Sermons
“Catching the Fallen”
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Reading Hebrews 5:23 through 6-8, and I'll be reading from the New King James version.
Of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food, for everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.
The solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason.
Of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment, and this we will do if God permits.
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come if they fall away to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame.
For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated receives blessings from God.
But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
Early this week, Gary and Vicky Copeland are going to be leaving for Ecuador.
Uh, the congregation here has supported them in the past in their trips to Ecuador and Mexico, and we'll be supporting them again in this trip.
They're going to be gone for about 3.5 weeks.
My understanding is they'll be working with or having contact with about 11 different congregations.
Both Gary and Vicky are bilingual, which makes their work, uh, in these kinds of places like Ecuador and Mexico very valuable.
They're able to.
Uh, converse with people easily in their own language, and so it is our pleasure to support them.
Please remember them in your prayers as they set out on their journey this week and as they're gone, as I said, for approximately 3.5 weeks.
In the scriptures, people are often compared to sheep, especially Christians are spoken of as God's flock, as those that are shepherded by the Lord.
And Jesus told a parable in Matthew the 18th chapter that I want to read to you, it's the basis for the song that we just sang.
I appreciate Daniel leading songs that uh relate to our study this morning.
In verse 10 of Matthew 18, Jesus said, see that you do not despise one of these little ones.
For I tell you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
The new King James version adds verse 11 for the Son of Man came to seek the lost.
Verse 33, what do you think if a man has 100 sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
And if he finds it truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray.
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
And so the scriptures help us to understand Jesus tells us that God is interested in the salvation of all individuals, not wanting any to perish, and neither should we.
And so the shepherd in this parable leaves the 25 that are safe, and he goes to find the one that is wandering, that is astray.
There is uh a scene from the movie, Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade.
I don't know how many of you have perhaps seen those series of Indiana Jones movies.
Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford, but in that movie, The Last Crusade, oh spoiler alert.
Although this movie's been out since Noah was a boy, but so most of you, I think if you're interested in that sort of thing, you've seen the movie already.
But there's a scene toward the end of the movie that is particularly touching and Uh, I think instructive for our purposes this morning.
The Holy Grail, of course, is a reference to the cup that supposedly Jesus used at the Last Supper with his disciples, and Indiana Jones and a number of bad characters are all In search of the holy grail.
Well, they finally find it.
Harrison Ford finds it and they bring it out from its original resting place, but it's in a cave-like structure, and they're not allowed to take it beyond the seal is on the floor.
Elsa is the name of a young woman who is both part ally and protagonist of uh Indiana Jones.
She grabs the grail and she's backing up over the seal on the floor.
She's worn, but when she passes the seal, the whole place starts to crumble.
Large cracks, crevices are in the floor there, and she drops the cup, and then she scrambles to find it.
But she ends up hanging on the edge of one of the crevices there, and Indiana Jones saves her from falling into the, into that crevice by grabbing one of her hands.
She's wearing gloves.
She can see the grail, it's right there.
It's close.
She can almost touch it.
Of course, that was the big prize.
But Indiana Jones is saying, take my hand, give me your other hand cause she's slipping.
He can't hold her for very long.
But she doesn't listen.
She keeps stretching out to get that prize.
And of course, what happens is he loses his grip and she falls into the crevice to her death.
But suddenly, Indiana Jones finds himself in virtually the same position as Elsa.
Things start to crumble and he's starting to fall, only now his father, Grabs him, one hand.
And then Indiana is almost able to touch the grail himself, and he's reaching for it just like Elsa did.
I can get it.
But his father says, Let it go.
The scene is touching partly because that was essentially the father's uh mission through life was to find the holy grail, and there it is.
They found it.
So in this scene, Indiana then lets the grail go and he brings his other arm up, and his father grabs him, which I thought was kind of interesting.
It's almost like he let go and then grabbed him in both hands, but he pulls him up and they managed to escape without the grail, but with their lives.
Elsa, Elsa is so focused on getting the cup that she falls to her death.
In the end, on the other hand, listens to his father who says, let that go.
It's not the most important thing.
And so he manages to have his life saved.
That's a scene from the movie.
That's Elsa, of course, not Indiana.
For those of you who hadn't seen the movie and were wondering.
That's Elsa.
And I want you to think about the difference between Elsa and Indiana Jones.
The focus difference between the two of them, because restoring the fallen, catching the fallen as we've titled our study this morning is much like that.
We cannot restore the one who doesn't cooperate in the restoration.
Elsa would not bring her other arm up and so Indiana was unable to save her life.
We cannot restore the one who will not accept our help.
We all know Christians who have fallen away, or perhaps we've had contact with individuals we were trying to teach who had some negative view of, of the church or religion, and we want to reach these people with the gospel.
I want to talk about that this morning.
I want to observe some of the limitations that we face in catching the fallen.
But I also want to suggest maybe some generic guidelines to follow in reaching the lost, uh, the fallen, or even the disenchanted.
You know, Christians fall away for different reasons, fall away or go astray for different reasons.
And that suggests that there's no specific template that fixes or fits, I should say, every situation to guide our interactions with people who go astray.
The thinking of people who are falling is significant, and I'm gonna suggest to you 214 groups along that line.
And maybe people fit into more than one group or maybe the groups are a little too specific to talk about some folks, but I think most people fit in one of these groups.
The first group is those who have simply been enticed by the desires of the flesh.
These are not people who have at least consciously rejected the Lord.
They haven't said to themselves, well, I'm not interested in Jesus anymore, but they are no longer faithful and they are more interested in pursuing, as I said, the desires of the flesh.
People in this group still believe that the Bible teaches the truth, but they prefer to follow their own passion, their own desires than to follow Christ.
Now, there are people in a second group who actually do have some doubts about the scriptures.
Some of them may have concluded that the Bible is not an inspired book.
It's just a book written by a bunch of people long time ago, has some good things in it, but it's not something that really needs to regulate my life.
They might disagree even with some of the truths that are revealed in the scriptures and so they've come to the point where they're rejecting the Bible as God's word.
Doubts or unanswered questions about the Bible make these individuals more susceptible to the desires of the flesh.
Sometimes I suspect that some of these confessed doubts are actually the consequence of people who want to be free to do whatever they want to do, to follow their own passions, and so they find some reason that they can reject the scriptures as the inspired word of God.
In the third group that I want to talk about, I think there are some who have simply become discouraged.
It's not that they are particularly questioning the scriptures as inspired literature, or that in some way they're anxious to go out and, and sow wild oats, but they've been discouraged by the bad behavior or maybe just the apathy of Christians, fellow Christians, and particularly those whom they see as more mature.
Have you ever felt, found yourself in that group where you, you were surprised at the behavior of a fellow brother or sister in Christ, and, and you were just amazed that they would act the way they act.
Sometimes that discourages people to the point where they basically are willing to give up.
And then the 26th group.
These are people who have consciously rejected the Lord.
Not just the scriptures, no, not just doubts about the scriptures, but they have consciously rejected Jesus as the Christ as their Savior, and they make no pretense of following uh the word of God.
They may have cut off communication with other Christians, that's frequently the case.
But they no longer believe the scriptures and they may even be derisive about the scriptures, uh, disdaining this idea that, that the Bible could possibly be a book of divine origin.
Now, as I said before, sometimes people may fit somewhere between these groups or there may be some characteristics of more than one group that characterizes the person who has fallen away.
But I also have seen from time to time that sometimes fallen Christians will migrate from one group to another group.
They may have some questions about the scriptures, but those questions are not answered either to their satisfaction or they're not listening to the answers.
And so as those questions begin to fester in their mind, then they eventually are then drawn away by physical desires, by passions of the flesh, what the world offers in terms of sparkling baubles of no value.
And so they fit in more than one group.
Sometimes Christians move from one group to another, and sometimes they go to group number 26 where they don't want to talk to anybody.
They've consciously rejected the Lord, although they did not begin.
Their fall that way.
Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about non-Christians because sometimes it's difficult for us to reach contacts that we have, uh, people that we want to teach the gospel to and part of the reason may be sometimes that they have developed a, a, a rather negative view of the Lord's Church, the Church of Christ, as they think of sometimes the Church of Christ is just another denomination.
Or sometimes they just have a negative view of religion in general.
And it makes it very difficult to reach them with the gospel because of these preconceived ideas about us or about religion.
Sometimes those ideas or that preconceived view is the result of lukewarm and or unfaithful Christians.
I, I cannot estimate, I cannot overemphasize the importance of our example in the communities and our families, with the people that we work with, the people we go to school with, they are watching us.
And while they may not have a great understanding of the scriptures, they do know some things about right and wrong.
And when our lifestyle is either lukewarm or just plain unrighteous from time to time, people are watching and they're basing their views sometimes on religion or the Church of Christ, based on what they see in us.
They're not reading the Bible.
They're seeing us.
Mike used to say in his prayers that we might be the only Bible that some people will read.
And I think that's true.
I think uh because of the widespread illiteracy and biblical literature in our culture, that people are looking at us to see what Christianity is supposed to be like.
How do we respond to that?
Well, I think first of all, if someone has been discouraged by what they've seen in, in apathetic Christians, we need to acknowledge the fact that sometimes Christians are weak.
Including ourselves.
We need to make the observation that conversion to Jesus Christ doesn't suddenly make you a perfect individual.
That all of the things, all of the weaknesses, the foibles that we had in the past, that they all just disappear when we come up out of the water of baptism, doesn't happen that way.
I think it's important for us to make a distinction between those who are following God's plan and God's plan itself, because here's what's happening.
People are looking at the adherence to God's word, and they're judging God's word on the basis of the people who are supposedly following it.
And they conclude that the Bible is not worth following because of what they see in the lives.
Of Christians Jesus is the perfect master.
But we're imperfect disciples, imperfect followers.
We shouldn't judge the book, God's will by those who are imperfect adherents or disciples.
The scriptures indicate that God's going to hold each individual accountable for his own behavior.
That's not to say that it's unimportant if we present ourselves as a stumbling block to others, but the bottom line is that judgment is going to be individual in its nature.
God's not gonna judge us as a group.
He's not going to judge us as families or even as married couples.
He's going to judge each of us, as Paul would say, according to what we have done in the body, whether good or evil.
He would write to the Romans in chapter 21 and verse 22.
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
And so while some are turned off by apathetic or unfaithful Christians, the truth of the matter is, those people will be judged for their sins, but so will the people who reject Christ.
Because of their conduct.
Each of us will give account of ourselves to God.
Sometimes that negative attitude is the result of negative information about religion.
They've read on the news about immoral spiritual leaders, televangelists who are soliciting prostitutes or whatever, greedy religious leaders who gather all kinds of funds and live in palaces while they try to get more money from whoever will listen.
Or churches that just ignore scripture, obvious.
Setting aside of God's will.
And so people generalize about religion, and they, they, they lump all religion into the hypocrite box or maybe the greedy box.
Well, you know, religion is just about people trying to get your money.
And religion is a bunch of people who don't live what they preach.
I've discovered, and probably you have also, that many people do not really know very much about the Lord's Church.
They lump us in with other religious people, but they don't really understand much about us or the word of God that we follow.
What they know.
What they know is often just the slander that they've heard from opponents to the Lord.
Anybody ever told you when you said, yes, I'm a member of the Church of Christ.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's the church that doesn't like music.
Or hates music as the case may be.
153 yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the Church of Christ.
That's that group that won't let women do anything.
You know, we, we keep them under wraps.
Keep them oppressed.
What they've heard from others is what they know about us.
But it's often not true.
And those individuals are often surprised to learn what the Lord, what the Lord's Church really is about, what we really believe.
And that it's very different from what they have heard.
I had some relatives, my extended family, they're deceased now.
But they never had much use for religion.
And the reason was for them, religion as a, as a, as a topic really was essentially just the Roman Catholic Church.
That had been their experience earlier in life.
And they got a very bad taste from their experiences with the Roman Catholic Church.
And from that point on, all religion was the same as the Roman Catholic Church.
That's what I'm talking about.
And so they lumped us all together.
How should we respond to things like that?
Well, I would begin by acknowledging that there are certainly a lot of religious people, religious people who are not following God's will.
Nobody's gonna deny that.
But generalizations are typically not accurate.
If I said this morning, all politicians are corrupt.
Well, you might, you might say a lot of politicians are, but to say that all, every politician is corrupt, how would you know that?
And is that really a fair description of the character of all politicians?
Well, no, I suspect that it's not.
Generalizations are typically not accurate.
All blonde women are not very bright.
That's a common generalization.
Several women are thinking, man, I'm glad I colored my hair.
It's not accurate.
There's some exceedingly intelligent blonde women.
Intelligence has nothing to do with hair color.
But that's the generalization and people often live by such Inaccurate generalizations.
What I would explain to somebody who has this negative view is that different attitudes toward biblical authority create different religious groups, because that's commonly the question.
Well, why is it if everybody's studying the same Bible?
Why is it that there's so much disagreement in the religious world?
It's because not everybody has the same attitude toward God's authority.
And so they have different or varying degrees of allegiance to the scriptures depending on their understanding of divine authority.
I would encourage back to the Bible.
In actual practice.
That's kind of the meme that we sometimes use to try to convince people that they need to follow the will of God.
Let's get back to the Bible.
Throw away the, the confessions, the Augsburg uh confession, the Westminster confession.
Throw away the church disciplines where churches have decided to make their own rules about what they're gonna accept and not accept.
Let's just get back to the Bible and, and do what the Bible says.
That's a novel concept to many people.
How do we appeal to the fallen?
I want to suggest to you that of the 215 groups that I talked about of fallen Christians, the last group, group number 215, is perhaps the most difficult to reach.
And the reason is, they're not listening anymore.
In many cases, they've cut off communication with other Christians.
In Hebrews, the 217th chapter.
In verses 4 through 6, part of the text that was read for scripture reading prior to the beginning of our study.
The writer of Hebrews says, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to condemn contempt.
The Hebrews writer lists several blessings, spiritual blessings that these people that he's talking about enjoy.
He is helping us to understand that these are people who have already sampled the spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ, and they have now rejected them.
They have in a sense, figuratively speaking, obviously, they have once again crucified the Lord to their own harm.
They're holding him up to contempt.
The writer is not teaching, please understand.
The writer is not teaching that it is impossible for one who's like this, who has fallen away to be restored.
That's not what he says.
If you read the passage carefully, he's talking about what you and I can do for the fallen.
It's impossible for us to restore them again.
And here's the reason why.
They've already sampled what God has to offer.
They've already looked and, and experienced.
The spiritual blessings that a Christian and what are we gonna offer them when they reject those?
What's Plan B in the Bible for a person's salvation and that, and the fact of the matter is there is no Plan B. When you reject what God has to offer in terms of his plan for salvation and the blessings that come to Christians who have, have converted to Christ, if you reject that, there isn't anything else I can Offer you If you've fallen away.
It's one of the difficulties, obviously, of talking to people who have fallen away.
We only can offer them what they've already rejected.
That's why the writer says what he says.
As long as they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm.
It is impossible for faithful brethren to restore them again to repentance.
There's gonna have to be a mind change in them.
And if they're not listening, that's the hardest group to try to restore.
Hebrews the 10th chapter likewise gives a warning.
Because I think the Hebrews writer was concerned that some of the Christians that were associated with his readers, that some of them were already moving to this status, this state.
Of not being willing to listen anymore, of rejecting Jesus Christ.
Read along with me from uh Hebrews the 10th chapter, verses 26 to 31, again from the ESV.
For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.
What do you mean?
You mean that I can't be forgiven of my sins?
He said there's no other sacrifice.
If you reject the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there's nothing else that God's going to give you.
He doesn't have a backup plan.
Nothing remains but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
How much worse, worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one and listen to the description of this individual.
This is not the Christian who occasionally sins out of weakness or passion.
This is not the Christian who occasionally sins and then seeks forgiveness because of sorrow for sin.
He says, one who has trampled underfoot, the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace.
We know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay.
And again, the Lord will judge his people.
It is a fearful thing.
To fall into the hands of the living God.
This is the person in group 153 who has rejected Jesus Christ, rejected the sacrifice that once sanctified him, and now has gone back into the world and doesn't care anymore to hear about what God has to say.
And those people are very difficult.
Impossible, the Hebrews writer says, to restore.
What can we offer the one who has rejected the only means of salvation that God has provided?
Do you remember the movie, the movie scene that I described?
Elsa, give me your other hand.
I can't hold you.
I can get it.
I can get it.
She was focused on the world.
She was focused on something other than the most important thing for her life at that moment.
And so it is with people who have fallen in many cases.
They're so focused on the world that you can't get them.
To let you help them.
Unfortunately, some Christians conclude that, well, if so and so just doesn't come back, well, we just didn't use the right approach, and that's an undeserved guilt trip.
In most cases.
Fact of the matter is, you can't restore someone who won't help in the restoration.
It's impossible.
And that's hard.
That's hard because we want people to be restored.
We want people to be saved.
But we need to understand that it doesn't depend just on the approach that we use.
It doesn't depend on the degree of desire that we have to save individuals.
It most often depends almost entirely on whether that person is open and willing to listen to be helped.
Unfortunately, in so many cases, that's not the case.
What about those other groups?
Well, I'm not suggesting that restoring people who are in these other groups uh is, is easy.
It's just group 4 that's hard.
I'm not saying that.
I think it's difficult in all of these groups.
They're often difficult to reach as well.
But the difference is that in many cases, those in groups 1 through 3, they've still left the door of communication open and as long as you can communicate with people.
There's hope There's hope that perhaps their lives can be changed.
Now, there's no specific template that I know of that will fit all situations.
The apostle Paul says to the Thessalonians in a passage that we read this morning in chapter 5 and verse 14.
Now we exhort your brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.
In Galatians the 6th chapter, he wrote to them in chapter 6 and verse 1, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted.
Well, in the last few minutes of our study, I'd like to suggest maybe some general guidelines.
As we try to work with people that have fallen away.
What kinds of things should we think about?
I want to suggest, first of all, that we need to listen.
We need to find out where that person is if we don't already know that, and often we may be mistaken.
Why is it that this person has left the Lord?
Why is it that this person has fallen?
Before we can offer a roadmap back to faithfulness, we need to understand where that person is in his or her thinking.
It's just like giving directions to anything.
If I give you directions to my house, I have to know where you are.
I have to know where to start.
Otherwise, I may be leading you off in directions that, that don't have any application to you.
And so maybe the first guideline is just simply listen.
Did they fall away, this person, did he or she fall away because of discouragement?
Is it doubts?
Maybe questions about the word of God that we can answer?
Is it a weakness of the flesh?
We would approach that person differently depending on which of those problems describes the reason for their having fallen away.
That'll help us to decide what we're going to communicate to that person based on their unique circumstances.
Secondly, love doesn't depend upon agreement.
If it did, Jesus wouldn't have said, love your enemies because our enemies frequently don't agree with us on maybe a lot of things, but we still have the responsibility to love them.
And so it is with those who have fallen away.
In 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 15, Paul wrote, do not regard him.
That is this individual that the church has withdrawn from because of a disorderly walking.
Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
He's still a brother, even though he is walking disorderly and in is in danger of losing his eternal inheritance.
Now that can be difficult.
Because often the fallen can be very blunt and very hurtful as they blame shift or even attack the ones who are trying to catch them.
Have you ever tried to, to help a hurt animal?
The animal obviously needs help.
is gonna perhaps die if it doesn't get help.
And so you want to help that animal, but the animal turns on you and maybe scratches you or bites you or pets you or whatever, because it doesn't understand what you're trying to do.
You ever had that experience?
Well, when you're trying to help the fallen, You're gonna get bit sometimes.
You need to understand, not literally, I hope not literally.
But you need to understand that sometimes the defense that they will make because it makes them feel better is to attack you.
Love doesn't agree, doesn't depend, I should say, upon agreement.
It takes patience to work with the fallen.
Usually when people fall away, it didn't happen from Monday to Tuesday.
It didn't happen quickly.
It was usually an extensive process, and it often takes an extensive process to restore them.
can be very difficult to bear with someone who doesn't see what seems to be so obvious to us.
And of course, sometimes that person is determined not to see.
They like where they are.
I would suggest to you that we need to avoid destructive admonitions.
Here's what I mean.
You know, you're going to hell where you are.
That always opens doors of communication, doesn't it?
When you tell somebody that they, they're, they're headed for a fiery place of punishment.
Now, it may very well be the truth based on their behavior, but if you're trying to reach somebody and you're trying to keep doors of communication open, that's not helpful.
And yet sometimes Christians think, well, see, I, I, I told them what they needed to hear.
Sometimes we admonish with a sledgehammer when we should be using a feather duster.
And if we don't know any other way, Then maybe it would be best for us not to admonish at all, and I'm not suggesting that's the best path.
I'm saying that it can be very hurtful.
To send messages of condemnation to somebody that you're trying to restore to faithfulness.
Now, I will make this observation because I think the apostle Paul does.
And that is that the severity of any rebuke really needs to be directly proportional to the hardness of the heart of the one who's being admonished.
Let me give you an example of that.
In Titus chapter one, As Paul is talking about the qualifications of elders, here's what he says.
For there are many who are insubordinate.
He's not talking about the elders, but talking about false teachers.
Empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.
They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons, that sounds like a generalization.
This testimony is true, Paul says.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply.
He didn't say gently, he said sharply.
And I think the reason is The severity of the rebuke needs to match the hardness of the heart, of the one who's being rebuked.
Don't give up.
Just because we can't reach someone today doesn't mean we won't be able to do so in the future, which is why we want to keep doors of Communication open.
In Luke chapter 15 in that parable of the lost son, the prodigal son that Jesus told, the prodigal son went to a far off country, and we don't know how long he was there.
Bible doesn't really reveal that.
But what happened was his conditions, his life conditions deteriorated to the point where he was feeding swine.
And verse 17 says that when he came to himself, there was a change of view.
He looked around at his circumstances and said, I, this is not where I want to be.
Look at what I left, and that's of course, what we're trying to do with the fallen, is to get them to come to themselves.
But sometimes people don't do that until they hit rock bottom.
That's where the prodigal son was, feeding the pigs and wishing he could eat what they were eating.
And it changed his mind.
We need to keep the forgiveness door open.
I understand, of course, that we're not in charge of forgiveness.
Not divine forgiveness.
But I think sometimes when people leave home, Like the prodigal son did.
Left his father's house.
Sometimes they just don't know the way back.
And all I mean by that is.
People are like, well, I can't come back.
I, I've alienated brethren.
Uh, it's become obvious to everybody what kind of lifestyle I've been living.
What will everyone say if I come?