Luke 15:31

All I have is thine - The property was divided. What remained was in reality the older son’s. He was heir to it all, and had a right, if he chose, to use it. He had, therefore, no right to complain.

This instructive and beautiful parable was designed to vindicate the conduct of Jesus to show that it was right to receive sinners, and that the conduct of the Pharisees was unreasonable. The older son represents the Pharisees; the younger, the returning sinner, whether Jew or Gentile; and the father, God, who is willing to receive them. The parable had the designed effect. It silenced the adversaries of Jesus and vindicated his own conduct. There is not, perhaps, anywhere to be found a more beautiful and touching narrative than this. Every circumstance is tender and happily chosen; every word has a meaning; every image is beautiful; and the narrative closes just where it is fitted to make the deepest impression. In addition to what has been suggested, we may learn from this parable the following lessons:

1. That the disposition of a sinner is selfish. He desires to get all that he can, and is impatient of delay, Luke 15:12.

2. Sinners waste their blessings, and reduce themselves to a state of want and wretchedness, Luke 15:13. A life of sin brings on spiritual want and misery. It destroys the faculties, benumbs the mind, hardens the heart, abuses the beneficence of God, and makes us careless of him who gave us all that we have, and indifferent to the consequences of our own conduct.

3. Sinners disregard the future woes that will come upon them. The young man cared not for any calamities that might be the result of his conduct. He went on heedlessly - like every sinner to enjoy himself, and to squander what the toils of his father had procured for him.

4. Afflictions are often the means of bringing sinners to reflection, Luke 15:14. While his property lasted the prodigal cared little about his father. When that was gone, and he was in the midst of a famine, he thought of his ways. When sinners are in prosperity they think little about God. When he takes away their mercies, and they are called to pass through afflictions, then they think of their ways, and remember that God can give them comfort.

5. We have here an impressive exhibition of the wants and woes of a sinner.

(1)He had spent all. He had nothing. So the sinner. He has no righteousness, no comfort.

(2)He was far from God, away from his father, and in a land of strangers. The sinner has wandered, and has no friend. His miseries came upon him “because” he was so far away from God.

(3)His condition was wretched. He was needy, in famine, and without a friend. So the sinner. His condition is aptly denoted by that of the prodigal, who would gladly have partaken of the food of the swine. The sinner has taken the world for his portion, and it neither supplies the wants of his soul, nor gives him comfort when he is far away from his Father’s home and from God.

6. The sinner in this situation often applies to the wrong source for comfort, Luke 15:15. The prodigal should at once have returned to his father, but he rather chose to become a servant of a citizen of that region. The sinner, when sensible of his sins, should return at once to God; but he often continues still to wander. He tries new objects. He seeks new pleasures and new friends, and finds them equally unsatisfactory. He engages in new pursuits, but all in vain. He is still comfortless, and in a strange, a famished land,

7. The repentance required in the gospel is a return to a right mind, Luke 15:17. Before his conversion the sinner was alienated from God. He was spiritually deranged. He saw not things as they are. Now he looks on the world as vain and unsatisfactory, and comes to himself. He thinks “aright” of God, of heaven, of eternity, and resolves to seek his happiness there. No man regards things as they are but he who sees the world to be vain, and eternity to be near and awful; and none acts with a “sane mind” but he who acts on the belief that he must soon die; that there is a God and a Saviour - a heaven and a hell.

8. When the sinner returns he becomes sensible of the following things:

1. That he is in danger of perishing, and must soon die but for relief - “I perish with hunger.”

(2)That God is willing and able to save him - “How and to spare.” There is abundance of mercy for all, and all may come.

(3)He begins to cherish a hope that this may be his. God is willing, and he feels that all that is needful is for him to go to him.

(4)He resolves to go to God - “I will arise and go.”

(5)He comes to him willing to confess all his sins, and desirous of concealing none - “I will say, Father, I have sinned.”

9. True repentance is a voluntary act. It is not forced. It is the resolution of the sinner to go, and he cheerfully and cordially arises and goes, Luke 15:18.

10. A real penitent feels that his sins have been committed against God, Luke 15:18.

11. A true penitent also is willing to acknowledge his offences against his parents, brothers, friends, and all people, Luke 15:18.

12. A real penitent is humble, Luke 15:18. He has no wish to conceal anything, or to be thought more highly of than he “ought” to be.

13. God is willing to receive the true penitent, and has made the richest provision for his return and for his comfort. None need to hesitate to go. All who go, feeling that they are poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked, will find God willing to receive them, and none will be sent empty away.

14. The joy at the return of sinners is great. Angels rejoice over it, and all holy beings are glad.

15. We should not be envious at any favors that God may be pleased to bestow on others, Luke 15:32. He has given “us” more than we deserve; and if, by the sovereignty of his grace, he is pleased to endow others with more grace, or to give them greater talents, or to make them more useful, “we” have no cause to complain. We should rather rejoice that he is pleased to give such mercies to any of our race, and should praise him for the manifestation of his goodness, whether made to us or to other people.

16. The sensible joy when the sinner returns to God is often greater than that which may be felt “after” the return, and yet the real “cause” of rejoicing be no greater. In times of revival, the sensible joy of Christians may be greater than in ordinary seasons. Their graces are quickened, their zeal kindled, and their hopes strengthened.

17. If God is willing to receive sinners, if all holy beings rejoice, then how should Christians strive for their conversion, and seek for their return!

18. If God is willing to receive sinners “now,” then all should at once return. There “will” be a time when he will not be willing to receive them. The day of mercy will be ended; and from the misery and want of this wretched world, they will go down to the deeper miseries and wants of a world of despair where hope never comes; from whence the sinner can never return; and where the cheering thought can never enter the mind that in his Father’s house there is bread enough and to spare, or where he must feel that if there “is,” it will be forever untasted by the wretched prodigal in the land of eternal famine and death.