Luke 14 and 15 are in one sense very happy chapters to dwell upon, seeing how the Lord visited our world, and how we are to visit His world; how nothing in our world pleased Him, and everything in His own. It should be so with us. If we are right-minded we cannot find a home here. Man's apostate condition has built his world, and it is a painful thing to build a house and not be happy in it; yet it should be so with us. You have built a house here, and Christ has built a house in the heavens. Do you cultivate the mind of a stranger in this world and of a citizen in the heavens? (Compare 1 Pet. 2:1212Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. (1 Peter 2:12); Phil. 3:2020For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: (Philippians 3:20)—for "conversation" in the latter, read "citizenship").
After this wonderful moral scenery, we enter on chapter 16—a continuation of the same scene. This chapter is one of the most serious in Luke's gospel. The Lord begins by the parable of the unjust steward, and before we go further let me call your attention to the word "wasted," in the case of the prodigal. It was just what he had done, and it is the business of this parable to show that the elder brother may do just what the younger did. He may be a very respectable waster; there are hundreds of thousands of such in the world, and high in the credit of the world they stand. But, weighed in God's balances, they are just as much wasters as was the dissolute prodigal. If we do not carry ourselves as stewards of God we are wasters. If I am using myself and what I have as if it were my own, in the divine reckoning I am a waster. This lays the ax deep at the root of every tree. The elder brother thought he was not a waster; but let me ask you, If you are living for this world and using what you have as if it were your own, are you not an unfaithful steward, and if so, are you not a waster? Here is a steward. We are not told how he spent his money, but it is enough to know that he was not faithful to his master. Then we see how the Lord goes on to draw out the reasoning of a man like that. He lived for this world, laid plans about his history in this world, and not in the next. The moral is beautifully laid to you and me. As that man laid out his plans for this world, so do you lay out your plans for Christ's future world. If you live to yourself, do you not deny your stewardship to Jesus? Then the Pharisees who heard Him derided Him. To be sure they must! It was a heavenly principle, and they were covetous. Covetousness is living for this world, and we are so far covetous, as we are laying our plans for this world. Now when you find corruptions in yourself, what do you do? Do not let corruptions lead you to give up Christ, but to put on your armor. The Pharisees derided Him, and what did the Lord say to them? "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men." This is just what we were saying. The elder brother may be highly esteemed among men, but "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."
We are now introduced (v. 19) to the parable of the rich man. Tell me, has this passage been rather repulsive to you than attractive? There seems something rather repulsive in it, but let us look at it. Observe the difference between the rich man and the prodigal. The prodigal "came to himself" before it was too late, the rich man after the door was shut. The prodigal was dissolute and abandoned, and when he came to himself he thought of his sin. The rich man came to himself in the place of judgment, and did not think of his sins, but of his misery. The prodigal came to himself in the midst of his misery here, the rich man in the midst of his torment there.
That is all the difference. The prodigal said, I will go back; what a sinner and a rebel son I have been! There was nothing of that gracious stirring in the spirit of the rich man when he lifted up his eyes in flames. The prodigal had not to finish the first sentence; his father answered him on the spot, and put on him a ring and the best robe, and killed the fatted calf; but the rich man cried again and again. It was too late! Here is the end of the respectable waster. Why do I call him a waster? Will you tell me he called himself a steward of God, while he was living sumptuously every day with a saint of God lying at his gate? I am bold to say you and I are just the same if we are living to ourselves. This man died a respectable waster, full of honor and gratification. He had no misery to call him to himself.