Hello, my name is Dave Scherrer. This is One Hundred Fold Ministries. It’s also our podcast world – we call it Kingdom Offerings. And we’re currently in a series where we’re taking a hard look at the kingdom disciplines, disciplines like prayer and generosity and contentedness. And we’re imagining “What would it take to become even more effective kingdom citizens?”

But right now, we’re on a break from these discipline conversations, and I’m sharing with you a short story that’s filled with kingdom allegory. This two-part story started a couple of weeks ago, and you may want to go back and listen to refresh your memory to Part One. We got halfway through and we’re going to be completing our story today.

You’ll remember that Joseph, he’s the richest man in his country. He lost his wife, Anna, in childbirth. Anna, the little girl, was named after her mother, and her dad, Joseph, and she became the closest of friends as they grew up. Well, when we left off, Anna, as a grown young woman, asked if she could stay in the city rather than to go home with her dad, back to the farm hundreds of miles from that city. Her father, Joseph, couldn’t give her his blessing because living in the city was going to be a bad idea, but Joseph would always be giving and sending his love.

So let’s start The Rich Man and his Daughter, Part Two.

“Dad,” said Anna. “I’m not leaving forever. I just want to see for myself what the city is like. My friend tells me that she has a good job and an extra room. I’m old enough now to marry. I ought to be able to go on a vacation for a few months.”

Her tone had just the hint of defiance. She waited.

Finally, her father sighed, “I cannot stop you. You will stay without my blessing, but not without my love.” “

“Dad, I know this is hard for you, but I have to grow up sometime. I will send letters. Dad, I love you.” And Anna skipped away to pack her things for this day.

Joseph sat, lost in thought, and finally Joseph said to himself, “Yes, but I love you more. Remember, Anna,” he whispered to himself (and I think to his God), “a father always knows.”

Well, for Anna, the first couple weeks in the city were spectacular. During the day, there were street performers doing amazing things. There were pastries and candies that melted in your mouth. Musicians performed on instruments that she had never even seen. Women danced and they placed a box out for coins. But at the night, it was even more spectacular. The night air was cold and it smelled of incense and spice. She could hear the sound of music drifting over the buildings.

In the city square, groups of men stood in a circle and they bet on almost anything. They placed bets on who would be the next person to walk by or who could drink the most wine or who had been with the most women.

Anna had never seen anything like this. She was enamored with the city. She was becoming lost in the city. What she could not see was that the color of her innocent green eyes was slowly fading to the dark color of the black night.

Anna’s friend, Deirdre, came to her late one night and she was very angry. “Anna, you can’t just lay around here and not pay. What kind of friend are you? I’m going broke, paying for me and for your food and clothes. I mean, you need to get a job.”

Anna was taken back. Never did she think she wouldn’t pay for herself. Several times she had offered to pay for her food and rent, but Deirdre had always turned her down. In fact, Deirdre encouraged Anna to buy expensive presents for her father to buy costly clothes and exotic foods. Just yesterday, when Anna noted that she was kind of running out of money, Deirdre didn’t say anything about it.

“I don’t want to be a burden, but the money from my father is about all used up. I don’t know anything about city work. I can fix fences. I can ride a horse. I know everything there is about cattle and how to tell if grapes are the perfect ripeness.” For a moment, Anna felt a little homesick.

“None of that makes any difference here”, Deirdre snapped.

Then Deirdre’s mood changed. She became very sweet like her old self. “You know, Anna, I know someone who can give you a job and you can make lots of money. Do you want me to invite him over?”

Well, Anna was confused. “Maybe I should just go home. I don’t want to stay where I’m not welcome.”

“Hey, did I say you weren’t welcome to stay? I just said you needed a job. And besides, you can’t make the trip to your father’s ranch in the winter. It’s too cold and there are too many robbers. I’ll bring my friend over tonight and you’ll see. He has a night job that I think will be perfect for you.”

Well, that night, it all happened so fast. Deirdre, her friend, dressed Anna up in sparkling clothes that showed off her beauty. But they didn’t really make her look beautiful. They made her look cheap and Anna knew that her father would not approve.

“These are your new work clothes. You look terrific. You’re so healthy from the ranch and your wealth that you will look ten times better than the city girls. You will keep very busy all night.” Deirdre and her friend laughed loud and long.

“How can I work in these clothes? At night, I’ll freeze. I look like one of the street walking girls that I’ve seen. I don’t understand.”

Deirdre and her friend laughed even harder. “As of now, you are one of those street walking girls. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll bring me back the money I spent on these clothes and the food and the rent. You see, with no money, you can never reach your father now in the middle of winter. You belong to me. So you need to go and make me some money, or I’m going to throw you into the street where men will have their way with you anyway.”

Well, that night, Anna gave herself away to the highest bidder and heard the lies of men whispered to her. Her dreams of love and life faded away, and Anna believed she could never go home. She was so ashamed and so lost. She knew her father would be so disappointed. She felt so alone.

Two months passed. Later, she was sick and spent, bruised, and broken. Anna no longer looked like the healthy daughter of a rancher so far away. She looked just like one of the sick and shameful girls from the city.

She sat alone in the dark and whispered, “Oh daddy, what have I done?”

That night, in a dream, she reached out for him and he said to her. “Little one, I’m here. I know.”

But when she woke, she was still alone, so terribly alone.

Well, there’s another part of this story that even Anna didn’t know anything about. You see, the city had a special way of taking care of thieves and murderers and prostitutes. Instead, in this city, of having a huge police force and judges, they had a system called the Law of Debts. Criminals were given a certain number of chances, depending on their crime. If a criminal committed a crime, they were taken before a magistrate and told how many debits the crime would cost. A simple street fight might cost only 100 debits, a burglary 600, a murderer 2,000 or more.

Always the criminal was released again with the knowledge that his citizen account was in debt. What most criminals understood that Anna never did was that when your criminal account grew to over 4,000 debits, city troopers came. They came and they could arrest the criminal at night and sell them to slave traders. And these traders took their prisoners and worked them in the mines until they died a slow and terrible death.

You see, the Law of Debts was a perfect answer to crime in the city. Not only did the city get great amounts of silver as payment for the prisoners from the slave traders, but this also took the lowest criminals off the streets. Fear of the slave traders kept those who had a long account of debts from committing another crime. It was really perfect. Well, perfect for everyone that is except Anna.

Anna was not innocent. She certainly was guilty. And what she didn’t know was that her debts were growing quickly. You see, Deirdre, her so-called friend, never told her. She was mad at Anna. The sicker Anna became, the less work she could do. The less work she could do, the greater burden she became. And Deirdre was only a friend to Anna when she was healthy enough to make money off of her.

And then things turned very tragic for Anna. Later that same night, those city troopers I was telling you about, they stormed into the house. And waking Anna, they pulled her from her bed and tied ropes around her hands.

“Why are you doing this? What have I done?” Anna screamed.

Through her tears, she saw Deirdre sitting quietly. “Deirdre, for the love of God, help me, I don’t understand. Explain to them.”

Deirdre smiled a sick, wicked smile. “Sorry, Anna, but I don’t love God. You shouldn’t have been caught.”

It seemed like only moments later, she was on the slave trader ship, and Anna was cast deep into a cell in the hold of the ship. Other prisoners there saw her. They laughed and mocked her, “Did you think you were special? Did you think your beauty would save you? Where is your father now?”

Anna could hardly breathe for weeping so hard. Anna could tell the ship was about to leave port. Commands to lift anchor and cast off were in the air. Anna cried even more, she was completely without hope.

Then, all at once, the bar doors to her cell were ripped open. Anna screamed in fear as two huge guards stepped into her cell. Anna tried to hold on to something, but she could only imagine what these two men might do to her. One guard grabbed her by the hair while the second grabbed her legs, and Anna struggled, but the men carried her up through the dark hold. And all at once, the light of the outside world hit her eyes. Anna was thrown to the deck and she covered her eyes with her tied hands.

The captain of the ship pulled her to her feet. “You’re a lucky one. You can leave. You’ve been bought back. Get your sorry self off my ship before I change my mind. The deal is I’m to give you 30 pieces of silver, but I’m tempted to just throw you into the water. Now get out of here. I’m ready to push off.” The captain turned to his crew. “When she gets off, prepare to push away and bring some prisoners up and aft to row. I want to make up for the lost time we spent on this tramp.”

Anna stumbled into the new day. She found someone to help her get her hands untied and quickly found a place to bathe and buy some warm clothes. Later that day, she hired a coach and prayerfully began her long journey home. It was only on the second day away that she began to believe that she really had been saved. On the fourth day of the journey, she could see her mountain.

Head toward that mountain. Keep your horses centered on the center of that mountain. Her dad had taught her how to find her way home. “Please go as fast as you can. There’s another piece of silver for you if we could reach my house before the sun sets on this day.”

And they did. Anna jumped from the coach and sprinted to the house, but even as she raced down the long walk to her home, she could see that it was all boarded up. The house and the barn were boarded. The stables were empty. All the pigs and the chickens were gone. The servants were nowhere to be found. Anna yelled, but no one answered. Then she saw Margaret, the midwife who had helped her mother give birth some 18 years ago. She was coming slowly from behind the servant’s quarters.

“Margaret, what has happened? Why are the houses boarded? Where are the other servants? Where’s the livestock? What happened to our crops in the barn? I don’t understand.”

Margaret’s eyes squinted in fury. “You foolish and disobedient child. What do you think brought you back from that slave ship? Did you think it was free? What were you thinking? Your selfishness has brought woe on everyone here. Your father had to sell everything to buy you back. The land, the horses, the cattle, the grain. It’s all gone.”

Anna began to weep again. “Oh, Margaret, how can I ever face him? I’m so ashamed. Where is he? Where is my father?”

This is where Margaret’s eyes softened. She reached out to touch the child. “Don’t you know? I thought you knew.”

“No, no, I don’t know anything. Where is he? Please tell me.”

Margaret put down the bundle she was holding and hugged the girl tightly. It was now Margaret’s turn to weep. When she finally caught her breath, she whispered, “He’s gone,” little one. Don’t you understand he had to sell everything?”

Margaret pulled away and looked deep into the now bright green eyes again of the redeemed child. “I told you he sold everything. Don’t you understand? He took your place. Your father took your place on that ship.”

Anna’s grief overcame her and she slipped to the ground. She wept deep and long until it seemed her very life was ebbing.

Margaret pulled an envelope from beneath her coat. “This is yours from your father. I was to give it to you if you ever came home.”

Anna barely had the strength to open the envelope. She couldn’t focus her eyes and she handed the note back to Margaret. “What does it say? Read it to me, spare me nothing. I want to know his last words, even if I die. Even his scolding words will be better than nothing.”

Margaret slowly unfolded the note and sat down next to Anna. Her voice broke, as she read, “Dearest, Anna, I love you more than life itself. You were mine once, and it gives me joy to buy you back. You are my only wealth. Nothing else matters. And now you are mine again. Praise God. Don’t grieve for me. You and I will be together soon, and I will introduce you to your mother. For as long as I breathe, I will pray for you. My Anna, my little one, my child. Thank you for coming home. My joy is complete. Your father, your Joseph. And little one, in case you were wondering, a father always knows. I love you more.”

And that is the end of our story. And I hope this little story, this allegorical parable, has inspired you today to reflect again on the love of your God that has saved you from certain death.

If you have yielded to Jesus’ authority and His love and His sacrifice, then you have been delivered from darkness into His marvelous light.

You can reach out to me here at One Hundred Fold Ministries by email at Dave@100foldministries.org. I look forward to hearing from you.

Peace to you.