One Lost Son!

It was a school for the children. It was a place where they would come together and have communal meals together. It could act as a courtroom if there was a serious bit of litigation going on. It would act as a hostel if there was any kind of a challenge, like Joseph and Mary arriving in Bethlehem and couldn’t find a place to stay. They didn’t go apparently and check out the synagogue, but if they had, they would have been welcomed. Yes, you’re welcome. Come in here and find shelter tonight. In my research, I discovered that it is believed by New Testament theologians that likely when Paul the Apostle would go to a brand new community, the first place he would

go would be the synagogue. That’s where the Jewish believers would be. And most likely he would be looking to the local rabbi, the teacher, the elder of that synagogue to invite them. Why don’t you stay here for the night if there isn’t another opportunity? So it was a hostel where people could lodge for the night. It was a place where it would be a collection center. If there was a need for charity, if there was a need for socks and gloves and mittens and touques, which are all on the balcony ready for distribution next week, and we’ll tell you more about that. So it would be a collection place and a distribution place for those who might be in need.

It was a place for the public reading of God’s Word. Besides the public reading of the Lord’s Word, and I went to some extent talking with the people who’ve been here for a little bit. There was not only the, I’m going to call it the podium, but the place of biblical honor where the Pentateuch. That’s Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, otherwise known by the Jewish people as the Torah. It would be read from the sacred desk. But then there were also other articles. There were other scrolls, scriptures that were available that had been collected on scrolls, the words of different prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel, and so on.

So there would be collections there. Now, where did the scrolls come from? They would have come from the scribes who would go to the Jewish kosher butcher and get the hides from beef, from cattle, and the hides would be thoroughly cleansed. They’d be soaked in water for some time, and they were scraped with the hair, scraped off, soaked and prepared in a very special way, clean, clean, cleaned, and this would comprise the place where they could write the scriptures. The scribes were the ones who would inscribe on the scrolls, which were big leather. I found one place where some of the scrolls would have been as much as 72 feet long, 72 feet long, just the Pentateuch. 

And great, this is important, not like, why are you telling us this day, but you can just read the scribes and the Pharisees who are upset. We’re going to get there. The deliberation of preparing these scrolls was incredible. The scribes were kind of like the local lawyers, and they were very, very astute in their knowledge of the Word of God. No one better to translate and not translate, but rewrite the words of God on the script. And whenever they were going to write the name of the Lord, God would be the name of the Lord, God, Jehovah, they would first have to bathe and cleanse their entire body before they could write the name Jehovah on the parchment, on the leather script. And when they were finished writing the name of Jehovah, they had to go, and again, they had to wash themselves and cleanse themselves.

Such was the duty of the scribes, because you see, the Word of God was absolutely essential. It was the focal point of the people. It’s all part of this first verse where the scribes and the Pharisees got upset because you see, there was another thing that was in the synagogue besides the pulpit, the podium, the place where the holy scriptures were read, only by somebody who would be ordained, ordered, authorized to do so. There was also a chair that was put there, usually made of stone, and it was called the seat of Moses. Now the seat of Moses was not for the reading of the scripture, but the one who would read the scripture to us would then sit in the chair, the seat of authority, the seat of Moses.

Why was it called the seat of Moses? Because the Pentateuch of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were given to us by Moses. So it was now the responsibility then of the reader, the teacher who often was known as a rabbi, could have been a priest. He would now occupy the chair over here. Why wouldn’t he do so from over here? Because over here was the specific Word of God, letter by letter. There were over 300,000 little letters comprising the penitent as it was written out on the scroll. It’s an incredible thing what they went through to make sure the lines were perfect.

I will bore you with the details. I love getting into that kind of stuff. How do they get the line straight? Whatever. It’s an amazing story. So the chair on the side was for the reader, the elder, the priest, and the rabbi to take the chair and say, now here’s what Moses meant. Here’s the interpretation. Here’s how we are to apply it to our everyday life. The interesting thing is that the Pharisees and the scribes believed that the oral presentation was of equal value to the original readings, the original Word of God.

Where did these ideas come from in this chair on the side? It was a collection of ideas that we would call theology. We can read the Word of God and come to an understanding that Jesus is the eternal one. We would come to that conclusion by selectively reading through the Word of God and finding references to the coming Messiah, the prophecies that were fulfilled, and so on. And from all of that, we would come to a conclusion where we could say, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God because I read in the Word of God. This and Isaiah, this here, this there, and then therefore we would put together our theology. Now following on from our understanding of theology, how now shall we then live? How shall we live? And every rabbi, every teacher could present his case, his concept of what that verse means

and how we’re to live it out. Another teacher, if I find a 10-cent coin on the street, am I obliged to tie that? Like it’s just a dime I found. And one rabbi would say, you get yourself right down to the 7-11 and you get it changed to 10 pennies and you with swiftness get to the temple and put that penny in. You’re supposed to tie everything. Another rabbi would say, well, that’s just getting a little carried away, isn’t it? If I wrote pineapples, am I supposed to take 10% of the pineapple low to give it? And so one rabbi would say handle it this way, another rabbi would handle it this way. Now the Word of God is so strict. They shall not, they shall not do any labor on the Sabbath day.

Help us, rabbi. What does that mean? Am I allowed to prepare a meal on the Sabbath day? Working over a hot stove and working hard and mixing up the batter and making your favorite muffins, that’s work. You are not allowed. Can I go and fetch water from the well? Nay nay, that’s work. In fact, on the Lord’s Day, this fellow would interpret it as working is walking. And you’re not allowed to walk any more than three kilometers. Another rabbi would say, that’s foolishness.

You should be allowed to walk five kilometers. Here’s the interesting thing whatever the teacher told you, as he was interpreting the Word, whatever he taught you, the oral traditions, that was as factual as the biblical words that God gave to Moses. The challenge is that these guys are all over the planet in what they want you to understand and what they want you to believe. By the time Jesus came among the people, the Pharisees who were the ones who were, they weren’t as political as the Sadducees. The Sadducees were quite political in their ways, but the Pharisees regarded themselves as the pinnacle of understanding what divine truth was implying. They saw themselves as the most reliable interpreter of the Word of God.

And if you wanted to be a rabbi, you best really saddle up and become best friends with the Pharisees because they’re the boys who know the truth. Interesting, that the Pharisees, along with the scribes, who were the true understanders of the Word of God, decided from their lofty chair what was acceptable, and whatever they decided was acceptable, that is what would be acceptable. So you have to realize then that by the time Jesus comes along, the Pharisees have a very distinct opinion about the non-Farisees. And, if you were not a member of the Pharisees, and even if you were not among them, it was kind of like you vote Republican or Democrat, if you were not a member of one of those parties and understandably so, you were called the people of the land. That’s what these guys decided to call you.

You’re just the people of the land. You’re not like them. You are the elite people. We know how you should think. We know how you should act. And if you don’t agree with us, you’re under the judgment of God because God has thoroughly appointed us. And by the way, they believe that everything about your life was kind of divinely ordered and you were children of fate. So if you find somebody sick along the side of the road, it’s God’s will. I’m sitting in this chair, it’s God’s will, sorry about you.

Sorry, you find yourself in such a rough estate. David, what’s that got to do with verse one? It’s coming. Wait for it. So you see what they crafted also to help you not break the Sabbath, not to be chopping wood to make a fire, not to, they actually came up with additional laws on top of Moses laws and they called them the fence laws. So you see what was inside the fence. This is their thoughts. What is inside the fence, which is the pure Word of God, the dictates and the commands of the Lord?

That is what’s truly sacred. But in order to keep you from even coming, even close to breaking the Sabbath, even coming close to doing something wrong, they created the fence laws, fences that would keep you even from getting too close. So when does the Sabbath begin? It begins at six o’clock on Friday evening. Oh, so everybody’s watching your watch. Quick, quick, quick, we’re going to go. And if you didn’t get your job done by six o’clock and you want one minute over, like it was on mortal sin. So to prevent you from getting too close, what if your sundial, what if the shade tree was throwing off your sundial? 

So what they did is they created a fence law. So inside the fence was God’s perfect law. They put a fence around the fence so that you didn’t even get close to it. And that also was an oral traditional law, which was equal to the written law. Going on, these people who were the people of the land, yeah, they’re Jews. Yeah, they’re from around us. But they’re not of us. They actually formed a mental and it became more than mental. It became an obvious barrier between the Pharisees and the have-nots. And it was oddly nobody of a Pharisee family of a Pharisee line.

One of them would forbid their daughters to have anything to do with the sons of the people of the land. We don’t marry those people. They’re not good people. They are not among the chosen. You like that, Pastor? We went to watch the chosen last night. Did you go last night? The oxygen left the room at the very, very last act. I sat beside Elle. He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t get off his chair. He just said, wow, wow, I can hear him hyperventilating. You’ve got to see this thing. And here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. The Pharisees or the chosen people, if you’re not sure of that, just ask them or you don’t have to ask them, just watch them. They don’t want to live on the same street. They don’t want to breathe the same air. You’re not from among us. And so for you to let your Pharisee daughter marry a young fellow from the land, that’s

like tying her up and throwing her to the lions. That’s a disgusting thing. And your family would fall into disrepute because you allowed your youngster to marry outside the proper clan. So my whole life was a form of regulation. And a man is one of the people of the land, don’t trust him. Don’t loan him any money. Take no testimony of him. If there has to be a court case, there has to be something deliberated. And this, well, here’s a fellow. He’s one of the land people, but he saw the murder take place.

We don’t trust anything he says. You could not get a person of the land, just a normal Jewish person. You couldn’t get him into a courtroom because he’d be scoffed at and chased out. Even if there was a jury there, they would discredit his testimony because he’s not one of us. Verse one is starting to make sense, isn’t it? All the tax collectors and the sinners, why are the tax collectors aligned with the sinners? You have to watch the movie called The Chosen and you’ll understand what the tax collectors were all about. For the most part, they were Jews who sided with the Romans and betrayed the Jews in order

to collect the taxes. They were ruthless. They were horrendous. They were horrible people. The Pharisees hated them. All the people feared them. Clearly, they were scoundrels. They’re all to take all your money. They’re going to tax you again. They’re going to quadruple your taxes at the pump next week. Well, the tax collectors, the sinners drew near to Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes

complained. Why? This guy claims to be a servant of the Lord. Look who he’s spending time with. Don’t take any custom, don’t take any stories from them. We’re having a canned goods fundraiser. We’re going to meet at the Mennonite Church this week, but only Pharisees are welcome. We don’t want your dirty money and we don’t want your clothes. We don’t want you, we’re doing a collection of clothes for the charity, but we don’t want your clothes because, well, you know, you didn’t get them at a kosher dress shop.

Pharisees were forbidden to be the guest of honor. He was forbidden so far as it was possible, forbidden to act out any business with the people who were not of your group. It was a deliberate, Phariseical aim to avoid every contact with these filthy people because those people do not observe the petty laws. Those people are trying to live by the Moses law, but clearly, they don’t show up. They don’t pay attention to what we teach them. They’re not worthy. And if you were to come contact them in some way, shape, or form, you were considered defiled. You would never shake their hand. You would go, never know, go near them.

You don’t want to buy something from a baker who’s not one of your tribe because that loaf of bread has been defiled because that man doesn’t live according to our rituals. So you see, we’ll understand the parables. We’ll understand what Jesus is saying better if we understand who these people were. And we’ll also start to understand why these people were so disgruntled that Jesus was sitting down with the nonce, clearly they’re sinners. Well, they’re sinners to begin with because they’re not Pharisees. And so Jesus responds with three parables. But in fact, I want to bring this to your attention. The three parables have really a singular theme. All three stories are designed to bring you to one focal point.

The first story is about a shepherd with a hundred sheep and he loses one. And what ends he goes to try and retrieve the sheep. The second story is about a lady with ten loonies. And she loses one and she has a nervous breakdown over it. And she searches until she finds it. The third story is about a father, who doesn’t have a hundred sons or a hundred sheep. No, one. Ten. No. He’s only got two sons and one of them goes missing. Interesting hundred sheep, ten coins, two sons.

Between today and next week, I’ll try and unfold. The buzzword these days is unpack. If you’re watching any of these teachers on TV or whatever, I’m going to unpack for you what this says. Well, okay, I’ve got to be a buzz guy. I’m going to try and unpack Luke chapter 15 for all of us. So I’m going to skip about the sheep. I’m going to skip about the coins today. That’ll come back. I’m going to talk about the sun. A sun who got lost.

Why did these elements get lost? Why did the, why did sheep get lost? It got hungry. Bad, bad sheep. You’re bad. You ran away, you nasty little rascal, you, you’re a dirty little ratter. The shepherd goes to find him. Why did the coin get lost? Because it was inanimate. It wasn’t looking for something to eat. It was out of control entirely.

And it probably got lost because somebody fumbled. Somebody wasn’t careful. It was owned by a lady who cherished it. And I’ll talk more about the coins even next week because I’ve done a lot of delving into it. I’ve heard some of my thoughts along these lines. But I ain’t done. The sun, one of two, what we can ascertain by reading this story, and we don’t want to go overboard on this, but I think that the dad was a very wealthy fellow. We think he was pretty wealthy. And he plans flocks, animals, and maybe some coins in the backyard.

It was Jewish, not tradition, but it was biblical going back to the Pentateuch that the firstborn was always to be the highest honored of the number of children in the family. And boys, it wasn’t the girls. So sorry, ladies. But listen in, ladies, anyhow, but the firstborn, if it was a son, he was in for it. This is going to be good because the first, so when daddy was about to organize the allotment of the inheritance of what he had gathered and he’s going to give it to his children, the sons that is, he would divide up enough portion. Let’s say he had 10 sons. He would divide all of his inheritance for the kids to be handed up. He divided it into 11 equal portions, 11 because the first son got two portions and everybody else got one. 

Now, if you want to favor another son somewhere along the way, okay. So the first son was highly, highly honored and he would be chosen not only to be the guardian of 20% of dad’s belongings, but he also had the spiritual responsibility to oversee the family so that if one of the cousins got out of the line, it was his responsibility to go to one of his brothers, whatever, deal with the uncles and say, you know what, your son is bringing our whole family in just to repute. Daddy gave me the responsibility to be the spiritual overseer. And in Abraham’s case, to be the first son of Abraham, and we all know that story, the first son was not a story, was not a son of faith. It was not a son whom God had provided, but it was through Hagar’s relationship with

Abraham. And that was, that was kind of a messy attempt at helping the Lord out. So the Lord chose Isaac to be the firstborn in God’s eyes. So the firstborn always got more. So then in this story, now we have the older son and then we have another son who was a little bit younger. So the older son was already in for two-thirds of his father’s inheritance. The younger son was the obviously reckless fellow. He was obviously rebellious. So he came to his father, you know the story. I want my third and I’m not waiting for you to die.

I want it now. And this was an ugly thing. And I can tell you right now that the Pharisees standing listening to the story now, as Jesus is telling it, the story, the Pharisees’ blood is starting to boil, the hypertension, you know, the high blood pressure was starting to arrive. If I had a son like that, I’d kill him. I wouldn’t help him whatsoever. And they would have been destroyed right to the core as Jesus said. So the father obliged him. Now how difficult would it be to oblige a son when obviously all of your assets were not in gold coins, buried under an old mattress, but you would wisely have invested your assets into land and animals? He’s now got to figure out a third of all that he owns. He had to put up a real estate sale, an auction sale, whatever. I’m second-guessing this. The son was demanding I want my third and I want it now. So it was a huge challenge and the Pharisees were doing a burn. When Jesus said, this particular father granted the son’s wish and he gave him a third and the son ran off and he goes to a far town, not so far away. We have no idea how far he went. It wasn’t forever and I have an idea that that son’s lifestyle, the stories, and the rumors, I think they got back to the dead.

In fact, like any small town, you sneeze outside our front door, and at least 10 neighbors or a yell “gesundheit”. You tell somebody a secret, right here, and race over to food-land and somebody’s already talking about your secret. It’s the grapevine. So the grapevine would have made its way back and the people in the dad’s location would have been talking about it. So when he would go into the local coffee shop to sit down and have a cup of coffee, everything would kind of go quiet because everybody in that coffee shop was aware of what that son had done. Number one, he forces Dad into giving him a third of all.

The Scribes would say, he’s in the next town and he’s blowing it. He’s down to the casino. He’s repping it all off. He’s spending it on wine and women and song. If I had a kid like that, I’d kill him. This is terrible. So unique, such a unique story. We all know that people talk like that. If I had a son like that. Well, maybe you don’t have a son like that. And what would you do really if you had a son like that? How you would respond to your son has everything to do with who you are, who you are.

We have a son. Some of you know him because I had him in this pulpit. How long ago was it a year and a half ago? Doesn’t matter. His name is David Jr. And so the national office gets the forest mixed up. He’s David Forest Reverend. I’m David Forest Reverend. And if they don’t get us mixed up, they mix them. They mix us up with Don Forest. He’s my brother.

So D Forest doesn’t work if you’re at a conference and you’re voting. They’re told, don’t use the initial, please. There was a certain time I remember saying, now, if you’re voting for one of the Richardsons, please write out which one do you mean. Cindy Richardson is here today. So we have a son, David Jr. He was a typical boy, I suppose. If he’s listening in today, David, turn it off. Don’t listen. You’re not going to like what you’re going to hear today. He was a typical boy. And years later, he told us he said, you knew nothing. You didn’t know when you were pastoring the Toronto Church and we were living in Richmond Hill. He said, you didn’t know I was on the bus and or the, you know, the subways. He said I was downtown all the time. He got into all kinds of stuff. We have no idea, and he says, I’m not going to tell you. So why did you even tell me that much? He just put me on edge.

But I guess he was a real rascal. And we did start to see some things based on the music he was attending himself to. Now I was very traditional. I did one part of all of this rock and roll stuff and it’s not coming in the church. And I made the mistake of buying them a setting of drums. Oh, what was and he got very, very good at the drums. He got exceptionally good at it. It’s too long a story, of course. But April and I sat down and we talked and we agreed that we were seeing things with the eyes that were troubling us. David was starting to wear garments.

He was starting to wear some of the trademarks of rebellious young people. I won’t go down the line of what it was. He didn’t have shrapnel all embedded in his face or anything like that. But he was tending toward that way and it was a, it was, it was a worrisome thing to us. We tried to give him a decent bedroom in the house. It was a several-bedroom house. No, he wanted to live in the basement. He called it the cave. His hockey equipment was down there. I’d go down to check on him and I could hear the hockey equipment growling at me.

He never got it washed. The kid just wanted a sleeping bag. He didn’t want to have to make his bed. Easy to roll up a sleeping bag and chuck it in the corner. The kid loved mice, brought some mice home from the field and a couple of them got away. Then one evening I heard my wife screaming at the top of a, one of the mice was chasing around in the girls’ bedroom. I had to go in and I had, April said, we’re not staying here tonight. You get rid of that mouse. The thing was living in the heating ducts, whatever. I can’t go in.

She says we’re not staying in this house. And so, thought something we realized the mouse was under the bed. I told the kids to get up on the bed and start bouncing when I told you, I’ll catch him. I didn’t catch him. He got up my bad leg, okay? And he got up near a very, very delicate spot and I killed him right there. This is what it’s like to raise his son. If I had a son like that, well, I did. I did. So on one occasion, we kind of, got super seriously worried. We didn’t like the kids he was hanging out with.

And we just felt that he was drifting from his spiritual moorings. And I remember going down to the cave, sitting down beside him on his water bed. The thing never stopped moving. I said, Davey, we have to talk. He rolled over kind of like propped himself on his elbow like, you know, go ahead and make my day Clint East with the second. What all you have, Dad? I said, I don’t like, I don’t like the way you’re going. What do you mean by that? I said, I really don’t know. I said, it’s a dad’s intuition and your mom’s intuition’s a half, half a mile ahead of

mine. I said, we’re sensing it, we’re seeing it. And I started to cry. I said I will not lose my son. You’re not going to lose me, Dad. I said I am. You’re losing your grip on what I perceive to be reality. And I’m losing my grip on you. And to be honest with you, son, I’m losing my grip on what I think is my ministry. So I said, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. I said, if I don’t see an immediate change, I mean swift immediate.

I don’t want promises. I don’t want you to tell me what you’re going to do. I want you to show me. And if you don’t, I will resign from the church. I can’t stand up in the pulpit and tell these people how wonderful it is to serve the Lord and what it does for your family. And I’ve got a son that’s carrying on like you are like you’re heading down that. I said, he said, you wouldn’t do that. And I said, don’t push the button, but I said, I will quit. Your dad will be unemployed. And I’m crying as I’m saying it.

I wasn’t brutal. I was hurting. I was broken. And it was a God moment when he rolled off of that bed. And he took me in his arms on the floor. And for that few moments, my son took on the role of a caregiver and father. He wept. We wept together. And I’m blubbering away and I’m saying, you know, I remember when I took you to the altar of the church and I committed you to the Lord and said, Lord, take his life and use him. However, you want to. I said, seeing you going the way that you’ve been going, my dreams are shattered. And I said, my dreams are narrow. They’re not horrendous. They’re not horrible. I said, my dreams are reality. They’re biblical. They’re spiritual. They’re real. I have the heart of an ordinary Dad and you’re breaking my heart. It’s good Dad. It’s going to be OK.

It’s going to be OK. I know I’m touching some nerves today. I know some of you pretty well. I know some of you are being crushed by what I’m saying today. But I do hope that when I get to the conclusion, which should come forthrightly, I trust that you’ll be encouraged still. If I had a son like that, if I had a son that, that was going that way. I see the dad as the son who has this big bag of money. He didn’t have a credit card. Can you imagine the amount of money that kid was carrying? Can you imagine even his dad would have had to give him a couple of donkeys to carry it?

I’m not making this up. It would have been if the dad was wealthy, they didn’t have a $1,000 bill. I don’t know how they would have done it, but it would have been quite a challenge. And as the boy is going out the gate and walking off the estate, I see a broken-hearted dad standing there watching. There goes my dream. All that I hoped for, all that I dreamed for, success in money, success in gathering lands, but now I feel like a failure, and that dad was totally wasted. Besides that, the chatter, he’d go to the food land to pick up a loaf of bread and somebody said, heard about your son. I really feel bad.

No, they didn’t. They wanted some of the gooey stuff. Tell me some more. People can get desperately kind. Sorry to hear about your son. No, they weren’t because this man was living amongst a lot of people who were not unlike the Pharisees. So your son has left the tribe and he’s gone to live with the people of the land. You must be devastated. You know, at the end of each of one of these little stories, Jesus said, all heaven rejoices when one is saved.

Do you know what the Pharisees, quiet little talk would be when they were together? I would rejoice when one of them is cast into the eternal lake of fire. They were looking for redemption. They live for judgment. We need to be careful as the people of God. We don’t judge. It’s so easy to judge. A pastor’s wife complained to her husband, I know the pastor. I know the wife. They’re both deceased. But at her dinner table who had such a powerful influence on my life, she said, David, God’s going to call you into the ministry someday. I said I don’t want to hear about that. I was so rebut. No, I don’t want to hear it. She said, he is, he is, he is. And she said, and when he does. I want you to remember this, David, you’re going to find yourself disappointed with people in your church. And you’re going to get very disappointed with the people in the community, in the village, the town, wherever you are because they’re going to come against you because you’re conservative and because you’re Christian and you can’t be trusted.

Those religious people. But then the people who are liable to hurt you the most are the people in God’s house. Because she said they will disappoint you, David, and you’ve got to have tough skin and you’ve got to get past it. They drove nails into his hands. And he said, Father, forgive them. They don’t understand. And she told me this story at her dinner table. It was she and I alone, my pastor’s wife. And she said I was complaining to Alan. What’s wrong with these people?

They’re so unkind. You judge us. Alan, you work so hard. I work so hard. And they’re harming us. They’re harming us. I hope that God will judge them. And she said, my husband looked up at me and said, Pauline, who made you the secretary of heaven? He said, tell me, sweetie, have they plucked the beard out of your face? Have they spit on you?

Have they hung you on a cross? Meek it. They haven’t done that to you, sweetheart. And Jesus said if you want to follow me, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. Follow my footsteps. We mustn’t be judgmental, but the Pharisees sure were. And you know what really turned them filled with fire was when the sun came to himself. That’s what the scripture says. King James. He came to it.

He came to a realization. He reasoned some things out. Said, this is stupid. I’m penniless. And the peasantry who worked for my father are doing better than me. And he said in his own mind, I’m going to go home and I’m going to say to my father, I don’t deserve to be forgiven. I don’t blame you if you write me out of your will now. We already got his portion. You can disown me. Call me a loser if you want to because I don’t deserve anything better than being called a loser.

I’m a horrible wicked person and I have hurt your name and I have been in the process of denying your faith. But I’ve come to my senses. I’ve realized I’m wrong. So don’t do anything special. Just let me work out and live with the hired hands. Who knows what the Pharisees were thinking when they heard this part of the story? They’re starting to get a little nervous. And as the sun’s coming home, Jesus says, the daddy’s out there watching for him. I believe that Daddy was out there every day. I believe is out there every day when we decided to go into the evangelistic ministry and travel full time when they got rid of our house and we had to do something about little Brandy our pet doggy. Melanie Jane, the owner of you,  listen to this Melanie, stop breathing fire. You’ve got to forgive me. Over 50 years of age, you can forgive me by now. But we had a pastor from a Newfoundland pastor visiting us and their kids fell in love with our dog. They stayed with us for a couple of days. Cal Anthony, they fell in love with our dog. Well, we had watched as our little dog since Mimi, our daughter, had gone off to Bible school when the school bus would come along and stop at the end of our driveway because our place was kind of like a stop-off. Kids got off and went to that house, kids got off and our Mimi got off the bus and came into our house. That little dog every day sat at the end of the driveway and watched the bus come. Little Brandy was there, she never drank alcohol, little Brandy was sitting there waiting for Mimi. Her little dog had a broken heart. So we gave her away to the Anthony’s and they loved it because her kids fell in love with that dog. The dog is that committed. How much more a Dad who loves his son and just can’t let go?

He was up there every day not watching for a yellow bus but he was out there watching for a form that he would recognize and all of a sudden that daddy’s eyes lit up and said, there he is. I’ve been praying for him to come home. Here we go. How come he didn’t send a posse and drag him back because that doesn’t work that way, honey. That sinner has to come to their own senses. You can’t drag him to the altar and if you do you better shoot him before he leaves because he’s going to backslide. It had to be a God thing and listen to Mom and Dad and Grandpas and Grandmas, it’s going to take the Holy Spirit. The best thing you can do is don’t go to the Vara and drag him home. Get on your knees because God, hence your prayer, you sowed gospel seed and that seed is incorruptible. The seed never dies. It’s going to germinate and it’s going to bring life and God’s going to work a miracle. You hang on to that. Hang on to it. I determined not to show today and I’m going to keep to that. When the sun arrived, oh, I got to finish. I got one minute left.

When the son arrived, that‘s a minute I’ve imposed on myself, and I get to break the rules. When the son arrived the dad was beside himself and the son basically said, hey, hey, hey, settle down. I don’t think you even call him father because you see, he felt unworthy and this is the process of salvation. If a person just gives in to a cunning, emotional, evangelistic, alter appeal and they’re not smitten in their heart, recognizing, I have failed God. There has to be remorse because remorse leads to repentance. So the boy coming home was in remorse. He was repentant. But he also still had a plan.

That’s the thing about rebellion. They always have a plan. He said, Dad, you didn’t call him dad. He said, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, just a minute, just a minute. He said, just relax. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy. Dad said, no, no, no, you’re worth it. No, no, no, no, I’m not. Hey, hey, and the dad saying, kill the fatted calf. My Boy has returned, bring him water. The kid stinks. I want to do this. The son said wrong. and said, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Father continues, yeah, I’m throwing a party. Please don’t throw a party. Don’t do that to me. And I hear the dad saying, listen, boy, when you left, you went to party town. You party your life away. You partied and partied. And I wept and I wept. My weeping is over. My son has come home. This is my party. And you know what the Dad’s attitude was? It’s my party. And if you don’t want to come, that’s fine. It’s my party. I love him like you do. This is my story. No, it’s not. It’s not your story, honey.

It’s his story. I’m glad the day I found Jesus. You found spit. I pursued Jesus. You did not. You stunk like a skunk. He had to come to you. By grace are we saved. And that’s a gift of God. It’s by faith and even faith to receive him. It’s the gift of God. You had your party. It’s time for me to have mine. There was joy in the camp. The Pharisees were frothing at the mouth. They didn’t want the boy to get saved. He deserves to go to hell and burn forever. This is the problem with hanging on to traditional concepts. Here’s what we need to do. We need to live by this book. Lots of great interpretations over the years. I got to finish.

Stop it, David. You’re going to get in trouble. I was never allowed to go to the movie house and watch Mickey Mouse because the pastor in my church preached from the pulpit. If Jesus comes when you’re in the movie house, you’re going to hell. I heard it, with these ears. Pastor Cuke, you’re going to have to pray for me. I’m going to have to light some candles and say some special prayers. Guess who I was until six o’clock last night, Dear God. Who was in the movie house? Can you believe it?

Thank God Jesus didn’t come. Oh my, how we hang on to the old stop. We were raised in that. I bet you were a tipper, but you were rebellious. You were a rascal. Why don’t you come and help me, brother Tipper? We talked about this. Won’t you stand with me? The Lord loved a sinner such as I. Why do we hate that word? It’s a good word, really. It’s very descriptive. Come home. Come home. You’re so weary. Come on home. So tenderly. Jesus is calling. The Savior is waiting to enter your heart. Why don’t you let Him come here? Time after time. He’s been waiting for me, and now He’s waiting for me.

Father, is waiting to open your heart. How many words? Has He just plopped from me, bound to heaven? How do I know? I don’t know where we’re going to go. Somebody’s thinking, He’s got his eye on me. He’s been preaching at me. No, no, no. I was preaching to me this morning. I was trying to help brothers and brothers, and brothers and a dad.

Jesus is calling. Jesus then calls. Is there a chance that Jesus is calling somebody today in this room? And if so, say, David, think that message was for me. I think He’s calling me. The service is going to close in about 60 seconds. Is there one person who would say, as every head bowed down? Nobody’s looking around. You just put your little hand up and silently get my attention. And I’ll know. You’re saying, David, that message was for me.

What have you prayed for me this week, David? Just lift your hand right now. I’m about to close. You just say, David, put me on your prayer list. I think that message was for me. Just lift your hand somewhere. Anywhere. Somebody. Tuck. And now, he’s waiting. We want to thank you. Father, I pray for encouragement to every mom and dad and be a grand man, grandpa in this place today.

They did their very best, and I know that they feel I felt guilty, Lord, when my son was wondering, I felt so guilty. That guilt comes in. And we ought not to embrace that guilt. It’s the Lord’s doing. It’s the Lord’s doing. He draws. He pursues. So, Heavenly Father, I pray that every one of us who has wayward sons, daughters, and grandkids, may be encouraged today. Remind me, O God, that some of my grandkids were raised in the church, not far from here. And every Sunday they heard powerful gospel seed. I pray over that seed now in the name of Jesus that it will bear fruit because I want my grandkids to celebrate with me in Heaven.

I pray for every grandma and every grandpa, every mom, every dad.

Today we refuse to lose hope.

We refuse to lose hope.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.