“Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” Joel 2:13
We come to the return and restoration of Peter and the prodigal son. Sin led both of them to painful situations from which recovery seems to be impossible. (It would be if we did not worship the God of the impossible.) So in the depths oftheir despair God acts and restores two men.
Step 7: Remembering God As we study the prodigal son in the pig pen and Peter on the Sea of Galilee we see God work in their hearts. They both do what they had forgotten to do at the beginning of their downfalls; something God cautioned them to always remember. Both began to remember and meditate on the goodness of the Father. Their descent into sin taught them a lesson God never intended – the horror of evil. God used the hard consequences to teach them both His truth. When you know the horror of sin and compare it to the goodness of God a great longing for what has been lost occurs. The prodigal son while fighting pigs for his food remembers the abundance of food and fellowship at his father’s house. Peter toils all night on the sea and learns he can do nothing. Perhaps that is why the Lord had the fish cooking on the shore – Peter would
remember the Lord meeting the needs of the multitudes as His nail-scarred hands now break the bread and fish to give Peter to eat. In both cases there is a deep longing to return to the goodness they once knew but which they both know is now impossible because of the evil they have done.
Step 8. Turning Back Next we see both men take the necessary steps to return to the father. The prodigal son takes quite a while to reason through his situation and determine what he is going to say to his father. Finally God allows his situation to worsen so he cannot bear to live in the consequences of his sin any further. Thus he travels the road home to become a slave. Peter lived with the consequences of his sin from the time the rooster crowed and the Lord looked at him. The pressure and dryness of being separated from fellowship with the Lord weighs heavily on his heart. When John recognizes the Lord on the shore of Galilee Peter can restrain himself no further. It no longer matters to him the cost, he needs to be where the Lord is. In desperation he dives into the sea to be close to the Lord. A believer can stay close to the Lord out of love or we can flee back to him in desperation after we have suffered the ravages of sin that He warned us against. In other words there is a wise way and a foolish way but they both lead back to the Lord.
Step 9. Repentance Next we see that both men come to the Lord repenting of their sin. The prodigal son comes to his father and the first words out of his grief stricken mouth are “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He confessed his sin against God and his father. He accepts the consequences he knows he deserves. Peter’s confession of sin is different. He has so sinned against the Lord he does not know what to say. Therefore the Lord leads him in an examination of his heart. As He does Peter is brutally honest. He is not the man he once thought he was. He knows he does not love the Lord as he once proudly professed. He sinned against God and is not worthy to be His follower. True repentance does not demand restoration or forgiveness, instead it recognizes and is grief stricken over the magnitude of the harm it has done, They both have gone from sons to slaves but it is better to be a slave than to be alienated.