Scripture: Luke 15:11-24
Title: “The Prodigal Church”
Introduction: The CHURCH is the most POWERFUL “tool” God has at His disposal.
The CHURCH is the “ONLY” tool God has to REPRESENT Him in this world.
In verse 11 Jesus said, “A Certain Man” had two sons.”
The father in this story is always recognized as “God.”
If this is true there is much more here than a Jewish lad.
We are dealing with nothing less than the New Testament Church.
From this point of view this may very well be one of the most POWERFUL Revelations given by our Lord.
Who are these “Two Sons?”
Old Testament Israel – The New Testament Church.
The Older Son wandered to Babylon & The Younger Son wandered to Rome.
NOTE: The Younger Son requested his inheritance and the Father divided unto him His living.
The word “Living” translates from the Greek word bios (bee’os) the present state of existence; by implication, the means of livlihood: KJV – good, life, living.
The Word of God is very plain concerning the inheritance of the Church. “Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (I Cor. 5:5).
On the day of Pentecost the young Church received “her portion of goods,” the Father baptized her with the Holy Ghost.
In giving her (the Church) the Holy Ghost (The Spirit of Life), God gave that young Church everything necessary “to be” and “to do” all that He commanded.
I. THE FAR COUNTRY.
a. “And not many days after….” That is soon after receiving her portion of goods the young Church, in obedience to the command of her Lord, moved out into a “far country.”
b. “Far country” literally means a foreign country. (“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”) Acts 1:8.
c. That little group of 120 in the upper room came down onto the streets of Jerusalem dripping with the power of the Holy Spirit to the point that it “turned the world upside down.” (Acts 17:6)
d. We are seated here today (tonight) because of that “Happening.”
e. We are a PART of the “Far Country.”
II. THE WASTING OF HER (The Church) SUBSTANCE.
a. There in that far country the young Church WASTED her SUBSTANCE with riotous living or “to the destroying of himself.”
b. The Prodigal Son’s brother charged him with “devouring his father’s living with harlots,” this shows what is meant.
c. This runs deeper than SENSUALITY.
d. Since the whole story is designed to set forth the degradation of our SONSHIP, and the PROSTITUTION of our POWERS to purposes unworthy of our dignity and true destiny (which is to be CONFORMED to the Image of Christ.
e. The Church wasted her RELATIONSHIP with God, and like Samson, she lost her ABILITY to express Him.
III. WHEN HE HAD SPENT ALL.
a. “And when he had spent all….” The word “spent” is the same word in James 4:3 which means to “consume.”
b. The young Church “consumed, wasted,” the Life and gifts of God upon her own desires.
c. She tried to use God instead of worshiping Him.
d. Without a break in the thought, the Holy Spirit said, “there arose a mighty famine in that land….”
e. The FAMINE never comes until the Church is spiritually bankrupt.
f. The corruption and immorality that we have seen in the White House is a by-product of the corruption and immorality that is in the pulpit.
g. No society ever failed until its Church failed.
IV. BEGINNING TO BE IN WANT.
a. “And he began to be in want….” These words demonstrate that the Prodigal understood he had become something other than God intended.
b. Without a doubt this demonstrates that the FAMINE the young Church woke up to was not a famine for “bread and water,” but a famine of the “Life and Presence of God.”
c. We are not dealing with a hungry Jewish boy, we are dealing with the Church; the Church Universal.
d. Unless Christ is kept in the center of our lives we will begin to RULE the Church.
e. When this happens the Church loses it UNIVERSALITY, it becomes something LEGAL, and it becomes a DIVIEDED THING.
V. JOINING A CITIZEN OF THAT FAR COUNTRY.
a. Instead of returning to an ALTAR and God the Father the Prodigal went to the WORLD for HELP. “….And he (the WORLD) sent him into the field to feed swine.”
b. The PRICE of the world’s help was and is the Prodigal must strip himself of every God-given conviction.
c. The world would help but it must be on ITS OWN TERMS: “feed my hogs.”
d. That translates into “seeker sensitive” services where nothing is said or done that would in anywise offend the unregenerate.
e. The OFFENSE of the Cross will not be allowed.
f. Your women must not dress differently than the world, don’t use the term “born again” because it offends the Catholics, don’t use the name of Jesus in your brochures, don’t speak against sin, and etc.
g. The “user friendly Church” is not a product of the twentieth century – it is as old as time.
h. The Christian has been disconnected from the public world. “I never allow my spiritual life to interfere with my secular life, or vice versa” is a common saying among so-called Christians.
i. Christianity has all but EVACUATED the public sphere. It has been disconnected from the public world.
j. The world has told us: One mind for the Church, another for the CLASSROOM, One for the VOTING BOOTH, One for the world of Family, and another for the world of business.
k. The Church is in CAPTIVITY to the world because we have learned to use its TOOLS on the terms of the world’s instruction.
l. The VIRGIN has become the harlot; sold out to the world, she unashamedly “casts her pearls before swine.” (Mt. 7:6)
VI. THE PRODIGAL CAME TO HIMSELF.
a. “I will arise and go to my Father….” I believe this cry is being echoed in the hearts of thousands of Prodigals.
b. Man is never possessed until the foreign spirit touches his spirit. Just before the Prodigal became possessed, his spirit filled with this deception, he came to himself.
c. Light broke over him, revelation came, he saw the Father’s House, and there was no resemblance between his Father’s House and the religious hog pen he had wandered into.
d. The church is sick of the IMITATION; the Church is CRYING for REALITY!
e. Be ASSURED there is REALITY; the Father’s House is OPEN and there is BREAD ENOUGH and to SPARE.
f. The FIRST STEP toward the Father’s House is to ADMIT that what we have CALLED the Church is NOT the Church, it not the Father’s House.
g. Preachers are MAINLY to blame for what the Church has become!
h. “Fisher’s of men” have become only the “keepers of the aquarium”? – the Father’s House has been turned into a den of thieves – the money changers have been allowed to return with the methods of Madison Ave.
“And he arose, 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 (His love was bigger than the stench of the hog pen). Luke 15:20-23.
“And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son” (this is real repentance).
“But the Father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him (the righteousness of Christ); And put a ring on his hand (signifying that he is my son), and shoes on his feet (for a new walk in the Spirit); And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry.”
CONCLUSION: Only a very unlearned person could mistake the Church of today for the entity it once claimed to be.
The compelling power of Christian truth has diminished, taken over by the drive to sell.
The gospel has been modified to become a consumer product; its proclamation is becoming a matter of packaging, and its reception a question of consumer preference.
Preparation through prayer and study has been given away to market research, and new type of minister is emerging – half shaman and half salesperson.
The Prodigal is waist deep in the hog pen.
