The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son – 1

THE PRODIGAL SON

… based on Luke 15:11-24

I’m sure each of us have favorite passages of Scripture; certain

sections or stories that we go back to again & again. I’ve got about 5,280 of

them. I really like what’s in this Book. There’s theology, history, poetry,

letters, prayers, songs, prophecy, & some really wonderful stories. And so,

this week, & next, we’re going to look at my “favorite” of Jesus’ parables.

Now a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. There are 27 or

so of them recorded for us in the Gospels. And they are magnificent.

Listen now to Good News, as recorded by Luke, to us who have gathered

here for worship. Within our hearing comes the Word of the Lord …

Jesus went on to say, “There once was a man who had two sons. The

younger one said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the property now.’ So

the man divided his property between his two sons. After a few days the

younger son sold his part of the property and left home with the money. He

went to a country far away, where he wasted his money in reckless living. He

spent everything he had. Then a severe famine spread over that country,

and he was left without a thing. So he went to work for one of the citizens

of that country, who sent him out to his farm to take care of the pigs. He

wished he could fill himself with the bean pods the pigs ate, but no one gave

him anything to eat. At last he came to his senses and said, ‘All my father’s

hired workers have more than they can eat, and here I am about to starve!

I will get up and go to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against God

from the desk of . . .

Rande Wayne Smith

D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.

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and against you. I am no longer fit to be called your son; treat me as one of

your hired workers.’ So he got up and started back to his father.

“He was still a long way from home when his father saw him; his heart

was filled with pity, and he ran, threw his arms around his son, and kissed

him. ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I have sinned against God and against you. I am

no longer fit to be called your son.’ But the father called to his servants.

‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his

finger and shoes on his feet. Then go and get the prize calf and kill it, and

let us celebrate with a feast! For this son of mine was dead, but now he is

alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.’ And so the feasting began.”

(Luke 15:11-24)

Jesus said, “Heaven & earth will pass away,

but my words will never pass away.” (Mark 13:31)

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly

wisdom with really increasing devotion, to His glory and to our edification. Amen

Jesus told stories … in fact, some of them are the best-known stories

in the world, & the one we’re looking at this morning, & we’ll conclude with

next week, has been called … “the greatest short story ever told.”

Actually, it’s the “Gospel within the Gospel.”

In this story, the younger son demanded to receive his inheritance …

even though his father was still alive. Now, according to Jewish law,

a father who had 2 sons was to leave 2/3’s of his estate to the older son,

& 1/3 to his younger son. (Deuteronomy 21:17) So, this younger son goes to his Dad

& basically said, “I know you’re gonna’ drop dead someday,

but I don’t want to wait … give me my inheritance now!”

Okay guys … put yourself in that father’s sandals. Imagine your son

bopping in & “demanding” that he gets his share of your will right now. As

I’ve thought about this during the week, I believe my initial reaction would

be anger … but it would quickly be replaced with incredible sadness.

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Okay, let’s stop right here, while we have a disdain for that self-

centered kid, & think about something. How do we treat our Heavenly

Father? … Do we barge right in demanding … “I want this or that, & I want it

right now! Give it to me”? And then march right out of His presence

without as much as a backward glance? …

Well, the father in the story must be hurt by his son’s harsh demand …

but he grants it. Again, we have to read between the lines here.

I’m assuming that this man didn’t have a big wad of cash lying around. He

probably had to sell some of his land or livestock or liquidate other assets;

it would have been difficult … but the kid didn’t care about any of that.

But the father comes up with 1/3 of his net worth & hands it over to

his youngest son. The kid grabs the money & takes off. He walks out of his

father’s life & heads “to a country far away,” which, to Jewish ears would

have meant that he goes off to live with the “sinful” Gentiles.

He’s a perfect example of a rebellious, disrespectful child.

I picture this kid as a young adult who wanted his “freedom.”

The world out there was waiting for him.

And when he walked out of his father’s house he was the “happiest” boy

alive. He didn’t even look back. And we can tell from the way he was

welcomed back that the father’s heart was broken when his son left home.

We can only imagine the many shed tears over his son’s foolish behavior.

Well, clearly the Father is this parable represents God.

He’s the loving Father who will let us walk away from fellowship with Him …

if we desire. But it breaks His Fatherly heart when we do.

Now there’s no record that the father argued with the boy.

Anyone who is tired of God can leave at any time.

Christians are not chained to the cross.

The Prodigal assumed … “Life will be much better on the other side of

the fence.” This is the age-old scam, the fantasy, the sly deception of

Satan. (Genesis 3:5) The Prodigal is repeating the same mistake that Adam & Eve

made. They felt “confined” by the 1 restriction that God imposed on them.

Only 1 tree was prohibited … & that’s the one they wanted. (Genesis 2:16-17)

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They had the whole Garden available to them, except 1 thing … which is

what they had to have. Adam was the 1 st Prodigal Son of a faithful Father.

So, who does the Prodigal Son represent? He epitomizes the individual,

who has come to faith, who has a personal relationship with Almighty God.

God is his Father. He is God’s child. But he has left his Father’s presence.

There’s an extremely important principle here that we must all understand.

We cannot sever our relationship with God … but we can certainly break

fellowship with Him. The whole time the Prodigal Son was away,

he was still a son … but he had left the presence & favor of his father.

Christians can do that, too. Once we become a follower of Jesus,

God establishes a love relationship with us. He’s our Father …

& nothing can ever change that. (Romans 8:39) But, if we choose to rebel &

disobey our Heavenly Father, He’ll allow it. He will never leave us, (Hebrews 13:5)

but if we walk out of fellowship with Him … He’ll let us go. That’s how some

believers get themselves into terrible messes. They separate themselves

from their Heavenly Father’s presence. The Lord doesn’t coerce obedience

& loyalty from us; He wants us to freely love & serve Him.

God doesn’t stop us for the same reason He didn’t prevent Adam & Eve

from eating the fruit. (Genesis 3:6) God doesn’t stop us for the same reason He

didn’t prevent King David from having an illicit sexual experience with

Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11:4) God doesn’t stop us for the same reason the father in

this parable didn’t fling himself across the door & say …

“No son, I won’t let you leave!”

That’s not the nature of God. He loves us so much that He allows us to

make our own choices, even though He knows what the consequences will be.

Just as the father grieved because his son walked out of his life; even so,

God the Father grieves when one of His children steps out of fellowship with

Him.

Now, the wayward son didn’t fare so well in the country far away.

He lived high on the hog, (well, probably not on the hog), for a while,

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but pretty soon he was literally with the hogs! Now for a Jew, this was the

worst possible job he could have had. Pigs were completely off limits. The

Law stated … “Do not eat pigs. They must be considered unclean.” (Leviticus 11:7)

Jesus uses only 7 words to describe what happened to this fellow …

“he wasted his money in reckless living.” There’s a lot that can be read into

those words. With a bankroll in his pocket, this guy headed straight for the

casinos, the bars, & the “adult” clubs. “Let’s eat, drink, & be merry.”

(Ecclesiastes 8:15)

I’m sure that “friends” came out of the woodwork. He was the most

popular guy at the party, until …. Until his money ran out. Party life is

expensive. Initially he had many “friends”. “No one likes the poor, not even

their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.” (The Proverbs 14:20) But then he

blew it all, & his fickle fair-weather “friends” left. Scripture teaches …

“The pleasures of sin are short-lived.” (Hebrews 11:25)

And the young man ended up in what would have been the worst

possible situation for a Jew. He found himself on a farm taking care of pigs!

The Talmud, which is a book of instructions written by the rabbis, states …

“Cursed be the man who feeds swine.”

“Then a severe famine spread over that country.”

It parched the land & dried up the creeks. What little water could be

found was used for the animals. The farmer & his family took minimal baths,

but no water was available for the Prodigal to bathe.

And it wasn’t long before he began to smell like the pigs.

When we used to live in Chicago & would drive down to visit Kathy’s

Mom in Kokomo, & on Rte. 65 near Delphi, IN was Indiana Packers

Corporation, a pig farm. … We could smell it for miles. It stunk.

The farmer’s wife barred him from the farmhouse, so he moved into

the barn. His stomach growled day & night.

“He wished he could fill himself with the bean pods the pigs ate.”

When garbage looks good to you, & smells good to you, you’re in big trouble.

When you smell like garbage yourself … you can’t go any lower.

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He was at the bottom; a starving, homeless, vagabond with no freeway

ramp to stand by with his little cardboard sign … “Homeless & Hungry,

Please Help” … He did try begging, but Scripture tersely reports …

“No one gave him anything to eat.” His money was all gone.

He sold his fancy robe. He sold his sandals. He sold his rings.

And finally, Jesus says, (& I love this) … “At last he came to his senses.”

He realized that his father’s hired workers had it a lot better than he did.

They got 3 meals a day … & here he was eating pig food.

So, he swallowed something more tasteless than bean pods …

his pride … & began the long journey home. And at that critical moment he

understood why everything had happened to him. It wasn’t his father’s

fault. It wasn’t God’s fault. It wasn’t his older brother’s fault.

It was his fault. All his suffering was the result of his own poor choices.

Over the years as I’ve counseled hurting people …

many blame their boss for their troubles, or they blame their wife or

husband or parents for the struggles they’re experiencing. The very 1 st step

in going forward in life is when we stop blaming others & honestly begin to

look at ourselves & assume responsibility for our actions.

Until the Prodigal came to his senses, everything that was happening to

him had gone wrong. Up to this point his life had been whirlpooling down the

drain. Finally, he saw his true self. He saw that he had been making one bad

choice after another. At that moment he stood at a strategic fork in the

road of his life. (Matthew 7:13-14)

This was what the writer of The Proverbs was referring to …

“Righteousness is the road to life; wickedness is the road to death.”

(The Proverbs 12:28) So, he starts the journey home.

And how does his father receive him?

Bible scholars have discovered a similar story to this that existed

among Jewish rabbis many years before Jesus told His version. In the

earlier tale, the younger son ran away & spent all of his father’s money.

And then when he came crawling home … the father rejected him.

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So, as Jesus was telling this story, the Pharisees & teachers of the

Law were thinking, “Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this one before.” So, they

expected Jesus to say, “One day the father saw his son returning. He stood

there with his arms crossed while the broken-down son begged his father to

take him back. But the father looked away from him & said, ‘Forget it! You

had your chance. You’ve chosen to live like swine, so go back to your pigs.

You’ve made your bed, now lie in it!’”

In the earlier story the father turned his son away

& told him he was getting exactly what he deserved.

It was a story reflecting the O.T. idea of strict legalism.

In fact, the O.T. prescribed that a father could actually have a rebellious

son stoned to death.

“Suppose someone has a son who is stubborn & rebellious, a son who will not

obey his parents …. His parents are to take him before the leaders of the

town where he lives & make him stand trial. They are to say to them,

‘Our son is stubborn & rebellious & refuses to obey us; he wastes money

& is a drunkard.’ Then the men of the city are to stone him to death.”

(Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Yikes! But that was the way the Pharisees expected the father in the

story to treat his wayward son. That’s the normal ending of the story.

But Jesus gives a surprise twist to the plot.

Now, picture the father in Jesus’ parable. His heart was broken when

his son left. Every day, while he was gone, the father thought of his boy,

wondering where he was & what he was doing.

Late each day he would walk to the edge of his property,

stand at the stone fence, & stare down the road that had taken his son away.

He was looking, longing, hoping that one day his son would return.

Then one afternoon, he sees a bent over figure dragging along the road.

It can’t be his son, because his son always had a spring in his step & held his

head high … & besides, this character was dressed in rags.

His son always was dressed in fine clothing.

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But as he continued to stare, there was something about the figure

that looked familiar. In a flash, the father realized that it was his son!

Then he did an amazing thing.

He jumped the stone fence & sprinted out to meet his son.

Scripture records …

“He was still a long way from home when his father saw him; his heart was

filled with pity, & he ran, threw his arms around his son, & kissed him.”

The Greek verb, (καταφιλέω), indicates that he kept on kissing him.

We would say, “he smothered him with kisses.”

In the Jewish culture, men wore long robes. So, in order for a man to

run, he had to lift up the hem & hold it high to keep from tripping over it. In

doing so, he would expose his legs, which was considered highly undignified.

Men of respect never ran; it would have been embarrassing.

But can’t you see this father grabbing handfuls of robe & running

toward his son? … He didn’t wait for his boy to reach him; he ran to meet

him. He hugged & kissed his rebellious son before the boy said 1 word!

There was no guilt placed on him, no condemnation.

Abraham Lincoln was asked how he was going to treat the Southerners …

“Like they’ve never been away.”

Now remember, the son had been working in a pigpen.

I view him as kind of repulsive. He would have looked & smelled awful …

not exactly the kind of person we’d want to hug & kiss!

The father could have said, “Oh, you’re back … good. Clean yourself up,

take a long bath, shampoo your hair, put on some fresh clothes & we’ll catch

up over dinner!” But instead, the father accepted him … “just as he was.”

And God the Father, the Creator of the Universe,

will welcome us the same way … just as we are.

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Now, this was a revolutionary portrayal of God. Jesus said that God

“runs” to meet us when we return home to Him. (Luke 15:7) The God of the Bible

is full of love & mercy. I appreciate the way the great British preacher,

Charles Spurgeon, described this scene. He wrote …

“It was not with icy eyes that the father looked on his returning son.

Love filled his heart as he beheld him. There was no anger in his heart

toward his son. It was true that it was all his own fault, but that did not

come before his father’s mind. It was the state that he was in, his poverty,

his degradation, that pale face of his son, wan with hunger, which touched

his father to the quick. We read that the father RAN! The compassion of

God is followed by swift movements. He is slow to anger, but He is quick to

bless. God comes flying in the greatness of His compassion

to help every poor soul that returns to Him.”

That’s what God is really like. We worship a God

who regrets our rebellion & runs to us when we return.

When the Prodigal finally came to his senses, he rehearsed the speech

he was going to give to his Dad. It consisted of 3 major points …

2 of them were correct, 1 of them was wrong.

1 st he said, “I have sinned against God.” That was right.

Ultimately, all sin is against God; so that’s where he began his confession.

Our sins are against God. The Psalmist correctly acknowledges this …

“I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins. I have sinned

against you – only against you – & done what you consider evil.” (The Psalms 51:3-4)

2 ndly , he confessed to his father … “I have sinned against you.” Right again.

One of the hardest things for any of us to say is … “I was wrong.

Will you forgive me?” That’s what the Prodigal Son was acknowledging.

But listen to his 3 rd statement … “I am no longer fit to be called your son.”

That may sound good on the surface, but there’s a mistake in his thinking.

He never was “fit” to be called a son of his father. But now, since he didn’t

think he deserved to be a son, he was prepared to ask his father to just

make him like one of the hired workers. “I’m simply a servant.”

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The point is, he never deserved to be a son … it was all by grace!

And in the same way, none of us are worthy to be called a child of God …

it is all by grace. (Galatians 4:5)

Well, the father refused to entertain any thought that his boy would

be a hired worker. That had never even crossed his mind. You see, even

when the son was in a country far away, the relationship was still intact.

It was the fellowship that was broken.

Immediately the father commanded his servants to bring the best robe.

He took that beautiful robe & lovingly placed it around his son,

covering all the filth & dirt of his mistakes. It’s a perfect picture of how

God covers our sin with a robe of righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10)

Sons wore a ring that had the family seal engraved upon it.

Stamping the ring in wax was like a signature.

The Prodigal had pawned his ring off long ago. The father put a new ring

on his finger symbolizing his full status in the family.

Servants didn’t wear shoes, but sons did. So, the father had sandals

put on his son’s feet. The old spiritual, “All God’s Chillun Got Shoes”, was

based on this passage. The father restored everything that his son had lost!

And here’s the bonus! The father commanded the prize calf to be killed,

so they could have a real Texas barbecue! The fact the father had been

fattening up the calf makes me think that he had anticipated the return of

his son. Everything the son left looking for … he found back at his father’s

house. The father’s love for his wayward son had never changed.

But the son came back a changed man.

Sometimes we think we need to clean ourselves up before we can come

to God. But all we need to do is … come “home” … & God the Father will give

us His best, even though we’re filthy. (Isaiah 1:18) What an amazingly patient &

merciful God we have! “He does not punish us as we deserve.” (The Psalms 103:10)

The Psalmist writes …

“You are good to us & forgiving, full of constant love.” (The Psalm 86:5)

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So, this morning we talked about the Prodigal Son.

And we saw the Scriptures come true.

The Prophet Isaiah wrote …

“Let the wicked leave their way of life & change their way of thinking. Let

them turn to the LORD, our God; he is merciful & quick to forgive.” (Isaiah 55:7)

God the Father is merciful & quick to forgive;

all we need to do is repent of our sins. (1 John 1:9)

We could stop here, but the story really isn’t over yet …

there’s another character … the older son.

And we will look at him next week … “The Pouting Son.”

MARANA THA