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Evangelistic Message!
Lost and Found: The Lost Son!
Reading Luke Ch.15 v 11-24.
Introduction:
The story is told of a little girl whose mother planned to celebrate her fifth birthday by impressing all the relatives. The mother dressed her daughter in fine clothes and said, "Now, here's what I want you to do. You're going to sing a song." When it was time for the little girl to sing, her mother says, "Honey, what are you going to do?" The child says, "Nothing."
The mother finds a convenient spot to pinch her and says, "Weren't you going to sing?" The child says, "No." The angry mother takes the child upstairs and shuts her in a closet. About half an hour later, the mother goes up and says, "What are you doing up here?" The child says, "I've been having a great time. I've been spitting on your clothes. I've been spitting in your shoes. I've been spitting on your walls. I've been spitting on the carpet. Now I'm waiting for some more spit." That attitude of waiting for some more spit is what sin is all about. For man, sin is not just an act. Sin is an attitude. Man is not a sinner because he is a transgressor. He is a transgressor because he is already a sinner. The offense is not only in the transgression but also in the intention. Sin is not merely the violation of law but in the disposition of the heart.
Ravi Zacharias, "The Lostness of Humankind,"
This third parable Jesus is telling is the story of a lost son!
He had decided he wanted away from the restrictions of parents and home. He wanted to live on his own and make his own decisions, go his own way, do his own thing, he craved his independence.
Parents in every age get concerned about their families.
How should we guide them? What should we tell them? How strict or liberal should we be? After all we don’t want to be over protective, we want to give them space to grow up. After all I was brought us so strict and in a straight jacket I don’t want that for my children.
Many years ago Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were on a good will tour to Africa. While there she requested that she would be brought to meet a real live African Chieftain. On meeting this great man she and he seemed to blend quickly and at once became, excellent friends.
During the course of conversation the African chief asked the Queen, "Madam, what is the secret of England's Greatness?"
Queen Victoria reached into her bag and produced a Bible, she held it aloft in her hand and said, "the secret of England’s Greatness is her open Bible"
I believe the Bible is still the best guidebook we could have and if we live by its instruction we will surely have given the best guidance it's possible to give to our children.
The parable before us tonight tells us three very important things about our young people!
1. What This Young Man Was!
"Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me."
He had no thought of the heartbreak he would cause!
He had not realized what he was getting himself into!
It all sounded so exciting now, but where was it all going to lead!
He was not the clever boy he thought he was!
And can I say to the younger generation here tonight, and I do so tenderly and lovingly! You are not always right, you don’t know all the answers, your parents are not squares, past it, stick in the mud's or out of touch with your generation. In fact their years on planet earth will have taught them so many lessons that you could drew from and save yourself some heartbreaks in the future.
When we lived in Jordanstown, (near to Belfast) a father, who by the way was a lay preacher, had spotted his fifteen-year-old boy, sitting on the green area at Fortwilliam, Belfast with some very unsavoury company.
He drove on rather than embarrass the boy. Eventually the boy returned home and his father spoke to him of his fears. Oh, dad, don’t be silly, these are the best friends I have ever had.
The next night dad was driving by the same spot on his way home from work. He noticed his boy with this unsavoury crowd again, but once again drove on rather than embarrass his son in front of his friends. But that night his son did not return home at the time agreed. Dad went looking for him, somewhat concerned that he had disobeyed and stayed out, by now two hours beyond the deadline. Dad’s first place to look for his son was the place he had seen him on the way home the past two evenings.
Sure enough he found his son where he had seen him earlier, but none of his friends were with him just now and he was lying motionless on the grass. Dad brought the car to a sharp halt, ran to his son, found him, sadly dead. His friends had encouraged him to sniff some substance that resulted in his immediate death and ran away and left him, some friends! But then that is what sin will do, use you and leave you dead. "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." James ch. 1 v 15. The Belfast Telegraph, next evening carried the story, "et too bruta" boys friends led to his death!
Maybe this is where you are tonight, you want to be your own person, do your own thing and go your own way. Oh, be careful where your selfishness leads!
"And not many days after that, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country"
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy. William Wordsworth.
The devil is sincere, but he is sincerely wrong.
At a national spelling contest in Washington an incident occurred that made me feel good--and made me wonder. In the fourth round of the contest, Rosalie Elliot, then an eleven-year-old from South Carolina, was asked to spell avowal. In her soft southern accent she spelled it. But did the seventh grader use an a or an e as the next to last letter? The judges couldn't decide. For several minutes they listened to tape recording playbacks, but the critical letter was accent-blurred. Chief judge John Lloyd finally put the question to the only person who knew the answer. "Was the letter an a or was it an e? He asked Rosalie. Surrounded by whispering young spellers, she knew by now the correct spelling of the word. Without hesitating, she replied she had misspelled it. She walked from the stage. The entire audience stood and applauded, including half a hundred-newspaper reporters, one of whom was heard to remark that Judge Lloyd had put quite a burden on an eleven-year-old. Rosalie rated a hand and it must have been a heartwarming and proud moment for her parents. The thing that makes me wonder, however, was the apparent feeling on the part of so many that the issue might have been in doubt and that honesty might have bowed to temptation. Have we in this age stopped taking honesty for granted, even from our children? James S. Hewett.
There needs to be a very open honesty about us!
I don’t mean simply sincerity, but an honesty that looks into the inner recess of my heart that says it's very possible to be sincere but I could be sincerely wrong.
We all hear the cry (from our teenagers, if not many others), "but everybody's doing it!" John Calvin called it "the appeal to 'custom' against truth" in his prefatory address to King Francis when he wrote his institutes:
"Even though the whole world may conspire in the same wickedness, he has taught us by experience what is the end of those who sin with the multitude. This he did when he destroyed all mankind by the flood, but kept Noah with his little family; and Noah by his faith, the faith of one man, condemned the whole world (Gen. 7:1; Heb. 11:7). To sum up, evil custom is nothing but a kind of public pestilence in which men do not perish the less though they fall with the multitude." End quote!
I’m too young to settle down to a life of religion! You might be wrong!
I have all my life in front of me! You are right, but your life may be very short!
After all time is on my side! You might be wrong, tonight your soul might be called to meet a Holy God!
I have told you of three of my very dear school friends! Three very sincere young men, each with a very definite desire and goal in life, sadly, even with all their sincerity with respect to the future; none of the three lived to see that future, all died in their teens or just beyond.
"Wasted his substance with riotous living"
This is the trait of many of our young people today.
Some of them of course are great; they are just lovely to be around. When they meet you on the street with their friends they are proud to introduce you as their pastor and stand and talk with you!
But there is stubbornness about many young people today.
Here is a young man who because of stubbornness lived foolishly, and do you know what? His friends let him and joined in the foolishness.
He lived fully, do you know what? His friends let him and joined in that fullness.
He lived flamboyantly, do you know what? His friends let him and joined in the flamboyance!
But then there was a turn of events, instead of living he began to die. And do you know what, he was going to die foolishly, he was going to die fully, he was going to die, not flamboyantly but ignominiously. And guess what? His friends let him but did not join in, this time they were gone!
Oh, the sadness in the town or community when a young man or young woman dies suddenly and foolishly. They have lived a life that everybody knew would end in death. And some friends joined in and enjoyed the fun while it lasted, but how many will stand like a warning sign and cry out to these dear people, you're going the wrong way; you're going to die if you carry on like this.
And more to the point how many of the young people will listen.
Oh, my dear young friend, take a long hard look at this young man.
If it had not been for a trough of pig feed he would have surely died, and there would not have been a friend in sight!
Think about that! Your friends may laugh with you right into death and hell but not one of them can laugh you out of death and hell.
2. What This Young Man Lost!
How this lad had sunk. Sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. Sin will cost you dearer than you want to pay!
What a difference from the lad who left home, so full of confidence. You see, his way led down, down, down, it always does!
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end of that way is death." Always! Always! Always!
You see he left the Father out of his thinking!
That kind of life is not for me, I have had enough, I’m getting out.
Maybe when I settle down, maybe when I am older, right now that kind of life is for wimps!
Listen folks, listen, it takes a man or a woman to stand for God, the easy way is to run with the crowd.
We have a head on us for the same reason a pin has: to keep us from going too far.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God!
Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth!
3. What This Young Man Found!
Where are you going in time?
And most importantly where are you going in eternity?
How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in his heart. For him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with him all the riches of limitless time and endless years. A. W. Tozer.
When you look at a mountain, imagine in your hearts how long would it be before that mountain should be removed by a little bird coming but once every thousand years, and carrying away but one grain of the dust of it at once: the mountain would at length be removed that way, and brought to an end; but eternity will never end. Suppose with respect to all the mountains of the earth, no, with respect to the whole globe itself: the grains of dust of which the whole of it is made up are not infinite; and therefore the last grain would, at length, come to be carried away, as above: yet eternity would be, in effect, but beginning. Thomas Boston.
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