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Luke 15:18

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

The parable of the prodigal son brings many principles with it. This son had everything given to him when he was young, and his future was certainly a bright one. Somehow, he became complacent with what his father had provided for him and forgot the privilege he had to have a father as he had and the blessings that his father provided for him. When this son demanded his inheritance, his father gave it to him, but he squandered it in riotous living. When he finally came to himself, we know how he came home to a father who had been waiting for him.

We also know that the prodigal had a brother who despised him because he wasted his father’s testimony and money. This other brother had stayed with the father the whole time and never wasted one penny of what was given to him. When this other brother found out that his prodigal brother had come home and that the father had thrown a feast for his brother, he became angry because he did not feel his brother deserved anything.

There is a critical truth to this story. What if the father had not stayed home and moved somewhere else? Had the father not stayed where he was when the prodigal left, the prodigal would have come home to an unforgiving brother who did not want anything to do with him. Had this father decided that all these years of living a certain way proved not to be the right way to live, and had this father changed his life to be like the world, the prodigal would not have been restored, and likely would have faced the criticism and ire of an older brother’s condemnation. Had that father not stayed with what he raised the prodigal to be, the prodigal would not have had the opportunity to be used again in the father’s house.

It is essential that we never change what we believe and how we serve the Lord. There will be prodigals in every church, and they need to know that when they come back, the place they left is still the same. The prodigal needs to know that the forgiving place they left is still forgiving when they come back. The prodigal needs to know that the place of restoration that they left will still be a place of restoration when they come back. The future of the prodigal being used again is dependent on the place they left not changing from what God’s Word tells us to be.

If we change what we believe, we will become like the older brother who is critical of our prodigals. There are many older brother churches that are as prodigal as the prodigal son. Oh, they may not be sitting at the slop of where sin has left them, but they are sitting at the slop of pride and consuming it. These older brother churches dress right, say the right things, have the right music, and their preaching will even sound right, but they have lost the soul winning fire that makes a tender heart willing to bring a prodigal back, and they are just as much a prodigal as the prodigal who wasted his substance in riotous living.

Let me challenge you to stay the course of the old paths. There are many prodigals that will come back, and they need to know we have not changed and that we will accept them and use them. The key is to keep soul winning. The soul winner’s heart always keeps a tender heart towards any person and believes God can use them despite what they have done.