If You Have Fallen Away, God Will Do Everything To Get You Back

14 After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing. 17 Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death! 18 I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

Luke 15:14-18 BSB

The parable of the Prodigal Son that Jesus illustrates is one of either a believer who has fallen back into sin or someone who knows about the Lord but decides to go back to the world. I say this because the passages of the lost sheep and the lost coin talks about the joy in heaven that occurs over a sinner that repents (Luke 15:7, 10).

The son left the protection of his father’s house to indulge in sin because he came across money from his inheritance. When a person walks away from the Lord, He will allow or even put him in a bad situation for his good. In the parable, a famine comes to the land, which forces the son to think about his father, and it makes him realize his need for his father because his life turned out to be so miserable. Now, the Lord had him in a position that would allow him to hear from Him so that he would come to his senses.

If you have walked away from Jesus Christ, He will allow you to go through hard times to remove the hardness of your heart, making it receptive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It will bring you back to reality to repent so that the Lord would forgive you of all your sins and restore you to righteousness.

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Your Soul Is Like A Mirror

8 Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Luke 3:8-9 BSB

Many people claim to follow Jesus, but John gives us a stark warning about claiming to be someone we are not. The result will be devastating. Self-deception is very serious. How do you know that you are not self deceived? The Scripture says that a person who has repented will show it by living it out.

The word “repentance” suggests a person who has turn from a life without God to one who lives for Him. 

Who would Jesus see if He would stand in front of you looking into your eyes and seeing your soul? Will your soul reflect Jesus Christ, or just you? Your soul is a mirror, and when Jesus stands in front of you, He wants to see Himself in you. If He sees only you, then you don’t belong to Him, showing that you don’t live out who you say you are. But, if Jesus sees Himself, then you are living according to His Word and doing His will.

In verse 9, reality sinks in and states that if your life is not mirroring the life of Jesus, you will be condemned and cast into the Lake of Fire. Jesus wants you to repent and change your life of sin into a life of righteousness as found in the Scriptures. He wants to bless you and reward you for obeying Him. How can He do those things if you are living in rebellion and sin?

The Number 40 In The Bible

Acts 7:23

23″When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.

• Judgment against an Egyptian. When Moses was 40 Years old, he stroke down an Egyptian to rescue one of his people. 

Exodus 7:7

7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

• Moses lived 40 years in Midian (Exodus 3:1) when God called him to pronounce judgment against Pharaoh by way of God’s plagues.

Numbers 14:32-34

32 But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.
33 Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and bear the penalty for your acts of unfaithfulness until all your corpses lie scattered in the wilderness.
34 You will bear the consequences of your iniquities forty years based on the number of the forty days that you scouted the land, a year for each day. You will know my displeasure.

• The judgment of 40 years. The judgment that was pronounced against the Israelites for not trusting in the LORD their God. They died in the wilderness without seeing the promised land.

Deuteronomy 34:7

7 Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not left him.

• After 40 years of freeing Israel from the bondage of slavery in Egypt,  judgment was pronounced against Moses. He violated the LORD’s command by striking the rock (Numbers 20:6-12).

Most of the time in Scripture, the number 40 means judgment, as also seen in…

Genesis 7:4

4 Seven days from now I will make it rain on the earth forty days and forty nights,
and every living thing I have made I will wipe off the face of the earth.”

• Within 40 days and nights, God will judge, and destroy the an habitants of the earth with the animals because of their constant evil acts.

Jonah 3:4-5

4 Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”
5 Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.

• God gave the city of Nineveh 40 days to repent or else He was going to pour out His wrath on it. The people of Nineveh heeded the prophet Jonah’s warning and turned from their wickedness to repentance. 

What is Scripture trying to tell us with the number 40? God has limits to a person’s continuous rejection of His calling for repentance. The consequences are very serious.

In all the verses mentioned, God give them time to repent, and to those that did, they didn’t receive God’s wrath. But to those that did not repent, God’s full wrath was poured out on them.

If the Holy Spirit is convicting you today of something that you did that God considers evil, repent. Remember, He is giving you time. Don’t let that time pass you by before judgment gets pronounced on you.