The Prodigal Son

There’s an old saying, “What goes around, comes around.” Why doesn’t it apply here? Because, the young man didn’t give the mercy of God to his friends when he paid for entertainment. The problem is he “bought” his friends. He paid his good money to buy friendship. So when he went to his friends, what do you think they said to him? They probably didn’t say this, but here’s what has happened: their friendship was a business transaction. The Prodigal Son paid for friendship, and they gave him friendship in return. The Prodigal Son got what he gave. He had “companionship” for the evening. Let me tell you what the Prodigal Son probably didn’t do:

· He didn’t tell his friends that the money came from a wise, generous father who worked hard for it.

· He didn’t tell his friends of the blessing of God on his father.

· He didn’t share the faith of his father with this friends.

· He didn’t pray for his friends or was he concerned for his friends.

D. HE CAME TO HIMSELF.

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Luke 15:17-20).

The best part about this story--a turning point--is the most important event in this entire story, “He came to himself.” The greatest thing in this story is when the young boy realized four things:

· He had made a bad decision.

· He was in bad shape.

· He had no future.

· He remembered the blessings of his father’s house.

This is probably the first time--ever--that the boy has ever had a good thought about life. He realizes that he was in a bad way, and realized that people in his father’s house were in a good way. Even his father’s servants were better off that he.

There are people who are listening to me today that are in bad shape. Like the boy in the story, you’ve made bad decisions, you’re in bad shape, and you have no future. I want you to know that the servants in the father’s house have it better than you, and you can have what they have.

The boy had a two-fold realization. First, he realized that he had sinned against his heavenly Father. To say that “he had sinned against Heaven” is to say that you have sinned against the commandments of God, against the purpose of God and to sin against God, Himself.

But there was a second thing. The boy had sinned against his earthly father. His father had done everything for him, but the boy rejected his father’s love . . . his father’s protection . . . his father’s plan for his life . . . and his father’s God.

What had the earthly father done for the boy?

· He had worked hard to accumulate an estate for the boy.

· He had prayed for the blessing of God to pass onto his boy.