Luke 15:13

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. AND NOT MANY DAYS AFTER (INTOXICATED WITH HIS NEW-FOUND RESOURCES, AND EAGER FOR THE LUXURY OF USING THEM AT WILL), HE TOOK HIS JOURNEY INTO A FAR COUNTRY - away from the paternal eye, beyond all danger rebuke or interference from home, AND THERE WASTED HIS SUBSTANCE WITH RIOTOUS LIVING, [ asootoos (G811)] - or 'to the destroying of himself.' His brother's charge against him, that he had "devoured his father's living with harlots," shows what is meant, But ah! this reaches deeper than sensuality. Since the whole story is designed to set forth the degradation of our sonship, and the prostitution of our powers to purposes unworthy of our dignity and true destiny, we must under...

11-16 The parable of the prodigal son shows the nature of repentance, and the Lord's readiness to welcome and bless all who return to him. It fully sets forth the riches of gospel grace; and it has been, and will be, while the world stands, of unspeakable use to poor sinners, to direct and to encourage them in repenting and returning to God. It is bad, and the beginning of worse, when men look upon God's gifts as debts due to them. The great folly of sinners, and that which ruins them, is, being content in their life-time to receive their good things. Our first parents ruined themselves and all their race, by a foolish ambition to be independent, and this is at the bottom of sinners' persisting in their sin. We may all discern some features of our own characters in that of the prodigal son. A sinful state is of departure and distance from God. A sinful state is a spending state: wilful...

Verse Luke 15:13. _NOT MANY DAYS AFTER_] He probably hastened his departure for fear of the fine which he must have paid, and the reproach to which he must have been subjected, had the matter come before the civil magistrate. See above. _RIOTOUS LIVING._] ζων ασωτως, in a course of life that led him to _spend all_: from α _not_, and σωω _I save_. And this we are informed, Luke 15:30, was among _harlots_; the readiest way in the world to exhaust the _body_, debase the _mind_, ruin the _soul_, and destroy the _substance_....

GATHERED ALL TOGETHER - Collected his property. If he had received flocks or grain, he sold them and converted them into money. As soon as this arrangement had been made he left his father’s house. TOOK HIS JOURNEY - Went, or traveled. INTO A FAR COUNTRY - A country far off from his father’s house. He went probably to trade or to seek his fortune, and in his wanderings came at last to this dissipated place, where his property was soon expended. WASTED HIS SUBSTANCE - Spent his property. IN RIOTOUS LIVING - Literally, “Living without saving anything.” He lived extravagantly, and in the most dissolute company. See Luke 15:30. By his wandering away we may understand that sinners wander far away f

EXPOSITION LUKE 15:1 The _Lord speaks his three parable-stories of the _"lost," _in which he explains his reason for loving and receiving the sinful._ LUKE 15:1, LUKE 15:2 THEN DREW NEAR UNTO HIM ALL THE PUBLICANS AND SINNERS FOR TO HEAR HIM. AND THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES MURMURED, SAYING, THIS MAN RECEIVETH SINNERS, AND EATETH WITH THEM; more accurately rendered, _there were drawing near to him. _This was now, in the last stage of the final journey, the usual state of things. The great outside- class came in crowds to listen to Jesus. These were men and women who, through home and family associations,

AND NOT MANY DAYS AFTER THE YOUNGER SON GATHERED ALL TOGETHER,.... That his father had divided to him, all his goods and substance: as soon as a man has any internal substance, any considerable degree of natural knowledge, he immediately sets out from God, and employs it against him, in reasoning against him, against his being, his works, his providence, his purposes, his revelation, and will; as soon as a man has the exercise of his reason, as soon as he can think and speak, nay, as soon as he is born, he goes astray from God, speaking lies; and as soon as a wicked man has of this world, what his carnal heart desires, he is for living independent of God, and his providence; he is for gathering together all for himself, in order to spend it on his lusts, and at a distance from his father, the father of his mercies, of whom he is not mindful; and to whom he says, depart from me, having no...

This is a chapter that needs no explanation; it carries its key within itself, and the experience of every child of God is the best exposition of it. The three parables recorded here set forth the work of saving grace in different aspects. Luke 15:1. _Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them._ The Pharisees and scribes formed the outside ring of Christ's hearers, but the inner circle consisted of the guilty, the heavy-laden, and the lowly. They pressed as near to Christ as they could, that they might catch his every word; and besides, there was an attractiveness about his manner that drew them towards him. His mercy attracted their misery. They wanted him, and he desired them; they were thus well met. There will be an inner circle tonight when the

CHAPTER 15 __ 1. The Murmuring Pharisees. (Luke 15:1) 2. The Parable of the Lost Sheep. (Luke 15:3) 3. The Parable of the Lost Coin. (Luke 15:8) 4. The Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Elder Brother. (Luke 15:11 .) Luke 15:1 A blessed climax of the teaching of our Lord as the Saviour and the friend of sinners is reached with this chapter, a chapter which the Saints of God have always loved and will always love. Here we find the completest illustration of the key text of Luke “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save t

LUKE 25. THREE PARABLES SHOWING GOD'S LOVE FOR THE LOST, AND HIS JOY AT THEIR RESTORATION. The three parables in this chapter have no definite note of time or place. An introduction is supplied from Luke 5:29 f. (Mark 2:15 f.). Both the introduction (sinners crowding to hear Jesus) and the parables strike the new noto that Jesus came to sound the direct interest in and appeal to the outcast (_cf._ p. 622). This parable (Luke 15:3) must mean the parabolic discourse, embracing the three illustrations. The Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin form a pair, and represent the bewildered sinner and the unconscious sinner, while the story of the Prodigal Son forms an exquisite picture of the sinner who deliberately chooses his own path, an

THE SHEPHERD'S JOY (Luke 15:1-7)...