Luke chapter 15, starting in verse number 25. It says, now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. They obviously weren't Baptist people. 26 says, and he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment. And yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which had devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meat that we should make merry, and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found. May we pray. Lord, thank you again for your word. that we can turn to such a powerful story that we have here this evening. I pray that you would clear our minds of all distractions or anything that might take away from what you would have us to hear this evening. I do pray that the message would come across the way you see fit. May you take myself out of it. May it come across the way that you have related to me in my study and may our people be blessed and be helped because of it. In Jesus' name, amen. The verses that we just read describe one brother. The story that we typically hear when we turn to Luke chapter 15, we typically go to verses 12 through about 24. And when we turn to that passage and we read those verses, we find what is called the prodigal son. We've all probably heard four, five, ten, a dozen, two dozen messages on the prodigal son. We know how the story goes. One of the sons was fed up with his life at home. Possibly didn't like the way that dad had run things. Requested that he could get his inheritance so that he could leave, be out of the family for good. I'm sure that that whole thing didn't happen in just a short amount of time. You know how it is, those of you that are parents and have children. Children will often wear on their parents. I'm sure the story of the prodigal son didn't happen overnight. He didn't wake up one day and said, Dad, give me everything that is owed to me and that's gonna be mine. I doubt it happened that way. This was something that had been happening in his heart for a long time. He wanted to be out of the house. He wanted to be out of dad's rules. Wanted to be out of dad's thumb. Wanted not to work hard. Wanted to be lazy. And so he begged and begged and begged his father. Eventually he wore his father down and his father said, that's fine. I can see there's no winning. He divided up the inheritance and gave it to his boy And his boy set out with no plan of ever returning home. As the parable goes, he goes out and he wastes it on riotous living, Jesus says. I'm not sure exactly everything that entails, but it sounds pretty bad to me. Sounds pretty against God to me. Sounds by what we know about the father here to be pretty much against what the father would have wanted his son to do. The complete opposite, we would say. Yet he wasted it on harlots, I'm sure gambling, all sorts of things. If he was alive today, he probably would have wasted it on a big house he probably couldn't have afforded, fast cars, women, drugs, prostitutes, you name it. He squandered it and it was gone. The story progresses and the prodigal son ends up losing everything that he had gotten. I'm not sure how long it took for that to take place, but I'm sure it took probably several years for him to burn through all that inheritance money. He finds himself with nothing, having nothing to eat. He ends up joining himself to a far country and ends up in the pig pen, feeding pigs and eating what he could scrounge. the best of the best of what he had. If you don't understand the picture that Jesus was saying to the folks who were listening to him, you know that Jewish people and pigs do not go together. I mean, he had reached the lowest of lows. And when he got to that place, and he hit rock bottom, the Bible says he came to himself. He said, what am I doing here? Man, my father, he's got enough food for me. He's got servants, many servants. I could just go back and be one of those. And he rehearses this whole speech that he had prepared about how he's going to get right with his dad. And he's not going to even be asked to be treated as a son anymore. He's just going to ask to be a servant. And he shamefully wanders back to the house. And while he was still a far way off, Jesus says, the father saw him and ran to him, ran to him. In preparation for this sermon, one preacher said that it was unbecoming of elder people in those days to run, especially men. They obviously wore skirt-like outfits, and it would cause them to have to pick that up, reveal their white, pasty legs, and run. I don't know if that's true or not. However, the scripture says that he ran out to meet his son, embraced him, and the son repented, was expecting that he was going to be treated as a servant. However, the father said, no, no, no, this is my son. He got a ring, he put shoes on his feet, a robe on his back, killed the fatted calf, and there was a big party and a big celebration. Think in your mind about people who are prodigal sons, prodigal daughters of Jesus Christ tonight. You probably can think of a few in your mind as I can in mine. Those who are running from God, they're heading in the complete opposite direction of what God wants them to do. They're wasting their life. I have a ministry. I try to reach out to those who are on that path. going down that road. I've got several people that I try to keep in contact regularly that are wasting their life. And I'll send them phone calls. I'll send them texts. I'll reach out time and time and time again. But may I say tonight, the story that we are going over is not just about the prodigal son. He needed repentance. He needed forgiveness. He needed restoration. But may I say tonight that there are those in this room that have their suit and ties on, their dresses on, they're spiffed up, they never miss a service, but they need repentance and forgiveness just as much as the prodigal son did. Who am I referring to? The passage we read, verses 25 through 32. The older brother. who often we end up overlooking. The attention gets put all on the prodigal son, and how bad he is, and how terrible he's living. It's outward, it's seen by the world. But may I remind you tonight, the majority of people, under the sound of my voice, do not fit the category of the prodigal son. They fit the category of the older brother. May I say the older brother had just as much a need for repentance as did the prodigal son. When I look at this passage, I don't see myself as the prodigal son, but I do see myself often as the older brother. Let's look. The title of the message today is The Pigpen is better than the porch. The pigpen is better than the porch. I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute. What I find interesting is that at the end of the story, the one brother who we would have never thought was going to get right about it, got right. And the other brother who seemed to have his whole act together, was the one that ended up on the porch with his arms folded. The pigpen is often better than the porch. First, I want us to notice tonight the danger of outward obedience. The brother here, he was successful. In contrast, he was the complete opposite, I would say, of what the prodigal son was, the younger brother. He was everything opposite of what the younger brother was. Scripture from what it indicates to us about the prodigal son is he was lazy. He was no good. He didn't want to work. He wanted easy living. He was a very fleshy person. He desired things after the flesh. However, the older brother, from what we see, he has his nose to the ground his entire life. He's faithful to his father his entire life. When we first come and we see in verse 25, I think it is, or 24, what we see is the older brother was coming in out of the field while this party was going on. He was busy. He was doing what his dad wanted him to do. It says here, for years, he faithfully served his father. For years, he never bucked his father's authority. For years, he did everything that his daddy wanted him to do. Seems like a pretty good guy to me. He never wasted his inheritance, not one time. He never disgraced the family name. He never fed pigs like his brother did. He never left home. It seems as if the story has two boys, one which was good and one which was bad. We've all read the story probably like that before. And we like to say, yeah, well, the older brother, he had a little bit of problem. No. May I say tonight that I think this story is about two brothers who were both bad, who both needed repentance, but they just needed it in different ways. One brother got it, The other brother seemed to not get it. So, the brother's heart here, the older brother, he was camouflaged in service. He was out in the field. He was doing all the right things. He was obedient. Unfortunately, his heart was not with the father. Don't we like to condemn certain sins? Oh, I do. I like to condemn certain sins. We look at the sins of the prodigal son, wasteful living, lack of stewardship, drunkenness, prostitutes, riotous living. You fill in the blank with whatever you want to. We like to look at those and say, those are horrible, wicked, evil sins. And then we look at our sins, like the sin of the brother, anger, jealousy, pride, bitterness. Somehow we put those in a different category than we do of those that are outward. You see, there are two types of sins here. The prodigal son had outward sins. Oh, they're easily spotted. They're easily identified. But yet the brother, the older brother, had sins that were on the inside. And the sins that are on the inside will kill you just as much as the sins that are on the outside. For some reason, we get all high-minded when we don't have the sins on the outside, but yet we have the sins on the inside. We want to skirt over those, as if they're not quite as bad. As if, I'm faithfully serving God all these years. Faithful service. Obedient. But yet we've got something on the inside that's not supposed to be there. And we're quick to judge. The distance doesn't determine the spiritual condition. Physically, the older brother, he was home. He was home the whole time. He never left. But may I say this tonight, his heart was far from at home with his father. I don't know where it was, but it wasn't aligned with what the father wanted. It wasn't aligned with the father's philosophy. Outwardly, he pleased the father, yes, but inwardly, his heart was far from home. We condemn the prodigal son for going out and chasing all those wild things, but yet inside our heart tonight, although dressed up, although put together, although nobody knows, Possibly, there's something going on in our hearts that is far from the heart of God. What I mean by that tonight is you can be in church, sitting in a pew, week after week after week, but yet your heart is far from God. What I mean is you can get up here on a Sunday night and memorize the Bible verses and quote them with a smile on your face, without batting an eye, without a mistake. You can go out there to the Bible reading board and dot your name on that Bible, dot those books off on the Bible reading board. You can get up here and sing a special and sound real good. You can go and be involved in a ministry and faithfully serve. Oh, you can care for other people. You can reach out to others. But inwardly, our heart can be far from home and far from where it ought to be. What I want to get across tonight is that the sins of the older brother are serious. Yes, they do not often lead to the pigpen. But often, I'm going to say, the pigpen can be better than the porch. We're getting to it. I'll explain it in a minute. Jesus said in Revelation 2, Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, this is the churches, church at Ephesus here, because thou hast left thy first love. Oh, the brother lived under the father's roof, heard the father's voice day in and day out, I'm sure shared meals with the father, heard his wisdom, but yet there were some serious problems in his heart. They were hidden, they were covered, they were secret. They didn't really get revealed until the father extended grace and mercy to somebody that he didn't think was worthy. The pigpen is better than the porch. The most beautiful part of the pigpen is the fact that it forced the prodigal son to make a decision. That's the most beautiful part about the pigpen. Behind me you see a boy or a man tending to some pigs and it doesn't look that bad. It was bad. I go out to eat with a lot of you. Some of you are picky eaters. I'm gonna tell you what. I mean, he was down to one change of clothes, not a dollar in his pocket, to where the food in the pig trough started looking good. But I'll tell you what, that is what got his attention to repent and return back to fellowship with his father. I'll say this, the prodigal son had absolutely no talk of repentance until he got to the pig pen. What did he start saying when he got in the pig pen? Oh, he says, I'm real hungry. He says, this is horrible. He says, I can return to my father. He starts talking the right talk as soon as he's faced with some opposition and some trouble. The pigpen, I'll say this, was good for him. The scripture says he came to himself. That's really what repentance is. It's a change of mind. He found it. But he found it in the pigpen. The danger as parents, or even possibly with friends or people we influence, is we want to save people before they get to the pigpen. We want to save them before they get to the pigpen. Parents are notorious for doing this. I'm not being ugly, I'm not being mean. It's your God-given nature to want to help your children and defend your children and to be there for them and they fall down, they scrape your knee, you're there to help them up, wipe it off, put a bandage on it. I get that. However, so many parents have done a disservice to their children because they save them right before they get to the pig pen. You say, I don't know about all... I've seen it with my own eyes. Now listen, I understand when you've got a child that is still under your authority, under your roof. But I'm talking about children who are adult children. People who are adults, on their own, could be on their own. And yet, parents often enable them to keep going down the life of riotous living. enabling them to keep sinning. And every time when they face the pigpen, and that's almost where they're going to be, they pick up the phone and call mom or dad. And mom or dad rush over, give them some money. They rush over, give them something that they need, right before they suffer the consequences of their actions in the pigpen. Beware. If you've got a wayward child, and I'm talking about a seriously wayward child, let them experience the pig pen. They need it. You say, I can't sleep at night knowing if my child or my grown son or whoever is sleeping by a dumpster or not. That just might be the thing that saves them. You understand that? They might need to sleep by a dumpster for two or three weeks. before they come to themselves and realize and repent. But how often do we hear stories of moms and dads where the child comes waltzing in the house, still has a key to the home, comes right in, no repentance, no remorse, ends up crashing on mom and dad's couch for weeks or months. I hear it. What would I tell that parent? I would tell them, change the locks on your house. leave communication open in case they have true repentance and come back. They must experience the pigpen. There was no saving the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15 without the pigpen. The pigpen is God's tool to get their attention. I know I'm thinking of an adult individual who their mom has saved them from the pigpen. All the boy's life, His whole life. The boy will get in trouble, get a DUI, the mom will go first thing, go bail him out of jail. I can't have my baby sleep in a night or two in the jail, I just can't do it. Saving her child right before the big bang. He runs out of money. This individual, I'm not making this up, this is an actual individual, he will go out and go over to places like Miami, go to the clubs in Miami, spend money that he has, go to strip clubs, you name it. Wastes his money. You know what mom does? Mom, I ain't got no money. She forwards money to his account. Because she can't imagine her boy not being in need. He has his license revoked. He smashed up his car because of a DUI. He doesn't even have a license and the mom goes and buys him a car. Saving him from the pigpen. What's the point of all this? Think of the other brother. The comfort that he experiences often numbs our mind from our need. The comfort we have numbs our mind from our need. Many of you know our church, for several years, had reformers unanimous. Are you? It's a great ministry. Two different times that I know of, Gospel of the Baptist Church has attempted to have a reformer's unanimous ministry. One was maybe 15 years ago or so, I think Jeff Larson, a few other folks were involved in that, heading it up. And then more recently was about seven or eight years ago, we had Brother Steve Ludwig try to start it up, and both of those went for a few years. The problem was nobody would show up. Nobody would show up. You can't have a ministry. Why would nobody show up? We asked ourselves this time and time and time again. We try to go out and recruit. We try to find people who need it. Part of the issue is the area in which we live. There are addicts everywhere here. You just don't see them. They're everywhere. Oh, you go to, if we were in North Fort Myers, if we were maybe in a downtown area of Cape Coral, let's say, we were over in Miami, yes, we would see people who were addicts and they'd be in the streets, they'd be coming by the church on a regular basis asking for help. We don't have that here. I can't tell you the last time that somebody came by the office, a homeless person or somebody in desperate need asking for help, I cannot even remember. We've got it so good. This area is so prosperous. But I'm gonna say there are people in about a 10-mile radius of this church that desperately need Reformers Unanimous. You say, well, I don't see any addicts and they're not on the street. That's because they're functioning addicts. That's because they're living over in Pelican Landing. They're living over in Bonita Bay. They're living over in you name the community. They're there. They're living over at the colony. They're functioning addicts and they don't see their need of Reformers Unanimous. What am I trying to say? They've got such a comfortable life and they haven't reached the pig pen possibly because their finances are so good or their life is so much intact that they can continue on with their sin enough that they don't actually see that they need to repent. That's what I see here with the older brother. He's got it together. He's made in the shade. He's worked hard. He's still got his inheritance. He hasn't wasted it one bit. But he's got bitterness and envy and jealousy, hatred and anger in his heart. But he desperately needs forgiveness. And he desperately needs to repent and get right with the Father. But yet he's out on the porch, folding his arms. Nah, I won't go into that party. I won't do it. The pigpen is a great teacher. What I want you to understand tonight is maybe you don't have the pigpen coming your way, which is a great teacher, if not the best teacher. Listen tonight to the Holy Spirit that is speaking to you in your heart, that you may or may not be the older brother here in this story. That although you are busy with acts of service in your heart, your heart may not be in line with the Father, with the Lord. I want you to notice his stubbornness. May I say this, the most dangerous sins before that, the most dangerous sins are the ones that we can cope with. We often think the most dangerous sins are all those bad things that the prodigal son was doing. But I think the most dangerous sins are the sins that we can hide in our hearts, that nobody knows about, that we can keep secret, and you can have those for possibly 5, 10, 15 years. Oh, could you imagine if we could look into the heart of every individual in this room for a moment? God gave us that. And we could see how long certain things have been harboring in our hearts. I think we'd all be down at the altar here at the end of the service, praying and asking God for forgiveness. This boy, he was stubborn. says he was angry and would not go in. Oh, he saw his brother's need of repentance, didn't he? Oh yeah. But somehow he missed his need. How often do we look for other people who need the message that is being preached or the message that is being taught? And we are quick to say, oh God, if God would just do that for them, it'd get their attention and they would repent. We often have our eyes on everybody else. but not on our own heart and on our own soul. This older brother had no need to worry about his younger brother. No need. He needed to be worried about his own soul. Repentance is needed regardless of where you're at. Why is the pigpen so good? Because people rarely humble themselves on their own. They just won't do it. That's how you go a decade of your life with some small, oh, small, seemingly insignificant sin in your heart. Because you haven't experienced a pigpen. But mind you, you need to be forgiven just the same. Let's think about the end of the story here. How does it go? The father comes out and entreats the boy. Don't you just love the fact that the father was interested in both the sons? The son who was outwardly wayward and also the son who was inwardly wayward. The boys out there on the porch, I presume, sitting on the rocking chair or on the swing out there, refusing to go in. And the dad leaves the party, leaves the celebration from the younger brother and comes out and entreats him, son, what's going on? And the older brother just unloads on the dad, disrespects him, says everything that he thinks is wrong with the whole entire situation. The father gives him some words of advice and say, this is a time of celebration, Everything that I have is yours and has always been yours. And he says, your younger brother, he was lost but now was found. And the story stops right there. Don't you just hate that? Have you ever read a book, watched a movie and the whole movie you're into it or the whole book you're really into this storyline and you're watching it progress? and you watch these people grow and relationships mature and all this sort of thing, and then you get to the final scene or the final page, and it abruptly ends, and it leaves you with, they didn't even resolve the story. Some suggest that it's possible that they do that just so that the reader or the watcher, the viewer of the movie can come up with their own ending. I just hate that. I hate that. Tell me how it really worked out. Jesus seems to do that here. He seems to leave us hanging. What happens to the older brother? What happens? Does he say in humility, dad, you're right. Does he go and wrap his arms around his father just the way his, Father wrapped his arms around the younger brother. Do they walk in there with smiles on their faces and join the party? Or does he continue in bitterness, in close proximity to his father, but distant in fellowship with his father? What happens? I don't know. But here's what I do know. We don't know how their story worked out, but you have an opportunity tonight to determine how your story is gonna work out. If you're this rebellious older brother on the inside, you've got opportunity tonight to write the ending to your story. If you're the younger brother who's away from God, a prodigal son, you've got opportunity tonight to finish your story. Tonight, is God giving you one more opportunity to finish it? What will your story be? May we pray. Lord, thank you again. If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you and God bless.