The Loving Father

The Loving Father

by Reginald (Reg) Goff

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Father, take us, all that we are and all that we aren’t. We lift it up to Thee in an offering again, knowing that Thou canst take that which is nothing and bring something out of it, and knowing that Thou art always with us, and Thou art always wanting to speak through us. So help us to be clear channels. For the sake of the lost, for the sake of the broken, for the sake of those who do not understand, and for the sake of those who do know Thee and are filled with rapture at Thy name. For we ask it in His blessed name. Amen.

I’ve been asked to make an announcement. We’re full of announcements tonight. I’ve been asked to make an announcement that there is a book on the table which some of you who may have Spanish friends may want to know about. I only know one word in it, that’s Sí.

But I know what’s in it because I wrote it. And last year when we went to the CFO camp at Cuernavaca, just out of Mexico City, my wife and I, they presented us with the first copy. It just came off the press, and we were quite thrilled. And there are many people that do not know about it, and there will be some copies available.

I hope you never get so old that you don’t enjoy a joke with a point. Now I have it much use for jokes without points. I heard a story the other day that doubled me up. They said that the world is so full of confusion. Nobody seemed to know where they are. Nobody seemed to know where they’re going. They said it was like a man who became a little inebriated. That means drunk.

And he went to go home, and he knew he’d never make it. So he tried to get a taxi. And he got out the street corner, and there was a phone booth. And he got in the phone booth, and he actually dialed the taxi company. And he got this lovely girl at the other end of the phone, and he said, “Send me a taxi.” She said, “Where to?” He said, “I don’t know.” “Well,” she said, “how can I send you a taxi if you don’t know?” “Well, just send it to where I am.” “Well, where are you?” “Well, I don’t know where I am.” And she said, “Now listen, I can’t send you a taxi unless you know where you’re at.” And she said, “Go out to the street corner and look up on the telephone pole up there and get the name of the street and come back and tell me and I’ll dispatch a taxi to you right away.” “Great, yeah, I can do that.” So out he goes, flat-fucking-up the post, looks up and goes back real happy. He says, “Yeah, I know where I am now. I’m on the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.”

Now that’s utter confusion. It’s no more confusion, though, than the other drunk who was with him. And he said to him, “All day long, I’ve been asking everybody for the time. And all day long, they keep giving me different answers.”

Tonight, I want to talk to you seriously and funny. I don’t care what you like. Because I have learned that some of the things that Jesus did must have been just plain side-splitting to the people who listened to Him. I think He was the master storyteller of all time. And within the last five years, I have been just getting such a ride within my own soul, going back and reading the stories that I’ve known since a little child but never knew. And I never read them. I missed… you know, I read them hurriedly, you know. I’ve heard them in Sunday school and I’ve heard them on the pulpit and I’ve read them. And I can… you know, and I’ve learned another thing. When a train goes through a city, if it doesn’t even slow up, it doesn’t leave much off. You’ll get that tomorrow, will you? That was a joke.

And so I began to read the scripture the last few years, word by word. And I mean that. Just word by word. And you’ll be hearing that the rest of the week from time to time. I am very sure that there are tremendous heartbreaks in every audience. And today, when our young people are in rebellion, and I’m not too sure that they have not a good reason for rebellion, but that’s another story. But when hearts that have thought they were living good lives, and lived going to church on Sunday, and trying to keep themselves clean and decent, and then their kids turn out to be rebels, it has broken the heart of so many people, and I have a pretty heavy heart for them. But I will be telling you some very great victories with them, for I’ve been working with the Jesus kids this year and last year, and seeing some of the greatest victories I’ve ever known. And I will be telling you one thing, one story, which I think is the greatest story of love I’ve ever heard in all my life, outside of the story of the cross. And it’s happening in Tucson right now, among the drug kids. But in this story I want to talk to you about tonight, I find that somehow, you and I never can learn to pray properly until you and I learn more about God.

God. You cannot adore something you don’t know. You cannot have confidence in something you’re not willing to prove. Somehow you and I have got to get a new concept of God before you and I can ever become tremendous prayer power… Well, you know what I said. Isn’t that nice thing on tape? But anyway.

I have been chaplain of several government institutions in my life, because I’ve always had such a heart for boys. And I was 19 years chaplain for a state institution. And I went to that state institution for two reasons. One, I needed the money. And second, I really thought I could help those boys. And for the first three months I went out there, and I gave them everything I had. It should be good, it was the third time I gave it. Because we had two services in my own church, and I gave them after that. So it should have been polished up real nice, you know. But I got nothing but derision, non-listening, kicking each other, scraping their feet on the floor, talking when the guy wasn’t there to stop them. And just everything to show me that they were not listening. It was like it broke my heart. Because I wasn’t getting that anywhere else. And I went out there because I loved those boys. And then after some months of praying and trying to analyze my life, it dawned on me what was wrong. It was communication. And this is what I’m talking about tonight, in a sense. These boys heard me work using two words that I constantly used. I never preached without using these two words.

One was love, and the other was father. But I did not know, until it came to me, for I think God brought it to me, and the superintendent also helped me, he said this. Sixty-five percent of those boys had a father who came home drunk at nights with the money spent, abusive to their mother, and the kids just scared out of their wits. That was father. Can you imagine why I didn’t get to first base talking about father to them? And then love meant sex in the backseat of a car, someplace where it shouldn’t be. That’s all it meant. This was love. Now, when you start putting those interpretations to love and father, you haven’t got a sermon, have you? No, you haven’t. And it suddenly dawned on me what was wrong. And when I began to drop those words completely out of my vocabulary for a while, and then come back to it, we had literally revived that institution. What I’m seeing here tonight is the Christian people are guilty of the same thing. For I find many, many people who believe that God does terrible things, just awful things, things that they wouldn’t do, they wouldn’t think of doing, but they blame God for doing it. And then they had an error to say, “Now, Lord, if it be Thy will, you know, do some nice thing,” as though it was God’s will often to do bad things.

Now, sometimes in my life, I listen to people pray, and I shudder at the way they pray. So what I’m going to try to do tonight is try to help us to see just one little side of God, and help us to see the kind of a God that I can really love. When I began to write my book, I could not begin to talk about prayer until I had written the first chapter, and it says nothing about prayer. But it talks about a story that’s in the Bible. Let me tell it to you, rather than read it out of the Scripture, because I can do it and save quite a bit of time. There was a father who had two sons, and the elder one said, “Give me what’s coming to me,” and the father divided to both of them. Now, listen carefully. The father divided to both of them his living. And the elder one took his money and in some way turned it into cash and took off for a far country. He squandered his money and wasted his living and soon was at the point of want. And because he had no friends and no money, and that goes together, by the way, when he had… I learned that myself in my prodigal life.

Well, your pockets are full of money. You’ve got all kinds of friends. When you’ve got no money, brother, they’re somewhere else. Anyway, this boy got this place. And being a Jewish lad, being sent into a field to feed pigs was the worst humiliation that a Jewish boy could know. Yet he had to take it just to exist. And there he was in the pig pen feeding the pigs, saying, “I wish I could. He’d let me eat some of the things the pigs are feeding. I don’t have that much for myself.” And nobody gave him anything. And then a great thing happened to him, which happened to me in my life, and to many of you, too. He came to himself. Did you ever stop and ask yourself the question, what it means, he came to himself? Well, when I did, I began to realize the fact that that boy had been brought up in a beautiful home. Love, wealth, everything he could need was there. And the story seems to give us that indication. I, too, had been raised in that kind of a home. Not wealth, but everything else. Love, purity, decency, Christian home, loving parents, and all of that. I, too, became a prodigal. And when he came to himself, I believe it means that this boy suddenly went back to the little boy that he’d been trained in the good home.

Temporarily, he left all his friends and went back to that which he had built his life on. And I’ve said this all across the country. And one woman came this afternoon to Pergamum and said how it blessed her several years ago when I’d said it. Do you realize the fact that the Bible says, “Train up a child when he’s young correctly and when he’s old he’ll not depart from it”? That nearly everybody mistranslates that scripture? Nearly everybody interprets that scripture as saying, “Train up a child when he’s young correctly and he’ll never depart from it.” It does not say that. It does not say that. It says when he’s old he’ll not depart from it. What it is saying is this. If you put a foundation on that child when he’s little, God can get to him down the road somewhere like He did to the prodigal and like He did to me when He couldn’t if that wasn’t there. That’s what he’s saying. It’s up to you to put into that life something that God can come to and reach into that life and pull it out like He did to me when I was in my 30s as a prodigal. And God reached me at the depths of my soul, the things of my loving mother that taught me.

I wasn’t going to church, hadn’t been in church for years. Yet somehow God got to me and I turned around just like the prodigal. That’s why I love this story so much. And this boy in the pig pen, by the way, did you ever think of that boy, what he’s like? He hadn’t eaten for quite a while so he was thin. He was in a pig pen so he was dirty. He didn’t have two or three suits of clothes and when he went to go home he didn’t go to the Holiday Inn, clean up and get in his Jaguar and drive home. No, he didn’t have two suits and he didn’t have an inn. He started in that pig pen dirty, filthy, smelling like a pig. And he was going back to his father who hated pigs.

I want you to get this picture now. If you don’t get this picture you don’t see what God is. You see, this story is talked about in the Bible as the story of the prodigal son. I don’t know anything in the Bible that’s so wrongly misnamed as that. This is not told to tell how bad a boy can be. It is told how loving a father could be. That’s the story. You read it. I dare you to read it and see if that isn’t it. It’s the story of a loving father who had a prodigal son. And the story of the prodigal is told to show how loving the father was. And this boy said how much when he came to himself he remembered. Oh, what memory does to you. What blessed thing memory is. We talk about the healing memories and the bad part, but oh, what a blessing memory is too. And this young boy remembered a nice warm house. Lots of food in the table, a loving father, clothes to wear, a soft bed to sleep in at night and all these things. And he just couldn’t help. Do you know something? When a young man comes to this place in life, nothing in the world can stop him from going home.

Nothing under God’s heaven. If you have been faithful as a mother and a father while that child is little, nothing can stop him going home. I know. I went the trail myself. And this young man made up a nice story. He said, “I’ll go home and tell my father, I’m not worthy to be called your son. Just make me one of your hired servants.” And out he started. I want you to see this picture. You know, General Electric has coined a word a few years ago that I love very much. Imagineering. I like that. You like that too, Ross. Imagineering. This is letting your imagination go out and developing things because of what your imagination saw. And I hope you do that in this story. And here is this boy in the pig pen. And he’s going to go home and say, “Dad, I’ve messed it up. I’ve made a fool of myself. Just make me a servant. I’m glad to be just a servant.” Now let me go back. Why did this boy leave home? Oh, I’ve heard evangelists peel skin and blister this kid. I’ve heard them blame them for everything under the sun from one end to the other, which is not in the Bible and is not true. I left home to be a prodigal and I never expected to be a prodigal.

Don’t you tell me that every kid that leaves home wants to be bad. That is not true. That boy didn’t like the confines of a home and I didn’t like the confines of a minister’s home either. If you think it’s nice, go and live in one for a while. It isn’t half as bad today as it was back 20 years ago, 30 or 40 years ago either. Now, this boy didn’t like the confines at home. Is there anything wrong in a young man wanting to try his own skills? His father had made a success. Why shouldn’t he believe that he can make a success? Is there anything wrong in doing your thing? I don’t think so. What the boy didn’t know was that when he went away, he was going out into a world that he knew very little about. And he did not know the pull of the crowd. How often I have said to myself, “I’m not going with that crowd again tomorrow night.” And then they’d call about 3 o’clock. “Oh, don’t be chicken. Come on.” And away I ain’t going with the gang. And come home mad at myself and ashamed of myself. The things I’d done, that happened over and over and over like a broken record. But you know, I didn’t intend to.

I never intended to be a bad boy. But I became one. Down the road I went. There came a time when I saw where I was headed. I wish I had time to tell you this story. It was a fantastic story that happened to me. And I saw where I was headed just as clearly as though I was already in the gutter. I knew where I was headed. I knew where I’d be another 5, 10 years after that. And I turned and started walking toward God. And do you know that not one of my family ever knew that I was walking toward God? Not my own ministerial father did not know that I had turned or done one thing. He thought I was still his prodigal, breaking his heart. Parents, I’m saying this to you out of a broken heart myself. I want you to begin to realize and look at your children totally different than you have before. I don’t care how they’re hurting you. I don’t care what they’ve done. I don’t care what they’ve taken in drugs and all this stuff. Listen, my friend. If you can’t separate that boy from what he’s doing, then you aren’t like Christ.

You may not like what that boy is doing, but you better like the boy. That’s right. You cannot pray for a young person. You cannot pray out of a heart broken of hate and hurt and judgment and all this and then expect love to flow to that boy. It can’t be done. We never get over the one story. We never will. Hanging on the cross, the Son of God. Looking down at those who had pierced His side, made fun of Him, put a crown on His head. And now His life is every way and said, “Father, forgive them.” I want to remind you they did not ask Him for forgiveness. Not any one of them. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” If you and I are going to be like that, my friends, we’re going to go out to win our children at a totally different level than we have been trying to do. Force, pressure, everything else. And let’s go back to the story. This boy starts at a cross. And his father saw him along. Oh, by the way, let me see one thing I don’t want to miss. Do you know there’s another reason that boy may have? Now, it isn’t in the scripture, but it is implied. There’s another reason why that boy may have wanted to leave home.

And I think a very legitimate reason. In the patriarchal days, the patriarch of the family owned everything. Every oxen, every donkey, every goat, every tent, everything. And he owned it until he died. And when he died, the elder son took over till he died. This boy never had a chance of being himself. Because he had the elder brother would be father next. How would you like to be under him as the younger brother? I’d have left home too.

I would. I’d have left home too. I don’t blame him unbid for leaving home. Now, you say that’s withdrawn. I dare you to say that. That’s all implied there. And that boy would have known. He’s going home. Oh, I want you to see this. Because this is fantastic. The father saw him a long ways off. That says a multitude of things to me. Now, if the father had been grinding his axe in the yard. And with a servant. And a shadow came across. Or heard a footmark. And turned around. And there. “Oh, you came home.” That isn’t the story. The story is this father saw him a long ways off. Listen, my friends. He had to be looking for him. Or he couldn’t have seen him.

The father had to be seeking that son. Praying. Hoping for the day when that boy would come home. As we’ll see later in a moment. Now, this is a funny thing. And I think it’s funny. And I don’t care if you like it. This patriarch. This old father. You know what he looked like? Well, he had sleeves down to here. And dresses down to here. And dresses up to here. And the beard down to here. Can you imagine that running down the road?

I don’t need to go into detail, do I? The beard going this way. Finally, he gets all tangled up in his own clothes. And he grabs his skirt and pulls it up around his waist. And starts to run. That’s exactly what would happen in the olden days. And ran down the road to this boy. Now, listen. The greatest thing that can happen to a man at that age, back in those days, was for one man to kiss another. Now, we’ve got the things a lot better today. We kiss the women.

And they’re much softer and nicer. Most of them don’t have beards. I saw one the other day in Honolulu that had a real one. Oh, it was a beauty. I don’t know why some man didn’t buy it from her. But some guys, it can’t grow them, I mean.

Anyway, in those days, if a man in public kissed another, that was the greatest sign of love there was ever to be done. And I see this father running down the road. And I see the lady across the road looking out. You know, there’s always those that are looking out. You know. And she saw this old man run down the road. And she’s, “What’s going on?” You know. And she looked down the road. And she, too, saw Jack coming down the road. And he’s, “Oh, doesn’t he know what that kid’s been doing?”

Parents, don’t ever try to find out what your kids do in the far country. The gospel will tell you all about it. And it’ll be all fixed up with cherries. “And doesn’t he know what that kid… My husband told me what that kid’s been doing. Doesn’t he know anything that kid’s been doing?” But the father was running. And he wasn’t listening to gossips. And he met the boy right in the middle of the road. And listen, I love the New English Testament. He flung his arms above him. Isn’t that great? Now he walked up to his high son. “Are you coming home? Really? Are you coming home?” No. He embraced him with everything he had, you know. And he just hugged him and kissed him right out in the open. And then about that time the servant caught up. Now don’t tell me the old man did not run the servant. I’m sure he did. But the servant was coming out behind. He had a good reason to run. The father had. And the father threw his arms around him and said to him, “Bring…” and I love again the New English which says, “Bring my best robe.” Ooh, I want to say hallelujah. Amen. My best robe. This was the kid that smelled like a pig.

Yeah. Who had ragged clothes and dirty clothes and had been acting like a fool, you know. And the father said, “Bring my best robe.” What did he mean by that? Every patriarch in those days had one robe that was done in the work of the finest craftsmanship. I’ve seen some of these in the forest. You have too, I’m sure. I’ve seen some of these robes that are just absolutely beautiful. And all the men in a clan would try to… or the men and women would make the finest robe so their patriarch, when he went down to the city, would be the finest dressed of all. This was the way they showed they love him. And this was the robe he was calling for. Not some robe, a robe. My best robe. And put it on him. Why did this man call for a robe first before the other things? I think everything in here is exactly in the order, out of eight. I didn’t know this until I began to study it. The robe… Mind you, listen. The same kind of robe his father had on. It covered everything, you know. Sometimes we like to see some of those robes nowadays. And I don’t see who put them on either. But…

This robe… Listen to this carefully. Seriously. Listen, would cover every bit of his past. His skinny body. His ragged clothes. His pig-smelling feet. Everything was covered by that robe. I want to say something tonight. I wish I could say it with the voice of an archangel. I wish I could say it with tears running down my face. I almost want to cry now. If there’s one person here in the sound of my voice tonight that has never known the kiss of forgiveness, the love of the Father, and the robe that covered everything of the past, you haven’t yet begun to live.

Say amen loud. Amen. They who haven’t yet begun to live. I know. I’ve been through it. And the Father took him back. And then he said, “Put shoes on his feet. Put a ring on his finger.” Now get this, folks. This is something. This boy had squandered every dime he had coming. Every bit. He had spent every bit of it. And the Father said, “Put a ring on his finger.” That ring was a signet ring. I’ve seen many of them in the Oriental Museums and some in our country. A scarab, a beetle carved out of a precious stone set in gold, which was the signet of that family. And it was the same thing in those days in sealing wax as a stamp today or a sign on a check was today. And this Father was saying, “Son, here is everything I have.” And he didn’t deserve one thing. I’m talking about God.

This is the Father. “Son, here is a ring. Put it on. You can call for anything you want.” I was reading the New Testament the other day. And I was sitting out there earlier in the morning. I have a head that won’t let me sleep after certain hours. And I was up studying and reading my Bible. And I was reading, you know, it says, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name.” And I said, “Oh Lord, that doesn’t fit me. I’ve been asking for 20 years.” But, you know, “Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Ask that you may receive.” And what’s the rest of the verse? Hey, you guys read the Bible. “Ask that you may receive so your joy may be full.” Now that’s King James. But let me give it to you according to Rich. Ask for enough so when you get it you’ll be happy.

Isn’t that great? Yeah, ask for enough so you’ll get it you’re happy. Listen, I was preaching in the church in California. And I was talking about this. And we had a talk back afterward. And that’s a dangerous thing to do. And a lady took me to task, you know, about this thing of asking for everything, you know, just ask for anything you want. You know, I was really pouring on that night. I really had a big God. And she got up and she said, “You have no right to ask for these things. You ask for these things or somebody else may not get them.” And I never even knew what I was saying. The Holy Spirit spoke back to me and said, “Oh, God only has a dozen.”

You know, that poor woman, she got smaller by the minute. Imagine saying that if God gives a raw sum, He hasn’t got in for me. Isn’t that an awful kind of an idea of God? Anyway, the service closed and a big tall man in a Boy Scout. I’m an old Boy Scout, 30 some years, an Eagle Scout and so on and so on. And this Boy Scout came walking down the aisle. He was six foot two, man. I’m telling you, I’m a little man, you know. He’s a big man. And he just went like this. Wow! And he just grabbed me and hugged me so tight. I said, “What in the world is this guy doing?” You know, I didn’t know him. He said, “Thank God you came to town.” I said, “What?” He said, “That’s my wife.”

He says, “I make a good living. We can have anything we want. But she wanted me to buy a pair of shoes because I have some old ones. I can’t trade cars because the old one still runs. You know, we can’t get a bad little squish because, well, it still works. You know, I’ll list that. He makes my life miserable.” You see, and I know a lot of Christians the same way. When I was a little kid, they had a philosophy of preachers, you know. They used to pray before the preacher came, a new preacher saying, “Lord, we need a real spiritual man. So, Lord, You keep him humble and we’ll keep him poor.”

Poverty and humbleness went together. Yeah. And I know people today the same way. They think you shouldn’t ask God for anything hard except just what you need. I don’t believe in that kind of a God. But anyway, I believe in asking God for enough so when you get it, you’ll be happy. I really do. And that’s the interpretation the Holy Spirit gave me. You can blame Him.

This prodigal son came home and the father did all this. And then he said, “Put shoes in his feet.” Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. If you go to historical forums, you’ll find that in those days, nobody wore shoes but sons. Now, a slave or a servant might wear a thong. Well, that would be the most. No shoes. Only sons of noblemen wore shoes. This was the thing that distinguished everybody you walked by, what rank they belonged to. You saw it on the streets. You looked at people, knew what they wear. And sons, who’s that guy? I don’t know who he is, but he’s the son of a nobleman. He’s wearing shoes. And God, the father, was putting this boy back on the level of a son. Somebody has said, God doesn’t want a lot of servants. He wants sons. And I say, hallelujah. I say, hallelujah. Sure, we want to serve Him out of love. But it doesn’t matter being a servant. You know, doing so much and getting paid and going home at five. That isn’t the kind of servant we’re talking about here. And so he said, “Put shoes in his feet.” And then he said, “Go bring the fatted calf.” Now, they didn’t have full affairs in those days. So I wonder why he had that fatted calf.

Now, it wasn’t for the family, evidently, because the other brother says, “Oh, we never eat those things. We’ve had them around in a long time. We never had one.” And he said, “You never even gave me a fatted goat for my friends.” Now, let me say something. This may startle you. Both boys had the same spiritual problem. Yeah. They didn’t have two different ones. Neither one of them knew how great their father was. You see, the father had given both boys their share. And this kid didn’t know it. He was the miser type, you know. He had the first nickel he ever got in a can under the bed. The other boy, if he got a nickel, slid out to hold his pocket. I mean, you know, everybody knows that. Now, somebody says, why does God allow these things to happen? Listen, my friends. How would you like to have a God that didn’t? How would you like to have a God that smacked you down every time you made a misstep? And every time you faltered, and every time you did something wrong? Whack! Listen, there’s two ways of looking at God. You can look at God as an umpire trying to strike you out, or a shepherd trying to get you in.

Thank God He’s my shepherd. You know, I want to live looking at God as a shepherd trying to get me in. Not an umpire trying to get me out. And I’m telling you, until you and I begin to see this kind of a God, our prayer life is going to be as barren as it can be. And it will be form, and it will just be filled with form, and dry rocks with it. It will just be filled with all kinds of nice phrases, and my how we can form them. You know, it’s so beautiful to hear people quoting scripture to God, because He doesn’t know it, and we have to enlighten Him. You know? We just… You know, that’s what we have to do in prayer, is tell God what He said. You know? And of course, we have the records, so we give it back to Him. Now, this father had given both boys equal shares.

One squandered it. Now, and you say, why did God let him? Or why did the father let me say something out of a family affair? We only have two kids. But they were as different as day and night. And don’t tell me that any father doesn’t know what his boy will do with money by the time he’s old enough to leave home. Just don’t tell me that. You know whether your boy’s a spendthrift or a miser. You know exactly what, or a girl. We have two kids, a girl and a boy. And they’re as different as it can be. Our son, I don’t know whether he knows there’s money around or not. But we have a daughter, you try and sell her a dress, it’s half a dollar too much. She knows where her money is. Jim doesn’t seem to know he had it. It’s gone before he gets it almost. Now, we know what those kids do. And that father knew this too. But that father knew that that boy had a right to go out and live his life. Now listen, parents, please listen to this. I was a minister 30 years before it dawned on me that every person has a right to live the life the way they want to.

And that I have a right to be a saint or a sinner. Here, God gave me that right. And we better see that with our children. And you have no right to force them. If you can’t make them come into the kingdom of God through love, my friend, you have lost before you start. You have lost before you start. Now, what I’m saying tonight here is this father who had these two boys knew what they were, gave them free will. But the young boy went out and did all kinds of bad things and came home. And the father loved him this much. And just gave him back everything that he ever had before. And you know, I want to thank God for that. Ross, I’m thanking God for a lot of our young kids today who have squandered the most precious things they have. And you know what I’m talking about. They’ve squandered in the dives and places. And their hearts are breaking and they can’t ever go back and get it. They can’t ever go back and get purity and charity. But oh, what Jesus Christ can do for them. I sat one night with about 20 Jesus kids and they kept us until 2 o’clock in the morning asking questions about prayer. And there was one lovely young girl and a boy.

He was as handsome as she was beautiful. And I kept saying to them, “Look at that couple. Look at that couple.” And it couldn’t be if they ever had sinned. They were just like angels. And I finally stopped and I said, “I wish you’d tell us your story.” And this girl told us one of the most sordid stories I have ever listened to in my life. I almost wished I hadn’t asked her.

And there she was. Pure as the day she was born. In Christ, of course. Just a jewel. And I sat there and my wife lay in bed that night and cried. We really did. We said, “Thank God for a God like that. Thank God for a Christ that can take them in and give them back like this Father did.” Now I want to say this. Most of us are afraid of God. Now don’t you tell me you aren’t. If you weren’t afraid of God, you’d spend more time with Him.

Anybody argue with that? That’s right. Five minutes a day is about our limit. Nice little short devotion. Or 15 minutes if you’re a real Christian. 15 minutes for God. And the whole day for all the things that have to do with the material life.

I am afraid of God when I sin. David said, “My sins have separated me from God.” God didn’t leave. I love that sticker on the bumper which says, “If God isn’t around, guess who moved?” I love that. If God isn’t… It wasn’t God. It’s us who moved, you know. “If God isn’t around, who moved?” I like that. Somebody’s got one out here I don’t like. Please forgive me for saying this out here. But somebody’s got one on here. If you love Jesus honking. I’ve done that a dozen times and got nothing but… “What are you honking me for?” That’s what I get when I honk. I quit honking. I’m not going to honk anymore. What I’m saying tonight here is, Jesus is so great and God is so good. That this story is a story that you and I can take and wrap up in our lives. And I want to close by saying this as I close the chapter in the book. If God is like this, then I am not afraid of Him anymore, even when I sin. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m not running and hiding anymore. I can come and say, “Father, I’m sorry.” And I can accept that robe of forgiveness. And I can be clean again in the blood of Jesus Christ.

This is what counts. And so I’m saying to you tonight, unless you see a God of unlimited love, I mean unlimited love, and unlimited forgiveness, your prayer life is not what it could be. Let us pray. Our loving Father, we laugh and make fun of these things, but our heart aches as we do it.

We drive down the roads and the highways of our cities, and we see these boys and girls thumbing their way to nowhere. Some of them thumbing their way to destruction. Our hearts ache. And we look at our own children. And sometimes our heart aches there too. But I’m glad tonight that we can offer to this group and to myself tonight a God who loves that derelict boy more than we do. A God who loves that girl who’s throwing away her best of life more than we do. That somehow we can learn to place these in the hands of a loving Father, and believe that somehow He’ll be down the road when they turn, and He’ll be running to meet them. And He will kiss them right in the open that everybody know how much He loves them. He’ll cover their past with forgiveness. The ring on his feet to the resources of the kingdom, on his finger to the resources of the kingdom of God. His shoes on his feet to make him a son. And the fatted calf to live the best of life, the Bagford Hall. And so, Father, we thank You tonight that You’re this kind of a God. And we’re glad we’ve learned to pray to this kind of a God.

We love You, Father, tonight. We love Your Son that You gave. We love Your Holy Spirit who abides and helps us to live the life that Jesus wants us to live. And now, Father, if there’s one parent here tonight, and we believe there is, who has a wandering son, who has a daughter away, and doesn’t know where they are. Dear God, grant that in this very moment, in the quietness of this sanctuary, that they may somehow find Thee.

And release that boy and that girl. And say, “Dear God, You do love them more than I do. And I’m going to take my hands off. And I’m going to love them no matter what happens. And my door is going to be open no matter what they do. And I’ll be there to help every time they fall.” Oh, God, make us like Christ. Make us love somehow some ways we’ve never loved before. And, oh, God, we know it’ll cost. We know that. But we’re willing to count the cost ourselves.

Bless these parents tonight whose hearts are aching. And we would pray for those children that are far. We don’t know where they are. On the roadside somewhere tonight. Sleeping in some corner or cranny. Not knowing where to go tomorrow or what to do.

Oh, God, somehow may the hunger for home come alive in them. And may they return in Jesus’ precious name. Amen. I’m impelled by the Spirit to tell you a quick story on this very point, which happened just a few weeks ago. Just to show you how beautiful this can be. I was in Minden CFO. And some of you maybe have been there in that beautiful palatial mansion where we have the Minden CFO there in Long Island. And a lovely mother came to me with red eyes and a wet handkerchief. And she’d been weeping and crying. And she said to me, “I’ve just got to talk to somebody.” I said, “Great, talk to me.” And so we sat down on a chair, a bench up in that beautiful grounds. And she told me a story that would break your heart. An only daughter, a scholar in university, an MYF kid, that’s a Methodist term for a youth leader. And she had been a summer camp leader. She worked in the church. She sang in the choir. She was just what you’d call the perfect daughter. Her mother just, you know, really loved her. And then all of a sudden, that girl took a twist and ran away from home and joined herself with 20 other kids to an old guru from India.

And were traveling around the country. It wouldn’t work. Just living off the land, however they could do it. And living with this guru. And the mother was just saying, “I’m going mad. I’m just, my heart just breaking. I can’t take it. It’s my only daughter.” And I looked at her. And by the way, this is something, we’ve been talking about this thing of agreement. I said, “Do you think that God wants her there?” She said, “No, I don’t.” That wasn’t hard to say. I said, “I don’t either.” And I said, “Matthew 18 tells me that if two are agreed as touching anything that we’re asking in Jesus’ name, we can have it.” And she looked at me and said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t work here.” And I said, “You know, I believe that. I believe it.” She said, “You do?” I said, “Yes, I do.” I reached out and took her hands. And we stood there in that beautiful place. And I found myself praying as I so often do and the Holy Spirit prays and I don’t do it. It isn’t me. It’s English, but it isn’t me. So many people don’t know that the Holy Spirit can speak English.

I started to pray. Let me help you, mothers. Let me help you in praying. The Holy Spirit did this. I didn’t. Now, listen. You cannot pray for those children out of hurts and resentment and judgment. You can’t do it. I don’t think your prayer goes above the ceiling. You’ve got to pray out of love for that child. And so I found myself saying to this mother, or praying, “Dear Jesus, bless this hippie girl. No. Bless this lovely girl.” I thought the mother just, her hands tensed up when I said that because she wouldn’t expect me to say that, you know. “Bless this lovely girl.” And I met her with everything I had. And then the Holy Spirit said a thing I never would have said. He’s got the awfulest language. The Holy Spirit said, “And help her to get sick of it.”

I thought, what a crazy prayer. Help her to get sick of it. And you know, I was embarrassed. I’m often embarrassed of myself. And I looked at her and she looked at me and I said, “Did you mean that?” She also looked at me and said, “Is that all you’re going to pray?” You know. It wasn’t long enough for a real prayer, you know. And I turned around and smiled and walked off. That was on Sunday night. I went from there up to the hills of Tennessee to work with a bunch of people way up back in there in those sticks. With those people I love so much. And I went up there for a week and then came home. When I got home, there was a letter on my desk. And my wife said, “There’s a letter in there. I don’t know what it means. I’m sure you’ll know.” And I got this letter, ears from the mother. And she said what hundreds of mothers have said to me and fathers. She said, “Reg, you’re not going to believe this.”

You know, Agnes, I think they think I’m a big disbeliever or something. You’re not going to believe this. Now listen, that was Monday. And the girl and the mother wrote to me on Wednesday. And this is pretty fast work. If you think the Holy Spirit isn’t a fast person, you don’t know about it. And the mother wrote letters. She said, “Reg, you’re not going to believe this.” She said, “On Wednesday night, my daughter called me from Columbus, Ohio. And guess what she said? ‘Mother, I’m sick of this.’”

And the mother gladly wired her ticket. Then she came home. But isn’t it strange that Christian people don’t expect God to be like that? And they don’t expect Him to be able to work on a quick schedule like that. But short schedule, I’ll have to admit. So I’m saying to you tonight, oh, let’s begin to love. Because I want to talk about love the rest of the week, so you’re in for it. God bless you. Go home. Goodbye. Bye.