The story of the prodigal son is the most universal story ever told. It is the story of Samson, of every person born on the earth as an individual, of mankind as a whole, and historically of the Christian Church. God gives us His riches. We then squander them according to our lusts.

Finally we "come to ourselves." We realize that our Father's house is of greater value than the world. We pick ourselves up and return to our Father. He is waiting for us because we are His children. His joy is very great as He celebrates our return from the dead.

We do not bring the pigs and the swill back home. We return chastened and repentant. We are ready to be a servant but God accepts us as a son. It is the angels that are the servants.

Our reception home does not mark the end of our salvation but the beginning. No doubt many years passed by before the prodigal was able to get the "pigs" out of his personality.

It is one matter to get the man out of the cesspool. It is another matter to get the cesspool out of the man. Getting the man out of the cesspool is repentance. Getting the cesspool out of the man is salvation.

This is what the Christian salvation is all about. First, God's love, working through the atonement, pulls the man out of the garbage. God's grace helps the individual to repent. Then God's power and Divine Nature cast the garbage out of the man.

The Kingdom of God is practical and understandable. God is "saving" us so we will become like Him in nature, acceptable to Him in our personality and behavior. God accomplishes this by the new birth and then by growth in the Divine Nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. What we are, we are. Physical death does not change what we are. It is only as we partake of Christ that we are changed.

If we harden our heart, refusing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, the Divine judgment comes upon us with the intent of making us partakers of God's righteousness and holiness. If we harden our heart yet further we move to dangerous spiritual ground. We become an adversary of God.

For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, (Hebrews 10:26)

God's people must be warned in the present hour. It is a time for heartfelt repentance and for a reformation of Christian thinking.

Ours is a new day, the beginning of the Jubilee of deliverance. It is the beginning of the restoration of all that Adam and Eve forfeited. It is the fulfillment of the Word spoken by God's prophets.

The Lord Jesus Christ stands ready to wash the members of His Body with a baptism of fire, breaking the power of sin in them. It is time to take the Kingdom. We are a firstfruits of mankind. The material creation awaits eagerly the unveiling of the sons of God. The nations cannot come forth from the prisons of slavery and corruption and receive eternal life until the saints are ready to minister Christ to them.

To be continued.