A Stinky Place
My father-in-law was a pig farmer. I learned a lot about pigs from him. I learned that pigs are not just plant eaters. They will eat anything. That may be why we call them pigs. I learned that pigs can get angry with you. When they do, don’t go near them. Since my only experience with pigs these days is around ham and bacon, I don’t need those lessons anymore.
Today, I want to tell you about a young man who needed to know more about pigs and pigpens Jesus tells the story in Luke 15. It is about a boy who got his inheritance, left home, lost his money, came to his senses, and went home to his dad. It is a story familiar to many of us, but do you know the essential place in the story? It is the pig pen. After he spent his money the only job he could find was feeding pigs. It was in that pig pen that his starvation led him to go home. Jesus said:
“He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!’” (Luke 15:16-17).
His story is a common one. When folks leave God and head out into the world, sooner or later, they too will come face-to-face with the pig pen. Here are three lessons from this story.
1. There is always a pig pen.
No one leaves God thinking “I am heading to the pain and humiliation of the pig pen. The backslider always thinks he is headed to something better, but not a pig pen.
2. The pig pen stinks.
Life in the pig pen is never good. It is a stinky place. At first, the Devil makes you think it’s good, but this is merely a deception.
3. The pig pen changes you.
Thank God for the pig pen. The pig pen brought the prodigal to his senses. It still brings wayward folks to their senses.
The only way out of the pig pen is the way the prodigal son got out. He came to his senses and ran home to the Father. Any of us in the pig pen should do the same.
Lonnie Davis