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We have all been prodigal of the Father's gifts. We have all received of Him; yet we have
lived as though Christ had never died, we have lived with self at the center, away from the
compassionate loving heart and home of the Father.
Why did this young fellow go into the far country? One reason. He went away because he
was seeking to please himself. He was so intent on pleasing himself that he had no thought
for any loss or pain that might come to himself or to anyone else.
Self-pleasing, then, is the very essence of sin. Now, self-pleasing is expensive. Nothing can
be more so. He who is bent on pleasing himself is doomed to pay a terrible price. If self-
pleasing is my god, it will hurt me. It will also hurt others. No man ever sinned without
wounding somebody else.
His whole attitude shows that his years of obedience to his father had been years of grim
duty and not of loving service.
His whole attitude is one of utter lack of sympathy. He refers to his brother, not as my brother
but as your son.
He had a peculiarly nasty mind. There is no mention of harlots until he mentions them.
He, no doubt, suspected and accused his brother of the sins he himself would have liked to
commit.
There are those who are lost as was this elder son.
o His type is seldom counted as lost, either by himself or others. This makes his
condition all the more hopeless.
o He is not away in the distant land among swine as is the case with his prodigal
brother, although he is just as lost.
o He is in an environment that is wholesome and clean. "Now the elder son was in the
field."
o He was not a waster, as was his profligate brother. He was a worker. The fact that he
was in the field indicates that he was there as a toiler.
o The elder brother did indeed have some virtues which deserve respect. Socially he
had not brought reproach upon his father. He had resisted all temptation to physical
dissipation.
o He was industrious and thrifty.
o He despised slothfulness. He was the enemy of extravagance.
o His conduct created no scandal.
o He was the enemy of moral laxity.
o He did not gamble.
o He condemned lawlessness.
o He required himself to hate immorality.
o He was entitled to all the credit that was due him.
o
Notice his Inquiry: vs. 26-27
This elder brother had missed the high qualities in his father's life. He simply could not
understand his father's patience, forbearance, and grief over the younger brother's
absence from the home. His heart had become so frozen by selfish conceit that he lacked
understanding or compassion.
His brother was a notorious sinner; he himself was righteous. His brother deserved nothing
except to be abused and upbraided; he deserved to be praised and honored. He was an utter
stranger to what his brother had suffered because of his sin.
It is interesting to note that of the seven deadly sins of tradition, four are of the mind and
spirit and three pertain to the flesh. It was the sins of the flesh: lust, gluttony, and sloth that
overwhelmed the prodigal.
It was the sins of the spirit: pride, covetousness, envy, and anger that took captive the elder
brother. They are sins perhaps deadlier than the sins of the flesh.
Basically, these sins of the spirit are born of a conceit that makes all desires seem righteous
and good. In the end, they are repelled by the sins of others and proud of their own.
The sins of the spirit are insidiously scandalous. They easily deceive the public and those
who are in their power into thinking either that they are harmless, or, as a matter of fact, they
are most desirable. It is difficult to awaken such sinners to a realization of their sin.
Thus, both sons had revolted against their father, the younger from parental control, the elder
from parental love. Each wanted the same thing: to have his own way.
2. Cost both freedom -- ironic, that's what he left to find. Ended up a slave. The one
who stayed home was a slave to his own desires.
3. Cost them everything – the younger spent all. The older never enjoyed what he had.
As long as man is away from God, he is not really himself! Only himself when he is on
his way home!
The ordinary slave was in some sense a member of the family, but the hired servant could be
dismissed at a day's notice. He was not one of the family at all. So, he came home; and,
according to the best Greek text, his father never gave him the chance to ask to be a servant.
He broke in before that.
That robe stands for honor; the ring stands for authority, for if a man gave to another his
signet ring it was the same as giving him the power of attorney; the shoes stand for a son as
opposed to a slave, for children of the family were shod and slaves were not.
Robe, ring, and royal sandals await the lost one. These three things answer exactly the prayer
which he meant to have prayed.
These symbols are Eastern. Put the robe on him, the robe that befits the father's house. The
ring was the sign of relationship, of sonship. "Put a ring on this finger." He is my son. Give
him the sign of sonship. Put shoes on his feet. The slave was never permitted to wear shoes.
The badge of slavery was the absence of sandals.
One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into
the elder brother. - John Ortberg