PARABLES OF JESUS CHRIST
PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 15:11-32
DECEMBER 5, 1982
Of all of the Parables of Christ, perhaps the most famous is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In this Parable, God gives us many teachings and I want to share three of these teachings with you this morning. The first teaching is this. All people are prodigals. All have run away from home. All are separated from God. All have left Eden. Apart from Christ, all are lost.
When you read the Parable of the Prodigal Son, you may not identify with the prodigal. You might identify with the father. Perhaps you feel like people have left you or abandoned you. You may be concerned about your children, or you may identify with the elder brother. You may feel like you’ve led a relatively moral and upright life. You might even begrudge some other members of the body of Christ who have had more promiscuous backgrounds than you. Or if you’ve had a particularly hard year, perhaps you identify with the fatted calf. But the truth is we are all prodigals. We’ve all left home.
I grew up in a beautiful home in La Canada, California. My parents still live there in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As we were growing up, for miles and miles around our house, there was nothing but sagebrush and trees. My brothers and I used to build tree forts and we would play cowboys and Indians. My dad, more than 30 years ago, had a swimming pool built at our house and we were able to swim. He put in a shuffleboard court. He built a basketball court. It was a great place for kids growing up. We even bought one of the first television sets in 1948 when I was only 3 years old. My parents bought one of those sets that the screen was really small, and the cabinet was massive. There was only one channel in Los Angeles at that time. We made a big deal out of it. We used to sit down and watch that. We had everything the world had to offer. My parents loved us very much.
One day my brothers and I decided we wanted to get away. We took our fishing knives, and we took bows and arrows. We couldn’t have hit anything with them if we’d tried. We took canteens and we headed into the mountains. We went over one mountain and over another and hiked for most of the day. Then we began to be concerned and we realized that our parents, who didn’t know where we were, were going to be very concerned so we decided we’d better go back. We turned around. One thing my mom and dad had told us is to never leave the trail, never go off the path, but we were in a hurry, so we began to wander through the sagebrush. After a while, we were lost. It didn’t worry both of us at first because we were having a good time. We were talking to each other, and we saw an old cave and a broken-down old shack. But after a while, we were really concerned. We couldn’t tell one mountain from another mountain or one tree from another tree. We didn’t even know what direction we were going.
For a while I was kind of looking to my older brothers because I thought they were older and wiser, but it soon became evident that that was not so. The time came when we were really panicked but by the grace of God, we did find our way home. And yet the truth is that we were lost that day and the Bible tells us that apart from Christ, all the men and women in the world are in that same condition. They are separated from Eden, separated from God and they don’t know how to find their way home.
Thirty-five hundred years ago God gave His law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. God gave His law to the world. He meant for that law to be a path that leads back to Eden, back to God, but the Bible tells us that we have all left that path, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We turned, everyone, to our own way.” We are in desperate need of God’s grace through Christ.
After my second year in high school, a good friend of mine in California went back east to go to a private school. At that time, he was not a Christian though he was seriously examining the claims of Christ on his life. He was not far from the kingdom of heaven. I didn’t see him for more than a year after that. When he graduated from high school, I drove down to the airport to pick him up. As we drove home, I could see that he had changed, if once he was close to the kingdom, he was now far, far away.
He had begun to view women as sex objects. He talked like, if any of them were willing, he was ready. He began to live a little more promiscuously in the years that followed. After his first year of college, he dropped out. He told me that he wanted to make a million dollars and nothing else mattered in his life. That was all consuming for him. That was 18 years ago. By some reckonings, he has made a million dollars from what I understand. He’s hurt a lot of people along the way and he himself is hurting. His life is in shambles. His marriage is falling apart. I was told recently that he’s wandering around with an eastern religionist guru. A long, long way from home… A long, long way from Christ…And yet God still loves him, and God still calls him. Even as Christians, we must acknowledge that at one time we were exactly like that.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus in the second chapter of Ephesians, and he said, “But you God made alive when once you were dead in your transgressions and trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit which is now at work among the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind so that we were by nature children of wrath just like the rest of mankind. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ for by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up to sit with Him in the heavenly places, that in the coming ages, He might show us the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. It is not your own doing. It is a gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast.”
Three years ago, Barb and I were shopping in the Aurora Mall. We heard an announcement over the intercom, over the mall intercom, and they said a little girl with blond hair, 3 years old, in a red dress was lost. Her father was waiting for her at the information counter. It occurs to me that the situation that little girl was in at the Aurora Mall is exactly the same as the situation which men and women all over this world are in apart from Christ. They are lost and God is waiting for them.
So, we have this first message in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Apart from Jesus Christ. all are lost. All have run away from home. All have left Eden. They don’t know how to get their way back, to find their way back.
The second message from the Parable of the Prodigal Son is this. All people must repent. Repentance opens the door to heaven. It opens the door to Eden. Repentance is the path that leads back to God. The prodigal son had reached the bottom of the barrel. He had reached the low point of his life. He had taken his father’s inheritance prematurely and he had gone into distant lands. There he had wasted his money and his inheritance. In fact, the word prodigal simply means wasteful.
A great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in great want. He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his field to feed swine. Now, for a Jew, nothing would have been more humiliating. The Jews were not even allowed to eat pork
in accordance with the Levitical dietary laws. There was a rabbinical saying, “Cursed is he who feeds swine.” But, you see, this Jew was desperate, and he would have done anything. He would gladly have fed upon the pods which the pigs ate but he came to a point in his life where he turned. He came to himself. The Bible says, “He came to his right mind, and he turned. He came back to his father, and he said, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.”‘ Repentance. He turned from self-rule, and he turned back to his father’s rule.
The Greek word for repentance is the word “metanoia,” a word which literally means “to change the mind.” The Greek Christians used it as a concept of turning, turning from sin and turning to God, turning from the path you are walking and turning to walk a new path. In fact, the Hebrew word for repentance simply means “to turn.” The world has a lot of misunderstandings regarding what repentance means. Some people think that repentance simply means to be sorry, but, you see, repentance means a lot more than that.
A few years ago, I had a man in my office, a young man, and he told me that he was having an affair with his secretary. He said he was a Christian. He was married. His wife didn’t know anything about it. He knew what God wanted him to do. He knew that God wanted him to turn from his secretary and tum back to his wife. He knew that God wanted him to turn from sin and tum back to Christ. He felt sorry but he didn’t do it. To this day he hasn’t done it. He feels sorry but he hasn’t repented. Some people think that repentance means to do penance. Some people think that repentance means to try to pay back. to pay God back for what you’ve done wrong. All over the world people are doing penance, if not consciously then at least subconsciously they’re trying to pay God back. They feel guilt in their hearts.
I worked at Camarillo Mental Hospital for a year in California, and I worked for three months in the schizophrenic ward. There was a man there who used to bang his head against the wall. The floor psychiatrist told me that this man was riddled with guilt and at a subconscious level he was trying to atone, trying to atone for what he had done in his life. God doesn’t want that. You can’t pay him back for sins you have done. God offers to pay for your sins through Christ. He is our atonement. What God demands is this. God demands repentance. He demands that we reach that point in our life where we resolve in our mind and in our heart to turn, to tum from self-rule and tum to God’s rule in Christ, to turn from sin and tum to Christ. Now that doesn’t mean that you’re going to live
perfect from that point on. We still sin. Maybe even some of the same sins. But if you’ve really resolved in your mind and your heart that you want to walk a new way, then God’s power begins to be released in your life and eventually you will have the victory. In that moment, the very moment when you resolve to turn, in that moment God completely totally forgives you. And, you see, the prodigal son reached that point in his life when he turned.
Now, the world doesn’t want to repent. They don’t want to turn. I read an article in the newspaper three weeks ago and the title was “Herpes Threatens Sexual Enlightenment.” It was a very interesting article. It treated the new morality, it treated the sexual revolution, sexual enlightenment as though it was the greatest thing this world has even seen and it treated herpes as though it’s the great enemy of the people, the great enemy of this new freedom. We’ve got to get rid of herpes! I read another article about a week ago and it said that there is this new virus that is running rampant in the homosexual community, a virus that breaks down the body’s immune system that brings about a cessation to the body’s defense systems and sometimes brings on death, a very serious virus that is spreading in the homosexual community and it’s even spreading to the heterosexual community.
You see, from a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective, these things must be viewed as part of the judgement of God. They are consequences for sin. Now the world doesn’t want to get rid of sin. It just wants to get rid of the consequences. It wants to get rid of herpes. It wants to get rid of social, sexual diseases, but it never occurs to the world that, “Hey, maybe my behavior is wrong!” Maybe my sex life is in question. It just never seems to dawn on the world.
You see, in the Bible we are told that God has given sex to the world, to people, as a very beautiful gift, a very special gift, as a gift which is only meant to be opened within the context, within the confines of marriage union. Sex is the highest expression physically of union and it’s meant to be joined with spiritual and emotional union that takes place in marriage. It’s meant to be part of a lifetime commitment of a man and woman to each other. It’s not that Christians are against sex. It’s that we have a higher view of sex than the world does. The world has tainted and cheapened a beautiful gift from God, opening it at the wrong time and in the wrong way.
Now it’s one thing when the world is not willing to repent, when the world goes astray and is not willing to repent, but it’s something else when a Christian, one who has taken the name of Christ begins to go off the path, begins to become prodigal and will not repent. That is very serious.
The author of Hebrews says, “It is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, those who have tasted the heavenly gift, those who have partaken of the Holy Spirit, who have tasted of the powers of the age to come and the goodness of the word of God. It’s then they commit apostasy since they crucify the Son of God anew and hold Him up for contempt for land which has drunk with rain that often falls upon it brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is useless and nearer to being cursed, its end is to be burned. Though we speak, thus beloved, yet in your case we are confident of the better things that belong to salvation.”
There is this constant warning in scripture to Christians. If you go off the path, repent. Don’t commit apostasy. Now I honestly believe in eternal security. I believe it is biblical. I believe that when someone comes to Jesus Christ and receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life, they have eternal life, “zoe-aionios,” and that life cannot be taken away. It is eternal and Christ has you in His hand. No one can take you out of His hand. But I also believe it is very serious when Christians go astray and refuse to repent. There will come an accounting. We will one day stand before the judgement seat of Christ. “For many there will be much burning. Much that is in us will need to be burned away and some will suffer loss of reward though they themselves will be saved,” the Bible says, “but only as through fire.” We see that in I Corinthians 3. And so, it is a serious thing when we toy with sin.
There was a story of a little girl. This was in the newspapers a few years ago. A little girl and her mom and dad were at a neighbor’s house. They were playing in the back yard. The little girl saw a wire coming down from a post. She thought it would be fun to grab the wire and swing on it. Playfully she reached up and she grabbed the wire. Many volts of electricity surged through her little body because it was a live wire. She reached up with her left hand to try to free her right hand. When her left hand took hold of that wire it was frozen too. Her mother came running out into the yard and tried to help her. As she touched her little girl, she was thrown backwards. The father ran into the garage and got an ax. He came out and he chopped the wire against the post and cut off the flow of electricity. The little girl’s life was saved though her hands were cinders and are even to this day people think they can take hold of sin but really it takes hold of you. It’s nothing to play with. So, we have this message from the prodigal son. All people must repent. If you’re a non-Christian, you’ve never turned from self-rule to Christ’s rule, you can do that today. If you’re a Christian and you’ve begun to go off the path, then you, too, must repent and come back onto the right path.
Now there’s a third and final message in the Parable of the Prodigal Son and that message is this. God is loving. God is merciful and God is always willing to forgive. Our Lord Jesus tells us that the father saw his prodigal son coming home. He saw him when he was still at a distance and it says, “The father was moved with compassion. He ran to his son, and he embraced him, and he kissed him.” To the astonishment of the world, our Lord Jesus tells us that the Living God is like that. He is always willing to forgive the truly repentant.
There is another story of another prodigal in a Buddhist writing called the “Lotus of Perfect Law.” In that book, the prodigal comes home to his father, and he is destitute. He has amnesia and he doesn’t recognize his father. He doesn’t even recognize the home where one he had lived. He’s in rags and his clothes are torn. His father sends him to a distant portion of the estate and for days and weeks and months, the father begins to test him. He gives him work assignments to see if he is industrious. He gives him temptation to see if he is faithful. Only after months and months of testing, and after passing all those tests, does the father receive that son back as his son.
How different is the true God revealed through the scriptures. He is willing to forgive us in that moment when we first repent, that moment when we come to Him and we say, “Lord Jesus, come into my life.”, in that moment when we turn from self-rule, and we turn to God’s rule.
In 1929, on New Year’s Day, the Rose Bowl was being played in Pasadena, California. The University of California was playing Georgia Tech. In the first half there was a fumble and a player from the University of California named Roy Wriggles recovered that fumble in the air. He began to run with it. The only problem was he began to run the wrong direction. He ran for 65 yards towards his own end zone. When he was just about to score a touchdown for the other team, his teammate, Benny Loam, who had run after him that whole 65 yards, tackled him just before he got into the end zone. It was a humiliating moment for Roy Wriggles. It was a devastating blow to the California football team.
At half-time there was silence in the locker room. Roy Wriggles was sitting over in the corner with his head between his knees. He wouldn’t look up. The coach who was a man named Nibs Price didn’t even mention what had happened. At the close of half-time, he simply said to his men, “I want the same guys that started in the first half to go out and start in the second half.” All the men filed out of the locker room, but Roy Wriggles stayed in the corner with his head between his knees. Coach Price said, “Roy, did you hear me?” He said, “I want the same men who played in the first half to play in the second half.” Roy said, “Coach, I can’t go out there.” He said, “I failed the University. I failed you. I failed myself. I can’t go out there.” Coach Price said, “Roy, you’re not hearing me. I’m giving you another chance. It’s a whole new ballgame. You go out there and play your heart out.”
Anyone who watched that game testifies that Roy Wriggles did play his heart out. Coach Price was a great coach. In that moment, he was very much like our Father who is in heaven because, you see, God is always willing to give you another chance. If you are a non-Christian and you thought you were lost, God says to you, “I’ve got a whole new ballgame. I’m willing to put you in.” If you’re a Christian and you’ve gone off the path, He says, “Hey, the ballgame’s not over.” He simply calls upon us to repent.
Some people think that they have sinned too much, and God could never forgive them. Some people think that perhaps they have committed the unpardonable sin, that they have committed the sin, which is mortal, what the Bible calls “pros thanatos”, “towards death,” but the Bible tells us there is only one sin which cannot be forgiven and that is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit has been given to the world with one great awesome testimony, one testimony that’s above all others and that testimony is to the Son of God. The Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ. When we reject the Holy Spirit’s testimony, we grieve, and we quench the Spirit. When, through the course of our life, we reject the testimony of the Spirit to Jesus Christ at our life’s end, we’ve committed blasphemy. We cannot be forgiven for rejecting Jesus Christ. But if we come to Christ, if we turn·from self-reign and we turn to Christ’s reign, everything is forgiven.
And so it was that the father, when he saw his son, he commanded, he instructed his servants, to bring the best robe and put it on him, symbolizing honor. He commanded that a ring be placed on his hand, symbolizing authority. In fact, if it was a signet ring, that father was literally giving his son power of attorney. He commanded that shoes be placed on his feet, symbolizing full sonship because only slaves, only servants were about unshod. He commanded that the fatted calf be brought, and a great party be held, symbolizing joy.
And, you see, God is like that. He looks down at the world and He looks at all the people of the world. He longs to honor them. He longs to give authority to us in the name of His Son. He longs to give us the privilege of full sonship. He longs to bring us into the festivity, into the joy of His kingdom but He commands that we repent and turn to Christ. Jesus said, “What men among you, having one hundred sheep, when he loses one of them, does not leave the 90 and 9 and go after the one which is lost. When he finds him, he puts him on his shoulder rejoicing and brings him home. Does he not call all of his friends and all of his neighbors saying, ‘Rejoice with me for I have found the sheep which was lost.’ Even so I tell you, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 self-righteous men who do not think they need to repent.”
“What woman among you, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search diligently until she finds it and when she finds it, does she not call all of her neighbors and friends, saying, ‘Rejoice with me for I have found the coin which is lost.’ Even so, I tell you in all truth there is joy in heaven before the angels of God when one sinner repents.”
So, we have three messages from the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The first message is this. All people are prodigals. All have left Eden. All are separated from God and apart from Christ, all are lost. The second message is that all people must repent. We must turn. We must turn from sin and turn to God. We must turn from self-rule and turn to Christ’s rule. The final message is that God is loving, and He is merciful. He is always willing to forgive the repentant. Shall we pray?