Luke
15:11-32
Our Lord Jesus Christ as many tax collectors,
harlots, and others who were labeled as
sinners and outcast gathered around He took this time to teach as He was apt to
do always. As usual there were several Pharisees and Scribes that always
followed Him around to find fault with Him and to chastise Him for speaking to
the people they labeled as outcast sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ would never
allow anyone to derail Him from His purposes and priority. He simply used this
new occasion of criticism by these religious rulers to tell a story that
pictures the heart of God the Father. This story was not only a perfect picture
of the Father’s heart, but it was a story of two different classes of people. The
younger son in this story represents the Jewish people labeled as outcast the
harlots, tax collectors, and other sinners. The older son represents the
Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees the Jewish religious elite.
This parable was to show them that God the Father’s
heart is to receive any person who turns from self-reliance (repents) no matter
what they have done in their past. The religious Jewish rulers never understood
the Old Testament Prophecies about our Lord’s first coming and consequently
never saw their need to humble themselves before Him in repentance and faith.
Our Lord spoke a similar parable to them as recorded by Matthew only and He
began it with these same words, “A certain man
had two sons.” However, at the end of the Parable of the two sons
recorded by Matthew only, our Lord ended it with these words to the chief
priest and the elders, “Assuredly, I say to you that
tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you. For John came
to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but tax
collectors and harlots believed him; and when you saw it, you did not
afterward relent and believe him.”
The entire purpose of that Parable and this one
recorded by Luke only was to open the dead spiritual eyes of the religious Jewish
rulers so that they might repent and also enter into the Kingdom of God.
Unfortunately their hearts had become so hardened in religion and ceremonies,
and rituals that they could not even see the very God they thought they were
worshiping standing before them imploring them to come to themselves like the
younger son in the story (harlots and tax collectors). In this story our Lord
says that the younger son began to be in want (Luke 15:14). A soul must
recognize his or her need for change before God will change anyone by grace
through faith. No one ever enters the Kingdom of God without recognizing their
sin sickness in them. Remember when our Lord said on another occasion to these
same religious Jewish leaders, “They that are well don’t
need a Doctor, only them that are sick.” The religious Jewish leaders
were not sin sick in their minds/heart because they thought they kept the Law
of Moses which made them good enough to be with God in Heaven. Here is the same
lie the enemy still perpetrates in billions of hearts today.
Some might think our Lord was speaking these
riddles, stories, parables primarily just to stick it to these religious
people, but He was giving them every possible opportunity to see their sin sick
hearts and turn to Him for healing. Our Lord truly does not desire for any to
perish but for all to come to themselves. This is exactly what our Lord said
the younger son did he came to himself (Luke 15:17) and this represents
repentance (a change of mind and turning away from evil). Now the younger son
proved His repentance was real and genuine by what he said and did, he said, “I
will arise and go to my Father” (Luke 15:18). The younger son did not just say
those words but he put one foot in front of the other and as the Scripture
says, “And he rose and came to his Father” (Luke 15:20). You see those harlots,
tax collectors, thieves, etc. recognized that God the Father had come down from
Heaven and stood in their midst in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and
they arose from their sin sickness and turned to Him for healing.
Now picture how our Lord displays the Father’s heart
for this wayward young son, the Father saw the son way down the road and did
not wait for him to get home but ran to the younger son and poured out his
grace, forgiveness, and love to this wayward son. God the Father goes after
lost sinners and this is what our Lord meant when He said, “I have come to seek and save that which was lost.”
The Father before the younger son could get out all of the words he wanted to
say commanded His servants to clean him up and put a robe on him and sandals
for his bare feet and a ring on his finger. The Father did all of this to show
everyone that this is My son and he belongs to Me forever (Luke 15:20-24). This
is what our Lord meant at the end of the first two parables in this chapter by
there being joy in Heaven in the presence of the angels of God when one sinner
repents. This party in this story is a picture of the rejoicing in Heaven when
a soul passes from spiritual death to spiritual life.
Now sadly the rest of our Lord’s story is the sad
reality of the seemingly obedient son being lost for all the years his younger
brother was gone and remaining lost for all eternity because of his impenitent heart.
This is the sad picture of the Jewish religious rulers who so looked down on
the harlots, tax collectors, and other so-called sinners in their eyes. They despised
these people but did not recognize that they were just as lost as they were and
needed redemption. Luke records our Lord speaking another parable to the people
about a Pharisee and a tax collector going into the temple to pray (Luke
18:9-14) and it too was a rebuke to the Pharisees for their self-righteousness
that will never justify a person. Our Lord told them, “I
have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Our Lord
was being sarcastic with this statement because He meant the self-righteous
because there was no one on earth righteous when He came but Him. The older
brother in this story was furious when He saw his Father receive his younger
brother and even throw a party for him (Luke 15:28). This is the very heartfelt
reaction we see throughout the gospels when any of the religious Jewish rulers
saw our Lord eating with and teaching any harlots and tax collectors about the
Kingdom of God. These Jewish rulers felt that these people were under the
judgment of God already and that is why they were in the condition they were in
and certainly they would never eat with them or teach them from the Old
Testament Scriptures.
The older son could not understand why his Father
had never given him a goat to have a feast with his friends because he spent
all those years in his Father’s house outwardly doing what his Father commanded
him to do. It was never done from his heart of love for his Father for if it
were so he would have been rejoicing with his Father because he was rejoicing
over his younger son being found alive. This would have been the older son’s
response if he truly served his Father out of love for him. Religion can never
produce a heart in love with God the Father. The older son felt he deserved to
be honored and held in high regard by his Father while the younger son should
have been disowned by his Father. This was the heart of the Jewish leaders they
wanted their own preeminence and did not care for the glory of God at all. Our
Lord told them such when he said, John 5:42 “But I know
you, that you do not have the love of God in you.” They thought that if
our Lord was truly a teacher sent from God that He should have spent all of His
time in the temple in the presence of the religious elite and not with tax
collectors and mere fishermen. The extreme tragedy of this story is as our Lord
said to them that tax collectors and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before
you. The younger son was saved eternally and tragically the older son was lost
eternally. Please do not neglect so great a salvation as we have in Jesus
Christ by trusting in your Church membership or denominational work or baptism
or rituals or ceremonies or any other religious thing because Jesus Christ is
not a religion He is a person and He is the One and Only True God from
Everlasting to Everlasting. Amen!
“The truth is there are two great classes of sins -
sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may
be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second.” Henry
Drummond
“There is a trend today that would put a new robe on
the prodigal son while he is still feeding
hogs. Some would put the ring on his finger while he still in the pigsty.
Others would paint the pigsty and advocate bigger and better hogpens.” “If they
had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son,
somebody would have given him a bed and a sandwich and he never would have gone
home.” Vance Havner
If
you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this
from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear
Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I
believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from
the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn
from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control
of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you
Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus
Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and
Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple
I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader,
Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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