A CLOSER LOOK AT PRODIGAL SON
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And he spake this parable unto them, saying,
The first thing we see in the story of the prodigal son, is his despising his own home.
He was ill at ease or uncomfortable or embarrassed.
Some imaginative stories of the "far country" had come to his ears.
He was tired of being tied to home.
He despised his birthright; he discounted the privileges of his father's presence and counsel; he wanted to "see the world, and have some real fun."
The second thing is the request:
"Give me the portion of goods, that faileth unto me."
He not only wanted to break the ties that bound him to his home, but he wanted to deplete the riches of that home by taking from it, his portion of the father's goods.
What a picture of many of our young people.
They begin to despise the hallowed "Father's House;" they feel they have outgrown their place in the church; they want to get out and enjoy the world; then they ask for their goods, that they may squander them upon the pleasures of "vanity fair."
But, why should young people think that their Father's House is too restrict them?
But why want to break away from God?
Is it the desire for fun?
But wait: the very streets of the Father's city are filled with boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof. Fun?
Is there no fullness of joy in God?
Are there no pleasures forever more?
Where did the young man get the idea that he could not be happy and be saved?
Does separation from the things that destroy health and purity of life, and Heaven mean that you cannot have happiness?
Young people do not need to feed the appetites of the flesh, with the vulgar dance, with the obsenity of the picture show or with the dangerous game of cards, in order to be happy.
Be not allured from home by the devil's lie. He will deceive you. He will promise, but he will not pay; he will paint pictures that are not real; his name is deceiver, and he is a liar from the beginning.
The Home Leaving
And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
1. There was the "gathering of his goods together."
The packing and the taking stock of his new possessions.
How rich he must have felt, and as he was getting things ready and preparing for his trip how he must have built air castles.
Never did the sky seem clearer and never life more promising.
The father, perhaps, gave certain warnings, but the son had no ears to hear dismal forebodings.
He considered the father quite ignorant of the larger things, altogether too circumscribed and limited in vision to take in the grandeurs and enchantments of his new life.
2. There were the farewells, the parting words.
At last everything was in readiness for the start. The prodigal was aglow with the glory of self-interest; the father sad with disappointed hopes.
The Home Forgetting
And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
1. This journey into the far country took more than a day.
There was the first night away from home, before there was the second and the third.
When the shades of evening fell on that first day out, the son heard quite clearly the words of his father's farewell;
for the first time, as he lay upon his bed, he seemed to see the look of troubled fear upon his father's face.
He was half mindful to turn back home — but another voice was pressing him on.
And, as day by day he journeyed on, less and less the remembrance of home troubled him.
He was becoming dead to the memory of his father's care.
Many new things were coming his way, and "why should I worry" was continually on his lips.
2. Slowly, step by step, he went away.
No one travels the downward road in a day.
We let the things we have heard "slip away" from us.
Our descent is at times so gradual that we scarce detect the fact of our downward trend.
Each day, the nearer he got to the far country, the less and less he cared for home.
He was entering the land of "no restraint," where free indulgence would be his.
The far country is a land where one forgets the home and the father's care.
3. He "wasted his substance with riotous living."
When he left home he had not anticipated this.
He thought he would enjoy himself, of course, but that he would apply his skill and multiply his goods.
But, the world was so alluring and so gay, he could not resist its call.
His "brakes" would not work.
He had gotten into the current of the world and it was too swift for his pull on the oars.
He was losing out, and he knew it, but he could not stop.
The young men or the young women of today, fascinated by the pleasures of the world, too often lose their bearings, and lose the power to retrace their steps.
And 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!
1. This longing for home began when the prodigal had spent all, and when he was left to "feeding swine."
When he began to be in want, those who had treated him so well, during the days while his goods lasted, forgot and forsook him.
He was forced to the meanest of tasks for a Jew — the feeding of the swine.
Not that alone, but his toil was not sufficient to meet his needs, he was "perishing with hunger," no one would give him to eat.
This is the tragedy of serving sin.
Sin will wreck you, rob you, and leave you wounded and naked on the road to die.
Sin will take your health, break your heart, wreck your home and then turn a deaf ear to your cry.
Sin is a pitiless tyrant. Sin paints roseate pictures of its gardens, but its flowers yield a perfume that produces the sleep of eternal death.
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
The Longings at Home
And he arose, and came to his father. But 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.
And God has waited long for the wanderer to return.
Illustration:
It is the story of a mother whose daughter had gone into sin. The mother asked her pastor how she might let her girl know her love, and how she might be enabled to get her back again. The pastor asked the mother to bring all the photos of herself that she had, and then he had her write under each picture, the words: "Come home, Come home."
These photos were placed in the mission halls, in the big city whither the girl had gone and where she was lost to her mother's care. One day the girl, friendless and forlorn strolled into one of those "mission halls." She was discouraged, and ready to die. She felt her mother could not love her now. But when she saw the photo and read the words, "Come home," she wept for joy. She soon was in her mother's arms, a welcomed and forgiven girl.