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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

The Power of the Pigpen

Good to see everyone here in this first Sabbath of the new year.

I pray that God has been blessing you as this year has started and that this year will be filled with God's richest blessings for everyone that is here, especially for our students.

I pray that you have a wonderful rest of this school year, and if you're going to be here next year, another good year next year.

I want to get right into our message for this morning.

I want you to turn in your Bible, if you have your Bible, to Luke chapter 15 starting at verse 11.

Luke 15 starting at verse 11 and the Bible says, and he said, a certain man had 2 sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, father give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.

Verse 13 says, 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 there wasted his substance with riotous living.

A message this Sabbath is entitled, The Power of the Pigpen.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to come before you on your Holy Sabbath day and to worship you and to study your word.

I ask Lord God today that you would just cover me with your love, Cover me with your blood.

Let Eric Walsh not be seen or heard today.

Instead, Father God, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

Story actually begins in Luke 15, 1 and 2.

In order to understand the parable of the prodigal son, you have to go back up into the book a little bit.

In Luke 15, chapter 1, the Bible says, then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him." Verse 2 says, and the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them.

So the preface of this chapter starts with the idea that Jesus is doing something wrong by actually interacting with sinners.

The fact that he's eating with and talking with and ministering to people who do not have truth or are not at the level of the Pharisees and the scribes is what starts the whole process of 3 parables being told in this chapter.

In this parable, 1 out of a hundred is lost.

And so out of the 1 out of a hundred, God goes to find them.

Now, a sheep is different from a person, because a sheep all by itself really can't say it's lost.

It might feel lost, but it can't say it's lost.

It has not the frontal lobe capacity to interact with the shepherd in a way that allows it to do that.

So the shepherd has to go and look for the sheep.

The second parable, of course, is the lost coin.

And in this case, the coin definitely cannot cry out that it is lost.

So it must be looked for in a very diligent fashion.

So you look at the first 2 parables and you find that God is a God who will go and look for you, even when you're as dumb as a sheep or as quiet as a coin.

And that is the point of those 2 parables.

It's unique in understanding that there are some who God is going to go and get.

But the third parable, the parable that we'll talk about today, the parable of the prodigal son is different, because the prodigal experienced God's love.

You see, the difference between the coin and the sheep and the son, the son knew the character of his father.

He had the frontal lobe capacity to understand what his father had done for him in raising him as a Christian child, and knowing truth, and in providing everything he needed.

That son had an obligation and a Responsibility that you cannot lay on a sheep or a coin So Jesus gets into this parable And the Bible says in Luke 15 and verse 11, and he said, a certain man had 2 sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.

First of all, everything about the parable has significance.

It is significant that there are only 2 sons.

It's significant that it's the younger son that asks for his inheritance.

Because the way, if you go back to Deuteronomy, that these things were laid out is that the oldest son always got twice as much as every other son.

I was born second, so I wouldn't have gotten as much as my older brother would have.

And the more sons you had, the less money every son would get, right?

So if you had 8 sons, the first son would get 2 shares.

So he'd technically get two-ninths of all that everyone else would get.

But if there was only 2 sons, The first son would get two-thirds.

You wonder if this story, as you study the story, if this younger son doesn't think, I'm going to hurry up and ask for what I'm getting.

I don't want my father to have any more sons.

You wonder what he's thinking because he is going to get more than the average son in his time would have gotten because there's only 2 of them.

And his father's quite wealthy, so he jumps into Asperger's.

It's significant that the younger son is asking for what he gets, because he gets less.

It is also significant, in a sense, that he's asking for this while his father is still alive.

Probably the most insulting aspect of the story is that this young man approaches his father and asks for his inheritance while he's alive.

It is the equivalent of going to your parents today and saying, I want your life insurance policy money today.

Because you'd have to die in order to turn over in most cases at least the life insurance money So literally what he's saying to his father is almost tantamount to saying I I can't wait for you to die.

And once you get that, this loving father is asked this while he's alive.

You begin to get that the father is losing a lot more than money.

Because technically, as long as the father's alive, all of the money is his, and he can use the money any way he wants to.

It isn't until he's dead that he actually, there's any provision that the child gets anything.

So if the father squandered all of his money while he was alive, the 2 sons would get nothing.

So when you really look at it, you have to see that this son isn't simply prodigal, as we'll get into in a minute.

Because literally, he must be causing his father an incredible amount of pain to ask him for what he shouldn't get until his father's dead.

In fact, by asking it, he's almost saying, I wish you were dead.

The Bible says it doesn't take him long to pack up his belongings.

And in verse 13, not many days after, the younger son gathered everything he had together.

If you read the story as Ellen White comments on it, this young man is quite wealthy.

And as he begins to gather all together, the Bible says he takes his journey into a far country.

Now, we understand when you read a parable in the time of Jesus, this would have meant he wanted to get away from all of the Jewish influence, all of the laws and regulations that would have been in a place.

So by going into a far country, into a pagan Gentile country, he could go into a place where no 1 would ever ask him questions about a lot of things.

And so distance, geographic distance, is what he uses to separate himself from his conscience.

You see, you can go into the far country today in your dorm room.

You can travel into the far country today right in your own backyard.

You don't have to travel miles and miles and miles to find sin.

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The Power of the Pigpen

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