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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory. Whenever we go through a major failure in our life, It causes us to question the love of God. But when we go through a major success in life, It causes us to question our need for God. Both can be lethal to our spiritual health.
Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Today's reality shows and Hollywood tabloids tend to venerate individuals who live recklessly and spend extravagantly. And while the pictures might seem enticing, that lifestyle really never can truly satisfy. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr.
Robert Jeffers examines three Old Testament stories that teach us what life apart from God is really like. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Have you ever held a beautiful postcard and wanted to step right into the scene?
Well, you're invited to join me for the Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026, where every moment feels like a scene painted by the master artist himself. We'll dock in idyllic villages like Skagway, Ketchikin, and Juneau, charming coastal gems that look like they've been carefully placed in a gallery of God's finest work. Between exploring these picture-perfect villages, we'll gather with fellow believers for worship and laughter aboard our luxurious ship. Check out all the details and reserve your spot today by going to ptv.org.
Okay, let's be honest. Nobody talks about the real benefits of sin. We preachers focus on consequences without acknowledging the pleasure that keeps Christians in the far country longer than they ever intended. In today's message, we're going to expose what life away from God truly involves. All of us know someone who's sowing wild oats and loving it.
Today's resource helps them wake up and recognize the severe consequences of walking far from God and the delights of returning home to Him. My book is called Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You, and I'm prepared to send a copy to your home right away when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Plus, I'll be sure to include a prayer card for you as well. It contains a prayer for your prodigal to guide you as you pray for the prodigal you love.
Okay, it's time to get started with today's study. My primary text comes from Psalm 32. I titled my message, Life in the Far Country. You know, sin gets a lot of bad press these days. Have you ever noticed that?
I mean, we preacher types are always talking in such a negative way about sin. We're always talking about the downside about sin without ever talking about the real benefits of sin. You heard me right. There really are some benefits to sin. Living a life apart from God really does have its advantages.
And I think it's time to start talking about those advantages. They said, no, Pastor, why in the world, have you lost your mind, would you ever talk about the advantages of living in the far country apart from God? The reason is, I believe one reason Christians spend a lot more time in the far country than they ever thought they would is when they get there. They find it's a much more pleasurable destination than they were ever told it would be. Our sin has its advantages.
There is pleasure to sin. at least for a while. And so tonight we're going to talk about what life in the far country is really like. It's not all pleasure, it's not all pain, and it can last for a long time. In our series, Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You, we are looking at the story of the prodigal son, and we're discovering how the story of the prodigal son is really a metaphor for our relationship with God.
And we've learned some important truths in this series so far. We've already seen that, first of all, all of us tend to drift in our relationship with God. For some of us, it's a sudden act of disobedience, defection that leads us away from God. For other people, it's a slow erosion of our relationship with God until we awaken one day in a place we never thought we would be. For some people, their drifting away from God leads them far away from God.
For other people, their drifting leads them just a stone's throw from the boundaries. Nevertheless, regardless of who we are, we tend to drift in our relationship with God. Second, we saw that Satan has a specific blueprint for our destruction, he has a game plan to bring us down in our faith. Nevertheless, even though his plan is tailor-made for each one of us, it will usually involve one, two, or three of these tactics. He will either use a desire for money.
Or a thirst for pleasure, or a drive for ambition to lead us away from our Heavenly Father. And that's what we've seen so far.
Now, most series on the prodigal son either talk about how it is we leave our heavenly father or how we come back to a right relationship with God. But I have never in all of my life heard a sermon about the second part of that story, that is, what life is like in the far country. We're going to use three Old Testament characters to talk about what life in the far country is really like.
Now, all three of these characters we're going to look at tonight have several things in common. First of all, they were genuine believers, all three of them. Secondly, they allowed either money, pleasure, and/or ambition to lead them away from God. Third, they all three had a serious crisis in their life, an intervention that caused them to become spiritually reawakened. And finally, they all came home to the Father who loved them.
Let's look at these three characters in the Bible tonight. First of all, let's look at Solomon. What does Solomon teach us about life in the far country?
Solomon reminds us that life apart from God is not all pain. After watching his father David fall into sin and lose the kingdom, I'm sure Solomon made a pledge that he would not allow the same thing to happen to him that had happened to his father David. And so when he was 20 years of age, he became king over Israel. And at the beginning of his reign, remember what happened? Turn over to 1 Kings chapter 3 for a moment.
In 1 Kings chapter 3, at the beginning of Solomon's reign, God appeared to him at Gibeon. And God said to Solomon, Solomon, I will promise you anything that you want. Anything you ask for, I'm going to give to you. And look at 1 Kings 3, verse 7. This is what Solomon prayed.
He said, And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant in my place of my father David, yet I am but a little child. Verse 9, so give thy servant an understanding heart to judge the people, to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of thine? We read over those words quickly without realizing how amazing they are. What 20-year-old do you know?
Who, if given the choice of asking God for anything they wanted, would ask for wisdom. I mean, most 20-year-olds I know, if told they could ask for anything they wanted, they would have asked for a closet full of designer tunics. Or uh The latest model chariot. Or, maybe an unlimited account with American Express. But to ask for wisdom, that tells you something about Solomon's heart.
He said, I want wisdom. And God was so pleased with that, not only did He grant him wisdom, but he granted him riches and power as well. But God gave this one warning, this one condition. He said in verse 14 of 1 Kings 3: And if you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and commandments, as your father David walked, then I will prolong your days.
Now, for the next 20 years, Solomon kept his end of the bargain. He stayed close to God. He followed after God, and God blessed him, making him the most successful king in Israel's history. And the climax of his reign, of course, was the building of the temple. But right after that great spiritual climax, God came back to Solomon and reminded him of the deal he had made with Solomon.
I think that's significant: that God appeared to him after the dedication of the temple. You see, there are two times we are most prone to wander away from God: either after a major failure in our life. or after a major success in our life. Whenever we go through a major failure in our life, It causes us to question the love of God. But when we go through a major success in life, It causes us to question our need for God.
Both can be lethal to our spiritual health, to question God's love for us or to question our need for God. After this great success, God comes back to Solomon and he reminds him in 1 Kings chapter 9 with these words: He says, And as for you, if you will walk before me as your father walked in the integrity of heart and uprightness, doing all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised to your father David. But Solomon didn't keep that promise. Instead, like the prodigal son Solomon allowed, ambition? He allowed pleasure, he allowed materialism to destroy his relationship with God.
But it didn't happen overnight. This erosion of his relationship with God happened over a 20-year period. We find a more detailed account of those 20 years, the final 20 years of Solomon's life. In his personal journal called Ecclesiastes. Turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter two for just a moment.
Verses one through eight. in which uh Solomon details those last 20 years of his life. He says, I thought in my heart. Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless.
And then he goes in to describe what he chased after, laughter, accomplishments, pleasure, all of these things. And then finally, he comes to this conclusion in verse 10. He says, Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. It was a chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun.
You might say, well, Robert, I mean, isn't Solomon saying life apart from God is meaningless? That it's painful, that it's not pleasurable? Why are you saying that Solomon is saying that life apart from God is pleasurable?
Well, yes, Solomon did come to that conclusion. At the end of a 20-year erosion of his relationship with God. Remember, Ecclesiastes was written when Solomon was an old man. This is his observation looking back. But here's the point I want you to understand tonight about Solomon.
Had Solomon's experience away from God been painful immediately, he was smart enough he would not have continued down that path. But because there was pleasure in living apart from God, for 20 years he continued to move further and further away from God. Thinking about it this way: if you put your finger on a stove that's hot, how long are you going to keep your finger there? Not very long, are you? I mean, you've got enough sense, you're going to remove the pain.
We are all self-centered enough that we are not going to continue in a lifestyle that only brings us pain. The reason people go to the far country away from God and stay there for a long time. is because it's more pleasurable than we would like to admit. And one thing I love about the Word of God is how honest it is. In Hebrews chapter 11, verses 24 to 25, the writer is talking about Moses.
And he says, by faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Choosing rather to endure ill treatment with the people of God, rather to enjoy. The passing pleasures of sin. In a previous church, uh One of my members came by to see me. His name was Tom, and uh He wanted to visit with me about what was going on in his life, so we sat down in my study, and he announced to me that he was going to leave his wife.
And he abandoned his two small children. And he said, I'm just not fulfilled in my marriage, Pastor, and I know God wants me to be happy above all else. And so I'm leaving my family. And he said, I just wanted to come by and tell you because you are my pastor, and I wondered if you would pray for me. And I said, well, I'd be happy to pray for you.
And so I put my hand on his shoulder. We both closed our eyes, and I said, Dear God, thank you for sending Tom here today. I pray that you will make him absolutely miserable. I pray that you would cause him to lose his job. I pray that he would lose everything important to him.
I pray that he would be so anxious and miserable that he wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Please take everything away from him in Jesus' name. Amen. I pray, I swear, I prayed that. By the way, you can understand why I don't have a lot of people coming to me for counseling either.
He left. A little bit uh shaken up. Two months later, he came back. And I said, Well, how are things going with you, Tom? He said, Well, I'm dating Michelle right now, the other lady.
We're thinking about getting married. And I said, well, how's it going with Michelle? He said, well, you know, it's the strangest thing. It's fun. I'm having a good time.
But I've never been more miserable in my life. The divorce I went through was contentious. It cost me everything that I have. I've lost my job. All the friends I thought I had in the church, they've turned their back on me.
And every night I awaken in the middle of the night, I think I'm having a heart attack and I can't sleep. I said, God answers prayer, doesn't he? You know, that is a great illustration of what sin is like. No, it's not all pain, but it's not all pleasure either. And one of the great illustrations of that is found in the life of David.
You know, in a previous message in this series, we talked about his experience with Bathsheba and how that thirst for pleasure led him away from God.
Next time, we're going to talk about what happened in the aftermath of that experience, how a crisis in his life brought David back to God. But I want you to look at what the Bible says. And David's own words was his experience in that time that he was in the far country, living with Bathsheba, having taken her as his wife, but still apart from God. In Psalm 32, verses 3 and 4, David talked about this period in the far country. He said, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away. as would the fever heat. of summer. No matter how far you've wandered away from God, in the back of your mind is that knowledge that God is going to judge you.
And you begin to interpret every bad thing in your life as God's judgment. It's that anxiety that drowns out any pleasure you feel from the far country. David had that kind of anxiety. And David reminds us that life apart from God isn't all pleasure. And then finally, the experience of Moses reminds us that life in the far country can last a long time.
We don't know how long the prodigal spend in the far country. It may have been a month, six months. It may have been a period of several years. But you know, one of the most confusing things about living apart from God is how long we can stay in the far country without any severe consequences coming into our life.
Solomon expressed it this way in Ecclesiastes 8 verse 11. He said, Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly. Therefore, the hearts of the sons of men are given among them to do that which is evil. Let me translate that for you.
Solomon is saying, because God doesn't zap us the moment we step out of line, the moment He doesn't judge us immediately for every sin we commit, is confusing to us. It makes us think that possibly God really doesn't care about our sin. Or perhaps God doesn't even exist. There are some of you right now who are living in the far country. There are some of you teenagers right now who are engaged in sin that you think nobody knows about.
There is sin in your life, and you're wondering, you know, why is it God hasn't judged me? If this is really that bad, why hasn't God judged me yet? If that's true of you tonight, let me give you two biblical explanations why it is that God doesn't judge sin immediately, always in your life. One reason is because of the patience of God. In 2 Peter 3, verse 9, Peter explains why it is the Lord has delayed his coming into the world.
He says, The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish. but for all to come to repentance. That word patient is the word that means long-tempered. God doesn't have a short fuse like many of us do. He doesn't blow a gasket when the red light stays red too long, or when you get behind a slow driver, or somebody forgets your birthday.
I mean, for some of us, that sets off an explosion. Not with God. He is not short-tempered, he is long-tempered. He is not willing for any to perish. Although this verse applies to unbelievers, there's a truth for us as well.
The reason God hasn't brought judgment into your life Yet is because he is patient. But just because God hasn't judged yet doesn't mean the judgment isn't coming. One reason for God's delay in bringing justice is the patience of God. A second reason is the purpose of God. And by that, I mean God can actually accomplish something positive in our life.
even while we're in the far country. And Moses is a great illustration of that. You know the story. It's found actually not only in Exodus chapter 2, but in Acts chapter 7. Remember, God had promised Moses that he would be the great liberator of Israel.
But when it didn't happen according to Moses' timetable, when Moses reached about age 40, he got impatient with God and decided he was going to have to bring about the liberation on his own. And you remember what happened. He killed that Egyptian soldier. And from that point on, he had to run from Pharaoh and all of Pharaoh's forces. And he found himself in the desert in the alien land of Midian.
And for the next 40 years, Moses was in the desert. He thought his life was over. He thought his chance to be used by God was over. There's only one verse in the Bible that describes that 40-year period in Moses' life. when he was in the far country.
In Deuteronomy 32, verse 10, Moses, talking about his own experience, said, And God found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness, he encircled him. He cared for him. He guarded him as the pupil of his eye. Moses was in the far country. Because of his choice.
One bad choice put him in the far country for 40 years. And yet while he was in that far country, God still cared for him. And during those 40 years, God taught him some invaluable lessons about faith. about obedience. about God's provisions.
lessons that would prepare him For the next 40 years of his life, when he would come back at age 80 as the great liberator of Egypt. There's some of you here tonight. Who are in that desert country, you're in the far country. simply because of a bad choice you've made. That choice may have been an illicit affair.
It may involve a destructive addiction. It might have involved a relationship that you didn't give the proper attention to. You may be in the far country tonight simply because you've allowed everyone and everything else to eclipse your love for God. You're in the far country tonight, but remember, God can even use this experience for good. The Bible says God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose.
And that act of disobedience that puts you in the far country. can still be redeemed. It can be used for good because in the far country you can learn some lessons about faith. Obedience, and God's provision that you wouldn't learn anywhere else. Yeah.
What is life in the far country like? It's not all pain. It's not all pleasure. It can last a long time. But the good news is It doesn't have to last.
forever. Uh I know that I'm speaking to someone right now who's thinking, Dr. Jeffers, you've just described my life. Today's sermon is about me. I'm a prodigal living in the far country.
My friend, isn't it time to make a change? I've written a book called Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. It gives you a biblical guide for finding your way back. Through crisis, repentance, forgiveness, and perseverance. There's even a study guide at the back of the book that'll help you to take the necessary steps.
And many of our listeners are using this book and study guide in their small group Bible study. All of us know someone who's a prodigal. Our heart aches for someone in rebellion, and we long for them to find their way home.
Well, my book will equip you with a roadmap to guide your friend home. Perhaps it's a son or daughter, maybe a grandchild. Let me send you my book, Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. It's yours. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, even in our dark generation where our culture is erupting with vitriol towards God, We believe Pathway to Victory is postured to make a bigger impact than ever before.
We know this is true because of the overwhelming response we receive from people whose hearts are open to a forgiving and loving God. But we cannot do this work alone. Your generous support of Pathway to Victory is what God uses to bring light and life to all who hear. right here in your city, your state, our nation, and even the world.
So let me hear from you to day, okay? I'll be happy to say thanks by providing my book, Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You. Here's David to tell you more. When you give a generous gift to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll send you a copy of Coming Home to the Father Who Loves You by Dr. Robert Jeffers.
Give a gift and request the book when you call 866-999-2965 or online, go to ptv.org. You know, our listeners often tell us they consider the teaching and resources they receive from Pathway to Victory to really be trustworthy and powerful. And when you give today, we're also going to send you a prayer for your prodigal. It's a beautifully designed card to help you faithfully intercede for the loved one who needs to find their way back home. Again, call 866-999-2965 or online, go to ptv.org.
You could write to us at PO Box 223-609-Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins.
Dr. Jeffers continues his series on the prodigal son tomorrow with a message titled, When God Steps In. That's Tuesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.
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We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for?
Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Konings Dam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways. It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visiting iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway.
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