Luke 15:11-24

[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. I'm being the Gospel loop this morning. Scripture, I'm sure we're all, I'm somewhat familiar with.

[0:16] I will tell you all that this is not what I plan to preach. I guess until this morning, I've been looking elsewhere, studying elsewhere, reading elsewhere, but that's okay.

[0:32] But as many times as long as we do what the Good Lord wants us to do, then we'll be alright. Gospel loop chapter 15.

[0:43] Very familiar Scripture. We're going to be looking at the parable Jesus spoke here of the prodigal son. I'm sure you all have heard it preached. Probably dozens of times as I have, and I've said many times, I can preach you, I can teach you nothing new out of this Bible.

[1:04] I promise you, in the last 2,000 years, somebody has preached or taught anything that I can preach or teach you. I don't go into the Bible looking for new things.

[1:15] I go into the Bible looking for the old things. I go into the Bible looking for the thing that saved me. Folks, I can never be reminded of the Gospel too many times.

[1:28] I like to be reminded of the Gospel. But something to consider as we go through this parable here, me personally, I think that Jesus Christ, all the parables that He spoke, I think that He used actual situations that the people He was speaking to would have been familiar with.

[1:51] Just like the parable that He speaks in this same Gospel, the Gospel of Luke about the rich man and Lazarus. I believe that those, that was an actual event that took place.

[2:03] I believe He was using real people and real things that took place so that the people could relate to them. In Matthew 13, He speaks of string to parables in there.

[2:14] And I believe that He was using situations and people and circumstances that the people would have been able to relate to. The parable, the Good Samaritan, I believe was the same story there.

[2:27] I believe He was using a situation those folks would have been familiar with. I don't think that it's any different here. Here in Luke 15, leading up to the parable of the prodigal son, we've got two other parables here.

[2:42] And we have to consider all three of these parables together. When you look at these parables in Luke 15, you see the first one, a man started out with a hundred sheep.

[2:53] And that man also ended up with a hundred sheep, praise God. In the next parable that He speaks, you see a woman that's got ten coins. And that woman wound up with ten coins, praise God.

[3:05] And you see here in the parable of the prodigal son, that this man started out with two sons. And, hallelujah, He ended up with two sons. This parable speaks to be God, cannot and will not lose what belongs to Him.

[3:20] God cannot do that. If He could do that, if He could lose what truly belongs to Him, He would not be God. That's a God that I serve. He knows where His own are.

[3:32] He knows where they are. He knows what they're doing. He knows what they're into. And God cannot lose that which belongs unto Him. So taking those other two parables that are spoken into consideration, the hundred sheep and the ten coins, we come to this parable of the prodigal son here.

[3:52] So we'll begin in Luke 15, starting at verse 11. And he said, And when he had spent all their rosamodic famine in that land, and he would feign and filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

[4:41] And when he came to himself, he said, How many hard servants of my fathers have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, I am no more worthy to be called thy Son.

[5:00] Make me as one of thy hard servants. And he arose and came to his Father. But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

[5:14] And the Son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son. But the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry.

[5:35] For this my Son was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found, and they began to be merry. And we'll end our reading right there.

[5:46] This won't be preached as I normally do so. This is almost more of a topical top sermon, but I thought the Scripture was appropriate to use in this manner.

[5:59] But here we have the parable that we're all so familiar with, this prodigal son, this prodigal son. He had one brother, he had a father, he goes to his father, and he asked that the father go ahead and give him his inheritance.

[6:16] The father agreed, gave him his inheritance. It says that he went down into a far country, and after he had spent all that he had, that there arose a great famine in the land.

[6:27] That there arose this time of tumult, in the land this time of turmoil, and this woman would not have affected just this man, it would have affected everyone that was around him.

[6:39] This man had nothing left to spend. He couldn't go out and buy his own food. He couldn't go out and purchase things that he needed to sustain himself.

[6:50] And it says that he was perishing with hunger, and that's one of the greatest things about this parable. You see this man, he goes away from the father, he goes out into the far country, and he spends this time with round his living.

[7:04] We know what he was doing while he was down there. He was doing everything but what he should have been doing. He was going everywhere, but where he should have been going, but what drove him back to the father, what caused him to come to himself here?

[7:19] As the father says, the man said, I perish with hunger. This man, he got hungry while he was out there in the far country. He got hungry when he was out there doing what he knew couldn't well.

[7:33] He should not have been doing, and child of God, I tell you now, if you sprained from the father, if you sprained from the one that saved your soul, and you go out into the far country, you go out doing the things that are ungodly, doing the things that you know that the father would disapprove of, sooner or later, you're going to get hungry for what you had back at home.

[8:01] You're going to get hungry for what you know. Only the father can provide, and hallelujah, when you come back to the father, he won't scold, he won't berate you, he won't down you.

[8:15] He'll greet you with open arms, he'll robe you, and he'll say, bring the panic out for this my son, for this my daughter was lost, and now they are bound, they were dead.

[8:31] Praise God, they are now alive. Hallelujah. That's the God that saved me. That's the God that saved my soul from the hell that it deserves.

[8:44] And folks, if we sprain, it don't take much strain. You don't have to go out to the bars and the honky-talks. You don't have to go to the strip clubs, you don't have to start shooting up, or drinking your wave into oblivion.

[8:57] It don't take much strain at all, and you realize that you're missing something. You realize that something is gone from your life that they're, there's something that's not there that was there before.

[9:09] There's something there that only Almighty God can fulfill in your life. It don't take much strain at all to see these things, but hallelujah, the father, he takes us back into his arms, and he takes us back into his own.

[9:24] He takes us into the fold, and he says, this person here at the beginning of the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, hey, if that one sheep goes astray, he'll leave the 99th hall of you, and he'll go out to the mountains, he'll go down into the valleys, he'll cross the rivers, he'll go into the deep dark caves, he'll go anywhere that he thinks that land might be, he won't find that land, put it up upon his back, and take it back to the fold where that lamb belongs.

[9:57] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Amen. This woman here in this other parable, she had 10 coins, chances are that was probably the dowry that came with her.

[10:09] There was 10 coins that were precious to her. They were precious to her, she lost one of them. What did she do though? She didn't say, well, I've still got nine. That's better than eight.

[10:21] She said, I've lost one of these, I must find it. And she swept and she looked, and she looked under every nook and every cranny that she had, and she claimed around. And when she found that 10th coin, hey, she didn't keep it to herself.

[10:35] She called her neighbors, and she called her friends. She said, hey, I found this missing coin here, this father here. He acted in the same manner when the prodigal son came back home.

[10:46] He greeted him with open arms and said, when he saw the son of Barrow, that tells me that the father was right there, watching for his son, knowing that he would come home sooner or later.

[11:00] When he saw him of Barrow, he ran out to him. He threw his arms around. His son would belong to him, and he kissed him, and he loved him. And he said, on that son, Hallelujah, that's a picture of my father.

[11:17] But what we need to consider in all of this, who got the son in that shape? The church is very guilty.

[11:31] And listen, I'm not saying that God isn't solving, God is all solving. God is solving over everything. God has all power. God has ruled over everything.

[11:45] Because I've heard Brother Gern saying, I've heard other people saying, there is not one single rogue molecule in this universe that God does not know about. God knows about it all. He knows about all the planets.

[11:58] He knows about this planet. He knows about the stars. He knows about the sun and the moon. He knows about every grain of dust, every bit of dust that is not only here on earth, but that is floating around in the cosmos somewhere.

[12:10] God is aware of it all, for God created every bit of it. But we get this attitude of, why did God allow this in my life? Why did God allow this to happen?

[12:23] And listen, hey, certain things come in our lives. Certain things, sicknesses come in our lives. Problems come in our lives. We talked about that in Sunday school quite a bit this morning. How storms will come in our lives.

[12:35] How the tempest will roll up. And yes, God allows those things. But sometimes it's just a child of God going out into the world and doing something stupid to get themselves in the mess that they get themselves into.

[12:47] Sometimes, yes, God will allow that to happen. God will allow you to make bad mistakes or make bad decisions. God will allow you to go on your way and make these decisions upon yourself.

[13:00] The scripture is chock full of people that made bad decisions for themselves. But nevertheless, hey, there were still children of God. There were still children of the covenant.

[13:11] You've got Jacob in the Old Testament. He made bad decisions for himself and for his family. You've got Abraham going back farther than Jacob. You've got Abraham making bad decisions for himself and for his family.

[13:25] Abraham called Abraham out of the land of earth and he called him out. And Abraham went up and said, I want you to dwell in this promised land. I want you to dwell in the land of Canaan.

[13:38] Abraham went on his way just as God wanted. But as soon as things got rough and as soon as things got bad, where did you see Abraham going to? He was going down into Egypt somewhere that God never told him to go.

[13:54] And when he got down there, he procured a lot of his problems that he carried with him. On up towards the promised land when time come to leave there.

[14:07] We're all familiar with the account in Genesis. When Abraham, he came back out. He'd done been in Egypt for an extra mile of time while he was down there.

[14:18] He procured livestock. For those livestock, he needed herdsmen, he needed shepherds to go along with him. He procured a handmaiden through a way of Sarah, his wife, and Hagar.

[14:31] And he brought all these things out of Egypt with him. He never should have went to Egypt, folks. He never should have went down that way. He should have trusted just as we should trust, just as I'm guilty of not trusting God as much as I should in certain situations.

[14:47] But he should have trusted in his God. But folks just left way for the prophecy to be fulfilled when God said, I shall call my son a part of Egypt. It is left way for that prophecy to be made over in the book of Hosea and to be fulfilled over in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew.

[15:06] And he said, I call my son half of Egypt. But folks, Abraham's not the only one to bring these problems up with him out of somewhere that he shouldn't have ever been.

[15:17] Like I said, he brought up the herdsmen, he brought up Hagar. And when him and Lord had come to their way and they were trying to go together, but it said that the herdsmen of Abraham and Lord, they couldn't get along and they desired they would split ways.

[15:33] That was a problem that he brought up out of Egypt with him that he never should have had. And he just listened to Almighty God. If we listen to the word of God, folks, he'll keep us out of all kinds of problems.

[15:47] He'll keep us out of all kinds of situations. I've said many times, my goodness, you can just go through the book of Leviticus. Just the book of Leviticus. You'll find how to keep your marriage together.

[15:59] You'll find how to make your finances work better. You'll find how to make your provision work better and to stretch longer. And you'll learn how to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

[16:11] You'll learn all these things in the book of Leviticus and so much more. If we just do what the word of God says, we will be so much better than what we are at now. But we don't want to do that.

[16:24] Another fine example in the Scripture. If someone leaving, leaving the father and going somewhere they shouldn't have been, there was a man named Malimolek, who was married to a woman named Naomi, who were in the book of Ruth.

[16:40] I said they were from Bethlehem, Judah, the house of bread and praise. Bethlehem, Judah. There was a famine that struck. And where did they go? They went to Moab.

[16:52] There was a moab that was pronounced a perpetual enemy of the Israelites. They went to Moab. Why? Because there was a famine in the land.

[17:04] Why did they do that? Because they wouldn't trust in God. Now listen folks, in all honesty, Alim Leke Naomi didn't take their two boys, Malon and Chilio, over to Moab, any different than what I probably would have.

[17:19] Even though I know the promises of God that are within the Scripture, even though I know that God will give me my sustenance, He'll provide for me, He'll give me every bit of provision that I need as far as food, clothing and shelter, goes God, we'll take care of His own hallelujah.

[17:34] Even though I know that though, if there's a famine, if I find myself out into a desert and I'm three, four, five days going through a desert, the first place I find water, that's where I'm going to.

[17:48] Whether I know I'm supposed to be there or not, if it just happens to be a water or a honky tonk, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to get water. The problem was not me going there. If that ever did happen, the problem is me hanging out there.

[18:00] And that was the problem with Naomi and Alim Leke. They went to Moab to escape a famine, but it says they soldiered there. They continued there. According to the Scripture in the Old Testament, the Book of Ruth, they hung out there for a complete decade and in that time, hey, Alim Leke died.

[18:17] In that time, my longed children, all the two sons of Naomi and Alim Leke, they passed away. But then that time they had married two Moab out women. But they went somewhere they should have never been to begin with.

[18:31] The praise God and all of that, God still showed mercy. Just like He did in this prodigal son we read about here in Luke 15. Just like the Father showed mercy to that son.

[18:42] He had every right. This Father in Luke 15 had every right to scold. He had every right to tan the backside of this prodigal son when he came home.

[18:55] Because the prodigal son knew better than to do that. And the same goes for Naomi there in the Book of Ruth. Hey, God had every right to do the same thing with her. He had every right to chastise her in any way that she saw fate.

[19:09] Because I never saw anywhere in that book and it's only four chapters long. But nowhere did I see where Naomi argued against Alim Leke and said, We shouldn't go there. Hey, we're people of the covenant.

[19:21] We're people of the promise. God has promised that He will take care of His own. But nowhere do I read where Alim Leke said that. Nowhere do I read where Naomi said that.

[19:33] But God still showed mercy. And you might say, and this is the problem with a lot of the church. You might say, my goodness, her husband died. A man whose name meant my God is king.

[19:45] Alim Leke, her husband died. Balon Achiliyong died. There are names, sickness and wasting. You're sickness and pining. You see all these things in the Scripture and you say, My goodness, she lost her husband.

[19:58] She lost her sons. How is that God being merciful to her? God was merciful when Naomi got rumored in her ear, got word in her ear. There's bread in Bethlehem.

[20:10] There's bread in the promised land. God is working amongst His people again. God has lifted the famine off of the land. And folks, you also read there at the beginning of the Book of Ruth that the whole story took place in the time of the judges.

[20:25] And the time of the judges was a dark time. It was an evil time. It's a time when there was no king in Israel. And every Israelite done that which they thought was right in their own eyes.

[20:37] That's what was going on in the Book of Ruth. Alim Leke and Naomi, they done what was right in their own eyes. The calm was still merciful to them. He was still merciful.

[20:48] He was still merciful to Naomi. She said, he took her husband, he took her children, her two sons. He left her a widow, he left her a true biblical widow.

[20:59] She had no one to take care of her. Even though she had two young daughters in law there. She said, I'm going to go back to Bethlehem. And she told her daughters in law, Ruth and Orpah. She said, y'all go back to your own God.

[21:10] She'd go back to your own families. You go back to your own ways. I'm going home to Bethlehem. And Orpah kissed Ruth. And she went on her way going back to her own family. But praise God, the Bible says that Ruth claved to her mother-in-law.

[21:23] It says that she claved unto Naomi. Don't tell me Naomi, even though she said that the hand of the Lord was against her. And even though when she got back to Bethlehem, she said, the Lord has dealt bitterly with me.

[21:37] Even though these things didn't happen, she had still been alive and a witness to somebody in that household. Ruth claved unto her and she said, I will go wherever you go.

[21:48] Your people will be my people and your God, my God. That's the witness that Naomi had been to Ruth. So when Naomi got back to Bethlehem, she came into town and everybody recognized Naomi.

[22:04] She said, don't call me Naomi. Naomi means pleasant. Don't call me Naomi. She said, call me Mara, for the Lord that dealt bitterly with me. Mara being the same name that was given to the place of sweet or bitter waters that the Israelites found when God delivered them up out of Egypt.

[22:23] The folks I'm saying all this to make a point, just because you're going through a hard time doesn't mean God brought that hard time into your life. And it doesn't mean you've committed or anyone else has committed a certain sin to bring that into their life.

[22:39] That's a huge problem within the church nowadays. Somebody will be going through a problem. Somebody coming to the church and they're like, hey, I found out Monday that I've got cancer. I've got three months to live and half the church wants to look at them and say, well, what sin did you commit?

[22:55] And folks, that's not the case. That's not the case. Now listen, God punishes individuals. Yes, God punishes nations. Yes, and one of these days God is going to punish the entire world.

[23:07] Yes, but just because someone's facing adversity in their life does not mean that they are being punished by sin. Hey, maybe it's just like the blind man over in John chapter nine when the disciples asked Jesus Christ.

[23:19] They said, what sin has this man committed or his parents committed that he was born blind and Jesus said he is committed. No sin, but he's in the shape that he's in. That's a God that your God might be glorified.

[23:31] Amen. I'm not in the shape of the children or I might get the shape that I might get in that God be glorified. Not because of sin, not because of any specific thing that I've done, but that God might get the glory.

[23:45] The very reason if you're sitting here safe, the very reason you're sitting here safe is for and to the glory of God. There's nothing to do with whether you're a good guy or a good gal or a good boy or a good girl.

[23:58] It has to do with God bringing glory unto himself. If you're sitting here born again, you've been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. God didn't do it for your benefit. God done it because he's the God of the universe and everything that the God of the universe is good and it is just and it is right.

[24:17] He can do no wrong. If you're sitting here safe, it's certainly not because God messed up. It's because God looked on you in compassion and mercy.

[24:30] Just like this father looked on his son when he came back home in compassion and mercy. God looked on Abraham in compassion and mercy even though Abraham went where he was shouldn't have went and done things that he shouldn't have done.

[24:44] God still had compassion and mercy on him. Why? God made a promise to Abraham. Going back to the book of Ruth again. Naomi was part of the covenant people with God.

[24:56] She was in the lineage of Abraham. Abraham had received a promise. That promise began in Genesis 3 and it continued on. Again, we talked about that this morning in Sunday school just a little bit.

[25:08] How that God had promised that there will be a king that would come and he would reign forever from the throne of David. That's what the Jews were looking for. Hey, this woman Naomi, don't you think for a moment that she had an easy life from the time that Boaz and Ruth got married?

[25:24] By the time that the end of the book goes around, Boaz married Ruth. Yes, after the kinsman that was nearer than he was, after he bowed out of his part of what he should have been doing, of his responsibility.

[25:37] Boaz married Ruth and it was not, though, a happily ever after situation and neither will your life be. It wasn't happily ever after for Naomi. It wasn't for Boaz and Ruth.

[25:51] But we like to think of it that way. Why? Because that's what our minds want. Don't you think for a moment, remember Naomi had lost both of her sons. Don't you think for one moment that the grandson that Naomi had by Boaz and Ruth, they didn't cross her mind. It's not really my grandson.

[26:10] She wasn't kind to, Boaz wasn't her son. Ruth wasn't really her daughter. Don't think for a moment that they didn't cross her mind. Don't think for a moment that she didn't think along those lines.

[26:24] The folks, even though she had the grandson that they had opened, they had Jesse and they had David, I'm down the line. She had her faith in a promised one.

[26:37] The same one that was promised in Genesis 3, the same one that was promised to Abraham and all the Israelite people. The same one that God told Abraham, he said, through your seed, through your law, all the world and all the nations will be blessed.

[26:51] Naomi's hope was in a son, but it wasn't the son of Jesse named David. It was the son of a son that was born to her a thousand years after that fact.

[27:02] It was in the son Jesus Christ, the same hope that I have and the same hope that the entire world has. Naomi just didn't realize that. She just knew she was holding on to the promise.

[27:14] She didn't know his name would be Jesus. She had no clue. She knew where her hope was and it was in God. It was in a God that was merciful. It was in a God that was compassionate. It was into a God that shed this mercy on her.

[27:26] Even though she said, the Lord's hand has turned against me. After she had basically pronounced blessing on the orphan Ruth over in Ruth chapter one. She said, Lord be with you. Lord hands turned against me.

[27:40] Lord hand hadn't turned against her. But she had gotten herself into a mess. But God, in all of his providence and God, in all of his sovereignty, was dragging her out of the mess that she and Lema-Lek had gotten into.

[27:53] That's the God that I serve. If I get myself into a mess, God might let me swim around in it for a little while. God might let me just taste those waters just to see how bitter they are and see how wretched they are.

[28:07] But folks sooner or later, I'm going to get hungry. A true blue born again, child of God will get hungry again for the things of God. And when they go home, God will greet them.

[28:20] God will greet them with open arms. And hallelujah, I'm glad that's the God that I serve. Now, all this being said, anybody sitting here all off this morning, you don't know what I'm talking about.

[28:33] You don't know what I'm talking about. You don't have the Father that I do. You might have a Father. You might have a mother. But you don't have a Savior.

[28:45] None of your blood and blood tension can save you. But you can have the same Savior that I do. How so? By repenting of your ways and by believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[28:59] You believe in the man that was speaking this parable here in Luke chapter 15. You believe in the one that was born of a virgin, the one that was prophesied in the Old Testament, was born of a virgin, lifted perfect, sinless, and holy life.

[29:13] Never once offended man before God and thought word or deed. He lived a perfect life. The Bible says no God was ever found in his mouth. This same man went to a tree on a hill called Golgotha, and he became sin there for us.

[29:27] That we might become the sons and the righteousness of Almighty God. He bore your sin. He bore your iniquity. Hallelujah. He bore your shame. He bore your guilt. And he done the same for me.

[29:40] This is the cross of the Scriptures. This is the cross that you must believe. And you must repent of your ways. And if you do this, thou shalt be saved. Praise God.

[29:51] Amen. Praise the Lord. That's the way of the salvation. Not through me, not through anyone in here, but through the Lord Jesus Christ, through the way that Almighty God made before the foundations of the world were ever laid.

[30:05] Before this universe was ever spoken into existence, God knew what you would be. And he knew what I would be. And he knew we would be wretched sinners. And he knew we would be incapable of saving ourselves. That's why he said, I'll give myself. He said, I'll send my son.

[30:20] He can be the perfect sacrifice. But praise God, not only is he the perfect sacrifice, he's the perfect high priest as well. In the Old Testament, the high priest had to perform the sacrifice.

[30:31] And they're the ones that had to pour the blood in the basin at the altar. They're the ones that had to put it on the horns of the altar. They're the ones that had to do the things. Hey, my Jesus, not only was he the sacrifice, but he was also the high priest. And he is the high priest that I have.

[30:46] The high priest that I have that has been touched with my infirmities. He knows everything that I can go through. He knows every pain that I can have. He knows every thought that I can have when the tolls of this world and the tolls of this life come against me and they're dragging me down.

[31:03] Hey, Jesus Christ knows all about it. He knows where it's like to be sculpted. He knows where it's like to be hated. He knows what it's like to be abandoned. He knows what it's like to be killed in hallelujah.

[31:17] He knows what it's like to be resurrected and I will be died and be resurrected one of these days just like he was. Hallelujah. He knows all these things. He knows all these things.

[31:32] He was resurrected just this morning. We have not a high priest. It can be touched by our infirmities. He knows all about him. He knows all about you. He knows all about me. I lost friend if you're here.

[31:45] He knows all about you too. He knows all about you. You're not the one that I'm reading about here in this parable.

[31:56] You're not the one that I'm reading about here if you're here lost. You're not the one that I'm reading about. Who left the father and went out into the world and came back to the father.

[32:08] If you're here lost, you've never known the father. You've never known him. But you can repent. You can believe the gospel. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. That's the message for this morning.

[32:19] Here to tell you.