Luke 15:11-19
11 And He said, “A man had two
sons. 12 “The younger of them said to his
father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he
divided his wealth between them. 13 “And
not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a
journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose
living. 14 “Now when he had spent everything,
a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be
impoverished. 15 “So he went and hired himself out
to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed
swine. 16 “And he would have gladly filled
his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was
giving anything to him. 17 “But
when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have
more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! 18 ‘I
will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned
against heaven, and in your sight; 19 I
am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’
When we look at the parable of the lost sons, we see the main
point Jesus is making in this section.
As I shared in the previous post, the parables are repetitive, in that
they all involve something precious getting lost, the searching for that thing,
the restoration and then a party.
However, with the parable of the lost sons, there is a twist at the end
that is really the main point of the parable.
The parable has three main characters: the younger son, the Father and
the older son. My intent is to write
about each of them and “glean” some understanding about what we can learn about
God and man from each of them. When I
look at the younger son, the lesson I learn about God is that He does not
really care about our comfort, but He cares about our character and relationship
with Him. We also see three basic
problems that occur in the heart of sinful man.
THE PROBLEM OF DISCONTENTMENT: Perhaps the root cause of all
our sin is discontentment. Paul said
that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. However, before he said that, he urged
Timothy to understand that contentment and godliness were the source of great
gain. Discontentment or dissatisfaction
are a major source of temptation in our lives.
When we are not content with God’s provision in our lives we begin to
look for fulfillment in other things.
When we are not content worshiping God we fashion idols that are more to
our liking. The younger son had a place
of privilege in the home of a wealth father who provided for all his
needs. However, he was not satisfied
with these provisions. He wanted more
thrills in his life, was tired of following the rules in the father’s house and
so he wanted out. One of the most
amazing parts of this parable is they father grants his child’s request for his
portion of the inheritance. Whenever I
picture myself asking for money from my father because I wanted to leave home,
I cannot help but get a distinct feeling on my backside that assures me that my
father would not have been so receptive to this idea. The point is that God does not obligate us to
obey or worship Him. He will give us the
freedom to rebel, but there are consequences for disobeying God that we may not
appreciate. We would be far wiser to
cultivate contentment in our hearts than to allow the problem of discontentment
to take us far from the Lord.
THE PROBLEM OF DESTRUCTION: Sin is always far more costly
than we ever imagine. We are always less
capable of handling temptation than we imagine.
Circumstances are always more difficult than we imagine. These three realities create a “perfect storm”
that set peoples live down the road of destruction. The younger brother probably didn’t plan on
spending all his money so quickly, but he did.
He didn’t anticipate a famine hitting the land, but it did. He certainly didn’t plan on taking care of
pigs for a living, but he did. Satan
always makes sin look and sound appetizing and never tells the truth about the
consequences of sin. God promises that
sin leads to death. Since the first
temptation in Eden, Satan has been saying: “you won’t die, sin will be good for
you.” The Jewish audience that heard the
parable must have cringed at the thought of caring for pigs and wanting to eat with
them. This was certainly the bottom of
the barrel. Make no mistake, Satan want
only one thing, and that is to destroy us through sin or any other means. We were created in God’s image and for His
glory. Satan wants to do all he can to extinguish
the image of God in man and never wants us to worship God. Since we were created to worship God, we will
never find joy outside of worshiping God.
Sin always leads to pain, frustration and death because it breaks our communion
with God. We have been given many means
of protection from sin. God has revealed
Himself and His will to us in His Word that is designed to keep us from the destructive
path of sin. God gives us parents,
pastors and professors who teach us His Word.
It is a delight to learn from these sources of instruction. However, if we refuse to learn from them, God
is willing to teach us with pigs. It is
not pleasant, easy or comfortable to learn from pigs, but remember God cares
more about our character than our comfort.
THE PROBLEM OF DISBELIEF: There are two basic lies that
Satan tries to tell us. Before we sin,
while he is tempting us, he says: “everyone is doing it, God won’t care if you
do it too.” After we sin, when we have fallen
into temptation, he says: “no one else has ever done that, God will never
forgive that.” The younger son finally
comes to his senses and recognizes that he has made a huge mistake. His discontentment has now turned to terrible
regret. His view of his father now
changes radically. He used to think of his
father as stingy and strict. Now, he
sees his father as generous and kind.
However, he still does not believe that the father can forgive him. He is willing to go to the father, admit he was
wrong and plead for the father’s grace to be made like one of the other
slaves. The pigs have finally taught him
that he is not very good at running his own life and that his father treats his
slaves better than he was able to care for himself. However, he still does not understand the
grace and love of God. He is now
believing Satan’s second lie. He is
absolutely right when he recognizes that he is not worthy to be called a
son. The truth is that he is not worthy
to be called a slave either. None of us
are worthy of anything from God other than eternal judgment in hell. It is important that we come to a place where
we turn or repent from our own self confidence and cast ourselves before God. However, it is not enough to repent, we must believe
that Jesus has paid the price for our sin and that He is our only hope for
salvation. We cannot simply become
slaves and work our way back into the house as a son. Salvation from sin is completely dependent
upon the grace of God.
APPLICATION: Don’t allow discontentment to pull your heart
away from communion with God. Never
underestimate the destructiveness of sin or the wickedness of your own
heart. Learn from the Word of God and the
godly people the Lord puts in your life, so you don’t have to learn from “pigs”.
Understand that the grace of God is
greater than we could ever dream.
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