The Prodigal Son
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The fifteenth chapter of Luke presents one parable with four outstanding messages, embracing one supreme thought.
The supreme thought is Christ's answer to the charge of the Pharisees and the Scribes. He had come to eat with the publicans and sinners. The Scribes murmured saying, "This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." The Lord Jesus in order to vindicate Himself, in His preaching to, and eating with the outcasts of Israel, gave this fourfold message.
The fourfold message is in parable form, and describes first of all a man and his lost sheep; secondly, a woman and her lost coin; thirdly, a father and his lost son. Then, fourthly, the parable sets forth the elder son who is brother to the prodigal.
In the first division of the parable the Man is the Good Shepherd, who giveth His life for the sheep. He is going out seeking the one that was lost, and He seeks until He finds it. When He finds it, He puts it on His shoulders, rejoicing, and coming home He calls upon His friends and neighbors to rejoice with Him.
In the second part of the parable the woman represents to us the saints of God, who, with the lighted candle of the Holy Ghost, are seeking the lost. When the coin is found, she too rejoices. In the third parable the father, who divides unto his two sons his living, stands, primarily, for God the Father. It is He who longingly waits for the return of His prodigal boy. It is He who runs out to meet the wanderer, and feats the hour of his return.
In this threefold vision we have the Church under the symbol of the woman in the midst of Deity. The Son, and the sheep; the Father, and the son; and between there is the Church and the coin. The Church, however, is not operating alone, but she, with the lighted candle, the Holy Spirit, is seeking the lost.
The parable, as a whole, develops to a finality the longing of the truine God for wayward and disobedient Israel, and His joy over the return of His people. Of course, the application of the parable brings before us any wandering child or people, and God's love for them, and His willingness to save. Both Jew and Gentile will be welcomed home again. The story of the elder son is descriptive of the Scribes and Pharisees. He had no love for his wayward brother, even as the rulers of the Jews have no love or sympathy for the wandering publicans and sinners.
I. PARENTAL DISREGARD (Luke 15:11-12)
We have here the story of the younger son. He is making a demand upon his father, saying, "Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me."
We wonder if there is not in the hearts of many young men and women this same spirit of rebellion. The prodigal boy, at home, felt himself harnessed in by the authority of a righteous father. His evil heart yearned for liberty. He wanted to take his "fling." He wanted to press his way out into the big world about him. He wanted to see the sights, and give vent to those baser lustings and desires of his flesh.
As long as he was at home, he had known, only by the hearing of the ear, about the great, wicked world that lay beyond him. Reports had come to him, painting with high colors, the wonders and marvels of the life in the far country.
Thus it was that the younger son became restless and demanded from his father his portion of the goods. What an utter disregard he had for the one who loved him most, and who had always sought his good!
Is it not true that young people are in danger of feeling harassed by the righteous Laws of a holy God? We know that the Heavenly Father is true, and righteous altogether. The heart of man is prone to evil; therefore, man breaks away from God. He disregards Him. The Bible says, "We have turned every one to his own way."
We can almost see David as he taught his son Solomon to shun the paths of vice. Solomon was tender and well-beloved of his father. He taught him to trust in the Lord. He said unto him, "Let not mercy and truth forsake thee," He told him that he should honor the Lord with his substance. David taught his son saying, "Go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."
Solomon, however, left the ways of righteousness; and, as a result, we know the story of sorrow and grief which blighted his life. He himself said, "Therefore, I hated life." Let the young man think twice, and let the young woman consider the end of her way, before either break loose from parental, and particularly, from Divine guidance.
II. JOURNEYING AWAY FROM HOME AND HEAVEN (Luke 15:13)
"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country." We know very well what this far country represents. The great big, wicked world is the far country. That world is lost in sin. Its prince is the devil. Its people are the children of the wicked one. Into this world sinners have pressed their way; they are daily going farther and farther away from a loving God. How strange it is that men love darkness rather than light! How startling it is, that the sweets of sin taste better to the depraved palate, than all of the fruits of righteousness!
We imagine that, as this boy went away, his heart was heavy. It is not always easy to drift. However, day by day, he journeyed on, and the farther he went, the less the ties of home seemed to draw him back. When once the first step has been taken and the life has left the threshold of God and of home, how easy it is to take the next step!
We wonder if there is any young man who has the desire to leave God; to break loose from the ties that bind, and to press out into the far country? Are you gathering your goods together? Are you going on day by day, farther and farther from the life which you know affords the only peace and joy and rest to the soul?
III. ENTERING IN TO THE WAYS OF THE FAR COUNTRY (Luke 15:13, l.c.)
The young man began, little by little, to delve into the depths of sin. It is not all at once that the youth becomes profligate. There must be the first whiff. There is the first godless revelry, the first dance, and the first drink. The world, however, is ready to receive the wanderer into its arms. It is never asleep. The evil one is always at every corner. The glare of sin glitters and glows all around the young man who is going away from home. Sin is painted in rosy hues; its darkness is illuminated with light. The play houses of the world are most brilliant and their music and dancing most enticing. Money is lavished upon the places of sin, and they are decked and draped to entice the downfall of the young.
Thus it was, that before he realized the extent to which he was going, the young man, the prodigal, was divested of everything of worth and of value, both in the way of substance and of character. He wasted his substance, and his money was gone; he entered into riotous living, and his character was gone.
He was what we commonly call a down and outer. He had left home full. Now he was empty. His life had once been the honor of his community. His every act now was a stench in the nostrils of society.
IV. THE END OF INIQUITY (Luke 15:14-16)
In the verses before us, we find the prodigal boy in want. He had spent all, and when he had spent all, we read that "there arose a mighty famine in that land." Is it not always true that whenever we are poor, everybody seems poor? Whenever we are down, there is no one to help us up. Sin does no more than to rob us of everything that is worth while. What had the young man spent? He had spent all he had; all of his money, and all of his character. He had spent everything that was worth while. And then what? He was friendless, homeless, and hopeless.
What wreckage do we see on the shores of time? Young men and young women who should be in the very prime of their power; in the very beauty and glow of their youth, are discouraged, heartbroken, and crushed. They have thrown everything to the winds and they are helpless.
V. REMEMBERING HIS FATHER'S HOUSE (Luke 15:17)
Our verse says, "When he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" This suggests that the prodigal boy was not himself when he was wandering in sin. He was not in the place where he belonged. He was not himself, because he had been taken captive of the devil, according to his will. He was not himself because, like the man of Gadara, he was being driven, crazed by sin, amid the tombs of unrighteousness. No man is himself, and no woman is herself, who follows in the ways of wickedness.
As Sam Hadley lay in the mud and mirk of the curb, a beautifully dressed woman stopped and said to him, "There are better things than this for you. The Lord Jesus can make your blackened heart white." Hadley said, "I looked up and thought she was an angel." He tried to rise from his drunken filth, and he staggered along the street seeking to follow the angel's call. Ah, yes, ye who have fallen by the way, ye are not yourselves. Will you do what the prodigal boy did? Will you think of the times at Home in your Father's House, where even the servants have "bread enough and to spare"? Why should you perish by the way? Why should you lie broken, bruised, ruined, and robbed? There is bread at Home. There is room and there is welcome. Are you now longing for the Father and the Father's House? Are you yearning for better things? Thank God, you are coming to yourself.
VI. A SACRED CONCLUSION (Luke 15:18-21)
When the young man came to himself he said, "I will arise and go to my father." Oh, that this determination might come to every wandering youth. Oh, that you might purpose in your heart, and say, "I will return."
Not only did the young man say, "I will arise," but he said also, "I * * will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee." The prodigal boy was not going home proud and stubborn; he was going home bruised and broken. He was saying not only, "I will arise and go." He was also saying, I will go and say, "I have sinned."
Is it not true that "he that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy"?
It is one thing to go back to the father's house. It is another thing to go with a broken and contrite heart. What else did the prodigal say? He said, "I will * * say unto him, Father, I * * am no more worthy to be called thy son." No matter what the father might think of him, he thought nothing of himself. He did not consider himself worthy to be called a son. He felt that his place was out in the back yard; out round the barn as a servant. Beloved, we believe that the proud heart has but little hope of an acceptable return, but he who beats upon his breast and cries, "God have mercy upon me," will find mercy.
VII. RECEPTION AND RECOGNITION (Luke 15:20-24)
How wonderful it all was! "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." What an accumulation of blessing! He saw, he had compassion, he ran, he fell on his neck, he kissed him. Surely the boy did not expect all of this. Thus far we have spent our time looking at the prodigal boy in the far country.
During the days of his wandering, and sinning, where was the father? You say he was at home. Yes, in body he was at home, but his heart had gone along with the profligate boy. We all know that the father, day by day, was praying for, and crying over the lost son. There was not a moment of the day, nor of the night, when the father did not think upon him.
Now, as the boy was returning, it was not necessary to notify the father, for the father had long been watching down the road. He saw him a great way off. The boy was not coming home with the same blithe step with which he went away. No doubt as he neared the father's house, the shame of his sin, and the fear of possible chastisement, or even of rejection, fell upon him. His father saw him, however. Saw that he was crestfallen, broken and undone.
Thus it was that the father seeing, had compassion; and having compassion, he ran; and, arriving where the boy had stopped in the road, he fell on his neck and kissed him. The son quickly sobbed out his grief and his sin, but the father said to the servants, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry." How great, how glad, how full of grace, was this reception of the son! Have we not read that, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins"? There is none who, coming to Christ with a broken spirit and a Godward confession of sin, will not find mercy.
How different it all was! Instead of the rags, there was now the best robe. Instead of the rings under the eyes rings of grief and of shame, there was the ring upon the hand; instead of the feet wounded and bruised with the thorns and roughness of the way, there were the feet "shod with the * * Gospel of peace." In addition there was the killing of the fatted calf; the feast was set, and the hearts were merry. "For," said the father, "this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."
AN ILLUSTRATION
Do we refuse the call of the Father to come Home?
One morning I wanted to feed the birds. It was gray and cold, and the ground was covered with snow. I stepped out on the porch and flung them handfuls of crumbs, and called to them. No, there they sat, cold, hungry, and afraid. They did not trust me. As I sat and watched and waited, it seemed to me I could get God's viewpoint more clearly than ever before. He offers, plans, watches, waits, hopes, longs for all things for our good. But He has to watch and wait, as I did for my timid friends. S. S. Times.