Amazing Love (Part 3 of 7)

When a young man who we know as the prodigal son finally realized he'd gone completely astray, he did more than just acknowledge his guilt. He came to his senses.

He returned to his father and admitted that he was utterly lost and in need of mercy. Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg teaches us how this story demonstrates God's amazing love. The young man lost his money, lost his freedom, lost his self-respect, but he refuses to dehumanize himself, and he decides to stay hungry. The hunger gnaws at his soul, and it keeps him thinking, and it keeps him searching.

Is that you this morning, thinking and searching? Let me tell you, for those of you who are thinking and searching, the Bible makes it very clear that sin provides no ultimate satisfaction. And this is, of course, what we long to say to men and women.

This broad road really does lead to destruction. You don't have to be a heinous sinner. You can just be a nice sinner with your fingernails cut and clean, with your cuffs starched and white, with your initials monogrammed on the cuff, with your office tidy. And yet, in the very core of your being, this little upper-middle-class sinner finds no ultimate satisfaction.

It's like drinking salt water. It cannot eventually satisfy. Sin's ability both to interest a person and to satisfy a person very quickly runs out. The liar can never get to an end of his lies. The proud can never get to the end of their pride. The bitter can never get to the end of their bitterness.

There is no ultimate satisfaction in sin. It's a stupid idea. And that's why we labor to say to our young people, pragmatically, this is a dumb way to go. This is a silly way to go. Don't go this way.

Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. I don't want to hear this anymore. I don't want to hear about the law. I don't want to hear about the framework of life. I don't want to hear about the principles. I don't want to hear about God first.

I don't want to hear about Jesus. Just give me some cash and let me get out of here. Oh, Son, it's a broad road, and it will lead you to destruction. I frankly don't care. And I frankly don't believe you.

Let me go. And in the pigsty, he discovers that his problem is not that he's run out of food but that he has run out on his father. Not that he's run out on food, but that he's run out on his father. He's now discovered what Augustine, that other great prodigal, made so perfectly clear. And if you've never read the Confessions of Augustine, the Penguin Classic is useful.

You'll find it in any decent book, sure. And Augustine, in the midst of it all, says, You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. For this reason, all of our attempts to live without God ultimately creates for us an existence that is poor and is a shoddy substitute for all that God intends. If you and I try and live without God, no matter how good we may try and get it, it will not deal with that central angst within our souls.

What Pascal refers to as that God-shaped void within the core of man. The same way that you may be a very successful medical person here this morning. You give injections.

There's immediate benefit to that. But you don't know why you're doing it. And your heart is restless. Your teaching that you began in, with this great flush of enthusiasm, you are going to change the world through these kids, and these kids are killing you. Your lessons that you thought were brilliant are average, and your abilities are less than you really imagined. And worse than that, you're saying, What's the point of all of this? See, your heart is restless until you find your rest in God.

You could put the CD in, or the MP3, and you play your music, and you lie on your bed, and you look up at the ceiling, and you say, I'm restless! Of course you are! God made you for himself. And you've turned your back on him. There's none that seeketh after God, no, not one. All of us have gone astray. By our very nature, we are prodigal sons and daughters. The only question is the extent to which we have drifted from the Father's house. No matter how far he tried to run from his Father's home, he couldn't shake his Father from his mind. And no matter how far we try to live from God, we still live with a residual awareness of his existence and also of his interest in us. And even the most atheistic in our world have been prepared to acknowledge that Sartre, the French philosopher who was himself an avowed atheist, declared on one occasion that God does not exist, I cannot doubt, but that my whole being cries out for God, I cannot deny.

This is the ultimate dilemma. My soul cries out for a God that I believe does not exist. Now look at the progression in this young man's life. Up there in verse 13, he got together all he had. And then he spent everything, verse 14. And then at the end of 14, he began to be in need. And then in verse 15, he got a job. And then in verse 16, he longed to eat pig food. And then in verse 17, he came to his senses. I love that little phrase.

And when he came to his senses… Actually, I like it better in the King James Version, where it says, And when he came to himself… Because it fits the twenty-first-century quest, you know. You talk to people in cafes and you say, What are you doing? They say, I'm trying to find myself. I say, Well, let me introduce you to yourself. I'm talking to yourself. No, no, they said, I'm trying to find myself-self. Do you understand what they're saying?

I do. They never met themselves. Or the selves they met they didn't like. So they're looking for another self. They've got no identity. So they try to create an identity as a result of being the party girl. Or they try to create an identity as a result of being the athletic hero. Or they try to create an identity as a result of being the good-time Charlie.

But when they're on their own, they don't know who they are. So when people say, I'm looking for myself, I say, Well, this is a good journey. Let me tell you the story about a kid who was looking for himself.

What story? Well, there was a guy who lived in a really big house. His father had tons of dough. And he went out, and he thought he could find himself here, here, here, and here. And actually, he got himself in a real mess. He was completely in a pigsty of a situation. And he came to his senses, and he came to himself.

Well, how did that happen? Who was he? Where was he?

Where was this? Dallas? No. You see, in coming to himself, he was gripped by the real state of affairs. His absence of food was only an indication of the fact. His starving to death was only an emblem of what happens to a man or a woman when they turn their back on God the Father. So having not made any attempt to try and fix himself up in the pigsty, he determines, I'm going to set out, and I'm going to go back to my father, and I'm just going to flat-out say to him, Look, I sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm not worthy to be back in here as a son. Maybe you could make me as one of your hired servants.

It's quite a statement, isn't it? I will go back to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. Now, let me ask you a question here. Has there been a daytime moment in your life where you made such a journey? Where you went before God in the silence of your own home, in the privacy of your own car, in the driveway of a friend's house, in your dorm room late at night, out in a field by yourself, as you wrestled with your own restlessness, and suddenly you came to yourself? All of that alienation from God, all of that alienation from others, that sense of angst and alienation from yourself suddenly coalesced, and you said, You know, this makes perfect sense to me now. I am completely disengaged from the God who made me. And the reason that I'm here is because I determined that I would be here.

I decided that I would not listen to the promptings of others. And God has come and sought you out. And you reached the point where you said, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight.

Now, before every one of you answers yes to that, let me make a distinction for you in your minds. What this young man is doing here is not expressing a sense of his awareness that he lives in a community of lostness. This is not a young man who is saying, You know, everybody's messed up, and I'm messed up too.

This is not a young man who's saying, You know, there are a lot of people who've made a hash of their lives, and I've made a hash of my life as well, and frankly, I'm prepared now just to admit it. My name is George, and I'm a drunk. Okay, fine. But that's not the same as saying, My name is George, and I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I don't deserve to live in your house. My name is Mary, and I used to be irreligious. Uh-huh. That's not the same as saying, My name is Mary, and I never told you this before, Father, except in the church when everybody was saying it, and I just said it with them.

But never just one-on-one, you and me. I never ever told you, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I actually don't deserve to be one of your children. This young man is not expressing a generic sense of sin.

He is expressing the fact that he, in his individuality, is lost and is guilty. Have you ever done that? And if you haven't, would you not? Because you do not become a member of the family of God en masse. You are not made one with Christ in some sort of generic sweep through the community. God has no grandchildren.

You do not come to Christ through the genetic input of your parents. It is a personal encounter. It is a personal awareness. And it is a personal appointment with God.

Have you done that? The Heidelberg Catechism, which I'm sure none of you were reading this week, but some of you come from a background where you did read it, and you should be thankful that you did, because it is a wonderful piece of work. The Heidelberg Catechism asks the question, How many things is it necessary to know that you may live and die happily?

It's a good question, isn't it? Because we're all going to die. Are you going to die happily? What do I need to know so that I can die happily? Number one, the greatness of my sin and misery. Number two, how I am redeemed from all my sin and misery. Number three, how I am to be thankful to God for such a redemption.

Now, the young man was in no doubt here. He said, I am starving to death. My father is my only source of help. I can't take refuge in my friends.

I certainly can't take refuge in my circumstances. I've really got nothing to say as I go back down the road. I've got nothing to plead in my defense.

I've nothing to offer. I've nothing as a basis of self-justification. Indeed, his posture of heart is a reminder to all that the man or the woman who desires to go to God, trusting in their own dignity or making excuses instead of confessing their sins, is in no condition to receive the Father's forgiveness. Not that a conviction of sin is something that we work up as a means of acceptance with God.

A conviction of sin is something that God works within us, according to his mercy. To find us saying, Nothing in my hand I bring, And simply to your cross I cling, And naked come to thee for dress, And helpless come to thee for rest, And foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. What a picture of wretchedness you see in this young man! His clothes are all torn, His shoes are off his feet, He stinks from the pigs. What is he going to say? And what are you going to say?

Now, don't let the fact that you live in a six-hundred-thousand-dollar pigsty convince you that you're not in a pigsty. What are you going to plead in your defense? I'm going to go back, and I'm going to say to my Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. Your moral law is the law of your heart. When I sin against your law, I sin against you. I need your forgiveness, Father.

In fact, I think I can count on it. The only thing he devalues is the extent of his Father's welcome, but he's pretty sure that if he goes back, he'll be okay. As MacLeod the Scottish theologian puts it masterfully, he says, the prodigal went back to his Father, not primarily because he was tormented by a guilty conscience but because he was driven by the hope of mercy.

You see this? I'm going to say that to you again, because it's wonderful. The prodigal went back to his Father, not primarily because he was tormented by a guilty conscience. You can be tormented by a guilty conscience. Lady Macbeth was tormented by a guilty conscience. Out, out, damn this spot!

Get this out of here! She was tormented by a guilty conscience. Macbeth goes to the doctor. Have you no physic that can take care of this?

Basically, the doctor says, You're on your own. I mean, I can do stuff, I can patch you up, but I can't deal with the conscience of a man. I can't bring about this restitution. This guy could have been as guilty as he liked. He could have stayed as guilty as he had felt for the rest of his life living in a pigsty with his friends coming by and dropping off sandwiches to him. And they would have said in years to come, You know, that guy had a great future.

That guy had tremendous potential. He's lived in a pigsty for all these years. He's as guilty as sin.

He knows he is. But somehow or another, he's managed just to shore it up. He's managed to just—in fact, I think there's a couple of priests come in and do services for him in the pigsty. But he can't get up, and he can't get out.

Why? Because he wouldn't have been prepared to say, you see, I've sinned. And the reason he felt able to say, I've sinned is because he was trusting in his Father's mercy. See, the problem with many who come to these worship services in a pigsty is not that you don't know that you're guilty of sin.

Not even just in a generic way, but in a personal way. Because the Word of God has come home to your heart enough, you know, I broke God's law. I don't love him with all my heart. I haven't served him as I should. I have offended against him. There is bitterness in my soul. And so many things. The windscreen of my life is not just got one or two cracks in it.

It's just shattered. You don't have a problem with that. But why is it that you haven't come to God? Because you're afraid to. Because the context out of which you have come has only been able to tell you how guilty you are. And what it has offered to you as a means of solving your guilt has not done it. And so you've gone back to it again and again and again and again. Maybe if I take more, maybe if I have more, maybe if I tend more, maybe if I do more, then that will deal with his guilty conscience. It will never deal with your conscience.

It can't. So the story you need to hear is not the story of a father standing at the end of the driveway with a gigantic big stick waiting for his boy to come back up the road, but the story of a father who's standing at the end of his driveway with his arms stretched out wide and welcome. He says, "'That's my son.

That's my boy.'" A minister once dealt with a young fellow who had run away from home, and in order to help him, he took him to the parable of the prodigal son, and he kind of counseled him, got him stabilized, and said, "'Now why don't you go back to your father and see if he doesn't kill the fatted calf to welcome you?'" So the boy of bay and the minister went back.

The minister saw him a couple of weeks later on the street. He said, "'Did you go back to your dad?' "'Yes, I did,' he replied. "'Did you say sorry?' "'Yes, I did,' he said. "'Did he kill the fatted calf?'

"'No,' said the boy. He jolly well near killed the prodigal son.'" And we understand that. See, don't ever ask God to give you what you deserve. He may give you it. We can only ask God to give us what we don't deserve—his love, his mercy, and his forgiveness, his compassion, and his love. How deep the Father's love for us! How vast beyond all measure that he should give his only Son to make a wretch his treasure! So verse 20, he got up and went to his father.

He got up and went to his father. Now, just keep that picture in your mind, and we'll come back to it. You can see his back now as we shoot this movie. We've been looking at him in this pigsty. Now, he's up, and he has just begun to move.

He's going back to his father. How about you? Have you come to your senses? Have you come to yourself? Have you gone to your father and said, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and I'm not longer worthy to be a member of your family?

Just take me. If you want an old book to read that tells the story of that, get the story of Born Again, the story of Chuck Colson, 1974, post-Watergate. What a fantastic story it is. And read there of how Colson, in all of his superlative academic abilities—Captain in the Marines, the hatchet man in the Nixon administration, in all of the chaos of Watergate—goes over to a friend's house, and the friend gives him a copy of Mere Christianity. And he takes Mere Christianity, and he reads the chapter on pride, and it nails him right to the wall. He thanks his friend for the evening, and he gets out into the car, and he sits in the car in his friend's driveway, and he turns the key in the ignition, and he puts it in drive, and he can't move. And the reason he can't move is because the tears are crushing down his cheeks. And right where he was, he said, I didn't know any evangelical prayers, I didn't know any prayers at all, sitting right in the driveway with the tears running down my face. The big, tough, hatchet man said, Lord Jesus Christ, I am a mess.

Save me. What did he do? He came to himself. And he went to his father.

How about us? That's the question. All of heaven, and all of your future, is hinged to that. What a powerful reminder that whatever our background, when we go to the Father and honestly confess our need for help, he responds with amazing love and forgiveness. You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg.

Please stay with us. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer. If you identified with the prodigal son as you listened to today's program, perhaps you recognized your need for mercy, we want to invite you to watch a helpful video presentation that explains God's plan for salvation.

You'll find the video online at truthforlife.org slash the story. The story of salvation that's presented in this video is a message that we're committed to sharing at Truth for Life. We teach from the scriptures every day of the year so that God's word will go out and be heard by as many people as possible.

It's our sincere hope that many who hear this program will come to trust Christ for their salvation. In addition to teaching the Bible, we carefully select and recommend books to help you grow in your faith. This is the final weekend we're offering a book that provides a blueprint for building a life according to God's wisdom. The title of the book is Living Well, and it examines what the book of Proverbs has to say to us and helps translate the instruction in Proverbs into practical advice for our daily life. Living Well walks us through what the Bible has to say about a wide variety of topics, things like dealing with money, relationships, work, so that we can live in a way that may go against the grain of popular culture but will ultimately be pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. You can request your copy of Living Well by going to truthforlife.org.

Again, that's truthforlife.org. Now, here's Alistair to close us again in prayer. You may want, just from your heart, to say something like this to God this morning. Father, I recognize that I am weaker and more sinful than I was ever before prepared to admit. And I'm realizing now that, in the Lord Jesus, I am more loved and accepted than I had ever dared to hope. I thank you for paying my debt, for bearing my punishment, for offering me forgiveness. I turn from my sin, and I receive you as my Savior. Father, I pray that you will accomplish the purposes of your Word in each of our lives today. We all see ourselves in this boy. We're all actually at some stage on this journey.

We're either running away or finding ourselves to be in need, coming to our senses, determining to go back, having gone back, whatever it may be. Lord, take us where we are on the journey and draw us to yourself with a wonder of your outstretched arms. And may grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Rest upon and remain with each one today and forevermore. Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope you can listen again next weekend as we'll continue this message in a series called Amazing Love. Alistair will talk about how our broken relationship with God can be re-established. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.