Luke 15:14

Luke 15:14. And when he had spent all. Probably very soon; the enjoyment of sin is brief. But it is not necessarily implied that all God's gifts are wasted before repentance. The picture of ‘misery' begins here; and the sense of destitution is emphasized.

A mighty famine. External circumstances hasten the consequences of sin, and are used by God to lead to repentance. Thus the Father seeks His son, by so ordering events that he shall feel his real condition: He began to be in want. This is the main point: conscious emptiness of soul must lead one way or the other; to despair or to repentance.