If you would, this morning, open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 2. We just finished up the book of Acts on our Wednesday night Bible study, and we're getting ready to endeavor to go into the book of Jeremiah on Wednesday evenings. I've obviously been looking at it and reading it and different things like that. A few things kind of stuck out and put a couple of things together over the course of this last week and that's what we're going to do here this morning. And Jeremiah, he is a prophet in the Bible, as you well know. A prophet is a very special office. It is a prophet is somebody that the Lord used, especially in the Old Testament, when dealing with a nation. That's what the Lord calls prophets to deal with you read of prophets going in and speaking to individuals But more often than not it's usually the king or the person that's going to be king Because God raises up prophets when a nation begins to decline and a nation begins to you know Get themselves in a mess where they're getting ready to to suffer the judgment of God and God wants to give them a warning so a prophet is something, you know, pretty special and And he uses them in an attempt to warn and to correct nations that are going into apostasy, and like I said, they're headed for destruction. A prophet was not exactly the same as what you would think of as an Old Testament priest, or even in the New Testament, a pastor, or a teacher. It says in Ephesians chapter four, it says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and then some pastors and teachers. Those apostles and prophets and evangelists, you see those dealing on a national level quite a bit. And you see national revivals and God dealing with nations, using those folks. The apostles obviously dealt with the nation of Judah and spread the gospel throughout the whole world. And then you have pastors and teachers, a generally more localized a sort of an office and and that's how you see uh... those offices use in the bible well at this point in time the nation of israel was in huge trouble They were, there were only two southern tribes that were left. If you remember back right after Solomon, the nation split into ten northern tribes, which are oftentimes in your Bible referred to as Israel. And then there was two southern tribes, Benjamin and Judah. And they were oftentimes in your Bible referred to as Judah. So not always, that's not a hard and fast rule. You kind of have to tell by the context. but it's pretty easy to determine what they're talking about. So at this point in time, the ten northern tribes, Israel, have been taken captive already quite some time ago. by Sennacherib. He came in, he took them captive. They already messed up and the Lord already had his fill with them. And he sent them into captivity and Judah was there to watch all of this going on. They had a chance to see that, the southern tribes. And now those southern tribes are following the same course of action as a nation. And so God raises up several prophets along the way, but Jeremiah is one of them. And he begins to preach to the nation of Judah. We'll just call it Judah for consistency here. And take a look at Jeremiah chapter 2. Take a look at verse 1. And it says this. It says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee. the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase. All that devour him shall offend, evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord. Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. And again, he's talking to Judah, but those terms are used interchangeably, especially at this point in time. Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me and have walked after vanity and are become vain? Neither said they, where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through the land of the deserts of the pits, and through the land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passeth through, and where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof, and the goodness thereof. But when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. The priests said not, where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not. The pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal. and walked after things that do not profit. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you once again for an opportunity to be here on a Sunday morning. You're a great God. You're a holy God. And Father, once again, we return back to your book and look at certain portions of it and kind of put things together in a way that can be helpful for us in 2024 in the United States of America. Lord, I know that we're talking about Israel, but the principles and the precepts are pretty common, the way you deal with nations, and as we'll see, the way you deal with individuals. So pray that you'd help us, that you'd minister to each and every person here. Every one of us has needs. We all have struggles, trials we're going through, and Father, we need you. You're our God, and we just ask you for help. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. I look at that verse In Jeremiah 2 5 it says this thus saith the Lord what iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone far from me That's quite a verse, when you stop and think about it. Judah, at this point in time, and God's dealing with Judah and the nation of Judah there, and Jeremiah's prophesying to him, and Judah has wandered away from God, and they've been wandering and wandering for quite some time. They have taken all the benefits. The Lord kind of rehearses in this passage, hey, don't you remember, don't you remember a time way back when Don't you remember in the days of thy youth, in the days of thy espousal, so, you know, a spouse would be your wife, espousal would be like an engagement, right? Way back in the beginning. Don't you remember back in the beginning how things were? When we walked together, and, you know, when you, in your mind, you were thinking holiness to the Lord. But now, you've wandered. You've turned, you've changed, right? Now you have taken a detour and sidetracked off of God's will. And what the nation of Israel did, ladies and gentlemen, quite simply, is they took all of the benefits All the provisions, all the protection, all the things that God gave that nation. That was a special nation. God called them out. As you know, under Abraham, God called them out and made them his people. Something special. and then blessed them, and nurtured them, and protected them, and fought their battles. And God stood in the way, in their defense, and provided for them, provided quail, provided manna, provided water out of a rock. And over and over and over again, God did miraculous things. And Judah, in the nation of Israel as a whole, but now we're specifically talking about Judah and Benjamin, now that God's looking back and he said, you know what? You have taken all the things that I've given you, all the blessings, all the provisions, all the protection, and you've used them for yourself and you've taken them and turned away with what I gave you to serve other gods. Right? What a thing to do. What a, I mean, what a weird place to get you in. Why would a nation do that? Why would somebody show that kind of gratitude to a God that had been so good and so merciful to them time and time again? In fact, God asked that same question. That's what this is all about. God says, hey, what iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone far from me? Christian If you're ever attempted to wander away from God If you're ever if you're ever in that that position where where things are going bad And we'll talk about a couple of reasons why that may happen here in a moment But if you're ever in a position where you begin to think about wandering, this is a really good question to ask yourself Hey, what iniquity have your father's found in me that they are gone far from me? Hey, what did I do wrong? Hey, what was so bad? How did I mistreat you? Why does a Christian wander away? And we see it happen all the time. You see people fall out of fellowship with the Lord, they go back to the world, sometimes they make a complete wreck of their lives, sometimes it's just different things, but the reality is, folks, every single one of us has got the ability, just like the nation of Israel, to get to a point in life where we can, if we're not careful, wander from the Lord. Amen? What does cause a Christian to wander away from God? Or maybe a little more specific, what is it that would cause you to wander away from God? Amen? Because it may be something different for every one of us. What is it that would cause you? And I've kind of categorized just a couple of general categories of things that I would like you to consider. some probably big big items on the list the cause christians to wander away from god and uh... the first one of those uh... the first one of those items is very simply this christians wander away from god because of you say what are you talking about well i'll tell you what uh... people getting uh... get people get to a place where they are looking for love or They love something more than they love God. And those things begin to take a priority over God. They begin to get their eyes focused on those things more than they focus on God. And they wind up in a place where that desire, that drive, pulls them away. When you talk about love, I'm talking about things like looking for a sense of belonging. a sense of camaraderie, a sense of appreciation. Some people very much want to be appreciated. If they don't receive it, they feel like, well, something's missing, something's left out. And they're looking for that. And if they don't get it, then they begin to wander. Sometimes it may be something like feeling valued or being understood or just being desired, somebody having a desire. All those things kind of wrap in with that feeling, that security. Am I in a place where people love me where I'm loved? Am I comfortable in this place where I'm getting what I love and I know people love me, but people walk away and they wander away, why? Because somewhere in that section, something that they love or something that they're looking for to love, they don't see it and they begin to wander away from God. It's something you have to watch out for. I'll tell you another reason why people wander. People wander because of money. Right? We know that 1 Timothy 6.10, for the love of money is the root of all evil. People chase, they chase wealth, they chase power, they chase influence. They want luxuries, they want certain possessions, and those things get in there, and our covetous side of our humanity rears its ugly head, and we begin to look at those things and desire more and more and more, and we think, well, I'm not getting it here, so let me go over here and get it. And it causes us to wander, or causes many people to wander away from God. Love, money. I'll tell you another one, happiness. People begin to look for happiness and they begin to evaluate, hey, am I happy? Do I have what I want? Those desires, those desires come up and maybe it's for one of the things that we just talked about, money or love or appreciation or wealth, whatever. Maybe it's one of those things. Maybe it's something completely different, but those desires come up and you realize, hey, you know what, I'm not happy. Maybe life isn't what you want it to be, and you're not happy, and that weighs on you, and it's heavy on your shoulders. And you get to the place like the nation of Israel, and you've got this God that has provided for you and protected you all these years, and just watched out and given you everything you've needed. But because of this empty spot in this category of happiness, you just feel empty. And that thing becomes so strong and so powerful that you begin to forget all the things God has done because you're focused on this item that you think is going to make you happy. People wander away from God for love, for money, for happiness. Sometimes that happiness may be just simply avoiding the storms in the Christian life. I mean, who wants to go through those kind of storms? Right? Sometimes people go through the storms and they mistake that for a lack of happiness. And, well, I can't be happy. I can't be happy living the Christian life, so let's just wander somewhere else. All kinds of things that creep up. But, like I said, a good outline would be looking for love or things that you love or something to love you. money, which includes wealth, power, influence, those kind of things, happiness. Now, everything that I just listed that draws Christians away from God, that causes them to wander, every single one of them is a perfectly natural, normal thing to pursue in life. as long as they don't get out of balance. Amen? What is wrong with pursuing a job, a career so you can provide for your family? Nothing. What's wrong in trying to find a place where you're loved and the people love you and you love where you're at? Nothing. What's wrong with trying to find joy and happiness? And I'm not drawing a distinction necessarily here today, but just lump them all together. What's wrong with trying to pursue and find and live in a place where you have joy and happiness? Well, nothing. The problem comes in when we take any one of those things and we prioritize it above God. Amen? When we get our priorities out of whack. uh... a preacher said this once he said this he said and think about this because this is deep he said there are no accidents in a christian's life wow you can think of some things i bet in your life where you go oh yeah god why'd you do that But if you stop and think about it, there's a lot to that statement. God either instigated it, at the very least stood back and allowed it to happen. You say, no, it was so-and-so's fault. Well, God could have killed so-and-so a long time ago. Right? And it never would have happened. So at the very least, God stepped back and allowed it to happen. Folks, That is something to struggle with for a while. That is probably one of the biggest struggles that a Christian has, realizing, hey, listen, God is in control of the good stuff and the bad stuff. You say, why? I haven't got a clue. Way above my pay grade. My brain doesn't, I don't have the brain capacity to figure out why God does what he does or doesn't do what we would like him to do. I don't know. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I had comforting words that would explain it to you and make everything fine, but all I know is somehow or another, in my ignorance, I just have to assume God's right and I'm wrong. But those things cause people to wander away from God. Those are things that that draw you away from God, from church, from Christian fellowship, from the Christian walk, from reading your Bible, from time in prayer. Those are things that draw you away and it kind of happens slowly sometimes and if you're not careful, you know, if you're just a little off course, at the beginning you're not so far off. But as you continue to walk, that half a degree of angle becomes significant. You try crossing the ocean with that, You're in a completely wrong island that you were headed for. You wander, ladies and gentlemen, because you feel like God is somehow or another holding you back. Let me ask you this, if you've ever thought that. Do you really think God is interested in doing you harm? But you know what we do when we face life? We face the circumstances, we face things that are going on, and even the nation of Israel, and I don't have time to get into a lot of the stuff there in Jeremiah, but they basically said, I know better than God. So I'm going this way. You ever been there? When you had to face something in life and you had a desire to go a certain direction, you had a desire for a certain thing and it didn't happen right away? You felt like you wanted to go achieve something and you were being held back. I can't hang around with the Christians because I won't be able to achieve my career goals if I'm in that church. All kinds of things that you can face that you can perceive as God holding you back. I tell you, another thing you gotta watch out for is when you feel like God is somehow or another being unfair to you. Happens all the time. Hey, been there, done that. Right? I didn't necessarily like leukemia either. And that's just one small thing. Anyone can look back on their whole life and you can look at times where things have happened or things that have come up and you can look and you can say, well, God, why? Why? That is unfair of you to do that. You ever stop and really think about what you're saying when you say that? Hey, God, you made the mistake. You did it wrong. But, man, how often have we thought that? Amen? I mean, it's not like everybody else here is holy and they've never thought that, and you're the only one who's made that great transgression. These are things that have a tendency to cause us to wander, wander away from God, because we don't like the lot that we've been given. Here's another one. When the things that you know that you should achieve, God just seems to be moving too slow. Come on, God, I'm looking for a shortcut. Let's get this done. Why do we have to spend all this time getting ready? Why do I have to spend all this time in school or in whatever? Let's just get things moving. But we become so impatient. And we gotta be careful when we start feeling that way because it gives us, in our mind, a justifiable excuse. It's not, but in our mind it is, justifiable excuse to wander. Because we think God's moving too slow. I'll tell you another one. Sometimes we look at God and we think, oh, he's way too harsh. I don't like his decisions. I don't like the judgments that he pronounces. I don't like, he's way too hard. And sometimes Christians get embarrassed because God is a holy God. And you know what? In the end, he's not going to put up with the Palestinians trying to take over Israel. I don't care what all the other nations say. Right? you heard about this uh... stupid little thing with the olympics in the opening ceremonies does not put up with that forever you say all he should be he should be caring and inclusive no no no no god god is doing it just right right he's not gonna be i mean he's long-suffering he's just holding back right now he's just winding up And people think they're safe because he's winding up. I mean, I know in karate we always tell them, hey, don't telegraph your punches. You know, we spend a lot of time working on not doing that. Trust me, with God, it's OK. He can wind up all day long and you still can't block him. But sometimes people wander because they begin to think this Christianity, this Bible, this stuff is too harsh. Ultimately, what it boils down to is simply this. God is not the top priority. That winds up being the root of everything that we struggle with. I need to hurry, but turn your Bibles to Luke 15, if you will. Luke 15. Luke chapter 15. Of course, you know the story of the prodigal son. We talk about it all the time. It's a great story. And once again, it provides a good illustration. If I can find it. Is that Old Testament or New Testament, guys? Just kidding. Luke chapter 15. I'm not going to take time to read through the passage again. You're very familiar with it. But I'll tell you what you have in the story of the prodigal son. You know what you have? You have a young man who's growing up. Teenagers, young adults. Man, this is you guys. And what is he looking for? I'll tell you what he's looking for. He's looking for those very things we just talked about. He's looking for love. What did he do when he got the inheritance? He went off where? Into a far country. Why? Well, he's looking for some friends, man. He's looking for some people that care about him. He's looking for his crowd. Right? I'm looking for a group of people that I want to hang around. And obviously, they must be in a far country. They can't be here. They've got to be in a far country. And so, he takes his journey. Right? He's looking for friends that would love him and accept him for who he is. And they did. As long as he paid the bills. But you and I know, as the story goes, when the money ran out, guess what? All those people that he sent, he wandered away, found a whole group of people, and they loved him. Yay! Yay! Yay! The sun is here! The sun is here! Yay! And then when he ran out of money, it's like... As long as he had something to give them, it was okay. He took off because he was dissatisfied and in his mind he was looking for somebody, some crowd, some group that would love him. And in his mind, hey, I'm going to find it in the far country. I'll tell you, you know, the other thing obviously is money. Hey, dad, give me my portion of goods. Give me the portion of goods that befalleth me. i can make this work if i just had if i just had this month if i just had this money i can make a goal that i can make i can make my life what i want to be i can i can find the people that i want to be around and i will have a lot of the money everything's gonna go well and it cost him to wander away from the father if i just had the money and again nothing wrong with pursuing a career nothing wrong with trying to earn money not that's natural you should do that it just shouldn't take you away from the father right but in his mind if I just had this all the things I could do with it everything's gonna be alright because I'll be in control I can take care of it I can do what I want everything will be fine oh yeah it'll be much better than where I'm at right now And of course, he was looking in that mix of things for the third component, which is happiness. And you know what the sad part is? Well, there's a lot of sad parts, but one of the sad parts is he thought he found it for a while. Yay, I found my friends. I found the ones that love me. Look, they're by my sides, my compadres. They'll never leave me nor forsake me, until he ran out of money. But he was looking for happiness. That's all he wanted, just a little bit of happiness. And you know the story as well as I do, when everything ran out, where'd he wind up? Hog pen. From what? Because he just let those desires get out of priority with God should have been the top priority in everything. All those desires would have been perfectly fine in the right priority. But the picture of Him leaving the Father for those things is a perfect picture of wrong priorities. When your ambitions and your desires for love, for money, for happiness cause you to leave the Father, wrong priority. All right? But that's what tends to happen. There is a gentleman back in the 1700s, and he wrote the song, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson. He was born In the 1700s, his father died when he was about five years old. And his grandfather was very wealthy, but didn't like the man his daughter had married. So basically, he just gave him next to nothing for inheritance and sent him on his way. So he kind of grew up and had a rough life. And he wound up having to go and being a barber, a hair cutter by trade. And before too awful long, he kind of got in with a bunch of rough hooligans and was living a pretty outlandish and wicked life. And he decided, him and a bunch of his buddies decided one day, they said, hey, there's a revival meeting in town. Let's go harass those guys. Let's just go, you know, let's go, something to do, might as well, nothing else going on. Let's go to the revival meeting and see if we can stir up a little, you know, have some fun. And so he went in to the, him and his buddies went into the revival meeting, and it just happened to be George Whitfield preaching. And George Whitefield, I mean, you know, he was preaching and the conviction on Robinson just came. And he just, he changed. He wound up getting saved. He wound up studying for the ministry. Eventually became a Methodist pastor. He was studying Bible. He was actually writing and stuff about infant baptism, against infant baptism. Very active, very sold out for the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wandered away. And eventually, I think he actually even became a Baptist pastor, too. And he started on the right road and was doing right and came from that bad background. But something happened along the way and at some point in time he kind of began to wander. Now he had already written this song. Come thou fount of every blessing. God, you're the source. You're the fountain of every blessing. Streams of mercy never ceasing he experienced the mercy of God right Fount of thy redeeming love he experienced the love of God the mercy of God and and and you know God provided for him here I raise my Ebenezer and that is a reference to uh... uh... to the philistines attacking israel and and that israel needs help and you know samuels in there and they call on god and god whoops up on the philistines for men and samuel you're right i do have a little frog my throat And Samuel raises up a stone, the Ebenezer, and that's a, you know, it is a God is our help is what Ebenezer means, because God helped them at that day. And he's writing about that in the song. That's his walk with God. And he wound up turning away. And as the story is told, he was riding in a carriage. At one point in time, he is backslidden. And there was a lady in the carriage, and she had a hymnal open up. And she was reading the hymnal, and she was reading from that song, Come Thou Fount, talking to him about it. And he kept trying to get her to switch the subject. And she was talking about how that song had meant so much to her, and how it had moved her so much, and been such a big help in her Christian life, and how that it had such deep meaning, and how the author of that song must have really been walking close with God. And he's sitting in this carriage with her, and he reportedly said this, ma'am, I am the poor, unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds if I had them to enjoy the feelings that I had then. Can you imagine? All because something got under his craw and he began to wander away from God. And it led him that far. Israel, in the Old Testament, wandered away time and time and time again. God would send a prophet, try to get him back on course. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it wouldn't. It would usually work for a short time and then they would wind up wandering off again. Like I said, when Jeremiah was prophet preaching, where we started this whole thing, the 10 northern tribes, Israel, was already in captivity. They had already blown it. The southern tribes, Judah, they were now in danger of destruction. And they chose to ignore Jeremiah's warning. And Nebuchadnezzar came in, and God allowed his people to be taken captive. The prodigal son, on the other hand, wandered away, took his money, took his livelihood, wandered away, riotous living, made a mess of himself, winds up in the hog pen, and what does he do? The prodigal son comes to himself and says, There's lots of bread in my father's house. The hired servants in my father's house have more bread than I have. I'll return to my father. I'll ask him, can I be one of your hired servants? You know the story. And he goes back. And you know what the sad thing is, and I'm wrapping things up here, I'm bringing it down to conclusion, but you know what the sad thing is about both of these, all three if you want to include Robinson, but both of these illustrations, Judah and the prodigal son. You know what the sad thing is about all of that? They wandered because they were looking for love, They were looking for money. They were looking for happiness. Whatever categories you want to fall under, you know, I'm just, again, three overall umbrella categories. They were looking for love, money, and happiness. If I just had this, I'd be happy. And you know what the sad part is about both of those cases is that, well, are you still in Luke 15? Take a look down at verse 17. And when he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare? And I perish with hunger. I'll arise, go to my father. We'll say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. And so he goes back. And what does he find when he gets back? The prodigal son finds everything that he was looking for when he left. Look at verse 20. He comes back in, the father sees him, says, hey son, I'm so glad to see ya. Hugs him, kisses him. You know, he found love. The love was there all along. There was no reason for him to leave. He just didn't see it at the beginning. So the prodigal son winds up leaving the father's house, taking his inheritance and going away and making a complete wreck of his life. Why? Because he's looking for love. When he comes back, guess what he finds? Love. The prodigal son wants his money. Give me what's mine. Give me my portion of the inheritance. Give it to me. I want it now. I can use it better. If I just had it, I could take care of it. I can create a life for myself. The father gives it to him. He takes off. He squanders it away. He's now penniless. He comes back. He's not only found love, but look at verse 22. Bring forth the best robe. Put a ring on his finger. He gets back to the father's house and guess what? Those riches start coming back to him again. Everything that he was after was right there all along. He was looking for happiness. Hey, if I can just take this money and get out of here and go to the far country and find some friends that actually love me, I'll be happy. My life will be better because obviously it must not have been back there in his mind. And so he goes and he finds all the friends and he riotous living and they love him and he's having a grand old time until he doesn't. And then he goes back. And what does he find at the father's house? He finds love. He finds money. And the father says, hey, kill the fatted calf and let's make Mary. You know what he finds when he goes back? He finds happiness. Man, they're having a party. The thing when you look at it, is that everything that that prodigal son left to find, he had to go back to get. You know what, Christian? Young people, this is very applicable to you, because you're at that stage in life. You've got to be careful, right? Because you're looking for all those things. Nothing wrong with looking for them. You should. In fact, if you don't, there's something wrong with you. but don't get him on a priority don't wander away from god to find those things that that prodigal son wandered away and what he found was that hey all those things i was looking for they were right back here at the father's house i thought about what to uh... but to title this message. My first thought was, the prodigal's prosperity. I thought that was pretty good. Because you know where his prosperity was found? Right back where he came from. But I decided I'm prone to wander, because that's what you and I are. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Why is that? I don't know. But there's something about this human experience that makes that prevalent, just a natural thing for us to do. Judah and Israel did it all the time. And you know what Judah's gonna find? They haven't found it yet. But when the Lord comes back at the end of that tribulation and He gathers all Israel together again and He cleans them up and gets them away from the Antichrist, you know what they're going to find? They're going to find everything they were looking for way back in the Old Testament. Just like the prodigal son found everything he was looking for right back where he started. So when you, and I'm about done, when you struggle, when you go through those time periods in life, when some of those things rear up in your Christian life and you begin to get to that place where you begin to look and you're considering wandering, because obviously what you need is not here. I'd just like you to remember two things. Those two things are Jeremiah 2.5, right? Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me? This is God talking, that they are gone far from me. What did God do that would cause you to leave and go somewhere else? You gotta answer that question. It's a good question to think about. And the second thing I'd like you to remember is that that prodigal son wandered away, but when he came to himself, you know what he found? He found what he was looking for was right there all along. For whatever reason, he just missed it the first time. Right? He just missed it the first time. Folks, it's easy to miss it. Why? Because you get your priorities out of whack. And you begin looking at something else instead of God. Like I said, everything that happens, good and bad, ultimately God's responsible. He either caused it or allowed it. If we can get over that, Our Christian life would be successful. But what does it take to get over that? I've got to remember this. I'm his. He can do with me what he wants. And if it's a martyr's stake and fire, so be it. I can't say I'm looking forward to that. If it is a life of just plowing year after year after year after year after year, it gets pretty monotonous. Lord, I'd sure like to do something else. Maybe, you know, reap a little. Maybe take a vacation. Whatever he wants, it's his. And I can either learn to understand, and at least as much as humanly possible, accept it. And that may very well take a little bit of getting out on your own with God and having a pretty frank conversation with Him. Like, why did you do this to me? I don't deserve it. Right? Trust me, you're not gonna hurt God's feelings by talking to Him harshly. I think if Christians did that more, they would be a lot better off. Right? But we'd try to cover it up, hide it, and then we'd try to look for some other excuse to justify why we want to wander. The prodigal son would have been much better off going to the father and getting mad because he didn't feel like he was being treated fairly. Because maybe the older brother got the top bunk. And then they could have worked something out. And then you never would have had to lose everything in the far country. I think it's much better. When those things happen, hey, get along with God, be frank, don't be afraid. You say, he might strike me down with lightning. Hey, then you'll be in heaven. Right? What's he gonna do? Go get so mad at you that I'm gonna give you a perfect body, no more sin, and you'll never have to, okay, that's not such a bad deal. I think you appreciate it when you talk to him very frankly. Just remember those two things. Hey, what has he done that's caused you to go so far from him? And remember that prodigal, everything he was looking for, love, money, happiness, he found them when he got back. Amen? Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, I want to thank you again for Just an opportunity to be here on a Sunday morning, and you're a great God. You're a holy God. And Lord, I know that we all go through different struggles and trials in life, and Father, we sometimes don't know how to handle them, don't know how to navigate through, because we see things through a glass darkly. We don't see the full picture, and it's, It's difficult to have faith sometimes. But Lord, I pray that you'd help us to remember that you're in control of everything. And Lord, you're a great God. And you really do have the best in mind for us. You know what things are going to trip us up if we wind up in a far country. So help us to avoid that wandering. Help us to realize what it took the prodigal son, a bad journey, to figure out that everything that we need, everything that we want, everything that we desire, is found with the Father. Help us never to leave you or forsake you. Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.