That is what we do in our unconverted state. We are all the same, when we first realized that we need our sins forgiven and we need to be converted, we try to solve the problem some other way. We may say, ‘I've been a fool. I've lost my money. I've done all the wrong things, but I can still solve my problem. I'm not going to look at myself as though I'm a failure. I don't want my father, that religious father of mine, and ask for his help. I can solve my own problems. There was a preacher of the 1700s named John Kenwick, who long ago came to London from Reading as a young man to take up the trade of a land surveyor, in the city of London. He was to be trained, and he decided he would come to the city from what was then the country, and he would throw himself into a life of pleasure. But within a very short time, as he was doing this, all of a sudden he was struck down with a sense of the emptiness of life and the vanity of it, and he was very heavy hearted. What did he do? He thought for a moment, ‘I've got to find God, I've got to get advice, I've got to find somebody who can help me. I must go to some churches and see if I can learn how I might find God.’ But then another voice within him said, ‘No, I'm not going to do that’, and for two years he tried every possible remedy to bolster himself up and cheer himself up. He tried drink, he tried gambling, he tried all sorts of pleasures, rather than come back to the Lord. Some of us have wriggled and squirmed and resisted the Lord or we haven't wanted to give up our sins. We haven't wanted to come to him, we have been too proud, and even the prodigal tried that so long ago. He tried looking after himself, but it didn't work.
What are the methods that people use? Some people use entertainment; some people use drink; some people use drugs. Anything to drown out the futility; anything to try and get through. ‘I am not going to acknowledge that I need God, and do what these preachers talk about: repent of my sin and seek the Lord. Why, that makes me nothing at all.’ But when you begin to see the emptiness of life without God, this world doesn't want to help you. This world can't help you. It can't help you in real distress. For all its philosophies and its false talk and promises, this world can't help you when you're in trouble. When you are very sick and you think you're going to die, don't ask somebody who isn't a Christian, ‘What's the meaning of life? Why is this happening to me?’ You will suddenly discover how shallow they are. You will discover how uncomfortable they are talking to you while you're speaking like that.
‘And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.’ That is the best that could be done for him. ‘And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.’ One of the old commentators puts it like this. Here he is, a man, a man created by God to feed on angels' bread, living on swine's husks. That is true when we are away from God. God would enable us to feed upon his word, to understand high and wonderful things, to know the meaning of life, to understand human nature, the way of salvation, the glorious promises and policies of Almighty God. What are you doing, away from God, trying to grub up food for your soul? A human being trying to feed on the cheap entertainment and the little things of this life? Angels' bread you were made for, swine's husks you are feeding on.