Retrieving Prodigals
Randall Caselman
2/18/98
Retrieving Prodigals
Prodigals are everywhere. Most of us are prodigals. Church rolls are filled with prodigals. Those who were once faithful, but now are estranged from God, running from God, living in open rebellion to His will. The Bible is filled with narratives about prodigals. Some return to God and are blessed, others are lost forever. Cain was a prodigal, as was Jacob, David, Solomon, Peter and others. Perhaps the two most famous prodigals are Jonah and the prodigal son.
Prodigals are lost. Prodigals are separated from God. Prodigals have no hope unless they come home. Jonah says,
I have been cast out of sight from God, I was in the belly of hell. The father of the prodigal son said,
My son who was lost is found, who was dead is alive.
Because every family has prodigals, and because elders spend most of their time concerned about prodigals; we search for answers. What can we do, what can we say? How can we retrieve them? We need some suggestions.
Know that God still loves and cares for the prodigal. God loved Jonah before his call to preach. He loved Jonah when he got on the boat. God loved Jonah in the storm and in the fish's belly. The father of the New Testament prodigal never stopped loving him. Church, never give up on our prodigals.
God hasn't.
Prodigals need to know that we still love them. Have you communicated with your prodigal lately? Have we called or written a note to that son, daughter, grandchild saying:
I love you, I care about you, I want you to consider your relationship with God one more time.
Parents, Elders and each Christian individual must know that we are responsible for every prodigal, who has left our church and family. We are
all responsible for one another. The challenge is to each of us. We are to watch and care for one another. Prodigals need to know that we care...
Do we?
Make our love and forgiveness unconditional. God accepted Jonah as a repentant preacher. The father accepted his son's repentance with open arms. Neither was asked,
why did you do it? Or made to promise never to do it again. God loves sinners unconditionally.
God so loved the world... Not the righteous but the world.
While we were yet sinners God loved us... Christ died for us. Scripture tells us that if we love those who love us, if we are only into conditional love, we are no better than the tax collectors. We are to love prodigals, regardless of their sins, realizing that we too are sinners. The difference is that we are striving to walk in the light, and to that extent, we are continually forgiven.
By-the-way, how does unconditional love behave toward the prodigal?
Unconditional love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud or rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs. Unconditional love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and never fails.
Prodigals must be prayed for. Prayer becomes a large part of our recovery and rescue effort. In fact, we should not make any effort at recovery and rescue without first praying. We need God's help. Any attempt to rescue prodigals without God's assistance is destined to failure. How do we pray for prodigals?
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Pray that consequences bring an end to rebellion. God brought a violent storm into Jonah’s life. Today, we have attempted to remove the consequences of sin, of our wrong choices. Folk, sometimes it takes suffering consequences to bring us back to God. The sins of the far country resulted in having to live in a pigpen for the prodigal son.
In praying for a prodigal we must not try to remove the consequences of his or her actions, nor attempt to deny them. Let God have his way. Give God’s natural laws a chance to work. Where would Jonah have ended up had it not been for this storm? Where would the prodigal son be had it not been for the tragedy of the pigpen? Where would you and I have ended up had it not been for the storms in our lives?
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Pray that God will use others, any others, to end their rebellion. The owner of the farm in the far country was not a Jew, he was raising swine. The friends that forsook him when his money was gone were evil folks. Probably not even believers. In the case of Jonah, the sailors prayed to their gods, not Jehovah, but to idols. God used these unbelievers to bring about his consequences for Jonah and the prodigal son. Both these prodigals were returned home, not by parents, preacher or elder,
but by God’s use of unbelievers. Pray that God uses whatever means, and whoever he will, to bring our prodigals home.
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Pray that God’s will be done, not ours. Sometimes we may perceive deliverance as being different than the way God sees it. I am sure that night when the sailors pitched Jonah into the sea, they didn’t see that act as being an act of deliverance of a prodigal. But God knew what he was doing.
Trust Him. Trust him! Have faith in God. He is as interested in our prodigals as we are. He knows what it will take to return them, if anything will. It is important to pray within God’s will and then say, Lord here am I use me for retrieval.
Aren’t we glad that God loves, accepts, and uses prodigals? Most of us are ready to admit that we are reclaimed from the pig-pen of sin’s far country; reclaimed from the sea of rebellious living; reclaimed from our running from God’s amazing grace.
All thru the mountains, thunder riven
And up from the rocky steep.
There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven,
Rejoice, I have found my sheep.
And the angles echoed around the throne
Rejoice for the Lord brings back his own.
If you are a prodigal,
come home.
—Randall Caselman
