THE PRODIGAL

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                THE PRODIGAL

    There a few special words which outline the story of the prodigal son.
 They will work just as well for any one of us who chooses to go their own
way.

    WILLFUL:    Luke 15:12 And the younger of them said to [his] father,
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth [to me]. And he divided
unto them [his] living. 

                The boy wanted to do things his own way.  He wanted his
inheritance right now.  Some Christians are like that.  They want to "get the
show on the road" by demanding that God do right now what He has promised,
with no regard for the fact that there might be a time schedule in what God
is doing.

    WANDERING:  Luke 15:13 And not many days after the younger son gathered
all together, and took his journey into a far country,--

                "--gotta get out of this hole, and get where there is some
action."   

    WASTEFUL:   and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 

                He failed to realize that there would come an end to all of
that kind of living, and that a day of reckoning loomed in the distance.

    WANTING:    Luke 15:14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 

                We CAN choose our actions, but we CANNOT CHOOSE the
consequences of those actions.  Every action has a corresponding consequence.
 It is an inescapable fact.

    WRETCHED:   Luke 15:15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of
that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.   And he would
fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man
gave unto him. 

                Think of it! An Israelite boy feeding swine in a foreign
country.  Disgrace upon shame.

    WAKENED:    Luke 15:17 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. 

                God searches for the sinner.  But this boy was a son, and God
does not search for sons.  They have to come to themselves and return of
their own accord.  They KNOW THE WAY, but have refused to walk in it.

   WELCOMED:    Luke 15:20 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.  And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill
[it]; and let us eat, and be merry: