Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teachr
Robert R. McLaughlin
071020
The devil is a cruel master & prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour!
He squandered his estate with “loose living,” that's all it says!
Squandering his estate with loose living is the number one priority that causes the Prodigal son to waste his life away.
The word for squander is the aorist active indicative of the Greek verb diaskorpizoo meaning to scatter abroad, to disperse to waste something especially money or time, in a reckless and foolish manner.
The verb also connotes the principle of wasting, misusing, throwing away, spend unwisely, making poor use of something graciously given to us;
Mat 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”
The point is that he spent it all.
He spent everything that his father gave him.
His father also made sure that the prodigal son was provided for even though he disagreed with what the prodigal son was about to do.
This means that the father, who represents Jehovah Jireh , provides for His children.
We have two sons who were brothers, one who spent everything he had on loose living, while the other is not using his inheritance for anything including blessing his father.
ECC 5:10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance {with its} income. This too is vanity.
ECC 7:12 For wisdom is protection {just as} money is protection. But the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors.
Whenever a believer goes astray, eventually he will come to a point as the last part of this verse says when he will begin to be in need.
Having forsaken his Father who represents God, he can now find nothing but poverty, misery, and want.
The human soul is empty if God does not fill it.
The famine represents the fact that there's a famine in every heart which is no longer nourished by the word of God.
Life was now officially meaningless, filled with boredom -- with no meaning – no purpose – no direction – no personal sense of destiny.
Up until this point, he never knew hunger because he was always provided for by his loving father, the one he turned his back upon.
Notice that he had to attach himself to someone because he was living in fear of what his father might do if he found out that his son had lost all his inheritance and was flat broke and looking for the food that the pigs were eating.
You can go as low as you desire but that’s just another walking zombie on planet earth.
As long as the Lord is involved with you and you have a desire to repent and to rebound and recover, then you have hope.
A hope that you can apply to your life beginning with honesty before you and the father.
In this state, he attached himself which is the Greek verb kollao meaning to glue or to closely unite himself to a citizen of that foreign country which represents the devil's children instead of God's.
The further a believer goes from God, the nearer he comes to being a slave to the devil.
No slavery, so nasty, as slavery to the old sin nature and the carnal, shameful, passions of the flesh.
In times of distress we are often led to self-examination and are used by God to bring about changes or repentance in people's lives.
His problem, once again, is that this young man still held on to the belief that he could maintain his self-sufficiency.
He needs to deal with his separation from his Father, even though it meant complete humiliation.
This parable describes the depths to which a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter can sink so low that if they do not deal with their problem of arrogance, then they will keep on sinking away from the Lord.
His emptiness was shown by the job that he had to take, tending pigs.
There could be no worse job for a Jew than feeding pigs who were considered to be unclean animals and expressly forbidden in the Mosaic law, Lev 11:7; Deu 14:8.
He's starving while he's working because pay day only comes after the pigs are sold and marketed.
His hunger was so great, his need was so wanting, his memories were so forgotten, and he was hurting so much inwardly, physically, and of course spiritually that he considered taken his life and filling his own belly with the slop.
The food that he was feeding the pigs with were called pods and they made passable livestock food especially for dirty animals like chicken, and pigs, and even rodents.
The detestable pigs were now eating better than the prodigal son.
According to the food that a person eats, it effects their thinking because usually we do our best thinking when our soul is on an empty stomach.
This man finally became honest with himself and looked at his life from a biblical perspective....which means to face up with the situation as it really exists, and then do something about it.
This should be something that the prodigal son would want to teach others about so that he had a chance to recognize his own sins and flaws and do something right for the rest of his life.
He needs to deal with his failures and mistakes and not be occupied with the failures and mistakes of others or lust after the food that others have filled their stomach with.
To be restored and healed spiritually means to stop rationalizing or justifying yourself mentally and get back to thinking spiritually with a healthy mental attitude.
Stop blaming others or accusing others for the condition that you are under, change your ways, your diet, get some exercise, and follow up with a healthier diet.
This is not a parable about what happens to a believer when he sins, this is a parable about what happens to a believer when he changes his lifestyle and refuses to rebound and recover.
He knew that the hired servants in his Father's household were far better off than he was.
Self-realization of the hopeless and useless predicament of the evil sinful life is the first step towards true repentance.
The believer must see that his own actions have led him away from our loving Father.
You must realize that the seeming pleasures of the sinful life are vanishing away and un-satisfying, while life with the Father is full and rich.
The believer must understand that a life of sin offers only destruction, while life with the Father offers prosperity and happiness.
Until a person can be convicted of the reality that he travels a dead-end road, true repentance cannot come to pass.
He figured that his Father's servants were better off than he was and so he was going to go home to see if the father would take him in as his servant and let him live with them.
He's going to add a lot of emotional nonsense that merely shows his emotionalism and guilt but that will be dealt with.
This is just sheer unadulterated asininity and exactly the way people think in the cosmic system……they think like fools.
He knew that billions and billions of years ago that you were not worthy.
His big problem now isn't loose living, it's arrogance.
The doctrine of eternal security says we are the sons of God and we will always be a son; Gal 3:26-28.
Whether we are worthy or unworthy doesn't change our sonship.
Prin: None of us have ever been worthy to be called a son or daughter.
The prodigal son said treat me like one of your servants, one of those hired hands, which by the way is an insult to his Father.
His Father has no character and no integrity to forgive, and He is not the forgiving type.
His Father saw him while he was a long way off.
The Father's not interested in some asinine speech like "I'm no longer worthy to be called your son!"
The Father was filled with compassion and his Father ran to him.
This is a picture of what happens in rebound as we are restored to have the opportunity to produce experiential righteousness.
The best robe represents restoration to full experiential righteousness.
This was a signet ring representing withdrawing from the Father's resources, logistical grace.
LUK 15:22....and sandals on his feet, -- you're getting the opportunity of service and production.
The fattened calf represents fellowship in the word, feeding on divine truth or Bible doctrine.
That is the divine attitude of grace when you're brought back into fellowship with God.
He wanted to make it up to the Father or to compensate for his wrong decisions.
He did not say, “This boy needs a lesson, so I'll give him some lessons starting with the nasty jobs like cleaning the stables for the pigs.”
While the prodigal son was expecting the worse…..instead, the father was putting a Celebration Ceremony together in His own heart to thank the Lord for all that he had done to save his younger prodigal son.
The father’s attitude was to bring the best robe and put it on his son.
This was his son who he thought had died and so he wanted to prepare a feast for his son's life and to make sure that the prodigal son doesn’t walk around with a guilt complex.
I've always found it interesting that none of the servants went out and told the older brother that a party was going on.
The believer who is arrogant hates to see other believers become successful.
The believer who is humble and has true humility is delighted to see other people successful and make it.
LUK 15:28 "But he became angry, he went from self-righteous arrogance to mental arrogance.
At this very moment the older brother took his own journey into a far country.
Don't Quit by Edgar A. Guest
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit -
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns.
As everyone of us sometimes learns.
And many a fellow turns about when he
Might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than it seems
To a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up when he
Might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And when you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst, You must not quit.