We left the previous part of the series with the youngest son’s demand for his reward. Now we will look to the reward itself.
So, the child is given their inheritance. Again we need to understand something. What he asks for is what is promised in the future, once his father passes from the world. So the prodigal child is asking for in essence their rewards promised them in the eternal life that is yet to be, if we look at the father as God. This is what he asks for and this is what he is given. The same can be said of all that ask God of something. This something, be it wealth, a fancy home, a fancy car. All this is something that was meant for a life they have yet to see. The eternal life. These things you seek after here are not for eternity, but for here, for now, in the contemporary. Yet this is what most demand. This is what the son was asking for.
So the youngest son packs up everything he owns and moves to a distant land. The intent is made clear he turns his back upon his father. Never to see him ever again. Most that deny God live this very way. Many that say they accept Christ as their Savior live this was as well. It is something to be expected as is made clear in 2 Peter chapter 2:
20 – And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. 21 It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. 22 They prove the truth of this proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”
Most do not wish to live a Christian live-style. They find it confining, restricted. They see the Bible as simply a reference tool. A book of suggestions, instead of what it truly is. It is a book of laws that we are required to follow.
John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments….”
This is why most run away from God. This is why they pack all their belongings so they can do as the youngest son did. To live a “riotous living,” away from the site of God their Father and Creator.
Riotous – asotos – extravagantly wasteful because of “loose living,” i.e. a debauched, profligate lifestyle
Profligate – utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute.
As he lived this live-style he wasted all he owned. Then when a famine hit the land he found himself without the ability to even feed himself. So he bonded himself to someone in the land he now lived.
What he made of himself voluntarily was a bondservant. A bondservant is something that was established within the Israelite tribes as a way to settle debts. Simply the person become the property of someone else for a period of time. A slave. In most cases for six years. So being a slave, his master did not even feed him, and he hungered even after the scraps that he was feeding unto the pigs he was ordered to feed.
Here is something else that needs to be understood. The pig is seen as an animal that is detestable, filthy and unclean to the Israelites. To be forced to feed one let alone desire to eat what a pig eats means that the youngest hit rock-bottom.
We will continue this in the next part of the series.