Grace and Redemption in the Prodigal Son's Journey

"In this story, we have a parable of the gospel in all of its magnificent wonder and beauty and grace. The story begins with one of the two sons who wants to have his inheritance now. The idea of deferred gratification was not in his vocabulary. He wanted to get his hands on that money as soon as he possibly could. And so he begged his father for that gift, and his father allowed him to have it. And we are told that in a very short period of time, this boy took this treasure and he went off to a far country." [00:05:23]

"Now, we have to stop right there. Why didn't he stay where he was? Why didn't he spend the money on riotous living every night and then come home to his father's house? Well, that's not the way sin works, friends. We're told that we are by children -- or by nature, the children of darkness, that we do not like to be in the light. We prefer darkness over the light because our deeds are evil." [00:06:30]

"That's what this young man did. He went to a far country where nobody knew him, where his father wouldn't see him, where his brothers wouldn't see him, where the family servants wouldn't see him. And there, he wasted his possessions with prodigal living. He went through his inheritance like that, throwing it away, acting as a prodigal, wasting everything that his father had given him." [00:08:48]

"That story right there, at that point, should move us deeply. Because there are few things in this world more futile than waste -- to take a good gift, a beautiful gift, and waste it. Think of the ways that we had wasted the gifts that God has given to us, thrown them away, spent them foolishly. Well, this young man was the epitome of that kind of living. That's why he's called the prodigal." [00:09:34]

"But when his money was gone, when he'd spent it all, at that very same time, came not a recession but a famine -- a severe famine. So this man had nothing to eat, and he began to be in want. He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the swine. This is a Jewish young man, and he has to now be a servant to pigs, a detestable animal to the Jewish people." [00:10:22]

"He not only has to care for the pigs, he has to live with the pigs. He's living in a pig pen and he's so hungry, he's so destitute, that he's trying to take the food that is meant for the pigs so that he doesn't starve to death. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate. But no one gave him anything. Now, everything changes in verse 17, with the verse that I think is extremely important." [00:11:11]

"We read, 'But when he came to himself, he said, "How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger?"' In the 18th century, in America, the greatest revival that ever hit this nation took place in New England and it was called the Great Awakening. Not the Great Revival, not the Great Conversion, but the Great Awakening, because people were awakened out of their torpor." [00:11:26]

"People were awakened out of their unconscious life of unbridled sin. Their consciences were aroused. They began to realize that they were perishing, and so the conversions that took place under the ministry of Wesley and Edwards and others there in New England was called an awakening. Now that's what happened to the prodigal son. He came to. He woke up. He came to himself, but I want to make this clear, that he didn't come to himself by himself." [00:12:06]

"Nobody comes to themselves by themselves. No one is awakened to the things of God by an alarm clock. Only God can awaken a torpid sinner from their slumber. And so, in part, this is a message of how God saves people who are living in pig pens. He came to himself, and when he woke up, he said, 'I will arise and go to my father. And I will say to him, "I have sinned against heaven and before you."'" [00:13:09]

"This is what happens when a sinner is awakened by grace. Every sinner who's ever been awakened by grace, when they come to themselves not by themselves, they say, 'I will arise and go to my father, and I will say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and I've sinned against you. Make me one of your servants. Father, I was a son in your house, and I left, but now all I want is to be a slave in your house."'" [00:13:35]

"That's the heart of a converted person, isn't it? I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. I don't ask you to call me a son. Make me like one of your hired servants. And so he arose, and he came to his father. Now, the focus of the story changes from the prodigal son to his father. We read that when he was still a great way off his father saw him and had compassion, and ran." [00:14:42]

"You know so often in the Bible we're told to gird up our loins for battle or for labor, and that imagery that is used in the New Testament would speak vividly to somebody in antiquity, because they didn't wear blue jeans, they didn't wear trousers. They wore robes that looked pretty much like dresses, and they would come down below the knees. And so if you're dressed in that outfit and you wanted to run, you had to hike up your skirt above your knees and then put a belt around it to keep that skirt from tripping you so that your legs would be free to run." [00:15:08]