A neighbour gets involved. A neighbour engages with needs. A neighbour does something. So let's just go through this parable. I want to just highlight a few things which I'll develop at a later time, and notice here it says, a certain man went from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, they stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, departed leaving him half dead. So here is a story of a man in need, and this man had set out on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. That area is notoriously dangerous, full of thieves and robbers, and he was set upon. He did not expect that before he got to the end of his journey, he would encounter so a violent attack. Thieves set upon him, they hit him and beat him up, stripped him of his clothes, left him wounded, left him half dead. They abandoned him.
Notice the things that happened here. This man fully expected he would walk through the journey of life, and he would not have such a thing happen to him. He is like many people around us. We meet them every day. They're in school. Some of you teachers are like this, some of the students in your class are like this. You meet them in business, you meet them in the community. I have never gone anywhere I didn't meet people who were just like this person here. They have had experiences in their life where they were set upon by demonic powers, set upon by thieves. The Bible says the devil is the thief and a robber, been wounded in some kind of way. That which was good in their life that God destined them to have was taken from them. They were abandoned in some kind of way, and left there barely struggling to make it through life. This is the condition of many people. You meet them all the time. They're around you all the time. Some will be sitting here. Some turn up in our Freedom Retreats, some come to our Restoration Retreats, and always that person that looks so nice worshipping God, there they were, broken, wounded, half dead on the inside, beaten up in the stories of life.
The Bible tells us they were wounded. That word for wound is trauma, traumas, emotionally painful experiences, divorces, abuse, addictions, all kinds of things. This is the world we live in. Everywhere we go, we meet people who are like this, everywhere we go there are people around exactly like this. Now I want you to see what the priest and the Levite did. The priest there came and saw him, and then he just crossed and passed by on the other side. He did not want to get involved. Notice he saw him, and then shut up his heart against him. It's not he didn't see the need. It's not he wasn't aware there was something wrong. He just closed up his heart. The Levite went, and he not only saw him, he went over and looked closely. Oh man, what a mess - and he shut up his heart, and he left him as well.
Jesus brought this out to show us this is what religion is like. Religion does not have a heart for people. Religion shuts up the heart, and will not get involved with people. These people were dedicated. They went to church, they went to meetings, tried to obey the law, tried to do everything that was right, but they did not have the heart, the spirit, that which captivates what God is like. God calls us to an intimate relationship, and out of that, the flow of life, and presence, and anointing, and the love of God to touch people. These people shut up their heart. They closed their heart. They held their heart in. I've found that religion will cause people to divide their world up, those who are acceptable, those non-acceptable. There's a judging attitude, a superior attitude. There's something that you feel when you meet it. We're not to be like that. We're called to be something different.