Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

The main social event of the year in many Sunday Schools is the summer picnic.

William Porkess was in an English Sunday School that was granted permission by an Earl to have a picnic on his large estate.

How excited they all were as they were being carried to the estate by horse and carriage.

The woods on this estate contained a million trees, and many were hundreds of years old.

In the course of time walks had been planned by marking certain trees.

All you had to do was follow the marks and you could walk for miles under a continuous canopy of leaves, and come back to where you started.

It was pointed out very strongly the danger in not following the marks.

Bill and some others boys were not going to bother with such warnings.

They determined to do as they pleased, and they wandered off the path.

After a time they began to sense that they did not know where they were.

Their smart-alick enthusiasm cooled rapidly, and they began to feel desperation.

They went on and on with no sense of direction most of the day.

At last they came to a clearing and found a cottage where they got direction back to the camp.

It ended happily, but as Bill reflected back on the experience, he saw the foolishness of his rebellion against rules.

He lost two meals and all of the fun that had been planned, and on top of that, he never really came to appreciate the woods, for in their wandering they were gripped with fear, and could not enjoy the beauty of it.

He learned a lesson he never forgot.

If you wander anywhere in your life according to your own will, and rebel against the path established by those who know the way, you are bound to get lost.

We want to look at the story Jesus told about another youth who learned this lesson the hard way.

It is often called the parable of the Prodigal Son, but it could just as rightly be called the parable of the Faithful Father.

Whatever you call it, it is the pearl of the parables.

It is the most widely known short story in the world.

It's message is so simple that it needs no comment to make it clear.

We want to look at each of the three main characters of the story to see if we can get some insight into our own personalities, and that of God.

Both sons made major mistakes, and so the father is the only hero in the story, but we want to look first at-

I. THE PRODIGAL SON.

The first thing to see about him is-

A. His Rebellion in verses 12 and 13.

Here is a typical young man in any age.

He is not necessarily disrespectful of his father, but he had desires he wanted to gratify, and to do so he had to get away from dad.

Dad is all right, but he has lived his life, and now all he wants to do is hand out rules.

I'm old enough to make my own rules, and I'm getting out of here.

So he gets this things together and goes to a far country.

It is no good just going into town, for that is too near father to be free.

He wanted real freedom, and so he went far.

There he wasted his substance in riotous living.

He soon learned how deceptive liberty is without law.

He lived high off the hog for a while, but ended up eating with the hog.

What he thought to be freedom became slavery.

All he wanted was to be free.

He did not want to destroy his life and disgrace his family.

No one sets out to wreck his life.

No train leaves the station with a plan to derail; no plane takes off with the design to crash; no young man goes off to a far country to fling himself into famine and filth, but that is what happens when he goes with a misconception of freedom.

He thinks freedom is having his own way, and doing just as he pleases.

He has to learn the hard way that true freedom comes by being obedient to law.

I can walk over to the piano and do just as I please.

I am not bound by any rules.

There are no limitations to the way in which I can bang on the keys.

Yet, with all my so-called freedom I am a slave to discord.

I can not make pleasant sound because my complete freedom is based on complete ignorance of the laws of music.

My freedom is really a form of slavery to my ignorance.

I can only be really free to produce music by learning to obey the laws of music.

Liberty without law is folly, and that is what the Prodigal experienced.

On the other hand, the one who has his freedom limited by rules, and cannot just hit anywhere, in any order, is the one who is free to produce harmony.

The secret of freedom is in obedience to law, and not in rebellion against law.

One of the responsibilities of parenthood is to teach this to their children, so they don't have to learn it the hard way

As I said before, no one wants to wreck their life and hurt others, but in order to have their own way, they are willing to do so.

The youth who drinks and then drives like a wild man, does not want to kill himself for others, but he is willing to take that chance so he can do what he pleases, and he thinks that is freedom.

Freedom is only real when it means living according to the laws of God.

So many young people think the far country is the goal of life.

They have a space-age mentality, but a stone-age morality.

Their desire for pleasure soars across the sky like a rocket, while the desire to please God, or anyone else for that matter, drags across the ground like a wounded turtle.

The result is, they pay any price for pleasure, and if they live they often end up in a asylums and prisons.

Sometimes, however, they reach the bottom, like the Prodigal, and they do what he did, which we want to now consider.

B. His Repentance in verses 17-20.

The text says he came to himself.

He saw the folly of his way, and was ready to admit he had been foolish.

He saw that his foolish desire for freedom was like a fish desiring to be free from the water.

His pleasure had to turned to poison.

Sin had weakened, withered, and wasted him.

As he sat looking at pigs he no doubt thought, these pigs are happier than I am.

Pigs are happier than people at times, for they live according to nature, but man has the freedom to rebel and live contrary to the laws God made for His nature.

The fortunate thing for this young man was that he was alone with himself and the pigs.

Most people cannot stand to be alone with themselves, so they never come to themselves.

Men trying to live without God need something to keep them company.

They often cannot even enjoy nature without a transistor radio blaring.

Silence is a pain, and so they must have sound constantly to occupy their minds.

I read of a judge who sentenced a youth to 48 hours alone in a room.

He was to set there and reflect on his life.

Hopefully, it brought him to himself, for when a man comes to himself he wants to come to God next, or at least,

this was the experience of the Prodigal.

Afflictions though they seem severe,

In mercy oft are sent.

They stop they prodigal's career,

And cause him to repent.

He not only was resolved to return home, but he actually arose and went.

If a sinner truly repents, he does not just turn over a new leaf, he goes to God and starts with a new book altogether.

A man out of fellowship with God is homeless, but he does not feel his home sickness until he comes to himself.

The Prodigal never thought of home while having a fun time, and spending his money.

The biggest blessing he had was his poverty.

Those who can continue indefinitely to please the flesh, and live for pleasure, often never get homesick, and never return.

That is why Jesus said it is so hard for the rich to enter the kingdom.

Many feel sorry for their sin, but they are too stubborn to return to the Father and confess.

So they remain in the pig pen the rest of their lives.

The proof of true repentance is when the feeling is followed up with action, and the sinner arises and goes home.

II.

THE FATHER.

It is agreed that he represents God, even though we cannot press every detail.

We note, however, that there is no charge against the father.

Some might say, if he was a good father he would not have bad boys, but that theory does not fit reality, for God is certainly a good Father, yet he has bad boys in his family.