Luke 15:17 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 15:17

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‘And when he came to himself’, or as we would say today, ‘And when he came to’ – when he snapped out of his dream, when he woke up. The whole trouble with the prodigal was that he was in a kind of dream: to ever think that he could survive that far from home, especially once his money was gone, without coming back to his father. What he says to himself now, he had known all along. He had always known his father was a man of compassion, but he had pushed the idea out of his mind, and he had worked himself up into resenting him. The prodigal woke up out of that dream. ‘And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.’ He thought to himself, ‘What a fool I am! My father! Oh he is such a good man. He runs that estate so well and so kindly; he is such a benevolent person. Now I come to think of it, even the humblest servant is much better off than I am. The humblest servant in my father's household is well fed, well clothed, well cared for. He had hated his father and run from his father, but now he's woken up and he can see things as they really are. It doesn't say this in the parable, the thought is there. ‘The servants in my father’s house have plenty of days off, have a happy time, are well looked after in every possible way. The lowliest servant in my father's household is a happy person with so many blessings and benefits.’ He came to, and he realized what an utter fool he had been. Suddenly we look around and we say, this world isn't the amazing, marvellous place that I thought it was. This world is a fallen world and a sinful world.

Application

It was just a dream and this is a picture of us. If there is anybody who has never come to Christ, never experienced conversion, never sought the Lord, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying. ‘You are in a dream, a kind of daydream. You are dreaming your way through life as though you are sleepwalking, completely asleep to the realities around you, and the dangers of your soul. You're going through life as though there is no heaven, no hell, no God, no judgment, no devil determined to drag you back and drag you down to hell. You are just dreaming as though none of these dangers were there. You have got some thinking to do. You are in a kind of pretend life, pretending you can be happy, pretending you can make it, pretending everything is just fine, when really your soul is dead and you don't know the Lord.

You may be clever, you may be highly educated, you may be very successful in your business, you may be very able in many ways, but the humblest, simplest, lowliest person, the most uneducated person, the poorest person in this world – who is a believer in the Lord, who is a true Christian, who has been converted to God – has a far better life than you have. No matter how wealthy you may be, no matter how clever you may be, no matter how able you may be, the person who loves the Lord and knows him and is able to pray to him; the person who has been changed by God, the person who is loved by God and blessed by God, is much happier than you can ever be, if you are away from the Lord. That is what you have got to realize. You have got to come to yourself and realize what you're losing. You have got to see what you're rejecting from a gracious God, as the prodigal did in the parable so long ago.

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Luke 15:17 Commentary and Bible Study