Lk.15:17 – But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!
He came to his senses, the King James Bible says ‘he came to himself’. Apparently sin does something to our brain or our thought life. Why else would someone keep smoking cigarettes knowing it will kill them, or keep drinking alcohol knowing the damage to their body and their world that is happening? Then there is the porno addiction, driving like a crazy person; this list is endless. That’s what this parable that Jesus told was all about. The younger son wanted his inheritance and he wanted it now. He was determined to go out and have a blast with drinking and scandalous living. It all came to a screeching halt when the money ran out and he found himself longing after pig’s food. What a story? I guess the point Jesus was making is that all of that supposed pleasure was really just eating pig’s food at the end of the day. What brought him to his senses? He remembered his father’s house. That’s how repentance happens, its remembering the goodness of our Heavenly Father that brings us to a right mind. Here is how the Christ Centered Expository Commentary describes this.
“When he came to his senses” suggests he had been out of his mind in rebellion and sin. He lived a nightmare but called it a dream for a season. But something snapped back into place. All of a sudden he came to his senses and began to recognize something. He recognized the goodness of God. He’s a servant in fields begging for the pods that swine eat, but in his father’s house the hired servants have more than enough bread! Unlike the master in the far country, the younger son’s father is generous toward those who serve him. A man cannot repent until he sees the insanity of sin in light of God’s goodness. Living apart from God and God’s gracious rule amounts to craziness, depravity.”
We are surrounded with a world full of prodigals. They think life is about vacations, adult beverages, and any kind of immoral activity they can get away with. If you are honest with yourself we have all been there. Only seeing the goodness of God in the person of God’s Son can bring us to a right mind. There is true food and celebration in the Father’s house. The sooner we run home the better.
