The Path of the Prodigal Pt 3

"So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him." Luke 15: 15+16

So now we find this young man hiring himself out to people of a foreign country. Now, what was significant about this is that Jews were not supposed to do this. Jews viewed outsiders as dogs and pagan Gentiles. What this young man did was a serious offense in the mind of the average Jewish person at the time. Not only did he move to a foreign country and involve himself with prostitution and whatever else, he also hired himself out to a Gentile!

The wording here would suggest that the young man was hired out as a slave of sorts. This can most certainly be applied to us when we forsake our Father in Heaven. Whenever we turn our backs on God, we become slaves to things foreign to us before. Certain sins come back to haunt us, and we hire ourselves out to them. What is more telling and, perhaps, more fitting to this analogy is that the man was set to feed pigs. Pigs were an extremely unclean animal in the Old Testament. The Jews would have nothing to do at all with swine in any way. For this man to be feeding them and around them all the time would be highly disgusting.

Once again, this drives home what can happen when we say goodbye to God. We run away from Him, we enslave ourselves to new masters, and we wind up dealing everyday with the unclean things of the world.

Verse 16 shows how desperate this man was in his condition. He was so poor and so hungry that he would have stolen food from the pig pen and eaten it. Now, I've never owned pigs or really every been around them much, but I can well imagine using what I've heard of pigs what they eat and how gross that must be. This verse can not only show us how we are when we run away from God, but also it shows us how serious sin really is. ALL sin is this way. Please, never let yourself be caught in the lie that there are some sins worse than others. Every single last sin does this exact same thing to us, and so we need to be on our guard.

The last point of interest in this verse is the fact that though he was starving, nobody gave him anything to eat. People who were against his world were quite content to leave him starving. As a matter of fact, it probably made them chuckle to see the Jewish man starving and begging the pigs for food. I think a crucial point can be illustrated here. As the Gentiles were in his day, so unbelievers are in ours. It is with great caution and prayer that we communicate and deal with unbelievers. We do not know who God has chosen to save, and everyone who is not already for Jesus is against Jesus. All of us would do well to keep that in mind as we go about our days.