The Prodigal Son (Sermon 8 2024 Camp Meeting Randall Chronister)

that God has given us for this. I've preached under a few tents in the past.

Usually it's in June or July, excuse me all that noise, and it's about a hundred and fifty seven degrees.

It does get that hot here in Arkansas. I know all you Texans are gonna say it doesn't, but it does.

And the mosquitoes get this big. They're bigger than than Texas. I've got a few bones to pick with Texas, because I see conviction done got to him, didn't it?

That's Pastor Easter for you. He was fixing to go to the back. He probably stood up here like a hypocrite over the past two days and preached that you ought to come to Jesus.

Pastor Easter's a good good friend. I really look up to him. He's like the first Randall.

I'm like the last Randall. Oh, not even close.

I'm the last. The last should be first. All right, I'm gonna go on.

I'm gonna go on. Enjoyed the preaching this evening and enjoyed singing together with the

Saints. I can't help but to think that anytime I come to Perryville and sing with you folks, it's just glorious.

I really, really enjoy it. It'll seem like you're gonna go to heaven someday, and it's like you're practicing, and I like that.

I like that, brother. It blesses my soul. Let's turn our

Bibles to the book of Luke chapter 15.

The book of Luke chapter 15. A very simple person.

I'll preach simply. I was thinking about all the people you get to meet in places like this.

You get to meet people from Texas, and you get to meet people from New York, and you get to meet people from Perryville and from the hills, like myself, north of here, and you realize that God can save anybody, and he calls them out of the north and the east and the south and of the west, and he leads us forth really in a solitary way.

We have no city to dwell in. We're hungry and thirsty. Our souls sometimes faint in us, but we cry to the

Lord. He delivers us out of our troubles and out of our distresses. He leads us forth by the right way to a city of habitation.

Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works. Verse 11 says, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father,

Father, give me the portion of goods that are falleth to me. 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 the 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 have fain filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no men gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare?

And I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and I will say unto him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and 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 a great way off, his father saw him, and he had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and against thy sight, and no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said unto his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.

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 married.

Father, there is not many wise and not many noble.

And I realized that all of these these preachers that have preached over the past few days, they understand exactly what what

I'm praying right now, that this can't be done in the arm of the flesh.

So I pray that you'd help me as you've helped those other brothers. I pray that you'd help us as saints of God that have gathered here to rejoice in your word, to be glad in the hope that we have.

I pray, God, that if there's any among us tonight that are like this young son, this prodigal,

I pray, God, that hear the call of their father, that hear the

Spirit of God speak to their soul through the word that's already been preached. And I pray,

God, that you'd even change hearts this evening. In Jesus name.

This text, we can't look at it without looking at the two parables that he shared just prior to it.

We can't just go to the prodigal son and just look at the prodigal son, although I'm tempted to.

There's more to this passage of parables than just the prodigal son.

There was the lost coin and the lost sheep. And there is also one that we cannot forget, that there was a prodigal that never left the house.

There was the other brother that stayed there, but he stayed there with vengeance, with malice, with anger in his heart.

There's a lot to learn out of this, but I believe that when you look at this chapter 15 of Luke, I believe that there's three main points that any of us would ought to take out of this.

First of all, that there is a value in something that's lost. You see that with the lost coin and the lost sheep, the one with the lost sheep.

He says, which one of us, having a hundred sheep, having lost one, would not leave the ninety and nine and go find that one?

I hear value singing from the voice of Christ here that there was value in that one that was lost.

And then you see what the lost coin, how that this lady had some coins and she lost one.

And she swept and she looked diligently throughout her house for that one coin until she found it.

And then what she did, she says, come rejoice with me. I found my coin in today's economy.

We would chuckle at that right now. Didn't find much, did you? But I see value here.

When she finds that coin, she begins to rejoice. And then

I see value also with this son, this prodigal who left and he sold all of his substance and he wasted his life.

But when the father seen him return, he embraces him and lavishes on him all the goodness that he could.

I see a value there. And so I want us to hear and see that as we go through this text tonight, that there is a value in the lost.

There is there is a something there that we ought to long for and see.

Also, I think when you look at all three of these parables, I think there's another thing that you and I can see that there is a peril.

That's in the lost state. So that little sheep that was lost, the one out of the ninety nine, when it was lost, it was truly in a lost and a perilous state.

It was among wolves. It was out of the sheep's fold. It was away from the shepherd and it was in a perilous state.

The coin that was lost, even yes, even the coin was in danger of a perilous state of being trampled on and never being put into circulation again.

And this young man, when he was in the far country, you will see here briefly that he was in a perilous state.

It was perilous for his soul. It was perilous for his body and it was perilous for his spiritual well -being.

And the third thing I think that we can see when we look at all three of these parables put together, one thing that I believe that we can't miss is the reception of the father or the owner.

When you look at all three of those parables of the sheep and of the coin and of the young man that left his home, the prodigal.

One thing that you find commonly in all three of those stories is whenever the lost thing was found, the owner rejoiced.

The owner had themself a time. Now there's something

I know that that we could get stiff and wooden in our religion, but there's something here that we ought to realize that all of heaven rejoices when the lost is found, that God and the father here in the parable of the prodigal rejoices.

So those three things being seen in combination, I want to begin looking at this text tonight.

And it's interesting that Brother Allen mentioned to us, he tried to get all of the young people's attention.

And especially he mentioned the teenagers. And as when the Lord laid this particular text on my heart was a week ago

Tuesday. And one of the things that was just strong in my soul as I was thinking about this text and working it over in my mind was young men and young young women, teenagers.

And so I wish that you would listen to me. I'll speak plainly and simply to you. This young man in Luke that we read about the son.

I want you to notice something about him first. I want you to notice where his heart was.

It appeared innocent. It appeared clean. He's in his father's house.

He is has all the benefits of his father's house. Everybody knows him in town.

His last name is well known. He's on the football team. He's on the basketball team on the baseball team.

They know him. They know his mom and daddy. He's comes from good stock. You don't know anybody like that.

I came from that kind of world. Everybody knew my mom and dad. Small town

USA. You can't get away. His heart appeared innocent before the world.

Just like most of us in here, we can hide a lot of sin from mom and dad.

We can hide a lot of sin from pastors and church members and things like that. But the spirit of God goes much further, goes a lot further than what mom and dad can see and what pastors can see what your church folks can see that this innocent appearance of his heart, he was going along.

He had been cleaning the fields. He had been helping dad shuck the corn. Everything was fine at his father's house and it looked fine.

But this this innocent heart so called started, started longing and started wanting and started lusting for a little more.

And he finally says, I want that entitlement. I want that what

I deserve. I need to get out from under dad's thumb for a little while.

Brother Allen mentioned that a lot of your are homeschooled in this place this evening.

I see a lot of heads and my son's one of them. Let me tell you what that longing to get out from underneath what you think is someone's thumb is often to get outside of the sheepfold and to get out there in the world where the wolves are.

I promise you they're trying to take care the heart of the sun appeared innocent.

But we see that the further that the young man goes, that the further that the prodigal son goes, we find out what his true heart is.

The Bible says the heart of man is desperately deceitful above all things.

Who shall know it? It's so deep, it's so dark that we can't even understand the wickedness of our own heart.

So this young man that had the appearance or had the shell of an innocence, eventually his heart come to the surface when you examine this young man's heart.

And as soon as he gets out from what we see, like under his dad's thumb, immediately corruption accelerates, immediately corruption accelerates.

It's like you poured alcohol down the carburetor. It's going somewhere now.

All because he got out from underneath his dad. He says, I'm free. I've got some money.

I've got a place to go. I've got a lot of things in mind that I can use this home. And the corruption in his heart now accelerated.

This wasn't anywhere else. This was in his heart. He took this to the far country with him.

He didn't go to the far country and catch a bug. He didn't go to the far country and get sick on their sin.

He brought his own wicked heart with him. It's that's something that we need to realize even here today as Christians is that we're not, it's not that we're going, if we get touched by the world, we're going to get sin sick.

We are sin sick. We need a savior as we are. This corruption accelerated so quickly.

Think about what Jesus said to Judas. They're at the table.

He looked at him. He said, what you want to do? Get after his corruption accelerates.

Sin gets faster. Sin gets harder to handle. The more that you try to fight it in this in the strength of yourself, the more that it will grow and corrupt and decay.

It's like a cancer that won't stop and you can't stop it without Christ.

I'm reminded of the text where he says, set your affection on things above and not on things of the earth.

If you set your affection on the things where moth and rust will corrupt, it'll be just like wood, hay and stubble.

It will fall apart in eternity. But you set your affection on God and on Christ, those eternal things.

When did this young man, when was it that this sin finally took root?

Was it when he spent his first dollar on a harlot? Was it when he took his first bender down at the tavern?

Was it when he asked his father's portion? Please listen to me here.

I believe that this sin started when he set his heart away from the father.

He was in his father's house. He was there with all the benefits and he eyeballed real hard.

He was like like a lot looking out to the well watered plains of Sodom. And he said, I see something there.

I long and all of a sudden his heart turned from his father, his longing turned from his father's house to the wants of this world.

This is a very finicky place, young person. This is a very finicky place,

Christian. It's interesting that Brother Quatro prayed in our prayer room what you did. I was thinking of this, that none of us are above reproach in our own in ourself.

Preachers, we ought to guard ourself hard. Remember Genesis when

Eve. It didn't just start with her going by and saying, hey, that's a good fruit.

I think I'll take a bite. The first thing she done is said she saw. She saw the tree.

Then she said it was good and pleasant. Make one wise.

Think I'll take a bite. Do you not think that the devil knows the agenda?

Do you not think that he knows the agenda when it comes to our our Internet devices and things like that?

Think about this. He knows that if he can get you to see the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, he knows that if he can get you to think that it's pleasant, then eventually you'll take your bite.

You'll find yourself turning your heart away from your father and to the world.

I'm interested in that phrase of verse 18. He says, I will arise and go back to my father.

I will arise and go to my father. And I thought couldn't help but to think of these lyrics.

Come, you sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore.

Jesus ready stands to save you full of pity, love and power.

Second thing I want us to see is not just the heart of this young man, but look at the distance.

Of the far country. Look how far I had to go to get to the far country.

Now, we don't know how far it was. It just says far country. All we do know about this for sure is that it took him days to prepare to get there and then it took him one decision to leave.

He got to the far country after he had prepared all of his goods. He got everything ready. I'm going to sin good and I'm going to prepare for it.

But as soon as sin destroyed him, as soon as sin brought him down to the pit, he realized

I can get out of here and I can do it in a day. The distance of the far country isn't as far as we think that it is.

I've been to the far country sitting on a church pew. I know friends that have been to the far country while they sat and listened to solid gospel preaching.

They went to the far country all the time in their heart and they never left the building. This is where Christians, we ought to guard ourselves and be ready that Satan would like to to preoccupy our hearts and minds and trade our benevolent father and our benevolent

God for a thief. And that's exactly what this prodigal son did.

He looked at his dad's place. He said, Dad's got servants. Dad's got all the help in the world.

Mom and Dad's got it figured out. I really they won't even miss me when

I'm gone. I'm gonna go far enough that folks won't know who mom and dad is. I'm gonna have myself a time.

He traded all the blessings and the benevolence of his father for a thief.

I want to remind you that Satan came to kill, steal and to destroy.

He knows his purpose and he and he works it well. So I want to remind you here that don't think that you've got to run plum out of town to go be the prodigal son.

I think about myself setting in a church pew.

My dad was a pastor. That brother testified a while ago.

Young people, if you're in faith in Christ right now, rejoicing the

Lord, be glad because I said under a pastor, my dad listened to the gospel, rebelled and I went to this far country.

There's nothing there. There's nothing there. It is truly a pigpen.

Yeah, it looks, it looks good in the newspaper in the magazine. Is this young man? I'm sure.

Man, I'd like to go to that place. You get there and it's dark. I think that's an amen.

The far country sometimes though is not as far as you think. David didn't have to leave his his kingdom to sin.

All he had to do is look over the wall and see a lady there that he should not be looking at.

He didn't have to go far to get deep into sin. That little sin got bigger and that little sin got bigger and eventually he had men killed and lied, cheated and stolen.

I think about aching with Joshua. Some of you know that story. Well, they can, they went in and they destroyed a place and Joshua instructed them.

Don't take nothing out of that city. There's nothing there worth trading your soul for. It's, it's nothing's good.

It's corrupt. The bible calls it the accursed thing. And guess what

Akin done? He went in there and yes, they was, they was whooping tail in there. They was whooping everybody. He's seen some stuff.

He said, babylonian garments like them. I like that gold.

I like those jewels. And he started poking in his pockets and he went back and he said, nobody will know.

I'll hide this in my tent. I'll keep this from everybody. He was right in the congregation of God's people the entire time, but his heart was in the far country.

This young man, yes, he did have to leave. In the parable that we read, but regardless where you are, the principle remains the same.

When lust conceives, it brings forth sin. And when sin is finished, it brings forth death.

Come you weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall.

If you Terry till you're better, you will never come at all.

We've looked at this young man's heart. We've looked just how close the far country could have been for him.

I want you to think about now just briefly the reward of the far country.

I'm just gonna spend just a second on this. If your heart longs for this world, let me tell you where it leads.

Chains, chains, slavery, bondage.

Your soul, your will, your heart will be bound to the lust of your flesh into the desires of this world.

We get a lot of talk today in our society, especially our culture here that when we we talk about tired of government oppression or something like that, and I see a lot of people driving around with 17 76 on the back of their truck because they're men of liberty.

Get their slaves to see him. You want to be a free man? You want to be a free woman? Run to the cross of Christ where the bonds and the chains were broken for you.

There's freedom in the far country. There is slavery, and I'm gonna go to this.

Lastly, I want us to see the provision of the father. The father made full provision for this son, both before he left and when he came.

See, this is this is how our God deals with us. Can we not breathe his air right here tonight?

That's grace. Check it off. That's God. Thank God. Is your body still moving? Is the heart still beating?

Is there a pulse still in you? Thank God. That's his grace in you working right now.

He not only supplied for this young man to go and to do this thing. God has given you the air to breathe.

He's giving you the transportation. He's giving you the hands to use. Now, what will you use him for?

The provision of the father did provide for his going. The boy took it and sinned.

But when the boy came back, there was lavished on him blessings. Now, I want to just put this plainly with us this evening.

Our God in heaven through Christ is supplied every one of our needs, according to his riches and glory.

It's already been said, and that's why there was there was enough preaching on the cross and the righteousness there.

I was I was flooded and felt love there by God. But what

I want to say right here is that not enough. What Jesus done was that not enough?

I can think about this young man going to the far country and thinking back about Dad. Man, I know

Dad's. I know Dad was taking care of me. I know that that filled my pockets.

I know that that he cared about me and still just like you and I today, we know that Christ died for us.

Is it not enough to call us back to himself? Is it not enough that he gave us the

Sabbath day to rest? Think about this seriously, or will we take it, try to get gained by it?

Is it not enough that he gave us his precious word? Is it not enough that your father has given you those provisions?

Is it not enough that he's given us great and exceeding precious promises? Your father is still there at home.

Is it not enough that Jesus Christ grieved in the garden and there his sweat became, as it were, great drops of blood?

Was that that not enough for us to come to the father? Is it not enough that his body was impaled on a

Roman cross? Hung between heaven and earth. His blood dripped to the ground, his side pierced through the sphere.

Is that not enough? Or does the far country still look too good? Is it not enough that he got up on the third day and proved that he was

God? Or will we say, No, I'll check that box later. I'm still want to go into this world.

Please listen to me. There's nothing in this world worth what

I just described to you there at the cross. Feel him prostrate in the garden on the ground.

Your maker lies on the bloody tree. Behold him. Center. Will this not suffice?

I will arise and follow Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms.

In the arms of my dear savior, there are 10 ,000 charms.

What I want you to see with this text tonight is when this young man turns and he comes to the father, he is not rebuked.

He is not kicked. He is not scolded. He is not strapped. But the father comes to him with open arms and puts rings on his fingers.

He puts the clothes on his back and he said, This my son was dead and is alive.

Now, some of you may be sitting in here, so I still love this world and I'll come to the father sometime.

The father has open arms for you to not don't get out on this road and chance your life to the possibility of a car crash.

Come to faith in Christ right where you sit right at this moment. Don't chance your soul and don't turn from Christ.