Returning to God

The Bible is full of promises to all who appropriate them. I believe that the Old Testament can speak to me as well as the New. I believe that although a particular passage of Scripture was written for the people of Israel, that it can still speak to me today.

The Bible, friends, is full of promises from God to His people. And one of those promises is the doctrine of returning to God. And that's what I want to talk about today, friends.

In Malachi 3.6, we read, For I am the Lord, I change not. Now, some liberal Bible scholars will try to convince you that God has indeed changed to keep up with our politically correct society. They will tell you that God has changed.

He's not the God of wrath anymore, but merely a God of love who has a tolerance for sin. But the Bible already has not only discounted these false prophets, but foretold of them in the last days. And these are indeed the last days, friends.

And the God of the Bible has not changed His spots, but He still declares, For I am Lord, I change not. Two things stand out in that statement. He does not change, and He is Lord.

But today's modern pulpit has quit preaching that Jesus is Lord because we've gotten out our pocket knives and have carved out for ourselves a God we can live with. A God that won't get in the way of our daily living. That's the explanation why holiness is no longer a topic preached or even a subject to be discussed in our churches.

And there is another promise in the book of Malachi that still speaks to us today. In verse 3.7, we read, Return unto me, and I will return unto you. This speaks of the doctrine of returning to God.

And this is my subject for us today, friends. This is what we are going to explore because we as a church and society have become like those spoken of in Isaiah 53.6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And that's the best definition of sin I can find in my Bible. Sin is when we go our way, when we know it isn't God's way. If God's word declares, Return unto me, and I will return unto you.

Then that, friends, is a decorative statement that God has somehow withdrawn himself from amongst us. Amos 3.3 states, Can two walk together except they be agreed? Well, the answer is no. Our problem in our churches today is that we operate under the remedial judgment of the withdrawn presence of God.

When was the last time, friend, you felt the power of God in a meeting? When was the last time you felt the power of God in your own life? We foolishly think we can sin when we want to and still have God walking by our side. It's as if we are like the lover in the Song of Solomon who is surprised at the absence of their beloved. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone.

The greatest need of the present hour is for the people of God to return to God. When the church tried to reach the world by inviting the world into the church, we grieved away the presence of God from our midst and we continue on in our religious works trying to serve God with one foot in church and the other in the world. But you can't serve God with your whole heart, friend, by playing footsie with the world and sin.

That's why the people of God need to come clean with God and we need to repent of our sins. I need to repent of my sins. You need to repent of your sins.

Repentance is a constant thing for a Christian, but repentance is a turning away from sin and a turning to God. Returning to God is the most desperate need of the church at this hour. We have a picture of this in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke.

It's found in chapter 15 beginning in verse 11. It's a familiar passage of scripture about the prodigal son and it can be preached both ways as the son represents a lost sinner who needs to be saved or the son as a backslidden Christian who returns back to God the Father. Well today, friends, I'm going to preach this striking passage of scripture from the standpoint that the son represents the backslider.

I believe if we are brutally honest with ourselves we can relate to this passage of scripture and it is my aim today, friends, to not only preach this vital passage to you but to exhort you with a call to action to move you with the aid of the attending and convicting Holy Spirit to return to God yourself. You can't hide anymore, friend. That shrub in Eden didn't get the job done in keeping Adam hid from God.

God called him out. Adam, where art thou? And hopefully, God in His mercy today will call you out as well and show you your need of returning to Him. Getting right with God is the precondition to all revival.

If you long, friend, for a spiritual awakening to grip our young people today and to shake this nation with God's power from coast to coast then you better quit monkeying around with your pet sin and forsake it and return back to God with all your heart. You cannot serve God with a divided heart. If you will, friends, if you will now, turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke.

We're going to be in chapter 15 and I'm going to read us this familiar passage of Scripture. But I urge you, I urge you to pay close attention. Please, don't let the familiarity with this passage dull your response to it.

But sit up straight and get the wax out of your ears. As Jesus said, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Hear now is the word of God.

And may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of His holy word. Listen, friends, now to the words of Jesus. 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. Let me pause here to say, friends, that I'm taking the standpoint of the son representing the backslider because our text calls him a son. He's already a member of the father's household.

And he indeed already has an inheritance. But it appears that the young man has grown either weary of living there or indifferent to it. And he wants more.

He wants to go out on his own, on his own way, and not the father's way any longer, but go his own way to cut his own path of self-discovery and self-gratification. Give me what's mine, he demands. And his father gives it to him.

Sometimes God will allow us to have our own way if he uses it as a means to bring us to the end of ourselves. And that's exactly what happens to this young man here who is operating more on his hormones than his good reason. Let's pick up the text in verse 13.

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. Let me pause here again, friends. Some of you may be like me.

I made a profession of Christ when I was a young teenager of 13. But when I got to college, I joined a fraternity and I fell away from God in riotous living. That's what this boy did.

He grew up in the right home with the influence of a godly father. But he wanted to go his own way to sow his wild oats. And that's just what he did.

But do you know what, friend? You don't have to be a young man to act like a fool. You can go sow wild oats as an older man and still end up in a hogwall of sin. Anytime we leave God's way for our way, we end up like this young man.

Look at verse 14. 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. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him. Let me pause briefly again, friend.

It's almost poetic justice that this young man who chooses to live like a pig in sin ends up living with pigs in their own pig pen. Because sin leaves a stain on you. Sin will bring you low.

And the first step in sin, although it may seem innocent enough, but sin is a slippery slide that always takes you further than you want to go, leaves you there longer than you want to stay, and costs you more than you ever realized God allows this young man to come to the end of his rope, so to speak, and he is seeing sin for what it is. He is seeing sin for where it got him. He is seeing himself under a spotlight and he doesn't like what he sees.

His circumstances rattle him to his core. It wakes him up out of his spiritual stupor. Well, let's get back to our text, friends.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare in that perish with hunger? Here's where it gets good, friend. Here's where we see this doctrine of returning to God. Oh, the good stuff is yet to come.

Jesus had only remarked earlier in the preceding parable of the lost coin. Likewise, I say unto you that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. Get ready, friends, because the bells in heaven are about to ring.

The angels are leaning over and looking down with expectation. Look what the boy says. 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 one of thy hired servants. 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.

Let me pause here to say, friends, see the love of God for a son returning to him. Even though the son was away from the father, the father never once stopped looking or ceased longing for the return of his son. The father is looking out over the horizon and he sees a familiar figure appear.

It's my son! It's my boy! The father cries. He jumps out of his chair and he takes off and he runs. He runs with all his might to get to his returning son and he embraces him.

He throws his arms around his neck and he kisses him as he loves on him. Listen, friend. God wants you to return to him.

God has never, ever taken his eyes off of you, never, ever stopped loving you. He desires for you to return to him. His heart is bursting with love for you.

He missed you. He missed you being away. He longs to walk with you in an intimate love relationship with him.

He's saying, return to me and I will return to you. Oh, dear friend, don't delay. Use this time now to get along with God and get right with him.

Tell him you're coming to him. Tell him you're coming to him now, friend. He's waiting with open arms.