RPG Adults
PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON – THE BEHAVIOUR
SATURDAY, JUNE 20
Luke 15:11-32
Memory verse: Luke 15:15-16
“…and he sent him into his fields
to feed swine.”
PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON – THE BEHAVIOUR
The Parable of the Prodigal Son directly targeted the Pharisees and scribes, compared to the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. The first two parables taught them the value of a lost soul. Christ’s desire to save sinners must never be frowned on but rejoiced in. In this Parable of the Lost Son, Jesus taught that He wanted to save these scribes and Pharisees. He bore no animosity toward them, only the heart of a Saviour to save sinners, including the ones who wanted Him killed.
This parable of the lost son begins with a man with two sons. The younger son was rebellious and ungrateful. He asked the father for his inheritance. An inheritance belongs to the sons only after the father dies. To ask for the inheritance before the father dies is as good as saying to the father, “Why are you still alive?” The father acceded to the younger son’s request and divided his wealth into two portions: one to the younger son. Not many days later, after the younger son had gathered all his inheritance, he left home to live in a faraway country. There, he wasted his wealth in riotous living. After he had spent all his inheritance, a mighty famine arose in the land where the younger son lived. He had nothing left. He looked for a job to survive. He attached himself to a citizen of that country who sent him to feed swine. It was not a spiritually unclean job because handling swine was not a sin. The Jews were forbidden to eat unclean animals like swine, which means that only after the swine was dead were the Jews forbidden to touch them. In desperation and great hunger, the younger son felt like eating the husks that the swine ate. In other words, he felt like he was a swine or that the swine was better than him because the swine had eaten before him. The swines were fed, but he was hungry!
The younger son began in great carnality with much wealth until he lost everything. His physical body was fraught with a desperate hunger he had never felt before. He needed to be in this state of desperation for him to be transformed by God. God used the adverse circumstances in his life to break him of his carnal self-will in order to save him.
THOUGHT: Was I like the prodigal son before salvation or am I still like him now?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, I am coming home, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.