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Lesson 64 |
Lesson Subject: The World's Prodigals and How to Reach Them
Lesson Plan
Leaving the Father’s House (vs 11, 12)
In the Far Country (vs 13-16)
Coming to Himself (vs 17-19)
The Father’s Kiss (vs 20-24)
The Unkind Brother (vs 25-32)
Lesson Setting
Time: January, A.D. 30.
Place: The parable was spoken in Perea beyond Jordan.
Foolish Sons and Daughters
How does the parable of the Prodigal Son rank among Christ’s parables?
It is “the most beautiful and precious of all the parables” (New Century Bible). “One of the masterpieces of the great Teacher” (Dr. Fred Walker). It has been called “The Parable of the Elder Brother,” and “The Parable of the Sorrowing Fatherhood.” Could we perhaps add yet another title, “The Parable of the Kingdom of God”? This has been fitly called the crown and pearl of all the parables -- the gospel within the gospel!
Why has the parable this preeminence?
Its beauty and its pathos are unequaled in the realm of fiction. “It is more like a complete allegory than any other of our Lord’s parables” (New Century Bible). It sweeps the whole circle of theology. It is a parable for all time and for every people. The whole experience of the Christian life for nineteen centuries is its living commentary. No other parable has touched so many hearts, or given to the world so clear a view of the Fatherhood of God. If there was no other proof of the divinity of Jesus Christ, this parable alone would entitle Him forever to the name of God-man!
Who is the father of the parable?
The father is God. The parable is the Master’s dramatic way of saying, “God is Love.” The father is the chief actor. To put the prodigal above the father is like putting Helen Keller about her teacher, Miss Sullivan.
What did Christ mean by the father’s house of the parable?
Nearness to God; and since God is everywhere, He means spiritual nearness, shown by loving God, enjoying God, and serving God.
What did Christ represent by the younger son?
“Publicans and all Jews other than the Pharisees who claimed the first place in Israel for themselves” (New Century Bible). The younger son is every one who is living a life apart from God. The most privileged persons are likely to become prodigals. It is not always poverty that makes one discontented with a good home, leading to sinful ways.
What part of the property would belong to the younger son?
The older son would have twice as much as the younger, who would therefore have one-third his father’s estate. Such a demand was not unusual in Palestine, where younger sons frequently left the land to join one of the many Hebrew colonies in the towns on the Mediterranean. At any rate, the father granted his son’s desire forindependence. What answers do you get when you ask yourself, “Would I be satisfied if God give me that which would make me independent of Him? If I was sure of the power to spend, enjoying life as I pleased, with no interference, punishment or remonstrance from God, would I be satisfied? Or would it be a terrible punishment to be cast forth from God, even though I had material provision for all my future?”
“God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And flings the thing we have asked for in our face, A gauntlet -- with a gift in it” ...Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do modern boys and girls, men and women, leave the father’s house, as the prodigal did?
Perhaps by becoming tired of their religion, tired of prayer, church-going, taking part in prayer meeting, and of helpful ministries to others in the name of Christ. God does not compel us to use our life in His service. God gives us strength, health, opportunities, means. letting us use them as we please. He gives us the talents, allowing us to earn interest or bury them in the ground. Likewise, the father in the parable left his son to the consequences of his own rashness and folly.
What does the far country symbolize?
“The far country is forgetfulness of God” (Augustine). The fugitive could not halt or look behind him till he had crossed the borders of his native country, and found shelter among foreigners, as a tree is hidden by the wood. Nobody knows me here! I have no character to keep here! I shall give myself to passions, and enjoy pleasures! In the times of our Savior there was one basic foreign travel and knowledge of the world -- Rome, drunk with her abominations, gone down in sensuality, and glaring in false splendor. However, if our young hero went by way of Greece he could have easily spent his living there without ever seeing Rome. There was enough lust and profligacy at Corinth to absorb all his substance.
How did the prodigal waste his substance in the far country?
We are not told, but ancient cities reeked with drunkenness and debauchery. Gambling and ‘high living’ would speedily eliminate his father’s hard-earned savings.
How do modern 21st Century prodigals waste substance?
By wasting time in frivolity; wasting money gambling; needless expenses; and wasting health in dissipation. “All conduct which ignores God and asserts self as supreme is flagrantly against the very nature of man, and is reckless waste” (Alexander Maclaren).
Illustration
Contrast the conduct of this young man with that of Benjamin Franklin. At
seventeen he traveled from Boston to Philadelphia. Did he stay at the most costly hotels?
Equip himself at the most fashionable tailor’s? Strut up the street puffing on
expensive cigars? No, when he was hungry he bought a roll of bread, and, while eating it,
completed the reason for his trip. He began life at zero, and rose from that point to the
lofty height where he was visible, conspicuous, and refulgent to all nations, for all
times. Somewhere in Philadelphia there is an instructive series of paintings illustrative
of his lifestyle. In the first picture he appears as the Boston tallow-chandler’s son
-- a mere boy, working in his father’s shop, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his
elbows; his hands and arms buried in the grease. In the next, he is drawing down
lightnings from the heaven, making his own name as radiant as the lightning he commanded.
In the third, he is shown signing the Declaration of American Independence. In the fourth,
he is standing among the kings and mighty men of Europe, concluding that treaty of peace
which recognized the freedom and independence of the United States of America, fulfilling
that saying of the Hebrew sage, “Seest thou a man diligent in business? he shall
stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.” Which of the two do you most
resemble? Ask yourself whether, on one hand, you obey your appetites and passions, or, on
the other, your reason and conscience! Answer that question and you have the answer!
What famines come in the far country?
Famines of contentment, happiness, health, and peace. Famine was a common occurrence in various parts of the Roman Empire in the days of Jesus. The prodigal had spent his all in days of plenty, and had nothing saved up for days of want. Remember how scarce everything was when you didn’t have any yourself?
Illustrations
Having slain his appetite, the glutton longs for the healthy cravings of a child.
In the midst of his passionate life Byron cried:
“My days are in the yellow leaf, The flowers and fruits of love are gone, The worm, the anguish, and the grief Are mine alone.”
Swan, the artist, in his great picture of The Prodigal Son, paints the famine, starvation, the fierce, filthy swine, he rags, the emaciated youth, the reeking sty; and then after all that, with a fine touch, he paints here and there a poppy or two -- points of color in the dismal picture. Poppies, blood-red, brilliant poppies! What are these to a young man who is in the midst of death, filth, famine, starvation, and the agonies of conviction?
What kind of friends do prodigals find in the far country?
No doubt the prodigal was received as a ‘jolly good fellow’ while his money lasted, but he could have placed all his friends in his pocketbook after it became empty. Friendships cemented with sin will never hold together.
What kind of masters do prodigals find in the far country?
The prodigal found ...
15:15 ... “a citizen of that country” to whom he
15:15 ... “joined himself” -- or, as the word might perhaps be better rendered, ‘glued himself to, foisted himself upon.
What corresponds to swine-feeding in the lives of modern 21st Century prodigals?
“The intensity of this climax could be duly felt only by Jews, who had such a loathing and abhorrence for swine that they would not ever name them, but spoke of a pig as dabhar acheer, ‘the other thing’ “ (Cambridge Bible). A Jew in the time of Jesus did not have much affinity for a live or dead hog. “What a picture the prodigal presents, his shoes outworn, his clothes in rags, his face and hands burned almost black with exposure to the sun. “The unclean animals are fit companions for one who made himself lower than they, since filth is natural to them and shameful for him” (Maclaren).
Our Swine-Feeding
“Sin is a mean, low contemptible business; putting food and fodder into the troughs of a herd of iniquities that root and wallow in the soul of man is a very poor business for men and women intended to be sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty” (Talmage).
“You now know the habits of swine and the taste of husks; do you think your father could not have taught you to know better habits and pleas-anter tastes, if you had stayed in his house?” (John Ruskin).
Swine-Feeding Publicans
The publicans had fallen into extreme wretchedness. Having chosen the basest of all livelihoods, they had cut themselves off from fellowship with their own people, who regarded them as accursed traitors to their country. They were not even permitted to put alms of their ill-gotten gains into the boxes in the synagogues. No man gave unto them either love or pity. They were doomed to feed on the dregs and refuse of the sins which had once been a pleasure to them.
What kinds of hunger do sinners experience?
Their soul hunger is like the bodily hunger of the prodigal.
15:16 ... “And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.” These husks were “the pods of the ‘carob tree,’ or ‘John the Baptist’s tree,’ or ‘St. John’s Bread,’ so called from the erroneous notion that its pods were the locusts which were the Baptist’s food” (Int. Crit. Com.). “These ‘husks’ are to be seen on the stalls in all Oriental towns, where they are sold for food, but are chiefly used for the feeding of cattle and horses, and especially for pigs” (Tristram).
They are long, coarse pods, not unlike those of beans, and contain a good deal of saccharine matter. “The beans were used for weights, and thus it has fallen out that keration, after long travels in the East, has come back to us through the Arabic in the form of ‘carat’ “ (Trench).
15:16 ... “and no man gave unto him” “either the husks or anything else. Satan has no desire for, and no interest in, even the smallest alleviation of the anguish and degradation of his victims. ‘Who follows pleasure, While a husk can stay the appetite, it leaves an emaciated body without nourishment. Earthly happiness is like a husk.
15:17 ... “he came to himself”
How could the prodigal come to himself; was he not himself all along?
The man was not himself in his prodigal state of mind. His actions were madness, as well as sin. “Since one’s true self is to be found in his nobler attributes and in his true spiritual relations, he who leaves these unused and lives in the lower range of faculties may be truly said to have forsaken himself. It is as if a man, inheriting a magnificent palace, should shut up every one of the numerous apartments except the eating-room, and there live and feed” (Henry Ward Beecher). Can it not be said that coming to one’s self, and coming to God, are one and the same thing?
Illustrations
When a sick man who has been in the delirium of fever returns to reason we say, “He has come to himself.” When one who has been rescued from drowning at length awakes from unconsciousness, opens his eyes, and recognizes his friends, we again say, “He has come to himself.”
“Classic story has its legend of Circe, the enchantress, who transformed men into swine. Surely this young man in our parable had been degraded in the same manner. But as the poet sings of Ulysses, that he compelled the enchantress to restore his companions to their original form, so here we see the prodigal returning to manhood” (Spurgeon).
What brought the prodigal to himself?
Two things. One was the consciousness of his misery and want. The other was the remembrance of the plenty at home, that ...
15:17 ... “many hired servants of [his] father’s [had] bread enough and to spare.”
Illustration
An English soldier was left by the retreating army to die. While his strength was ebbing
fast there alighted just before his face a greedy, ravenous bird. Thoughts of becoming the
prey of that loathsome bird gave him a new energy, and he slowly arose and at last was
saved. In almost a like helpless state the prodigal “came to himself.”
What good resolution did the prodigal form?
The prodigal at last did the manly thing, he firmly resolved to return home.
What good points are there in the prodigal’s proposed speech to his father?
What must have been the prodigal’s experiences on his journey?
He was no doubt footsore, ragged, hungry. How ashamed he must have been as he slunk past the places where he had made a brilliant show on his outward journey! Like most of us would have done, he probably kept rehearsing his little speech to his father. He no doubt saw old companions in their doors and in his father’s fields; and since he knew they would have known about his situation, he probably shrank to the other side of the road as he passed by, but don’t you think any of his probable precautions would have been needless? Don’t you think most everyone who saw him coming would have considered him at best a failure?
How was it that the father saw him a great way off?
“The idea is that his father was looking for him and able to recognize him at a distance, even in rags” (New Century Bible). This is a picture, painted by Jesus Himself, of God in heaven, waiting for you and me.
How did the father show his joy?
Old as he was, and regardless of the dignity which Eastern fathers maintain so carefully, he ...
15:20 ... “ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The Greek verb means “kissed him again and again, rained kisses upon him.”
What happened when the son began his speech?
“He does not finish his intended speech, either because he sees it is needless after such a welcome as he has received, or because his father interrupts him” (New Century Bible). So God reads the heart of the repentant sinner, back of his blundering words.
How did the father prove his full forgiveness?
In six ways:
How did the father sum up what had happened to the boy?
That he ...
15:24 ... “was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” However, “he had been wounded by the fiery arrow, and be sure the scar remained, and sometimes throbbed” (Farrar).
What was the immediate occasion of this parable?
The criticism made by the scribes and Pharisees, that Christ associated with the hated publicans and other sinners (Luke 15:2).
What is the climax of this parable?
The story of the elder brother, a sinner of the sneaking, Pharisaic type, who had all the bad traits of his brother save two, and apparently he had additional ugly, sinful characteristics, such as:
How did the elder brother show his harness of heart?
What was the father’s gentle answer?
He tenderly reminded the dark-browed young man of the long years they had shared the same goods and home, and of his bitter grief for the younger son, which was now turned to joy. “The parable is silent as to the effect of this second appeal. It is for the Pharisees themselves to determine what that shall be” (New Century Bible).
Who are the elder brothers today?
All those in Christ’s church that do not deeply and practically join in Christ’s longing to redeem the lost. What about leaders in the Lord’s church today? i.e., preachers, deacons, teachers, elders? Does every Christian have a responsibility to restore the penitent to a place of honor, respect, leadership and status in the church? Would you say that the church of our Lord today is playing the part of the elder brother, or sharing the Father's heart? Christians have been letting folks slip away for too long; slipping from homes; from Bible schools, from compassion and love. Can you think of ways the church allows folks to slip away? If we are to bring them back, we must do much more than just welcome them. In bringing them back, should church leaders be willing to restore them to their rightful places of honor, respect, leadership and status in the body of Christ?
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