From a Hog Wallow to a Feast

One of my favorite passages in my Bible is found in Luke chapter 15 about the prodigal son. And as a preacher, I believe you can preach this passage two ways, and they both can be right. That the prodigal represents the lost sinner, and that the prodigal also represents the backslider as well, friends.

And I want to preach about this prodigal son tonight. You can turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 15. We will be in verses 11 through 33.

My message is entitled, From a Hogwalla to a Feast. Will you stay with me, friend, while I break open this striking passage for you? I pray that God speaks to someone tonight. I pray that if you find yourself in our story tonight, friend, that God will get your attention.

You know the story well. You could probably tell it to someone by heart. You're so familiar with it, you probably heard it as a child.

But don't let your familiarity with a thing make you stumble. Look at what happened to Uzzah when he touched the ark and God smote him dead. So, please, pay attention to this story, friend, for there may be somebody here listening to this message who is near the tipping point of being removed by God.

Do you believe God kills people? I do. I believe that if this prodigal didn't do as he did in the story and exercise repentance toward the Father that there would have been an entirely different ending. He would not have rose from his hogwalla to go to a feast, but he would have continued on in his obstinacy against God, and God would have had no choice but to remove him.

I've known Christians like that, where God gave them ample time and ample grace and ample opportunity to return to him in brokenness and repentance. But rather than do that, they continued on that path away from him, and they were suddenly removed. God is no respecter of persons, friends.

We are warned in 1 Corinthians, Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There may be someone within the sound of my voice who is on the brink of eternity, and this is your last call to come back to God. Harden not your heart, friend, and listen to this message as if it was your last meal, and chew on every word as a life-saving morsel as I bring before you this message from a hogwalla to a feast.

Here now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord attend the reading of his holy word and carry it deep into the conscience for the glory of the Father. And he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. Let me pause here, friends.

This boy is telling his father he wants what has come to him by way of inheritance, and he wants it now. He is asserting himself to his father. Or should I say, self is asserting itself.

Because whenever self takes the throne and wants its way, then Katie bar the door because there'd be hell to pay. So the son wants his, and he wants it now, and he can't wait because he wants to have his way. And when we read a little further down, we see he goes into a far country, and that's what going away from God is, friend.

It's going into a far country, away from the presence of God. Our text reads in verse 13, and took his journey into a far country, and there. Let me pause here, friends.

Those two little words, and there, represent the place of sin and rebellion. He is traveling in the opposite direction of God and looking for that place to sow his wild oats and exercise his rebellion by self-gratification and sin. We see this sow in the words, and there, wasted his substance with riotous living.

That's what sin is, friend. It is wasting your substance. Sin is spiritual destitution and a downgrade, always accompanies sin.

You can't just sin a little, friend, because once you hit those two words, and there, sin is a slippery slide that just carries you down, down further. It's been said, and rightly so, sin will take you farther than you want to go, leave you there longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you ever imagined. So we see this prodigal son with rebellion in his heart, as he sets off to do all that is in his heart.

His brother puts his finger on it when he says, in verse 30, hath devoured thy living with harlots. Sin has its pleasure, for a season, friends, but that season soon ends. That slippery slope is nothing but dissatisfaction.

The sinner finds himself sliding down the slippery slope of dissatisfaction, degradation, and deterioration. Devoured thy living with harlots, and the key word is devoured, because that's what the devil does, friends. He is a devourer, a destroyer.

Sin will bring you low in abasement and misery. Look at where the prodigal ends up. Look at verse 14 and following.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Let me pause here again, friend. Sin will spend all for sure.

Sin will cost all for certain. Sin will place you in a far country, far away from God, and you will find yourself in a famine, a spiritual famine. Do you know who the most miserable person on earth is, friend? It is the Christian, in a far country, backslidden, and away from God.

Oh, that person is in a famine. Everyone and everything is sour to that person, because nothing satisfies. Why, that is so, because the presence of God, by the Holy Spirit, has been grieved away, grieved away.

As you sin, you can almost feel that spirit become quenched, ashamed, grieved, and you are left in a hogwalla. And he joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine, and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat. He's in a hogwalla.

Have you ever smelled one? Ooh-wee, they stink. They are filthy. Those swine, they like to roll in the mud, because that's who they are.

It's a hogwalla, and it's in his walla. Do you know what 2 Peter 2, 22 says, friend? It speaks of this. The dog has turned to his own vomit again.

You ever see a dog lick up his vomit? If you are a dog owner, you have. Sin is loved, even if it stinks. You go back again and again like that dog and his smelly vomit.

What else does this 1 and 2 Peter say? And the sow that was washed to her walla, walla went in the mire. There she goes. The pig was clean, all washed up, all cleaned up, and it returned to the mud and filth of that hogwalla again.

That's what sin is, friend. Why don't you admit it? You are sitting smack dab in a hogwalla. You reek.

You are revolting. You are in rebellion against your God. What happens to this prodigal? He gets sick and tired of his life in that hogwalla, and he decides to do something about it.

He gets up one day and brushes himself off the best he can, and he determines in his heart that he is going back to his father. He does not know what kind of reception he will have, and he does not know how long he'll get there. He just knows he's got to get up and go.

He's got to get out of that hogwalla once and for all. He sets his face homeward, and he takes the first step back in repentance and in humility and in need. Verse 17 describes it this way.

He came to himself. He came to himself. He finally admitted how low he had gone and how much he needed to be back in the presence of his father.

He speaks of his repentance in verses 18 and 19. I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of the hired servants.

This boy just wants to go home. He longs to be in the presence of his father and under his loving gaze again. Well, what happens next? We see the vivid scene before us of the rolling green hills of the countryside of the father's home.

There in the distance, the father makes out a figure as it appears on the horizon. It's my boy. It's my boy.

It's my boy. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and he had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. They are reconciled, the father said to his servants.

Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.

And they began to make merry. So much did they make merry, friends, that the elder brother could hear the ruckus that was coming from the house because he heard music and dancing and they were in the midst of a feast. The prodigal son went from a hogwalla to a feast.

He is feasting with his father. He is in his father's presence, and oh, the time they are having together! It's a happy time, a joyful time, a time to make merry and celebrate in a feast. Not too long ago the son was in a famine, in a far country and living in a hogwalla.

But now he has returned and there is a party going on. It's feasting time. Sin is being in a far country, friend.

Sin separates from a holy God. Sin grieves the Spirit of God. Sin is a famine, a filthy hogwalla.

But in the father's house is a feast. How about you, friend? Are you away in that far country? Are you sick and tired of sin? There's no satisfaction in it. Sin is a thief and the devil is a liar, and a hogwalla is no place for a child of God.

I'm going to leave you to do business with God right now, friend. I'm going to shut my mouth, for my story is over. If you've been living on the husks of the hogs in that hogwalla of sin, get up.

Get up now and do business with your God. There's a feast waiting for you in the father's house. Let us pray.