Topic(s): Sin, Christian Life

Allen Webster

Links to this entire series:

• Why Not Be a Prodigal?: Part 1
• Why Not Be a Prodigal?: Part 2
• Why Not Be a Prodigal?: Part 3
• Why Not Be a Prodigal?: Part 4
• Why Not Be a Prodigal?: Part 5

Sin is no plaything. First we toy with sin, and then sin toys with us. To begin with, we play master, and it plays slave; and then we switch, and it doesn't want to take turns anymore.       

THE FAR COUNTRY WILL KEEP YOU LONGER THAN YOU WANT TO STAY. The boy in Jesus' story is the exception. The truth is most prodigals never come home. Oh, they think they will. They plan to ... someday. They may even start back toward home ... several times. But it's a long way back. It's embarrassing to admit you've been wrong. Sin's entanglements are confusing to unravel. Bad habits are hard to break; bad friends are difficult to give up; bad reputations are hard to live down.               

You don't believe the "most" part? Flip through an old church directory with an older member of the congregation you attend. Look at the faces of the young people about your age from a few years ago. Ask, "Where is he now? Is she still 'in church?' Are their children in Bible classes?" In many cases, the answers will be, "Yes." These are usually the ones who stayed "at the father's house." Oh, they were not perfect in their teen years. They had to repent, confess sin, and start again-perhaps several times. But they stayed with it.              

"What about the others?" you ask. The prodigals... the ones who experimented, exposed, and enjoyed the "pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb. 11:25). A few of them are "happy endings." They "came to themselves" and "came home." The others? Well, they married one of the girls/guys from the far country. Somebody they met at a party or a bar. Somebody they "experimented with." Somebody that never knew the Lord and doesn't care much about knowing Him now (cf. 1 Sam. 2:12; 3:7). On Sundays, they prefer the "lake" to the "Lord;" when it comes to reading; they prefer the day's news to the "Good News." They still drink a little (on the weekends), still smoke (a pack a day now), still use bad language (when they're "with the guys"), still watch bad movies and ... well, you get the picture. They're still in the pigpen. It's hard to leave.        

Ask David.            

His sin started as a Peeping Tom watching his next door neighbor take her bath (2 Sam. 11:2). He looked (she was beautiful), lusted (she was naked), sent for (it's hard to say "no" to a king), and slept with her (11:4). That was about as long as he had planned to stay in "the far country" (a one night excursion).1 What David was about to find out was that although he was through with sin, sin wasn't through with him. A few weeks later an unwelcome note was passed to him. It must have been tightly sealed with King's Eyes only scrawled on the envelope. It was probably spotted and smeared with tears. He opened it to read the four words he must have secretly dreaded ever since another man's wife got out of his bed: "I am with child" (11:5). He was back on board the sin train-and it was going to keep him much longer than he wanted to stay. You know the downward spiral his life took from there. Deception. Hypocrisy. Conniving. Dishonor. Murder. Cover-up. Quickie Marriage (11:6-27).
          
Ask David.

The next scene is God's prophet paying the former shepherd a visit with a parable about a rich man, a poor man, and a pet lamb (12: l-5). The poor man loved his pet lamb like it was his own child. He had kept it a long time. It ate at his table. The rich man killed it ... to feed to a passing guest. Perhaps David (who thought this was a true story) thought of a pet lamb he had growing up. His face flushed with anger and he rendered this judicial decision: "He shall pay back fourfold (12:6). Unwittingly, David had just pronounced his own sentence2 and rewritten the script for the last two decades of his life. The rest of David's years read like a plot out of daytime TV. Sin was about to take him for a long ride.          

Ask David how far sin will take you as he lies for a week in the dirt begging for the life of a dying baby. Ask him at three o'clock in the morning on the seventh day when he hasn't slept or eaten (12:16). Ask him again as he walks home from the burial (12:19). Ask him again later when he learns that his daughter has just been raped-while on an errand on which he sent her (13: 12, 13). Ask him again when he finds out that one of his sons is the rapist. Put yourself in this father's place "...when King David heard of all these things ..." (13:21). Ask him again when the message comes that his son had just been murdered-again because David had sent him into harm's way. Ask him again when he finds out that another son is the murderer (13:33). Ask him again when he doesn't see his own son's face for five years. Ask him again as he flees his palace one night, barefoot and weeping, because that son is trying to kill him and take his kingdom (15:30). Ask him again as he ducks flying rocks and flinches from cursing insults (16:13). Ask him again when he-along with all Israel3-hears that his son has slept with ten of David's wives4 in a tent on top of the king's palace (16:22). Ask him again when his close friend betrays him and wants an opportunity to murder him (17: l, 2). Ask again between his sobs as he grieves that his beloved son is swinging from an oak by his hair with three darts through his heart (18: 14, 33).          

Sin took David farther than he ever wanted to go. How far is sin taking teens? Have you witnessed the anger, sadness, depression, hatefulness, and hopelessness of a life Satan gives back after an extended stay in the far country? Have you looked into the vacant eyes of a young person who has been living a worldly lifestyle for several months? Have you been around the miserable pessimist who has lost faith in God and the Bible? Have you seen a youth robbed of innocence and purity? Have you sat with a teen who cries until she/he runs out of tears because the consequences of sin have become personal instead of theoretical? Have you been to rehab with a young person whose body has the "shakes" of withdrawal, the hollow eyes, the bloodless face, the wasted body? Have you attended a teen's funeral whom sin took so far that they decided death by bullet or pill was better than life?5

Endnotes:

1 He sent her back home (11:4b). Most kings of that day just took any woman they wanted for a wife into their harem.

2 It was a suspended sentence, though. David had also said, "He ... shall surely die" (12:5). David had committed two capital offenses and could have been executed under the Law of Moses. God spared His life, but did punish him severely.
3 David had done his sin in secret; this embarrassment was known "in the sight of all Israel."

4 The Bible has "concubines." A concubine is a "secondary or lesser wife."

5 On average, a teen takes his/her own life every four hours in this country (Right from Wrong, p. 6)