDENCE AND DIRECT MISSION PRACTICE? THEN SIGN UP FOR A SUBSCRIPTION TO THIS PAPER AND SPREAD THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN THE WORD OF GOD.