"Gospel of Luke: Parable of the Lost Son" June 9, 2024

First Baptist Church Leominster

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Acts 16, Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra.

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A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a

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Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted

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Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a

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Greek. And they went on their way through the cities. They delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

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So the churches were strengthened in the faith and they increased in numbers daily. And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the spirit to speak the word in Asia.

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And when they had come to Magia, Magia, they attempted to go to Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

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So passing by Magia, they went down to Traus. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

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A man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.

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And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

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So setting sail from Traus, we made direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis.

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And from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony.

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We remained in this city some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we suppose there was a place of prayer.

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And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named

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Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

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The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

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Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. And as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.

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She followed Paul and us crying out, these men are servants of the most high

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God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days.

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Paul having become greatly annoyed, turned and said in the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

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And it came out of her that very hour. And when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized

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Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are

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Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.

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The crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods.

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And when they had afflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

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Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

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About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.

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And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

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When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

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But Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself for we are all here.

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And the jailer called for lights and rushed in and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.

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Then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the

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Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the

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Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

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Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them and he rejoiced along with his entire household that they had believed in God.

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But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police saying, let those men go.

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And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent you to let us go.

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Therefore, come out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are

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Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly? No, let them come themselves and take us out.

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The police reported these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were

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Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

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So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

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Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the wonderful work of salvation that you accomplish.

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And we thank you that it is a work that you have done. You have saved us. And Lord, we rejoice in that salvation.

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We rejoice in the word of God. We rejoice in the spirit of God who teaches us.

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And we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ who accomplished salvation for us. And we pray now,

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Lord, that as we continue to worship you through the proclamation of the word, that we would be attentive to what is being said, that the spirit would teach us and guide us and illustrate to us the truth.

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We pray, Lord, that we would walk in it. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's turn in our

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Bibles to Luke chapter 15. In our examination of Luke's gospel, we arrive to one of the most familiar stories and one of the most quoted of all the parables of Jesus.

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It's commonly known, of course, as the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15, verses 11 and following.

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But perhaps it could be more aptly named the parable of the lost son, which would serve to connect it with the two previous parables that we dealt with recently, that being the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin.

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And so here we have the parable of the lost son. Now, there are many details in this parable which lend themselves to many different emphases and interpretations.

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And that's rather unfortunate in one sense. However, we want to stress the main teaching and purpose of the parable, for that is oftentimes lost because of emphasis on the details.

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The major point of the parable is not the wayward son and how to recover him to his father, nor is the parable chiefly about the elder brother, although these are important but secondary themes.

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The major thrust and purpose of the parable is to show the love of God the Father, who delights in sinners turning from their sin and who return to him in faith.

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The Lord Jesus illustrates the mercy and love of God the Father by telling of a human father who welcomes his penitent son, a father who's willing to lavish good things upon his restored son, although the son deserves nothing from his father.

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And so the point the Lord Jesus is making is this, if an earthly father would have behaved toward his prodigal son in this fashion, why is it unreasonable that God would long for the recovery of his own?

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Yes, in fact, God does rejoice exceedingly and bestows greatly good things on those who acknowledge their sin and turn from it and return to God the

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Father through faith in Jesus Christ. That's the primary lesson, a welcoming

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God, a rejoicing God in sinners repenting. Now, a secondary lesson of the parable is a rebuke to the

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Jewish leadership who begrudged Jesus as a friend of publicans and tax collectors or publicans and sinners rather.

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Is it not unreasonable for the elder son not to receive his brother joyously as though he were brought back from the dead?

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And is it not reasonable that God would be so willing to receive repentant sinners to himself?

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Why would anyone reject this glorious and merciful desire and overture of God the Father? And so the

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Lord Jesus is really showing how absurd and unbelieving and sinful it is for the

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Jewish leaders not to welcome sinners coming to repentance through Jesus's ministry.

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Now, that this parable is ripe for interpretive fantasy is clear from many so -called messages or sermons that purport to be based on this passage.

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D. Martin Lloyd -Jones preached a sermon on this passage which is in his book,

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Evangelistic Sermons, which I came across in my library. And he wrote of this parable, there's no parable or saying of our

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Lord which is quite as well known and as familiar as the parable of the prodigal son. No parable is quite so frequently quoted in religious discussions or made use of in order to support various theories and contentions with respect to these matters.

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And it's truly astonishing and amazing to note the almost endless number of ways in which it's used and the almost infinite variety of conclusions to which it is held to lead.

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All schools of thought seem to claim a right to it. It's held to prove all sorts of theories and ideas which are mutually destructive and which exclude one another.

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It's quite clear therefore that the parable can be very easily and readily mishandled and misinterpreted.

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How can we avoid this danger? What are the principles that should guide us as we come to interpret it?

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It seems to me that there are two fundamental principles which must be observed, which if observed will guarantee a correct interpretation.

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Well, then Lloyd -Jones went on to explain these two interpretive principles. The first is that we must always beware of interpreting any portion of scripture in such a manner as to come into conflict with the general teaching of scripture elsewhere.

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And so he's advocating here the analogy of faith the Bible teaches consistent with itself.

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And then after some explanation, Lloyd -Jones addressed the second principle of interpretation. The second rule is a little more particular.

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It is that we should always avoid the danger of drawing any negative conclusions from the teaching of a parable.

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This applies not only to this particular parable, but to all parables. A parable is never meant to be a full outline of the truth.

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Its business is to convey one great lesson, to present one big aspect of positive truth.

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That being its object and purpose, nothing is so foolish as to draw negative conclusions from it that certain things are not said in the parable mean nothing.

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And so basically what he was setting forth is the danger of building or arguing for truth based on silence.

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That's a logical fallacy. You don't argue what's true by what's not being said.

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It's illogical to do so. You can read it into anything, into anything if you had that kind of hermeneutical thought that way of interpreting matters.

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And so the advice of Lloyd -Jones is very pertinent and applicable for students of the

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Holy Scriptures. But having expressed the due caution in interpreting this parable, we should perhaps not limit ourselves to pass easily on some of the details in this longest of our

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Lord's parables. J .C. Ryle opened the matter somewhat for us when he wrote these words, and it's really in contrast to what

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Lloyd -Jones wrote. The parable for us is commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son.

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It may be called a mighty spiritual picture. Unlike some of our Lord's parables, it does not convey to us one great lesson only, but many, every part of it is peculiarly rich in instruction.

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And so I think we should take to heart Lloyd -Jones' cautions but proceed carefully along the lines of Ryle.

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There are many details within this story of our Lord, details that the Lord Jesus declared to his disciples, details that the

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Holy Spirit moved Luke to record for our hearing and benefit. And so yes, there is one overarching message from the parable, and we already identified that, is that the

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Lord Jesus was showing the desire of God the Father to receive and forgive sinners who turn from their sin and come to him through faith in Jesus Christ.

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So with that in mind, let's read this parable in its entirety, verses 11 through 32, and we're only gonna deal with half of it today, if that, and then we'll deal with the second half when

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I return. Then he, Jesus, said, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father,

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Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them his livelihood, and not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

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But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

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Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

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But when he came to himself, I love that phrase, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.

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I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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Make me like one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

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But when he was still 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 to him,

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Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.

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But the father said to the servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet, and bring the fatted calf here 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.

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And they began to be merry. Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.

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So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come, and because he's received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.

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But he was angry and would not go in. And therefore his father came out and pleaded with him.

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And so he answered and said to his father, lo, these many years I've been serving you, I've never transgressed your commandment at any time, and yet you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends.

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But as soon as this son of yours came, who's devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.

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And he said to him, son, you're always with me, and all that I have is yours.

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It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.

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And clearly you see the language there of John Newton's Amazing Grace, which was based upon this parable.

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And so in this story, we have one father, but there are two sons, each manifesting a way of thinking and a perspective on life that differs from each other, each one relating to his father differently.

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And so we'll address each of the brothers and their perspectives, and we'll consider their latter end.

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But in considering them, we'll keep one eye on the father, for he, again, is the principal character of the story.

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Jesus intended this father to depict the concerns and desires of God, his father, towards sinners who desired and delighted in their repentance and their return to him.

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There should never be a thought that God the father is reluctant to receive sinners who come to him sincerely and humbly.

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The younger son is addressed first, commonly known as the prodigal son, and we read of that in verses 11 through 21.

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First, we might describe him as the parting son, verses 12 through 16.

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Again, we read, and then he said a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that fall to me.

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So he divided them to his livelihood. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

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But when he spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want, and then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his field to feed swine, and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything, the parting son.

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So we're introduced to the three characters involved in our story, a certain man, a father of two sons.

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The elder son is mentioned here, but he really doesn't enter the story until verse 25.

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The younger son was probably a teenager, perhaps younger than 18 years of age, for young men of that day commonly married between 18 and 20 years of age.

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It's of course a sad thing to see a separation of loved ones. In verse 12, we read that before the son departed from the house of his father, his father had departed from his son's heart.

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The son did not love the father. His father's house was like a prison to him.

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We could say that the son, while still under the roof of his father, had already departed from his father's authority in his heart.

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It's clear from our Lord's description of this father that he was completely blameless in this matter.

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Although it's not always the case, this son could not legitimately blame his father for his desire to depart.

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The father was loving, tenderhearted, and generous. The father's love for his son was not deficient.

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This father was not like some fathers who drive a wedge between themselves and their sons. This son had not been neglected or mistreated.

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The son made no charge against his father through all of this. Of course, the spiritual parallel which the

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Lord was intending to draw was an allusion to his heavenly father and the way he is treated by his creatures.

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God has always been very gracious to the people whom he created. He's bestowed upon us, you, me, freely, life, health, friends, family.

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He's provided for our welfare, our protection. He's preserved us. He has given us every good thing.

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Every good and perfect gift comes down to us from God the Father, the Father of lights.

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One would think that all of God's creatures would be thankful for God's goodness and desire to dwell with him, to serve him joyfully.

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But no, this is not the case. For our hearts are corrupt, as was this young man's.

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Apart from God's work of grace in our souls, we are unthankful, we are unholy, we despise

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God's goodness, we take what belongs to him and claim those things to be ours by right, ours to control, we are our own lords.

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We do not desire to dwell under his eye, and so we say, as did this young man, give me, it's mine.

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And that's how every fallen person is in this world. The young man portrays the thoughts and aspirations of the unregenerate man, the one not born again, the one born in sin and lives his life in and for sin.

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J .C. Ryle rightly wrote, we have in these words a faithful portrait of the mind with which we were all born.

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This is our likeness. We are all naturally proud and self -willed.

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We have no pleasure in fellowship with God. We depart from him and go afar off.

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We spend our time, strength, and faculties and affections on things that cannot profit.

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The covetous man does it in one fashion, the slave of lust and passions in another, the lover of pleasure in another.

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In one point, only all are agreed like sheep. We all naturally go astray and turn everyone to his own way.

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In the younger son's first conduct, we see the natural heart. He describes every man and woman born into this world apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

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And so each one of us is independent -minded, desiring to do our own will, not the will of another, even if it be

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God's will, especially if it's God's will. This young man did not think that he was free until he was permitted to indulge in debauchery, free from his father's control.

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And so it is with persons who are strangers to God's grace. The commandments of God, which are designed for their welfare, are viewed as shackles to be cast off.

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The home of a Christian family is a prison to an unconverted son or daughter. They can't wait to escape.

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Now, in the first century, upon the father's death, the oldest son received a double portion of the father's property, and he received his name, too.

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He was the father's replacement. This younger son would have been entitled to a third of the estate.

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But because of his early demand, and therefore, the need for the father to cash out, the son probably settled for two thirds of his inheritance, two thirds of a third.

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The young man demanded his share, and amazingly, the father acquiesced, agreed.

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And here is a principle, the first of several we may glean from our passage. The father did not attempt to manipulate his sons with pressure.

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When a child becomes older, the parent's ability to control him diminishes. And parents should recognize that.

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Efforts to do so, to control, so seem to aggravate rebellion, not curb it.

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With an infant, control is near absolute, and it should be. But with a son that's reached adulthood, we see the father yielding to the son's wishes.

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The father acted in accordance with the son's wish, which is kind of surprising when you consider it.

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We read in verse 13a, and not many days after, the son so gathered all together and journeyed to a far country.

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And so the son parted from his father's presence. He parted physically at some point, but again, he had departed spiritually sometime before.

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Wherever your heart is now is where your life will be a few years from now, unless God intervenes.

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The son's heart had been in the far country long before he physically traveled there. That's where his eye was, that's where his heart was.

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But where his heart would depart, his person was sure to follow. And when we part from the

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Lord's side, we soon lose all that was good that belonged to the father that he so freely provided for us, and would have continued to provide for us if we had remained under his authority.

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But no, we want to be on our own. We soon lose our innocence, we soon lose our wisdom, and begin to make decisions which we would never have made if we had been in the hearing of his counsel.

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We make a mess of things, as Calvin once wrote, destitute of sound judgment, maddened by passion, they are ill -fitted for governing themselves and are not restrained by fear or shame.

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Sounds like our world, doesn't it? And so after this son parted from his father, it followed that he also parted from his wealth.

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The full verse 13 reads, and not many days after, the younger, so gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living.

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He had gone to the far country, just as far away as the money would take him, and things seemed to go well for a while, but perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to him was that his prosperity continued.

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But that did not happen, and so we read that he wasted his money on riotous living, harlots and drunkenness, or a sure prescription to poverty.

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But then things got worse for him. He was unprepared to meet the consequences of his life's choices.

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They caught up with him. We read in verse 14, but when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in the land, and he began to be in want.

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He began to be in need. People of the world attribute adverse circumstances to bad luck, or in some parts of the world, due to fate, or spiritual curse, or karma.

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The word of God tells us that God is in control of this world, and he governs all people everywhere.

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And God has established spiritual laws by which he governs his world, and one of these laws, spiritual laws, is that one reaps what he sows.

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Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia, do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, he will also reap.

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Whatever seed you sow, that's the crop that will come up. And the wise man once wrote, he who sows iniquity will reap sorrow.

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The prophet Hosea declared, they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind. This young man was reaping what he had sown.

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So before long, the son found himself taking desperate measures, which we read in verses 15 and 16.

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He went, joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, of course, an unclean animal to the

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Jewish person, and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.

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He went as low as a Jew could go. Now, we might stand back for a minute and speak of God's involvement in his work of providence in this world, and the way he accomplishes his work of judgment and salvation.

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When God intends to save a sinner by his grace, he'll often prepare and influence that sinner toward humility and a return to right thinking through adversity.

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And if that sinner is unusually obstinate, God will use severe measures. Calvin wrote of God's dealings with men in this way.

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Here is described to us the way in which God invites men to repentance. If of their own accord they were wise and became submissive, he would draw them more gently.

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By the way, the scriptures say that the goodness of God is designed to lead us to repentance.

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And in my 50 years of pastoral ministry, I've only known one man who testified to me,

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I became a Christian because of the goodness of God to me. He was a builder of custom swimming pools in Sacramento, and he was a rather uneducated, simple man, and he said,

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God so blessed my business, far beyond my ability, I knew that God had to exist and he was blessing me, and that's what led him to become a

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Christian. The goodness of God led him to repentance, but that's unusual. Most of the time, the

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Lord has to take us really down. For some will never stoop to obedience till they have been subdued by the rod.

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God chastises them severely. Accordingly to this young man, whom abundance rendered fierce and rebellious, hunger proved to be the best teacher.

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Instructed by this example, let us not imagine that God deals cruelly with us, if at any time he visits us with heavy afflictions, for in this manner, those who are obstinate and intoxicated with myrrh are taught by him to be obedient.

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In short, all the miseries which we endure are a profitable invitation to repentance. But as we are slow, we scarcely ever regain a sound mind, unless we are forced by extreme distress.

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For until we are pressed by difficulties on every hand and shut up to despair, the flesh always indulges in gaiety or at least recoils, and hence we infer that there is no reason to wonder if the

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Lord often uses violent and even repeated strokes in order to subdue our obstinacy.

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And as the proverb runs, applies hard wedges to hard knots. It must also be observed that the hope of bettering his condition, if he returned to his father, gave this young man courage to repent, for no severity of punishment will soften our depravity or make us displeased with our sins till we perceive some advantage.

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As this young man therefore is induced by confidence in his father's kindness to seek reconciliation, so the beginning of our repentance must be an acknowledgement of the mercy of God to excite in us favorable hopes.

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That is clever and biblical. Now we should say a few words regarding God's dealings with sinners and his intention to save them from their sin.

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But first, we'll speak of a few falsely stated opinions that are claimed to be taught from our passage.

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When we alluded to D. Martin Lloyd -Jones, speaking of those who proposed doctrines from this passage based on details that are not present or drawn in an unwarranted manner, he was referring to several specific errant teachings that he was dealing with in the day that he dealt with this sermon, which was early in his ministry in the early 1900s.

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He wrote of some Protestant liberals who argued for a very easy manner of attaining salvation.

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And so Lloyd -Jones wrote, is this not the parable to which they constantly refer who try to prove that ideas of justice and judgment and wrath are utterly and entirely foreign to God's nature and to Jesus's teaching concerning him?

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There's nothing here, they say, of the father's wrath nor the father's demands or certain actions on the part of the son.

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Just love, pure love, nothing but love. This is a typical example of a negative conclusion drawn from the parable.

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In other words, it's an argument from silence. Lloyd -Jones then gave another example.

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Another example is the way in which we're told that this parable does away with the absolute necessity for repentance.

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The father said nothing about repentance. Therefore, because he said nothing, it does not matter.

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Because repentance is not taught and impressed upon the son by the father, repentance toward God does not matter.

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Could you imagine? And then Lloyd -Jones gave perhaps the most egregious example but perhaps the most serious of all the false conclusions which tell us that no mediator between God and man is necessary and that the idea of atonement is foreign to the gospel and is to be attributed rather to the legalistic mind of Paul.

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There's no mention in the parable, they say, of anyone coming between the father and the son. There's no talk at all about another paid a ransom or making an atonement, just the direct dealing between the father and the son conditioned solely upon the latter's return from the far country.

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Because those things are not specifically mentioned and stressed in the parable, it's agreed that they do not count at all and really do not matter.

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And so those are theological liberals who deal with the parable of the prodigal son.

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But aside from these theological liberals who twist the scriptures to their own destruction, and Peter wrote of guys like that,

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I've heard Arminian Christians argue in favor of their false doctrine from this passage.

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Arminians espouse the teachings of Jacobus Arminius. Whether they realize it or not, most of them do not.

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They accuse Calvinists of following a man, which we do not. But they follow the teaching of Arminius, even though they don't know it.

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Arminius had come to deny the reform doctrines of God's sovereign grace in saving sinners, arguing that people are saved not by God's sovereign grace, but by man's free will, as Arminius defined it.

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He denied the biblical teaching of the total depravity of man, that all people born into this world are born sinners who are spiritually dead, unable, and unwilling to come to salvation on their own.

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Arminians would argue that sin has damaged all people, but it's not rendered them incapable of freely believing the gospel unto salvation.

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They would argue, with some help from God, the sinner of his own free will can be saved.

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They have a distorted view of grace. To them, God's grace is available to everyone, and that it makes possible for sinners to save themselves by their faith.

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The biblical teaching of grace, however, sets forth God in his sovereign mercy, and grace alone comes to save the sinner from his sin.

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And we saw that recently in the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus Christ is a shepherd.

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He goes out and finds the sheep, and he brings it back to the fold. Well, how then do they use this parable to their ends?

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Well, they argue that God is passive, who desires the return of people, but is unwilling to intrude on their self -will, so he's waiting for the sinner to come to his senses and return to him of his own free will.

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See, God is waiting and watching for the sinner to return. He does not go after his son, but patiently and longingly waits for the son to decide to return.

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That's how the Arminian deals with the passage. But we would reason that our

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Lord did not design this parable to reveal the nature and manner of God saving sinners by his grace.

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Again, it was intended to illustrate the joy that God the Father has when great sinners return to him in repentance and humble faith.

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That the Lord is the sole savior of sinners was clearly demonstrated in the parable that we just dealt with.

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It is the Lord himself, the good shepherd, who goes after the lost sheep until he finds it, and then lays it on his shoulders rejoicing, bringing it home to his fold.

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And although it's not overtly stated in our parable, the parable of the prodigal son, it's clear from the scriptures that it's our sovereign

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God who orchestrates all that takes place in a sinner's life to prepare him to return to God the

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Father in repentance from his sin and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And so it would have been through the providence of God, God working behind the scenes, that this son would have spent all he had obtained from his father.

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And then it was in the providence of God that he would have brought a severe famine in the land to cause his son to be in want.

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God was orchestrating all of this. And it was in God's providence that brought his son to be joined to a citizen of that country who had him sent into the fields to feed swine.

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And it was in the providence of God that brought this son to the place that he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate.

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And God also saw to it that no one gave him anything. If and when a prodigal son comes to himself and resolves to return to his father, it's due to the grace of God powerfully working in what has befallen him, in humbling that sinner to see his son, his fault, his need, and to give him the desire to repent of his sin and return to his father.

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It was not long ago, actually three years ago, we spoke of the work of God's grace in preparing the sinner to come to Christ.

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We spoke of it when we were addressing the narrow and wide gates of Matthew 7. It was back in February of 2021.

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And we spoke of Solomon's daughter at that time. He was a grandfather to Jonathan Edwards out in Northampton, Massachusetts.

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Solomon Stoddard was the pastor of the Congregational Church in Northampton. He was a grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, who's recognized as perhaps the greatest pastor theologian that God has raised up in America, Jonathan Edwards.

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Stoddard published a book in 1729 entitled The Nature of Saving Conversion, How People Become Christians.

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He wrote of God's work of preparation with view to the conversion event. And after stating that saving conversion is wrought at once by God, it's a single and sudden event, conversion is itself.

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He described God's preparation of the sinner for his conversion that takes place over time. There is want, that is, there is the need ordinarily to be a great deal of time spent in a way of preparation for this change.

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Sometimes that preparation can take place in a very brief period of time through the course of a sermon, a single sermon.

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For some, it may take weeks or months or even years. For Charles Spurgeon, it took seven years of his preparation to come to Christ.

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In order to this change, there is want to be, there is a need for a work of contrition and humiliation. And though in primitive times, we read of men passing through the work at a very little time, yet ordinarily, we find that much time is consumed in the work of preparation.

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There are many temptations to overcome, flatteries and discouragements to be removed. Men lose a great deal of time falling into slumbers by backwardness or to reform some evils by trying to establish their own righteousness, by fearing they are not the elect, of that God has given them up to hardness of heart, by imagining their hearts to be better than they are, by their unwillingness to own the justice and sovereignty of God.

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And so that commonly, several months are spent, sometimes years, before they get through the work of preparation.

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Yet conversion itself is wrought at once in the hearing of one passage in a sermon by the remembering of one scripture.

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And so God was preparing this son for his return. And so we see in this matter of biblical conversion, there's much to understand respecting this great work of God's grace in saving us.

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We'd also given attention to the influence of the great English Puritan who wrote extensively on the nature of God's work of preparation for the sinner before his conversion,

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Thomas Hooker. I have a number of his books. He's commonly known as the father of Connecticut.

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He so reacted against the liberalism of Harvard, he went down to Connecticut and Hartford was really the result of him and his church work there as well as Yale University.

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And he first published in 1632, the book, The Soul's Preparation for Christ, I have a copy, in which his chapter titles depict this work of God's grace prior to conversion.

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First, God is capable of breaking the hearts of the most stubborn sinners on earth. God's in the business of saving great sinners.

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Second, a true site of sin is needed. Third, some means by which we can see sin convincingly.

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Four, the necessity of exposing the evil of particular sins to men's consciences.

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Sometimes it's a single sin that just overwhelms a sinner, preparing him for Christ.

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Five, serious meditation on your sins is a special means to bring the soul to a true site and sorrow for sin.

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Think about it, ponder about it. Consider standing before Jesus Christ on the day of judgment and answering for every word you've spoken, every thought that's coursed your mind, every attitude you've ever exhibited, every action you've ever done.

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Ponder that a while and see how you come out. More helps in meditating on your sin, the soul piercing sorrow.

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There has to be sorrow over sin. The heart prepared for Christ, how God supports the hearts of those broken for sin with hopes of mercy so they're not overwhelmed and despair.

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The heart truly broken for sin will make free an open confession of sin. He owns his sin.

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And lastly, sound contrition of heart brings a thorough hatred of sin. That all takes place before conversion.

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When God purposes to save a sinner unto himself through Jesus Christ, he goes to work at a person's heart and life.

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He must bring that one to be desirous and willing to forsake all his sin and begin a life of humble trusting, following and obeying

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Jesus Christ through life onto his promised inheritance, eternal life. And if we're telling people they can come to Christ any other way than forsaking sin and trusting and yielding to Jesus Christ as Lord in all areas of life, we're promising a way of salvation that's not taught in the word of God.

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There's a lot of nominal Christianity in today's churches. And so the work of preparation for coming to Christ is not you preparing yourself to become acceptable to him.

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That's not possible. Rather preparation is God's work of grace in preparing you so that you see and believe your only hope is if he accepts you.

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Preparation is not being cleansed of your sin. You cannot do that. God's preparation of you is to show you there's no other way to be cleansed from your sin apart from coming to the father through Jesus Christ.

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His work of preparation is to show you just how defiled and filthy you are and that you have no ability to change your condition.

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Try as hard as you can and most do for a while until they see it's futile.

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He prepares you by showing and convincing you that Christ alone is the fountain from which he can cleanse you from sin.

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As the prophet once declared, in that day, that is in the day of the coming of Jesus Christ, a fountain shall be opened for the house of David, for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.

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Jesus Christ alone is the fountain. The Lord convinces sinners who are without any other hope that there's mercy and grace in Jesus Christ alone.

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He enables us to see that the streams of blood and water that flowed forth from his side when he hung on his cross alone provide a full atoning sacrifice whereby we may be forgiven and cleansed of our sins.

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Christ alone and it's with that knowledge and that hope and in Christ alone that we have come to him asking, seeking, knocking for him to open the way to our conversion and grant his entrance into this new way of living that will end again in the gift of eternal life at the end of the course of that narrow way.

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So for this young man of our parable, the days of longing for lights and glitter for wine, women's song were now gone.

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He's in the pigsty and now pig slop looks inviting to him and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the paws that the swine ate.

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It's amazing what we'll be satisfied with once we followed a course as did this young man.

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His dignity gone, his pride gone. And take note of the last words of verse 16, no one gave him anything.

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That principle is lost in our world today. I read this morning of all the goodies that people are given when they come over the border illegally.

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We should not say this is necessarily bad. No one gave him anything. This is what brought him to his senses.

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Dad had not been sending him checks nor had the government set him up with an apartment and given a monthly check by which he could continue his riotous living and there are many in our society who will never suffer the consequences of their actions until they stand before God on the day of judgment because some who think they're being helpful and loving prevent them from suffering the consequences of their sinful behavior now in this world.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was killed just a couple weeks before the end of World War II by the

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Nazis. Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin.

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Modern psychology refers that to as enabling. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin.

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It is a ministry of mercy, an ultimate act of genuine fellowship. A person that's living for sin and in his sin may need to be allowed to fall and fall hard.

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This is not cruelty. It's a true act of love to do whatever it takes to break a man from his sin.

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Paul wrote, if a man will not work, in other words purpose is not to work, he shall not eat. God in his mercy will allow one on whom he has said his love to suffer extremes.

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If need be, in order to bring that person back into a willing submission to himself, to his side, we're alone as true peace, joy and righteousness.

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And I think clearly the Lord Jesus was conveying this reality in this parable regarding this younger son.

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Well, we read of the parting son and now we read of the penitent son, the son who repented of his sin, verses 17 through 28.

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The younger son came to face himself and desire repentance before his father and restoration to his household.

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But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and despair and I perish with hunger.

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I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven before you,

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I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, make me like one of your hired servants.

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And he rose and came to his father. First we read, but when he came to himself, it's interesting how we think of someone or even of ourselves with respect to ourselves.

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When someone's distraught with fear, worry, anxiety, we say he was beside himself. The phrase means outside of oneself.

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In other words, there's question regarding his mental state. He's beside himself. When someone is acting or speaking out of character, we say he was not himself.

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He's not acting normally or ordinarily. And here, when this son came to see the reality of his sin and the consequences he brought upon himself, he reads, but when he came to himself, he'd finally come to see and understand the reality of the matter.

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He'd been deluded by his sin. And he came to see that he only had himself to blame.

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And so we read that when he came to himself, he would understand what it means when he came to his senses.

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Here we see he had regret and remorse. And the son illustrates for us the nature of true repentance.

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He came to have great remorse. And he changed his whole way of thinking and living.

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That's what conversion is. He recognized and acknowledged what sin is, what righteousness is, and he desired to turn from sin onto righteousness.

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But just look what it took to bring him to his senses. We are creatures so bent on self -destruction we might be likened to madmen, deranged, having departed from our sense, our ability to see and reason clearly.

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It's insanity. He had played the madman.

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He had been beside himself, but now he came to himself. It's madness to think that we can reject

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God and his authority over us and walk away from him and continue to live in his world, indulging on the things he's freely given us in a manner that he had never intended and still think we'll come out okay after all.

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And one might say, I've lived quite well without him. I haven't encountered any famine yet. It's coming.

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But again, what will you do on judgment day? Will you be able to stand in that day without a savior?

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And then the folly of a squandered life will become evident to every man. Everyone will come to himself on that day, come to his sense in that day.

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But on that day, there'll be no waiting father to whom you can return, but rather they will have the certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries,

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God's adversaries. Hebrews 10, 27. This young man, this younger son came to his senses with respect to two things.

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First, he came to see his own unworthiness and need. Displeasure with sin must precede repentance from sin.

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He had embodied the Old Testament verse that describes some as laboring for that which does not satisfy.

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That was his whole life. Some people think that their life will be fulfilled if they can be free to indulge whatever they want whenever they want.

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To them, that's what liberty is. That's what freedom is. But that according to the Bible is the way to slavery, to bondage.

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Try and break free from it, you can't. And second, he came to remember his father's provision.

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The NIV, New International Version reads, how many of my father's hired men have food to spare?

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And the King James renders the verse, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare?

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Charles Spurgeon preaches 1 ,000th sermon entitled Bread Enough and to Spare.

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And I wanted to read a few words because I thought it would be encouraging for us. Forgive me for doing so at length, but it encouraged me and I trust will encourage you.

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It appears that when the prodigal came to himself, he was shut up to two thoughts. Two facts were clear to him, that there was plenty in his father's house and that he himself was famishing.

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May these two spiritual facts have absolute power over all your hearts if you're yet unsaved.

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Alas, my brethren, what shall we do with those who willfully shut their eyes to truths of which the evidence is overwhelming and the importance overpowering?

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That there is abundant grace with God and there's utter destitution with themselves.

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Let us prove this to thee. First, consider the father himself. What is the nature of the supreme or the supreme one?

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Is he harsh or loving? The scriptures answer the question not by telling us that God is loving, but by assuring us that God is love.

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God himself is love. It's his very essence. It's not that love is in God, but that God himself is love.

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Thou, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and plentish in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

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And neither can there be any failure or power with the father. Do you not know that he who made the earth and stretched out the heavens like a tent to dwell in has no bound to his strength, no limit to his might?

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If you need omnipotence to lift you up from the slew into which you've fallen, omnipotence is ready to deliver you.

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If you but cry to the strong for strength, that is to God, though you should need all the force with which the creator made the worlds and all the strength with which he bears up the pillars of the universe.

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All that strength and force should be laid out for your good if you would believingly seek mercy at the hand of God in Christ Jesus.

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None of his power shall be against you. None of his wisdom shall plan your overthrow, but love shall reign in all and every attribute of God shall become subservient to your salvation.

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Oh, when I think of sin, I cannot understand how a sinner can be saved, but when I think of God and look into his heart,

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I understand how readily he can forgive. And what was the very center of the divine heart?

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What? But the person of the well -beloved, his only begotten son. And he took his only begotten and nailed him to the cross because I venture, so to speak, he loved sinners better than his son.

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He spared not his son, but he does spare the sinner. He poured out his wrath upon his son and made him a substitute for sinners that he might lavish love upon the guilty who deserved his anger.

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Oh, soul, if you are lost, it's not from lack of grace or wisdom or power of the father.

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If you perish, it's not because God is hard to move or unable to save. If you starve, you starve because you will starve for in the father's house, there is bread enough and despair.

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But now consider the second matter which may set this more clearly before us. Think of the son of God who is indeed the true bread of life for sinners.

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Sinner, you need a savior. You may well be encouraged when you see that a savior is provided by God since it's certain he would not make a mistake in the provision, but consider who the savior is.

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He himself is God. Jesus who came from heaven for our redemption was not an angel, else might we tremble to trust the weight of our sin upon him.

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He was not mere man, or he could but have suffered as a substitute for one, if indeed for one.

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But he was very God, a very God in the beginning with the father. And does such a one come to redeem?

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Is there room to doubt as to his ability, if that be the fact? I do confess this day that if my sins were 10 ,000 times heavier than they are, yes, and if I had all the sins of this crowd in addition piled on me,

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I could trust Jesus with them all at this moment, now that I know him to be the son of God.

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He's the mighty God. And by his pierced hand, a burden of our sins is easily removed.

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He blots out our sins. He casts them into the depths of the sea. There is no inward evil which he cannot overcome.

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No lustful desire of the flesh which he cannot subdue. No aburacy of the affections which he cannot melt.

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Surely no sinner can be beyond the possibilities of mercy when the Holy Spirit condescends to be the agent of human conversion.

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O sinner, if you perish, it's not because of the Holy Spirit's lack of power, or the blood of Jesus lacks efficacy, or the father fails in love, it's because you believe not in Christ, but purpose to abide in willful rebellion, refusing the abundant bread of life which is placed before you.

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That's the direct approach. Boy, if people could only read and hear that. And then to encourage the one who sees himself too wicked to return and be partnered, too evil to be transformed.

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Spurgeon made these comments. Recollect again that God has been pleased to stake his honor upon the gospel.

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Men desire a name, and God is jealousy of his glory. Now, what is

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God pleased to select for his name? Is it not the conversion and salvation of men? And do you think

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God will get a great name by saving little sinners by a little savior? Oh, his great name comes from washing out stains as black as hell, pardoning sinners who are the foulest of the foul.

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Is there one monstrous rebel here who's qualified to glorify God greatly? Because his salvation will be the wonder of angels and the amazement of devils?

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I hope there is. Oh, thou most degraded, loathsome sinner, nearest to the damn sinner.

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If this voice can reach you, I challenge you to come and prove whether God's mercy is a match for your sin.

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Thou Goliath sinner, come to him. You will find that God can slay your enmity, make you yet his friend, and the more his loving, adoring servant, because great forgiveness shall secure great love.

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Will you depreciate Christ who has to imagine that what he has accomplished is, after all, little, so little, it's not enough to save you?

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If it were in my power to single out the man who's been the most dishonest, the most licentious, the most drunken, most profane, in three words, most earthly, sensual, devilish,

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I would repeat my challenge which I gave just now and bid him draw near to Jesus and see whether the fountain filled with Christ's atoning blood can not wash him white.

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There is in him pardon enough and despair. Amen. And then second, we see this son come to his father.

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He had resolve. He said to himself, I will arise and go to my father and will say to him, father,

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I've sinned against heaven before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

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The son had remorse, but mere remorse is not enough. Judas Iscariot had remorse when he betrayed the

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Lord, but he perished. This son not only had remorse, in addition, he possessed resolve to take action.

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This man did not need any more convincing. He was not so far gone that he no longer knew his father's character.

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He knew that his father would receive him and he knew that his father must receive him or he would perish.

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And so the son knew that he had to acknowledge wrongdoing to his father. But notice he also recognized his great sin before God.

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He told his father, I've sinned against heaven. In other words, God, I've sinned against God.

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He knew that everyone who rebels against a father is also rebelling wickedly against God, the one who's placed children in subjection to their parents who have authority.

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And God regards an offense against a parent as an offense against himself. This man knew that he was going back to reconcile with his father.

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He was also desiring and attempting reconciliation with God. And notice his changed attitude toward his father.

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I'm no longer worthy to be called your son until we view ourselves as beggars.

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We have no hope of being treated by God as sons. And third, we read that he did indeed come to his father.

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This shows he had true repentance. Again, the son showed regret in verse 17.

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He revealed resolve in verses 18 and 19, but he shows he did repent in verse 20.

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He got up and went to his father. Judas had regret, but he had no resolve to get right.

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Others claim they have remorse and resolve, but they never get around to taking action. Resolve to get right with God and others will accomplish nothing by itself.

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The path to hell is paved with resolvers, with resolves, but this path must be taken.

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First, there's regret. It leads to resolve, which leads them to repentance, turning from their sin.

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God and angels do not rejoice over resolvers, but rather over repenters, those who cease their rebellion, their sins, and return to him, surrender unconditionally to God the

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Father through Jesus Christ. And so we see the son coming to his father as a beggar, less than a slave, hoping he'd have the fortune to be made a slave.

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He'd given up his cherished freedom, his boastful independence, his indulgent lifestyle, his liberty to do as he pleased, a lifestyle that was bringing him to ruin.

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Rather, he desired now to be as a slave who had no freedom, but as one whose sole existence was determined by the will of his father, his master's will, for only there will he find and enjoy peace, security, and true happiness.

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And then lastly, of course, we have to conclude with a word about the welcoming father. And so the son returning, we read, when he was still a great weight off, his father saw him, had compassion, ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

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And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

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But the father said to his servants, bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his hand, sandals on his feet, bring the fatted calf here and kill it.

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Let us eat and be merry. For this, my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

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And they began to be merry. So when the son came to his father, he hoped to be admitted as a slave, but we see the father running to him and lavishing on him the honor due, a cherished and respected son.

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That's grace, God's grace. And God has done much more for you and for me in Christ.

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We have done so much worse than this prodigal son. Our sins were caused for his own son's death.

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And yet when we come to him, he bestows on us the honor and privileges that his son has received.

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The very glory of Christ is given to all the children of God. We share in his glory.

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You and I cannot fathom what that means or how that's gonna look when it's conferred upon us one day, when our adoption as sons is fully realized on the day of the resurrection.

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The father desired and delighted in his returning son, and Jesus sought to show forth through this parable the joy that God the father has in receiving sinners who come to him humbly in faith.

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The footnote of the Reformation Study Bible records the heart of this father. The father's apparently watching intently for his son's return.

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It is undignified for an older man to lift up his robes and run, but that's what he did.

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And we see the honor the father bestowed upon the son. The father gave his son the best robe, which was a sign of status.

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The father gave him a ring, which was a symbol of his authority. The father gave him shoes, the sign of a free man, not a slave, barefooted slave.

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The father gave him a fatted calf, a sign of celebration. Could you imagine the kind of reaction the son must have had?

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Yes, I think we can, if we know truly the contrast between what we formerly had in our sin and what we now have in Christ.

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And again, the major point of this parable was the Lord Jesus teaching that God the father rejoices greatly and delights in receiving repenting sinners.

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God delights in lavishing upon his own, his bounties. Thanks be to God.

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And scripture say, Paul wrote in Ephesians four that God's going to show us the riches of his mercy and grace throughout eternity.

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It's infinite and we're never going to arrive at a finality and completeness, but we experience a measure of that now.

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Thank God. Father, we thank you for your word and the glorious encouragement we can receive from Jesus's words in this parable.

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Help us, our God, to take it to heart. Help us not to be as that younger son,

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Lord, who parted from his father, but help us, Lord, to be repentant, joyful, believing sons that have returned to you,

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God, our father, through Jesus Christ alone, our Lord and savior. Help us to go forth from here.

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Every one of us, our God, enfold us of faith in Christ alone and all that you've promised us through him.