The light in the lighthouse may be burning, but if the lights along the shore are not burning, too, the poor sailors may be lost. "Brightly beams our Father's mercy From _His_ lighthouse evermore, But to _us_ He gives the keeping Of the lights along the shore." THE PRODIGAL SON, HIS SIN, HIS WRETCHEDNESS AND HIS RECOVERY. LUKE XV: 11-24. 1. This younger son thought he was wiser than his father and wanted to manage his own affairs. So it is with men who think they can manage their own affairs without God. And as this young man wanted to get as far from his father's presence as possible (see verse 13, "into a far country") so the sinner, when he determines to give himself up to pleasure and sin, wants to get as far from God as possible. He does not want to hear about Him or even think about Him. Was not this so with _you_? 2. The father did not _compel_ the son to stay at home. He allowed him to choose what he preferred. So it is with God. He does not compel us to obedience. For my part I wish He did. But he lets us go and pursue sin with all our hearts, if we choose that above the innocence and joy of dwelling with Him. 3. "He _wasted_ his substance with riotous living," verse 13, and so it is with the sinner--in the service of sin and Satan he wastes and destroys his property, his health, his reputation, his intellect, his conscience--all. "_And he began to be in want._" That is what sin brings a man to--want, want, want and wretchedness, wretchedness, wretchedness. Has not sin done this for _you_? 4. And it was this very wretchedness which brought him to his senses--"he came to himself" (verse 17). And when he does come to himself he can think of only one place where he can hope to find relief and he bravely determines to go straight to the very father he had so shamefully abandoned and to make a full confession of his sin and throw himself on that father's mercy with the hope of being taken back as a hired servant. He is willing to take the _humblest_ and _meanest_ place, if he can only get back to that home he was, a short time before, so eager to leave. Nor does he offer _any excuse_, he calls his sin by the right name and confesses it without trying to excuse it or justify it. 5. And how did his father receive him?