Ferndale Baptist Church

Turn with me please to that familiar old parable, and I hope that every year in my ministry I preach on it, in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Luke, the parable of The Prodigal Son. Somebody has said this is the pearl of all of the parables. I think it is. I never study this, never read up on it from other works, without something new coming out. That something new just keeps thrilling me over and over again. I hope that it does to you, also.

We'll begin our reading with verse 11. It's good to go over it again. I know you could probably recite it and rehearse it to me from memory, but let's read it anyway. "A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."

"Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." As I said, the parable of The Prodigal Son is perhaps the most touching and beautiful of all of our Lord's parables. In the beginning of this chapter we read that the official leaders of Israel were finding fault with our Lord for consorting with sinners. In answer to their fault-finding, our Lord put forth three parables, not only to defend His attitude, but also to censor them for their attitude. We must be careful. There are times in our lives that we come across people that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, and we don't want to be known as those who have consorted with that kind of a person. But we've got to realize that they have an eternal soul, and that soul is going to be either in heaven or hell. We ought to take the example of our Lord, who "came to seek and to save that which was lost." Unless He had come, you and I would be lost.

Here in this parable that we want to delve into this morning, The Prodigal Son, the last of the three parables, we have for us the soul's response to God. The first two parables emphasize the seeking love of God. The Prodigal Son lets us look at the side of the conversion experience from the sinner's point of view, what happens within the sinner's heart. In the parables of The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin we don't have that view. We have the seeking God, the seeking Father. Here it tells us what takes place in the sinner's heart and in the sinner's life.

The opening scene of the parable here is in the father's house. The younger son came to his father. Notice there were two sons. We don't say much about the elder son. He was a prodigal at home, apparently, as you read that latter part of this chapter. The older son,
being the first born, would have a two-thirds portion of the inheritance if these were the only two children. It seems to indicate that they were, for it says, "A certain man had two sons." The younger son would receive a third. His portion as the second born would be half of what his brother would receive. The younger son got the idea that he wanted to have his portion, and he wanted to have it now. So he asked his daddy to share the inheritance.

I read of a man long ago who said that we must not forget that we are looking into a mirror. Here we see ourselves. You and I, as we look into the mirror, realize that we the ones there before that mirror. When we look into this parables of all parables, perhaps this is the reason it seems to get right down to where we live. We say, "It is I that is being talked about here." I'm the prodigal son and you're the prodigal son. We either are, or we were at one time in our lives. Let's always keep that in mind. If we don't keep that in mind, we're not going to get anything our of the parable. These things were written for us, for our admonition. Now let's look into that mirror here, and let's never forget that I'm that prodigal. Let me never foget it. Let you never forget it. We are that prodigal. We are the ones that our Lord is talking about here.

We don't know what all went on in the conversation. We have just a very shortened form perhaps. Of course, it's a parable and our Lord gave what was essential. But I think that we can imagine that the son somehow approched his daddy one day and said more than what is recorded here. He might have said, "Daddy, I want to get out on my own." After all, that's an honorable thing for a son to do. He wants to sometime get out on his own, that's true. I think everyone of us comes to the point in life where we say, "It's time for me to leave the nest. It's time for me to get out on my own." But let's remember that this is a spiritual picture. It is a picture of you and of me. All mankind has wanted to get out on its own. We've all wanted to get away from God. "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way." Nobody in this whole world of ours has wanted in his own self to be under the authority of God. Were it not for the grace of God and the working of God's Holy Spirit in our lives, none of us would ever even want to think of God. This young son said to his daddy, "Daddy, I need to get out. I'm tired of having to stay around here and having to listen to you as you're saying, 'So, do this. Son, don't do that. Son, do the other thing.' I'm tired of that. I want to get out where I can make my own decisions, where I can find 'meaning for my own life.' I want to get out and create a stir in the world. How am I ever going to become a man unless I do it?" He may have said those words to his father, and his daddy perhaps said to him, "Son, you don't realize what Daddy's bidding and forbidding is all about. When Daddy tells you, 'Don't do this,' it's because Daddy has been down that road. Daddy has seen everything, and Daddy is trying to throw a hedge around you and to build it so that your life will be a happy life. It's not to take away your joys. It's not to take away your pleasures. It's to purify your joys and your pleasures, and it's to give them to you so you'll have pleasures that last. It's to give you pleasures and values and morals and everything that you need to equip you properly for life. Son, it's not because I want to put the clamp on you and hold you down. I want to to become truly and really a free man." The son maybe looked at him, but it went in one ear and out the other. He said, "I want to take a shot at it. I want to try." So we read here that he "said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living." Apparently, Daddy divided it and gave the other son his share so that they knew what their shares were.Now as soon as the younger son received his share he went off into that far country. He went there with a deliberate resolve to get all of the gratification that he could out of life and enjoy an unfettered liberty. He wanted to go where nobody, and Daddy was the main character, would be looking over his shoulder and he would not be hearing his daddy say, "Don't do that, Son," or "Do that, Son." He wanted to get as far away from that as could possibly be. His idea of liberty, and every sinner's idea is the same -- remember that I'm there and you're there -- is simply to do evil. That's what he had in mind. If he hadn't had that in mind, he wouldn't have minded Daddy looking over his shoulder. His idea of liberty was to do evil, to go out and have a good time, to go out and live for himself. This is the sinner's idea. He wants to get into that far country because only in that far country can he carry out, or execute, the purposes that he has made for himself when he was there, as he thought, as an unwilling drudge, or a slave, in his father's house. That's bad. That, beloved, is the essence of all sin. If you'll remember, all sin is selfishness. All sin is living for yourself instead of living for God. The sinner wants to get away from God. In the parable, it's a journey into a far country. But in life, every sinner gets away from God perhaps in another way -- by blocking God out of his thoughts. The Bible says that God is not in all of the ungodly persons thoughts. That's why he's called ungodly.

You don't have to be a million miles away from home. You don't have to be out somewhere, although people would rather be that way. You don't have to be somewhere where nobody knows you. You can be a prodigal sitting right here in church this morning if you block God out of your life and say, "God, I'll not have you to rule over me." Here is the essence of sin -- to live for yourself, selfishness. It's not to have God rule our lives. We are going to find meaning for ourselves. That's what this young boy wanted to do. It was a liberty to do evil. He realized that to attempt such a life would have made him ashamed. It made him uncomfortable to be in the father's presences. Let me tell you something: You can't get out of the Father's presence. I can't get out of the Father's presence. David found that out. David said, "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the unttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me." It's hard to imagine it, but he says, "If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou are there." God in hell? Well, He is sustaining hell. Hell would go to pieces if God did not sustain with His almighty power everything in His universe. God controls all events. He controls everything. Whatsoever comes to pass, He decrees. He decrees what happens in all the world. Don't think for one minute that you can get out of God's sight by going somewhere else and trying to begin again. You may get out of the preacher's sight. You may get out of a loved one's sight at home. But you're not going to get out of the Father's sight, for the Father can see right into that far country. The Father has His emissary there. He's got His embassy in that far country. That emissary is the conscience, the voice of God in the soul of man. You can leave the Bible home; but when you get into that far country, you're going to find that God has His voice. That voice will still be saying as He looks over your shoulder, "Don't do that." or " Do this. You know what's right."

This young man went away and carried into execution what was already in his heart. He was a prodigal in heart before he became a prodigal in life. That's the graphic picture that you and I are portraying in our own lives. For when we resolve to do our own will, our own folly, in defiance of God's will, we will naturally strive to get out from God's presence. We do this by deliberately taking no thought, and putting away the thought, of God

If the daddy knew what was in the son's mind, and I'm sure the daddy, in the days before had seen this dissatisfaction in the son, and if he
knew what was in the son's mind, I'm sure he could have foretold the consequences. He could have said to the boy, "Son, you know what's going to happen to you." And if the daddy knew what was in the son's mind, a question comes to me. Why did he allow it? Why did the daddy let the boy go? The daddy let the boy go. You say, "Well, you can't control the boy." Remember, this is a parable. But, at least according to what is written, it seems as if the daddy didn't say much. He said, "Alright, Son, here's my living. Here's what you're going to have coming to you when I pass on. Here it is." But it seems as if he didn't make one effort to say, "Stay here." Have you ever wondered about the daddy? Well, in this parable God is the Father. We must remember that, in order to meet the needs of the parable, we don't have everything that we'd like to have put down sometimes. I certainly would have loved to have heard what the daddy said to the boy as he was going. He must have warned him. I'm sure if he was a right father, he would have said, "Son, there are some bad people out there. You've got to remember what you've been taught at home." But when a man's heart is alienated from God, God will not, through His power, restrain him and make him into a slave. God desires something. He desires willing obedience. He doesn't desire to pull anyone into heaven with their feet faced the other way. He never has done that. Of course, it is the Father God who both wills and works in us of His good pleasure. He makes us willing in the day of His power.

In the parable we have to realize that the father, in order to have the parable come out the way it did, had to act as he acted. But there's a lesson in it. Whether the chief desire is for God's gifts or for God Himself is what separates mankind in this world. The sinner will take the gifts of God and he will live for those gifts. He will bring those gifts home to himself. He will name them as his. But he does not want the Giver. He does not want God. If our chief desire is for God's gifts and not for God Himself, then God gives us our desires. Do you know why? He gives you your desires, He gives me my desires, in order that I may be taught the worthlessness of all material things and pleasures apart from God. That which separates the Christian from the unsaved, as their view of life is concerned, is that the unsaved person wants all the benefits of God but he does not want the Giver. God is not in all of his thoughts. You will take the health that you enjoy, the strength that you have, the wealth that you think you've gotten by your own wisdom and your own cunning. You'll take all of your powers and you'll waste those powers upon yourself in self-indulgence. You will not take those powers and those blessings which God has given you and use them for God's glory. But that's how God intended them to be used. If you have the ability to make money, and you say, "I just want what I can get for myself," if we take those things that God has blessed us with and use them on ourselves and for ourselves, then, beloved, our souls are estranged from God. We are turning to our own way. And our own way is not God's way.

Look at the downward progress of this man. He wanted to get away from his father. It's kind of a dirty thing, if you ask me, to tell his daddy, "I want to get out on my own and be my own boss," and to have to do it on Daddy's goods. But every sinner that goes out away from God is doing the same thing. "I don't need God. I'm self-sufficient." You couldn't pull another breath unless God gave you the power to do it. You wouldn't have any health unless God gave you that health. You wouldn't have any abilities unless God gave you those abilities. You wouldn't have any money unless God gave you that money. It's a strange perversion of the world in which we live that man lives for himself.

This prodigal got out there. Let's see how he does. His idea was to have self-indulgence and self-advancement. Sooner or later he found, as every sinner finds, that
it works exactly the opposite. You may achieve the ends that you set out to achieve, but down the road, beloved, there's going to be a famine in the land in that far country.

I want to hasten on. I could stay on each of these ideas. There's the downward course of sin. It three steps in it. There's the riotous joy. He spent all of his substance with riotous living. Sin has a certain kick to it, if you please.

Then, as he was spending it, perhaps he came to realize that he was wasting his substance. Sin is the most expensive thing that you and I could possibly engage in. It wastes our money, it wears down our bodies, it blights our intellects, it weakens our wills, it blunts our consciences and hardens our hearts. That's about as bad as you can get. He wasted his substance.

Then there came that third step. The joy had turned into bondage. He found that he was not free. Sin always promises that you'll be free. Nobody is going to tell you what to do. I've said it at times. "No one is going to tell me what to do." But, beloved, if you persist in that attitude, I can guarantee you somebody is going to tell you what to do. They're going to do it. And they told the prodigal what to do. They had the prodigal right where they wanted him. They had him as a slave. He began to be in want and joined himself to a citizen of that country. No more was he free. Now he was a hired servant. He was caused to go out and do the most menial tasks that a Jew could possibly do. He was to go out and feed the swine. Can you picture a Jew out feeding the swine? And his pay was so small that he wanted to get in the trough with the swine and eat what the swine were eating because he didn't have enough to keep body and soul together. There is nothing in this world that is ultimately going to keep body and soul together.

Look at him. There are some things that pop up here if you read it very carefully. It says he joined himself to a citizen of that country. There is hope because he himself was not a citizen of that country. He felt that he was still an alien. Anybody that still thinks, "Things are not right with me out here. I shouldn't be living like this," recognizes that he is somewhat of an alien to what's going on. It means that God is causing him to recognize that. This man thought, "I'm here working, but this is not where I belong. I don't belong here."

And about when his money seemed to have run out there was a mighty famine that came in the land. I think that our Lord placed that in the parable for a very real purpose. It was not until the boy said, "I perish with hunger," that he also said, "I will return to the father's house." Beloved, when the chips are down, many a sinner has found that there comes beyond that a mighty famine of something. God sends it. And when God sends it, we find that we start looking at God. God sends it for a purpose. God sends it so that we will look at God. He sends it so that we'll realize that we really aren't our own boss, and that we really aren't free, and that we're miserable.

This boy started feeling his misery. He couldn't get enough to eat. The Bible says, "and when he came to himself . . ." What? Can it be that this boy in reality was insane before this point? I want to say that every sinner is insane. Not perhaps in the way that we think of insanity. But the wisdom of this world, remember, is foolishness with God. "Professing themselves to be wise," the Bible says, "they became fools." Every sinner is insane because an insane person does not see things as they really are. He thinks that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There's no pot of gold out there at the end of the rainbow. Out at the end of that rainbow there's ground. Every sinner, as he looks out at the prospects of life, says, "Oh, it'll never come to an end." He doesn't see things as they really are. There's a grave with a gravestone, if the Lord tarries, for every person here in this audience. Let me tell you that the thought has crossed
this preacher's mind many a time, "How long, Bob, do you have to give to the service of Jesus Christ?" I don't know.

"I have only one life. 'Twill soon be past.
And only what's done for Christ will last."

You must realize that if you're lost you're just living in a fool's paradise. You're looking at the world and not seeing the realities that are out there. There is death out there. There is judgment. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." There is an eternity, and that's all going to be settled right here.

So "he came to himself." What a revelation that was! Listen to it. "And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" Now he's starting to get the plain truth. What was the plain truth? "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." Now I want you to see here, beloved, that there is some truth that's coming out here. The first truth that this fellow gets when he says, "I perish," is this: "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." Until that truth dawns on a person's heart, that person can never hope for a heaven in the future. Unless we can come to God and say, "God be merciful to me a sinner," we will never find relief. We will never find rest. We will never find forgiveness.

Now I want you to notice that it isn't a complete repentance and it isn't really a pure repentance. He's like a lot of us here, beloved. The first inklings of repentance that come to the soul are usually very impure ones. After all, why did he do this? Well, the big reason he's doing this in the first place is that he says, "I perish." As long as he'd had a nickel in his pocket he'd have said, "No, I'm not going home yet. I'm still going to make it." And like Mr. Micawber in Dickens, he's going around saying, "Something good is bound to turn up." Every sinner has done that. You've said, "I'm down, but I'm not out." It's only when you're down and out that you're going to start thinking about the real predicament. And so he started to think about what that real predicament was. He said, "I have sinned against heaven, and before thee," but it was an impure thing.

He gave another word of truth here. He said, "...and am no more worthy to be called thy son." God doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't owe me anything. Let us realize that if He is giving me anything He is giving it solely because of His grace. When I was teaching school, I used to sometimes look and a guy and say to myself, "Well, he needs to get through." It was a senior course that I was teaching and I thought, "I feel like a heel to flunk a fellow from graduating." And if he was anywhere near it I'd say to myself, "I'm going to give him grace," and give myself a respite, a rest, from having that guy in class. I'd pass him. I felt that in the long run it would do him more good to get out into the cruel world than to sit through another philosophy or Greek class.

This young man said, "(I) am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants." The impurity in the repentance is in the last phrase. Do you see what I mean? He was still going to bargain with Daddy. He was going to say, "Daddy, you know I've been a regular roustabout. I know that I've been bad, but I'll tell you what I'll do. First of all, I'm going to tell you that I know that I've been a sinner against you and I'm not worthy to be called your son. But I will go out there and live in the servants' quarters, and I'll work for you the rest of my life." Is that pure repentance? Or is this fellow coming with just a little bit of pride, saying, "I'm down, but I'm not quite out." When you come to Jesus Christ, you don't come by bargaining. God doesn't bargain. You'll recall that it was U. S. Grant that was called "Unconditional Surrender Grant." Do
you remember in the last great war that the terms that were given to the enemy were simply unconditional surrender. They didn't quite do that in Japan because they let the Japanese still have the emperor. But apart from that, in Germany, it was to be unconditional surrender. When you come to God, do you say, "Lord, I know I've been a rascal. I know I've been bad. But I'll tell you what. If You'll save me, I'll do a little paying back myself. I'll be one of your hired servants. I'm not even asking to live in heaven. Maybe I could live on this earth?" Some people have that wild idea. One person, a Jehovah's Witness, told me, "If I could just attain to the millenium on this earth I'll be doing well." Isn't that work righteousness? No, beloved, that won't be. God says, "You come on My terms or you don't come at all. You're not going to be able to come on terms where you're going to be able to say, "Well, God gave me most of it, but I got some of it myself." "Not by works of righteousness which we have done."

Let's watch him. He goes to Daddy. Maybe as he was on the way there, I imagine there were some thoughts that went through his mind. I imagine he rehearsed this. "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him . . ." I imagine that he thought a little bit. What was he thinking about? He thought about what he was going to tell Daddy. That's given to us right here. But I imagine that he also thought, "What is Daddy going to say to me?" I'll confess to you that when I came to Christ as an eight-year-old boy, there went throught my mind, "What will God say to me?" The song says:

Shall I be condemned forever
If I to the Lord draw near?
If I sue for peace and pardon
Will He deign to hear my prayer?
Will He scorn my deep contrition?
Will He not His grace bestow?
Will He scorn my heart's petition?
Crimson Calvary answers, "No."

He will not scorn it. But I imagine that this boy said, "I've been a bad man. I've wasted my daddy's goods. I've wasted my goods. I have stepped on the heart of my daddy. What's Daddy going to say to me?" I'm glad that we can know what Daddy said. As his father saw him a great way off -- and I love this. I never tire of it -- his daddy saw him and ran and threw his arms around him and kissed him. What? You'd kiss that dirty, bedraggled tramp? Yes! He threw his arms around him and kissed him and hugged him.

Now comes the son's confession. I want to look at it from the son's angle and from the daddy's angle. From the son's angle, the big thing now was not that the son was going to save a little bit of his self-respect and go out there and work for Daddy. I don't know. He never got out, "make me as one of thy hired servants." I think the reason he never got it out was that now he realized the thing that he wanted was not simply rest, not simply to be alleviated of the hunger and the thirst and the dire circumstances that he'd been in. The thing that he now wanted was Daddy. Until you want the Lord, until you want your God, you're not going to get forgiveness. He wanted Daddy. He forgot this whole idea of going and helping out a little bit.

On the daddy's side it is equally as great. The son's repentance was purified as he walked down the road toward Daddy and it caused him not to say that last sentence. But it seems as if the father just cut him off. If God the Father had said, "Yes sir, you've been a bad boy. You're going out there in the servants' quarters. And don't you ever come up here around My house," then I wouldn't have any respect for God. Would you? It would have shown an incomplete forgiveness. But God doesn't incompletely forgive anybody. God comes and from the guttermost He saves to the uttermost. That's what He'll do.

You know the rest. He clothed him and gave him everything that he needed. There was never a thought by the father of making that fellow as a servant. But there was every thought of making him as a son. That's what He does for you. Do you want it to be done? Is there any kind of a yearning? If there's any kind of a yearning to go back to the Father's house, it may have come because of some dire circumstance. God uses those. But it will be perfected when you realize that Jesus Christ is your highest good. Jesus Christ, and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit are all that you could need and all that will satisfy you in this world and in the world to come. How can you come? Solely on the basis that God the Father has made it possible in that He has sent His Son to pay the debt for your sins. If you trust Him, you'll have a different life. You'll not have the life of a prodigal, but of a son.

Ferndale Baptist Church

Teaching the Word . . . Reaching the World.