The profile of a prodigal is what we're calling the message today. Luke 15, I'll begin reading in verse 11 if you'll follow along. Jesus is talking, and he said, a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together. and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, hogs. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he rose and came to his father, but when he was yet a great way off, His father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I've sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost. and is found. They began to be merry. That's not all the story and we'll get to the third act in due course about the elder brother. We've been looking at the first two parables in this trilogy of parables about lost things in Luke chapter 15. First of all was the lost sheep. The lost sheep wandered off on its own accord, but the shepherd realized it was missing and he went after it and found it and brought it back again with rejoicing. The second parable is about a lost coin. It wasn't just any coin. It wasn't the face value of the coin that made it valuable. It was the sentimental value. This coin was a part of a headband that was a symbol of the marriage of this housewife. It didn't just fall out on its own, it didn't just hide on its own through negligence or inattentiveness on her part. It fell out and it caused great angst in the heart of this married woman until she found it and she wasn't embarrassed to call her friends and neighbors who probably had searched for it with her and she said, rejoice I found that which was lost. And we know from what Jesus said in verses 7 and 10 that the lost coin and the lost sheep clearly picture a lost soul. He said, likewise, in the same way, there's joy in heaven over one sinner that repents. Joy in the presence of the angels. But these two lesser parables, these two shorter parables that we've talked about so far, just are the segue and set the stage for this main feature, this centerpiece of the story of the lost son, the prodigal son. We're going to spend a few weeks here because this deserves it. This story is classic. The story of the prodigal son, this parable is the best known of all Jesus' parables. It beautifully extols God's full and free forgiveness of the repentant sinner that causes great rejoicing in heaven. It has been praised in even secular literature and art. I don't know if you realize this, but Charles Dickens, the great British novelist, said that this was the finest short story ever written. William Shakespeare, the great playwright, adapted and borrowed plots from this parable for at least two of his major dramas, The Merchant of Venice and Henry IV. Even country music legend, and I'm not putting in a plug for country music, the country music legend Hank Williams recorded a song entitled, The Prodigal Son. Famous artists like Rembrandt and Rubens and Durer have depicted on canvas this story. Probably you actually say some things, make allusions to this story in common speech and you don't even think about it. We still speak of a prodigal son or prodigal daughter, that's because of this story. We speak of the killing of the fatted calf as a form of lavish celebration that comes from this chapter. Sometimes we talk about feeding on husks. That's commonly understood to mean hitting rock bottom like this boy did in the story of the prodigal son. So this story is far from obscure, even in secular society. And it deserves some real attention from us today. The third parable in the trilogy here in Luke chapter 15 is itself a drama in three acts. It revolves around the three principal characters. The first act is all about the son. We're going to talk about today in verses 11 through 19. The second act is about the father. The focus is on him in verses 20 through 24. And then, but we didn't get to it, didn't read about it. The third act is about the elder brother in verses 25 through 32. Or you could call these same acts, you could refer to them under these headings, at home, away from home, and back home. At home, away from home, and back home. Now before I get into the heart of the message, I need to make an important clarification. We usually think of the word prodigal with a negative connotation in our culture and in our language. We seldom use the word prodigal anymore unless we refer to a wayward son or daughter. what is evoked in your mind when you hear that word, prodigal. But the word prodigal itself just means lavish, generous. Did you know that? That's what it means. Lavish and generous. And thus someone who donates generously to some charitable cause is said to be practicing prodigality in giving. You see the word prodigal now? But it's because this younger son was so lavish to the extreme, to the point of being wasteful, that we have this connotation, this negative connotation of the word prodigal in our minds. He wasted his substance with riotous living. He was generous and lavish, but in the wrong way. That's why we call him the prodigal. You know, it's hard for us to truly appreciate the generous heart of our Heavenly Father depicted by the Father in this story, who is the true hero, by the way. It's hard for us to appreciate the heart of the Father until we understand the heinousness of the sinner, the heinousness of what the younger son did here. I mean, he really went bad, and he hit rock bottom. And we need to plummet those depths with Him, not in experience, but just in appreciation, in our minds. Otherwise, we will not appreciate the forgiveness of the Father. This dad is the hero, and he shows us the heart of love and forgiveness that God the Father has for His erring children. By the way, don't forget the setting here. Don't forget who Jesus is talking to. He's not really talking to His disciples. It's not for their benefit primarily that He's given this parable, these three parables. He is answering His critics, the scribes and the Pharisees who sneered at Him for being the friend of publicans and sinners. They couldn't rejoice when one of that crowd was reclaimed, found, saved. So He's answering them, as you see in verses 2 and 3. He is laying bare their hard, self-righteous hearts. And boy, he just hammers away, one story after another. And this third story is the charm. It really takes the cake. Jesus really knew how to touch the heartstrings, by the way. And so today I want to hone in on this boy, this prodigal boy. He wasn't just a foolish son, he was a prodigal. In what way or ways was this boy sinfully excessive? Let's look at his profile, lest we also repeat his sins. Number one, he was sinfully excessive in that he demanded all. He demanded all, verse 12, and the younger of them, the younger son, said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And the response of the father was he divided unto them, both of them, his living. If he did it to one, he had to do it to the other. In other words, the boy was saying, give me what's coming to me. I want an advance on my inheritance. How did he want it? How did he demand it? Well, he demanded it immediately. He was rude. He was impatient. He said, I want what's coming to me and I want it now. The late R.C. Sproul said deferred gratification was not in his vocabulary. Which makes me, reminds me of one of the famous fables in Aesop's Fables. Maybe you have a copy of Aesop's Fables laying around the house somewhere. Those stories have good morals to them. They're good for us to teach our children. There's one in there about the grasshopper and the ants. Remember that one? The ants were working hard, storing food, gathering food for the long winter and putting it in their storehouse. And while the ants were working hard doing that, the grasshopper just looked at them and laughed and said, you fools, why do you work when the sun is at its peak? This is the time for singing and playing. That's what he was doing. It was, as we say in the Cayman Islands, the attitude of the latitude. Well, the ants took no notice of him. They just kept right on working while the grasshopper lay sunning himself. And you know the rest of the story. You can imagine it. Soon the summer was over and winter came covering everything with ice and snow. There was no food to be found anywhere and the grasshopper with no food stored was starving. So he limps on over to where the ants were making their stockpile and he says, oh please, I'm so hungry. Give me some food that you've saved or I'm going to starve to death. And the ants responded by saying, you should have thought of that back in the summer. didn't need to do anything in the summer, then you don't need to eat during the winter. And they refused to give him a single scrap of food. And the grasshopper went away sad and hungry. The moral of that story, and Aesop's fables always had a moral, was you need to make plans for the future. You need to lay ahead, lay in store for the future. This boy wasn't doing that. He wasn't concerned about his retirement even. He just wanted to live it up now. There's a profound lesson here for all of us, and that is this. Please remember this. Satan always gives his best first. God gives the best to those who leave the choice with him. Remember that first miracle that Jesus did in Cana of Galilee when he turned water into wine? Many of us, most of us, if we've studied the Word of God, we remember something about that. First miracle Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee at a wedding feast. That was a big, big affair back then, a big gala, social thing. And the servants came to Jesus' mother and they said, we've run out of wine. So Jesus was approached by his mother and she said to him, they have no wine. And in effect, she said to him, do something about it. And Jesus, first of all, rebuked her gently for trying to use her influence to manipulate him. But then he did ask for jars, pots of water to be brought, and he miraculously transformed that H2O into wine. And it was the best wine any of them had ever tasted. And so the ruler of the feast, when he sampled it, he said that. And he said this, every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse or inferior, but thou hast kept the good wine until now. And Jesus was God. God always keeps the good wine till later. Satan gives his best first. And then when men have satiated and glutted themselves, then he slips in his poison. He dangles his lures in front of naive souls until he hooks them. And then he grinds all of the life and the virility and the self-respect and the spirit out of them. And he throws them on the ash pile and laughs at them. That's the devil. But our God is different. He says, wait on me. delight in me, and I'll give you the desires of your heart. Oh, hear me this morning. If you're an impulsive, impetuous soul, don't head down the road of this prodigal by demanding now what you think you're entitled to. Wise is the young man. Wise is the young woman who takes the long look. I just spoke to our high school seniors and others who are here for Senior Chapel. Most of the high school was either watching the live stream or in person. We talked about, he that winneth souls is wise, and he's wise because he, the soul winner's wise because he takes the long look. And Daniel echoed Solomon's sentiments about that very matter. Daniel said in chapter 12, verse 3 of his prophecy, they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness. Who's that? That's the one who wins souls, as the stars forever and ever. We need to think about that as we're planning another foray of intentional evangelism. The soul winner is wise on a number of levels. He's wise among other reasons because he defers the immediate gratification of popularity with someone for the long-term goal of being a true friend. You know why a lot of people never get around to witnessing to their friends? They're afraid to jeopardize their friendship. And so they'll let their friend go to hell. jeopardize the short term friendship. That's not much of a friend. The Bible says faithful are the wounds of a friend. Even if they don't receive what we have to say very well, if we say it in love and for the right motives, God's going to honor that. That's true wisdom. Well, He demanded all, not only Immediately, but this foolish prodigal younger son demanded it shamelessly. You might say shame fully because it was a shameful thing for him to do. But as far as his attitude was concerned, he was shameless. I did a little digging. into the text here, it's interesting that that phrase, portion of goods, in verse 12, he says, when we asked for the father to give the portion of goods that fell to him, it doesn't really refer to the pending inheritance. We might think on the surface it did. It doesn't really refer to that. You might be interested to know that the Greek expression here is found nowhere else in the It doesn't even refer to real estate or some kind of tangible asset of any kind. It refers to personal valuables. Isn't that interesting? Personal valuables. This younger son was demanding of his father his household goods, his personal valuables and other material possessions that would have to be inventoried and distributed early. What impudence. What insolence! How outrageous! How disrespectful! Do you realize what this boy was saying? He was saying, in effect, to his biological father, Dad, I wish you were dead. The truth is, even if a father in those days distributed some of his assets to his heirs early, before he died, which was not entirely uncommon, he still made control over them while he lived. His heir, his son, whoever might manage an asset, they might cultivate a piece of property that he was going to give them as if it were his own. But the father still had the dominant voice in how it was used and how the income, the revenue was to be shared. This boy was mean, disrespectful, dishonoring to his father. He needed to have a not jerked in his come along in the worst kind of way. You know, some Christian readers have a hard time with the fact that if this father represents God, how he could be so permissive to his boy. You ever thought about that? Let me just say that two things. First of all, the point here, remember a parable has one point, and the parable, the point here is not the rightness or the wrongness of the concession of the father. Don't make a parable stand on all fours. The central overarching truth here is the love, the forgiveness of the Father. But even in the short term, the point here is, it's a warning, it's a sobering admonition, and that is this, that when we make our requests known unto God, we should always do it with that important caveat, if it be thy will, instead of demanding it. Jesus is our example in the Garden of Gethsemane. I know I'm speaking to a lot of different people. I'm speaking to some singles here today. And I know how the devil works on you. He gets you to think, oh, I've got to have so-and-so for a spouse. I've got to marry so-and-so. I cannot be happy without him or her. And sometimes God gives you what you demand, and then it is your biggest regret. and you wish you'd never asked. How sad it is to fret and fume till we have our desire and then we fret even more when that desire is attained because it brings bitter disappointment. There's a lesson to be learned from the Israelites. The things that happened to Israel in the Old Testament were for our example, the Bible says, in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And so there's a verse about this, I wish you would turn to Psalm 106, Psalm 106 verse 15. Please keep your finger in Luke chapter 15. While you're turning there, let me just tell you what the psalmist is referring to. He's referring to when the Israelites, having escaped Egypt and being in the wilderness, they got tired of the manna that God miraculously provided for them day after day. They got tired of that angel food from heaven and they started craving meat. They wanted flesh to eat. Boy, they said some cruel things to God, some heartless, ungrateful things to God. And this is the response of Jehovah. Verse 15, And he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. That's an important lesson, folks. Spurgeon was spot on when he commented on this. Prayers of lust will have to be wept over. prayers of lust will have to be wept over. The meat was poisoned to them when it came without a blessing. And so the father of this prodigal gave him his request. That's the important thing to understand. This father gave him his request and it was the undoing of the Son. It proved to be the most dishonoring and disastrous thing. Don't insist on something too much with God. unless you know it's something he's promised. And then don't let him go until he blesses you. This young boy, first of all, demanded all. Secondly, he spent all. Those words are actually used in verse 14. It probably didn't take long before this became a reality when he went off into the far country to live it up on his father's dime. And when he had spent all, There arose a mighty famine in that country and he began to be in want or in need. He had squandered his fortune. He had wasted his father's livelihood on wine, women, and song. I don't need to remind you, sin will do that. Sin decimates. Sin depletes. Sin degrades. song that many of you have heard, it talks about sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will cost you more than you want to pay. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay. But God in mercy, if you insist on it, He'll let you reap what you sow. He will let you bottom out how wicked it is to take His blessings and then turn them into curses to your soul. God will let you spend all before he hands out his grace. Notice how he spent all. First of all, he spent all away from home. It says he took his journey into far country. Question, why didn't he just go across town and live it up so he could pillow his head on his bed at night? Why did he do that? I think you know the answer. That's not the way sin works. Men love darkness rather than light. They want to avoid detection and accountability. And that's why the college kids, for the most part, hit the beaches in Florida on spring break, and they engage in all kinds of lustful activities that they wouldn't do to that excess at home. They leave their inhibitions, they leave their cultural taboos at home. They completely forget about consequences. And I've often thought about mothers and dads back home that see the scenes of their kids on the beaches, on television, or on the internet. If they see their son or daughter, what in the world do they think? It's a mindset of many people that would come to the playland where I used to be a missionary. Grand Cayman Island. Some people would go berserk because they thought they were anonymous. Nobody knew them there. They were getting away from it. They were throwing all inhibitions to the winds. How sad it is to see how much people will spend, not only in money, but in character when they leave home. I hope you won't do that if you're about to leave home. May I remind all of us that when no one else is around and sees, God is around and He sees. We're living in a day of advanced technology so that with a click of the mouse you can visit the far country without leaving your bedroom. I believe with all my heart that a revival of holiness would break out in our churches if we just came to truly practice the presence of God in our lives. If we would say with Hagar out in the wilderness thinking that her son Ishmael was about to die because it was a barren, dry, arid wilderness, no well in sight, but God appeared to her and showed her a well and she said, Thou God, see us. And she thought she was all alone. Would God be, we would be so conscious of those all seeing eyes and of that omnipresence of the Holy Spirit who is more sensitive to sin and more easily offended by it than the most fastidious lady. We sin because we fail to believe God knows and sees and cares and rewards her judges. That's why we sin. He'd send away from home. He didn't just go to the other side of town. He had to get away from home. Along with that is the thought that he forfeited what home had to offer. He didn't think about that up front. All he could think about was a good time he was going to have when he got to the far country. He didn't think about what he was giving up until he was in the hog pen strapped for cash. brother and I were the oldest of eight children and I know how excited we were when we went off to college for the first time. It was a Bible college, we were 18. We were excited about the new life. You know that wore off in about two months. That dining hall food wasn't near as good as mom's home cooking. And it kind of got old to wash your own clothes and iron your own shirts. That boy lost all the benefits of home, not just his mom's cooking. That was part of it, a big part of it. The Bible says he ate the husk that the swine did eat. That's not corn husk. That's not the corn cobs. We think of it as corn. No, that's not corn cobs. That's carob pods. Carob was kind of like chocolate, kind of nutty chocolate. Now, I love nuts and I love chocolate, but I would want to have it three times a day. That's all he had. He lost his mom's cooking. He lost his security that home afforded. He lost his testimony. Can you imagine what young men said when they saw him in the hog pen, there with no shoes on, shabbily dressed, and they looked at him and said, look at that beggar. He probably heard them and he might have bristled and said, don't call me a beggar. I'm the son of a wealthy man. My father's a wealthy man. And they would say, your father's what? They didn't believe him. Some people leave home before it's time. They think they're gaining, but really they're losing. Remember, you can't buy love. Ask Bill Gates. Ask Jeff Bezos, his estranged wife who just got settled. She's getting $38 billion. What's that when you lose love? There's not a prodigal on earth who hasn't lost his home. And you may live in a gilded palace and have no want of anything materially, but if there's no love and there's no God, there's no home. Could I speak to some of you this morning that I want to be aware of this. We often extol a Christian home and we ought to, and some of us speak as if because we've had a Christian home, everybody's had a Christian home. No, that's not the case. There are probably a number, if I had you raise your hand, there are probably half the congregation here did not come from a home where both mom and dad were saved and loved the Lord and practiced it and lived it before you. And maybe you're a young person in that category. May I just appeal to you for a few moments, don't give up your values. Don't forget your biblical roots. Oh, how the devil wants to work on you and make you think that because you don't have a Christian dad or a Christian mom and they didn't treat you the way they should, they didn't give you, they set the example before you that you need to go ahead and sow your wild oats in another way and just kind of define yourself, strike out on your own. Oh, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Think about what God has given you in place of that. Think about the spiritual dads and mothers He's given you. You may not have the love of a Christian home, but you have the love of a family of God here at Friendship Baptist Church. Don't throw your integrity away. God is a faithful Father, and if you obey Him, He will not be a debtor to you. He demanded all. He spent all. But praise the Lord, thirdly, he risked all on his father. The climax of this parable is in verse 17. That's what the, if we go back to Luke chapter 15, this is what the literary critics would call the denouement, the unraveling. This is where it starts. And when he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. The rest of the story tells us that's what he did. But what do I mean when I say he risked all? Simply this, please don't miss this. This is the most important point of today's message. He threw himself completely on the mercy of his father. If his father did not receive him, he was undone. He had no plan B. So he risked all, first of all, in repentance. It's interesting what the word repent means in the Greek. Some of you understand this. You've heard this many times, even if you never took Greek in seminary, Bible college. The root word for repent is the Greek word metaneo, which means to change one's mind, to think differently. So that in itself tells us that repentance begins with thinking, doesn't it? This man thought. He came to himself down there in the hog pen. It was an honest, intelligent reflection. He did some tall thinking. He did some true assessing. What is the opposite of to think? The opposite of to think is not to think. And you know the word that actually means that? Amuse. The root amuse means think. You put the negative prefix ah in front of it, it means not to think. And oh, how we are amusing ourselves to death in America. In fact, a noted educator named Neil Postman wrote a book about that in 1985, Amusing Ourselves to Death. This is what he said. I don't think he was a Christian, but he hit the nail on the head. He said, entertainment is like a mind-numbing drug. He said, it's all about style these days, not substance. It's all about music, not the message. And he just gave illustrations from the arts, from education, from business. what was happening in America. We are amusing ourselves to death because we refuse to think. The news at night comes in little two minute segments and then it's a commercial. There's more thought that goes into the commercial than the news. Now in what areas did this boy change his thinking? Well he thought differently about his sin. the first time he realized how the sin affected his father and God. He said, I've sinned against heaven. He realized how he dishonored his father. All of a sudden, sin wasn't so cool. It hadn't worked out too well for him. You know, that's the way God orchestrates things. The Bible says, the way of the transgressor is hard. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. There's a divine law of sowing and reaping. You can choose your sin, but you cannot choose your consequences. Remember that. And so I appeal to you today, if you're caught up in sin, if you're wallowing in a besetting sin this morning, take the low place before God. Do what this boy did. Call sin the way God calls it. Don't dictate terms to God. Come to Him just as you are, just as I am, without one plea, and believe that God will welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, as we sing that invitation song so often. Throw yourself upon the mercy of God. Have no contingency plan. risk it all. He risked all, not only repentance, he risked all in faith. You say, Pastor, when did faith spring up in his heart? I suggest to you it's the very moment he decided, I will arise and go. To talk about faith isn't faith. To quote scripture about faith isn't faith, the devil could do that. Faith without works is dead. And there came a point where this disheveled, hungry, shabby, barefoot tramp decided in his heart of hearts, the hired servants of my father's back home are better off than I am. What am I doing here in this hog pen? I'm a Jewish boy. I ought to have more respect than that. I will arise and go. I've been serving the devil long enough and look what kind of a paymaster he's been. And that's when he prepared his speech and came home, headed for home. It's amazing, he didn't get all of his prepared speech out of his mouth before the Father interrupted him and forgave him and restored him. God's more willing to accept the repentant backslider and sinner than you are willing to make things right. Thank God. Though the lost sinner or the backslider has wickedly and selfishly demanded all and shamelessly spent all and come up empty, if he truly repents and risks all on Jesus who paid all of his for sin on the cross, then the Father will forgive all. Hallelujah. Will you claim that forgiveness today? If so, All heaven will resound with rejoicing. Let's pray. O God, let hope spring anew in the heart of some prodigal here this morning. Would you grant repentance unto life? Let all pride be laid in the dust. O Lord, magnify your grace in the life of someone here today who are listening, watching. We pray in Jesus' name and for his glory and for his sake. Amen.