We are dealing with some of the big catagories found in the description for two weeks. But the one we are dealing today with is quite different from all those we dealt already with. And as I look into Look 15, you may come to it already, Look 15, I saw that But is it the parables, the sea ones, the sea told here are so different in character than the particular ones? Before those parables told by our Lord Jesus Christ, let me move with the nature and the character of the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus explains this in those parables. Just to remind you of the parable of the sower, the master seed, the weed, and the pears, and the fish, and the gnat, And in all of his parables, the great story is told about the church age, the present time. or I like to put it this way, the monstrosity of Christianity or Christendom in this world, where you have the state and philosophy together, and the monstrosity of Christendom, until harvest day comes and the division is met. Many times the state and philosophy which are together in this monstrosity of Christendom, are not distinguished at all from the flesh. They belong together. And the Lord knows the heart. Until harvest day, we don't know. But then, it will be revealed who belongs to the Lord Jesus and who not. Now, as I said, those parables here in Luke 15, they are quite different. There are well-known, there is in Romans 3-7, the story of the lost sheep, the story of the silver coin, the lost silver coin in A-10, and then the story of the body of Sam, which is probably the most known parable among all of those. And this puzzle speaks in a wonderful way about God's seeking love. It is the story of the saviour and the lost, who goes after the sinner. Now let's turn to Luke 15. And we can only view this one of them. And let's take verse 11 to 24, and let's read it together. It is the story of the political science. From verse 11 to 24. that, and he said, a certain man had been silenced. And the young woman said, that's my father. Father, if you give me the flourishing of goods, the flourishing of meat, and if you provide me with a better facility. and took his chariot and put it on my father and me, and there he placed himself in a surprised state. And when he had said it all, there arose in my mind a fragment of a man, and he began to be at once, and he began to join himself to a citizen of Baghdad, and he said, and put a ribbon on his head, and shoes on his feet, So far, and across this door we have an appendix and if the time allows it, we will talk about the elder son. in this story. You know, when I looked into the three parables and compared them with the other Gospels, you know, I learned a striking fact about the Gospel of Luke that it is in many ways quite different from the other Gospels. The Gospel of Luke, I believe, has a special emphasis on the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Son of Man is a frequently used term in this Gospel. There are many incidents which are not recorded in the other Gospels, which we find here in the Gospel of Paul. And in order that we may understand the teaching of our lesson today, I just want to point out, too, stories, two incidents which are recorded in the Gospel of the Lord which we only find in Luke and not in the others. And they are very interesting. There is first this wonderful story in the early ministry of the Lord Jesus when he came to his hometown, Nazareth. And when he sat down on a Saturday in the synagogue, and there was a book of Isaiah was given to him, only those who had recorded this, and this is very interesting, maybe turn to it just for a moment, a few pages back, and look towards behind it, And here, the book of Isaiah was given to Jesus, and in 1217, we find that he opens the book, and he founds a place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and the covering of sight to the blind, to set a liberty in them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable deal of the Lord. Here, Jesus is referring to Isaiah 61, verse 1, claiming that God has anointed him to preach deliverance to the captive, to the poor, and Jesus is mainly speaking here in a spiritual sense. He is commissioned by God, he is sent by God, he is our king's redeemer, he is close with our humanity. That is what it is. And to preach at the acceptable year of the Lord. And this is the present time. And when you look back into this portion of scripture in Isaiah 61, we find this striking fact, that the Lord Jesus stopped where a comma was, the acceptable meal of the Lord. But the scripture goes on and speaks, and a day of judgment. This is the full sentence in the Old Testament. But Jesus stopped here, the acceptable year. He was come to be the Saviour. Oh yes, God has given all judgment to the Son, but now is not the time of judgment, but it is the time of grace, and it is the acceptable year of the Lord. Then I want to turn to another portion of scripture. There are many more, which are only recorded in the Gospel of Luke. But now, we turn to Luke 23. And here, we come to the scene of the crucifixion. Remember that they are on Calvary's hill for three crosses. Luke 23. Oh, by the way, it is only Luke who uses the name Calvary, not the other gospel. And this is very exciting, too, you know, because Calvary is a Gentile name for both of them. And this is very exciting, too, you know, that here Luke, in a way, left by the Holy Spirit, tells us that he is the Savior of the world. For the Gentile nation, for the Jews, of course, first, and then all the Gentile nations included, Calvary was the Gentile name for God, which is an equal name, and which we find used in the other Gospels. I thought this was remarkable. And so we have here the story how the thief, the criminal, got saved. And this is a fantastic story. Only law records this story. And you know it very well. And let me read from Paul 39 to 43, where there's one of the malefactors, those criminals which were enclaved on him, saying, if thou be clients, place thyself in us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Doth thou not fear God, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed judge thee, for we receive the due reward for our deeds. But this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me, when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. And this is a fantastic story. Because this is a story which spoke my own heart. When one night I couldn't find peace. And you know my story, most of you know it. When with a burned soul I couldn't find peace. And I tried to pray and I couldn't pray, I didn't know how. And I fell on the side of my bed. I was led to that field, where the three horses were, and where the three men died. And then, it says, thee turn to Jesus, and say, Lord, remember me, and I'll come into your kingdom. And Jesus turned to him, telling him, today you will be with me in paradise. It fell upon my eyes. I see God's love revealed in Jesus Christ as he dies. And this is very, very striking to one who is not a Catholic, you know. One who believes that you have to do this and you have to do that. In order to be saved one day, after many years, who knows how many years, going through first-world, one day in the far distant future, there might be a day where you will get saved in eternity. They dissolve the catholic view of the world. And here Jesus turned to him and said, today you will be with me. And this is the way every sinner must come and every sinner must be saved. You must recognize that he is a sinner and then join with Jesus and trust him in him. Jesus will welcome him and will receive him. And this is what our story here is all about. This is the beginning of Rote 15. Now let's go to Rote 15. Let's look a little bit closer into this. And I believe that the key to understand this parable hangs right on the front door. I'm reading those first two verses in this chapter. In verse 1 we find that the publicans and the sinners came to hear Jesus. Jesus was always surrounded by this people, the outcasts of society, those which saw their need. They were the ones which wanted to hear him, which were alone, to find forgiveness of sin and to find healing. And then we find another group of people here which are the Pharisee and describes those self-righteous people which should have known Jesus and should have recognized him as Messiah. But they rejected Jesus. And Jesus had to say to them, and this is very striking, in John 8, 24, he said to the Pharisees, one day, he said, he will die in your sins. He will die in your sins. And it's striking to me that Jesus doesn't say, and you will die for your sins sometime in the future, you are dead already, namely in your sins. and it might sound strange to us to read here and there in the scripture, in the gospel of the Lord especially, certain group of people called sinners. Now, when we say, what about the others? But this is how societies looked at people and described them in their self-righteousness. And as they looked at this group of people, the outcasts, This dark background, they really looked wonderful. They were shining bright and gloriously. Against that background, of no chance. And let me tell you that Jesus can do nothing whatsoever for this kind of people. Can't do it. We have to come to the same way as the thieves once did. Recognise that we are sinners, and in our lot we shall turn to Him and trust in Him. This is Rabbi Semmel, and this is what all this story is about here. This is the theme of our lesson, God speaking Latin. We see this in two groups of people that are presented, in the son who ran away from the father, lost in sin, and then saved by God's grace. This is the two group of people which are only on the face of the earth. Those which are dead in trespasses and sin, and those which are alive in Jesus the good child. There's nothing in between. Oh, it's not for me, it's against me. There's no neutrality with God, with Jesus. We have to see this. And when we understand this, then we have no difficulty whatsoever to understand this Bible. It is as simple as this. Now let's look into this Bible a little bit closer. We have three dominant characters in this Bible, don't we? Can we name them? There's first of all the youngest son, right? We find him in verse 11 to 20. Then we have the forgetting father there, who welcomes his son back. And then we have the Nepenthes. This is a story, as I told you before, and this is the story of the elder brother. And here we have to keep in mind that Jesus spoke to those two kinds of groups of people, the publicans and sinners and to the Pharisees. And he easily can identify the elder brother with the Pharisees. Very easily. He speaks to them, Jesus, and it's very interesting to see this. Now, let's look at the younger son. How should we describe him? Well, he is a man, a young man, with a selfish attitude. An attitude which we find today very odd. It is all too common today. In verse 12, we see this, that he goes to the father and he says, Father, give me Father, give me. This is the spirit of selfishness. This is the spirit of humankind, of mankind. This is the spirit of our time, demanding everything and giving nothing. This is the spirit of our time. We easily can see this here. There is the idea that society owes us everything. Isn't this the spirit of our time? Give me one to get as much as we can get out of it. Society owes us everything. And there's no sense of obligation to what's ours. It just sounds hard. No obligation to what's ours, whatsoever. He doesn't care about the others, as long as he gets his portion. And this is exactly what we see today in our time. Demanding everything. Look at the union, the max. Demanding. Not caring about the others. Not caring that because of the weight increase which they get, there will be a price increase and the undermining of the economy altogether. Don't say it. Can't say it. Because Satan is behind the door. Satan is behind. There is also the feeling that society is very restricted. That is how the son felt. His home was too restricted. He didn't feel free and he wanted to be free. They call it today's establishment. We have to get rid of it in order to be faithful. Liberation is the big word of today. Liberation. We have to be liberated from violence. From what? I remember, you know, a few years back, we had to walk on a Saturday just before Easter. There was an Easter march. People coming down, screaming on 6th Avenue. And that's against us. And the downpour, it was raining like crazy. And they were shouting. Do you know what they were shouting? Ho Chi Minh was still alive then. Ho Chi Minh set us free. Ho Chi Minh set us free. And the doubt left me so much. Coming from Nazi Germany, I believe with all my heart that we are living in the freest country of the world. I said to myself, well, what? Oh, she means set us free, well, what? Liberation is the big word. And people want to get rid of marriage, of family, want to get rid of farmhouse labor, of the school system, want to get rid of the government. Everything has to go, that mankind be free. not in guessing that Satan is deceived and that Satan will bring them and does bring them in a terrible bondage which will make them so miserable and finally they will die of this sin. The son was looking for freedom, want to get away from the home. He wants to find happiness in the world. And now comes something which is very, very important to realise and to see. The father let him go. The father didn't force him to stay. The father had the perfect right to say no to the son. According to Jewish law, if you go back to Deuteronomy, the father had no obligation whatsoever to give that part to the son. The time of his death wasn't coming. Yet, he let him go. You know that God let Adam go too. that God didn't force Adam. And this is where we have to go back to understand this story. He didn't force Adam to stay in the presence of God. He didn't force him. He let him go. God has given a free will to man and man can choose between good and evil. And man chose to be evil. And man didn't want to have the presence of God anymore. You know that Adam was hiding from God? Before it was such a wonderful and beautiful picture. See Adam and Eve in fellowship with God in a state of peace. Wonderful picture. But they were sinning already in their heart. They wanted to rebel against God. And there was the deception of Satan. Why doesn't God get rid of this kind of people? You know, this was a question which was put to me Last week, in the Long Island Playhouse, I was reading my Bible, as I always do in the morning. And the man sitting next to me, reading his New York Times, he always beat those in my Bible, you know. And he got quite restless, quite restless. Finally, he folded his paper. He couldn't read anymore, I don't know. Then I felt, and I knew that the Lord was speaking to me, and said I should witness to that man. So I started talking. I didn't want to lose any time. Soon as I was sure that the Lord wanted me to talk to that man. So I went to him and I told him how much the Bible means to me. That one day I didn't care at all. But now a new world opened up for me and I gave him the whole plan of salvation and everything and he listened very carefully And at one point he just cut him short. He said, okay, okay, that was enough. He said, I believe as you believe. I believe that God created man, that he put him on the face of this earth, that he has given man a free will. He said, man choose to be evil and never sins. We have war and bloodshed. I know unlikely with you. We cannot blame God for what's going on in the earth. It is sin. But tell me one thing, he said, why doesn't God get rid of this kind of people? And then I had a wonderful time to explain to him why God didn't come down in judgment yet. He said, because He loves you, and because now is the acceptable year of the Lord. Because of great love, God doesn't want that anyone should perish, but that everyone should come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's waiting for you to come. I want to give you the Gospel of John. He rejected it. I carry those always with me. They are wonderful to pass on. The Gospel of John. Baptism, the Leaked Testament, has a page of decision. And the fact, you know, where you can make your decision of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of them. These are much better than any text. They are a little more expensive than the text. But it really works well to pass on. It's a living work of God. And the Holy Spirit can do the same. But he rejected it and said, I have three Bibles at home. And he said, now I will do some study. And I mean, we have to go back to the story where Adam got away from the house of God, from the camp of God. Then we won't understand if there's a portion of scripture here. And remember when Adam sinned, He had only one desire to hide from the face of God. And then we hear God's cry in the garden, Adam, where are you? The Lord knew where he was. Didn't he know? Of course he knew where he was. But why did he cry out, Adam, where are you? I thought many times about this. And I believe that God was speaking to Adam in a broken heart. Adam, what did you do? Oh Adam, don't you realize what you have done? Adam, come to yourself. Recognize what you did. And now your life will be miserable. You had your free will. You had your choice. Now mankind is cut off from the presence of God. Ever since man hid from the presence of God, he has no desire to get into the presence of God. You know this. Natural man has no desire. I work on a dear Jewish artist, a pianist, you know. He lives right nearby. The man is smiling. I like him very much. I tried for years to get him here under the thinking of the Word of God. Last time I invited him, he said, just two weeks ago. And he said, Franz, I can't do it. I can't do it. He said it would upset me so much. Of course it would. Man is hiding from the presence of God. Adam sinned when Adam came and fell into sin. And those scriptures there said that Adam, all dying, all have sinned. And Adam sinned. Man is hiding. And their prayer, therefore, and for that reason, did Jesus come into this world. And for that reason, he is telling us this story here. the story of salvation. In verse 13 we see that the son is getting away as far as he could. The scriptures put an emphasis on this. It says the son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country. Get away as far as he could. to get away from his home. That is what mattered. What happened there? And every generation after that, get away from God. He wanted to be a clean man. He wanted to be Godless, without God, and he got it. Why did he want to get away? Because of sin, as simple as that. Jesus said in John 3, 19, light is coming into the world, pointing to himself, and he said, a man loves the darkness more than light, because it leads to evil. For everyone that does evil, hates the light, lest his deeds should be recorded. The son wants to get away, to do his own thing, to be free, to be God-blessed. And then we see how he is wasting his money with like-minded comies, with hippies, if you please, with dough, with harlots. This is what the scripture says. There is no doubt about this. And as soon as the money is gone, his friends are gone. Oh, he had pleasure. He had great pleasure. And it's true there is pleasure in sin, but only for a moment, and only for a season. And the awakening will be terrible for those which want to stay in the darkness of their sin. There is pleasure in sin. And I believe that Jesus was talking about this and this subject to the woman, to the Samaritan woman as well. Tremendous story. No way, Jesus said to her, who shall have a drink of this water shall thirst again. Meaning all the pleasures of the world. You know, this was a woman who was married quite a few times. And the last one she married, she didn't care anymore to get the license for it. The one you have now is not your husband, says what Jesus said. He knew all about her. She doesn't care anymore. She just let go. Let herself go. Who's ever dreamed that of this Lord who shall serve the King? And this is exactly what she had experienced. She didn't understand it this way the moment the Lord Jesus talked to her, but she understood later what he was talking about. Because before Jesus had said to her, oh dear woman, if you wouldn't know what the gift of God is, and what is the gift of God? Eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. O woman, if you would understand the gift of God, and who it is who is talking to you, namely the Messiah of Israel, namely the Savior of the world, then you would ask Him, and He would give you living water eternal life. You know, it is only Jesus who is that precise. It's only Jesus who makes you live freely. If the sun makes you fail, you are free indeed. And those which know the Lord Jesus know about whom this world is. There are many people which have tasted the world to the uttermost. And when they came to know the love of Jesus, they found out how true that is. Whosoever tastes of this water shall thirst again. This happened to that man. There is a German hymn, and forgive me for this, but it is too bad. It's not translated into English, but it is a hymn which we use in evangelistic readings all the time. It's one which stands on this top list, which we see all the time. And this is the testimony of a dear lady who was very rich and luxurious, well-known. Have any of you noticed one of our artists? Well-known in Germany. And she had taken the road. She had traveled all over. She had spent her money. She had money. And she came back unsatisfied. And then she was already 64, something like this, when she accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. And she wrote that tent into bed. I'm not a poet. Anyone would do a much better job, but I have translated it, and I only want you to get the meaning of it. It doesn't belong at the end of the world, or it should, in a poem. But this is what you said, I have seen the world, and the world is beautiful and white, yet my longing heart goes far beyond this world. I have watched the people and they are searching all day long, working, coming and going, and their life in sorrow and need. They are searching for what they cannot find in common life, and come and go, and in unsatisfied they return. There can be found a rest for the poor, tired, burning soul who claim it long among the nations, for here is found the rest, in the wounds of Jesus the Savior on the cross of Calvary. This was our pattern when we say this. And invite people with this to come and accept the Lord Jesus Christ. And now the sun in our story comes with this greatest decision in life. It is not an easy one by any circumstance. You know the greatest wall which has to put aside is the wall of our own self which stands between God and us. It is not easy to humble yourself and declare your bankruptcy before God. Say, Lord, I have sinned. I have sinned against thee, and forgive me. Know that Jesus will accept everyone who comes his way, as the thief came that way on the cross. But this was the greatest decision in his life, in verse 8 we read, and I will rise and go to my father and will say unto my father, I have sinned against heaven and before him, and I am not more worthy to be called thy son. Now he sees his sin and comes to me. And he's now the father, the forgiving father. It's wonderful. Something unexpected for the son. He is waiting for him. The father is waiting for him. See, he doesn't pause. And we want him to the Kingdom of God. We have to come. But as soon as we turn around and make one step towards him, he runs all the way towards us and grabs our hands and gets us in. This is romantic, isn't it? You know, Jesus had to put it this way in his epistle. He says, for I draw a knife to God, and he draws a knife to give it to you. And this was the Sunday as soon as he turned home, you know, here's the parcel. And he runs towards him and kisses him with a kiss of reconciliation. and accept the son. We all have brothers playing in Arab, you know. We all have sinned in Arab. We all have sinned, including the prophets, you know, and the scribes. But God cannot do anything for them. And God will not force us. To get into, we have to come out. From this side everything is prepared. Everything is ready. His son came as a shining light into this world of darkness and sin. To lead us out of this darkness and sin. To make us free! And yet we are in self-imposed poverty. Aren't we? We went astray. We did all crazy things. We didn't listen to the Word of God. We rebelled against Him. We married outside of the Lord. We went our own way, knowing what the will of the Lord was, and we sought our own way as the one which will be blessed. And this is always what happens, you know. You always have to make the decision and to look at the two ways and the one with the Lord. The way of the Lord is always the path one that seems to be at the moment. And the one you want to go in selfishness is the one of pleasure and joy. You want to go there. He's a deception of Satan. And some may have gone again and again. his own way, you know. But this is a tremendous thing that God loves us so much. We mess so many times things up, in a terrible way, and we pay for it! And then we come to the father and father, forgive us, doesn't it? Yes, it does. We have a saying in Germany that says that God's life is played on book of life. Meaning that we mess things up and get with us, somewhere, if we don't believe. And now comes the time to start with him. I'm sorry. We had to talk about the thought-likeness of the elder son. who speaks about authorities, who represents the schools of Christians, claiming to be Christians, which have never come to simple salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Never look to the cross of Calvary. The son didn't understand the love of his father. He was a hard-hearted man. He believes that because of his service for God and for his Father, he was innocent. No, he wasn't. He was a sinner. The Pharisees were sinners. And we have to recognize this. That is the first step. and then have become, as a father, he is a tremendous dog. Read it again. And so that's the way it is. We have to be fathers. Thank you so much for this, for our wonderful world. Fathers so much more than fatherhood. Blessed and sealed to our hearts. Anyone here wants, which doesn't know me, O Father, may the Holy Spirit speak to that heart. And may that heart be open, O Father, recognize that we have gone astray, that he has gone astray, that he is a sinner, that he has to look to Jesus on the cross of torment and accept this great salvation and say, thank you. Father bless us for all of this day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.