Parable from Luke 15: Prodigal Son Meets The Prodigal Band (Part Four)

We have come to the end of this sub-set of episodes of Biblical References snippets within The Prodigal Band Trilogy where The Prodigal Band meets the Prodigal Son (from Luke Chapter 15). Part One is here; Part Two is here, and Part Three is here. This Part Four finishes this set and is based on the verses from Luke 15: 20 until the end of the parable. Having spent his inheritance on reprobate living, then having spent it all until there was nothing left, the prodigal son is forced to eek out an existence feeding pigs, wishing he was back home and not literally starving while his father’s servants have plenty to eat. So he decides to return to his father as a ‘hired’ servant. From Luke 15, the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

{15:20} And he arose, and

came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his

father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his

neck, and kissed him. {15:21} And the son said unto him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and

am no more worthy to be called thy son. {15:22} But the

father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put

[it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his]

feet: {15:23} And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill [it;]

and let us eat, and be merry: {15:24} For this my son was

dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they

began to be merry.

In this first snippet from Chapter Thirteen of The Prodigal Band is the scene in the evil Baron Torquay’s sacrifice dungeon where the kidnapped six band members are being prepared to be impaled by a sword help by the man, Mark Besst, inhabited by the Satan-character, Corion. They will all be impaled if they do not take their ‘oath to Corion’ they had ‘vowed’ to take. Singer Erik has been placed on the ‘bloody altar,’ while the other five band members are sitting against a stone wall, bagged and tied. The time is 3 a.m. on July 9, 2001.

When all of the participants in the sacrifice were present and at their places at the altar, Mark, reaching over nearly having to climb onto the altar to do so, removed the knotted tie that kept the burlap bag over Erik’s head, and cut the rope releasing his hands. Torquay, in front of the singer, cut the leg bonds.

After the bag was removed, Erik took a very deep breath and coughed, clearing his throat—some burlap thread residue had gotten into the back of his throat—and spit out the residue. Then looked around at the hooded Hellyons, not really recognizing anyone. Not knowing the order at which they stood. Just knowing Torquay was in front of him and Besst was behind him, and likely to do the dirty deed. And then he saw his fellows sitting against the wall, still bound and bagged.

“I’m fine, bros. Christ be with me. With all of us!”

“In Jesus’ Holy Name, Amen,” Jack answered.

In Jesus’ Holy Name? ‘Beast’ shook in forthcoming terror. The others at the altar did not here Jack’s prayer.

“Get ready,” the Creator said to His angels. “They will not forsake their mission! Be with them!”

“Just say the word, Our Father!” The Tooters readied from the white realm.

(Later, after refusing to take the oath to Satan-Corion, all of them are rescued by God’s Angels and brought into a void they had experienced during the ‘jet burn’incident.)

Considering what had just happened to them—more miracles—not a one of them even bothered to question just how these three ‘men’ showed up at the precise time that they had to have arrived, or how the singer survived a sure sword stab to the heart. Let alone that his face shined!

Yet, these events did cross their minds, in their own ways, nearly simultaneously. Who are these men? How did they get into a dungeon with only one entrance, not seen by the Hellyons? And who was that man Jack was talking about? And why did Erik’s face shine? What caused the sword, only inches away, to miss him? It was as if they didn’t have to figure this out. They already knew why.

But who was that man Jack recognized?

“So when is the right time to send us back home? Or do we have to do something first, like when we were in the void yesterday? Right? We were sent back to the burning jet only after we decided to accept Christ and do the mission.”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“You are asking why we will not send you back right now.”

“Exactly. And don’t think,” Jack faced the leader of the ‘men,’ “that we don’t appreciate that you saved us.”

”No!” the leader said. “You saved you!”

Lubin had heard that before—the witch. That’s what the witch told me when I had said she’d saved Erik and Keith at the hospital and she told me that we saved them by singing ‘Let the Night Down.’

“But you got us out of— Oh, I get it! You are saying that we saved ourselves because we refused to give our Oath to Corion.”

“We did get you out of the dungeon, yes, but since you relied on the Holy Spirit—through Erik—you were all saved. All we did was get you out of there at a precise moment. We did not want you all to witness what Corion, through Mark Besst, would do next.”

While this conversation mainly between the ‘men’ and Jack took place, Keith and Tom kept on bantering Erik about his ‘shining face’ which the singer had no clue about. There were no mirrors in the dungeon.

“So, like, Keith and Tom keep saying they saw my face glow or something as they were leaving that crap hole. Is that true or what? And why? For light or what?” Because there is no way either one of them would lie to me.

“Yes, your face was glowing bright as the light of salvation.”

“Salvation?”

“You were too involved with invoking the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit and warding off evil to notice, but yes, it was your shining light beaming the light of God that kept that sword from killing you, and dispensed with the spirit of evil that Corion attempted to fill the room with, to control his minions who could only exist in the darkness. They could not stand the brightness of what filled you. And what filled you was the light of salvation. As if Christ Himself held you in his arms, and stopped the sword.”

Beside himself with humbleness the like of which he had never experienced. Wow! God filled me with the Holy Spirit which I guess responded to Corion and drove him away from me and defeated him. Me? A guy who used to sin like crazy and believed I was like a god? He snorted a humph! Now there is no way I can ever go back to being that sinner, not even if I wanted to, which I don’t. Like I guess that is what being ‘born again’ is, eh?

Yes, the leader called to his mind, that is precisely what it means to be born again!

The remainder of the parable has the elder son, whom had served his father all his life and never just went off with any inheritance to spend on ‘riotous living,’ becoming angry at the fact that his prodigal brother had done nothing for his father, yet was being treated like, perhaps, he believed (being righteous all his life, not hanging out with harlots) that he should be treated! Jealous indeed, as is stated in the following verses from Luke 15:

{15:25} Now his elder son was in the

field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard

musick and dancing. {15:26} And he called one of the

servants, and asked what these things meant. {15:27} And

he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath

killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and

sound. {15:28} And he was angry, and would not go in:

therefore came his father out, and intreated him. {15:29}

And he answering said to [his] father, Lo, these many years

do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy

commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I

might make merry with my friends: {15:30} But as soon as

this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with

harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.

This reminds me of that other parable I love, from Matthew 20, the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Workers in the vineyard, no matter when they were hired by the owner of the vineyard, are going to get the same wage—even those who only work a very short time. When the workers get their wage, some are pissed off that those who only worked a very short time go the same wage, but the owner of the vineyard rebukes them, telling them that they had been told they’d get the same wage, so stop complaining!

That is, whether you accept Christ as Savior at a young age as with some preachers I know, at middle age, like I did (a true commitment that is), or at old age—like a loved one I had who accepted Christ on her death-bed! (and like a certain evil character who did the same in Chapter Sixteen of The Prodigal Band)—it does not matter—you will reside with Christ in Heaven no matter what. Stop complaining, thinking your reward should be greater than some ‘devil worshiper’ (as with my band characters) who accepts Christ later in life than you did.

The final snippet follows this same thought process, applied to those Christians who believe they should be more rewarded than those who not only accepted Christ earlier in life but also did not live debauched lifestyles as did the prodigal band in the novels. In a previous snippet was a sermon given by a Scottish minister to his flock based on ‘the odds’ of reprobates like the six band members accepting Christ here.  At the end of his sermon in July, 2003, the Presbyterian minister rebukes those Christians that refuse to believe such ‘reprobates’ could ever repent and accept Christ. The snippet ends with a truth from the narrator, pop culure pundit Lloyd Denholm. From Chapter 15 of The Prodigal Band:

“And that brings us to today. I do not have figures on how many prostitutes around today are considered devil worshipers, but I do know of one profession where it is said by some that the vast majority of its practitioners are devil worshipers—rock musicians. You know, they’ve ‘sold their souls to the devil,’ right? That is popular conventional wisdom, anyway. So for many it is extremely hard to believe that six of the most notorious, wealthy, and reprobate of these people could actually proclaim, in public and on record, or on CD for that matter, that they are now believers in Jesus Christ. How can six supposed devil worshipers, not to mention drug addicts, alcoholics, womanizers, purveyors of obscene stage antics, including one bisexual who is known to have sodomized fellow rockers and others, and lovers of money and the debauched lifestyles they have led— how can such licentious evil doers ever possibly accept Jesus Christ and repent? For that is what many believe. That these six musicians are faking it for more mammon. But one would not fake nearly going down in flames on a jet that could have exploded over an ocean, or fake losing one’s beach house, or one’s dear friend who helped one of these six overcome drug addiction, or fake the kidnaping of another one of these six musician’s wives. And survive these actual disasters, unless one has repented to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Is it so far- fetched for Sound Unltd, one of the most successful rock bands in history—with all that wealth and fame and icon status on the line—to leave that all behind giving thanks to God and Christ for saving them and their families in dire situations? Whether they are as vital to the mission of spreading the Word of Christ to the youth as Mary Magdalene would be to the women of Jesus’ day is not the point here. The point is they are doing it and doing it well and succeeding.”

He then held up their CD.

“This CD, the album The Way featuring their repentance song ‘He Is the Way,’ is, as they say in America, selling like hot cakes. Plus one can download this song from their band’s website for free as well. I am promoting this CD because it is too radical and too miraculous not to be promoted. And they aren’t paying me to do it, either. Whether you or your children are fans of this band or not, I strongly suggest buying the CD or downloading the song from their website. For I believe this example could revolutionize the spread of the Word of Christ and the Gospels to the world’s youth as maybe nothing else could today.”

One thing I knew for sure happened after this broadcast over public television and then UK networks and various worldwide channels. Little by little, the doubters repented of their disbelief.

I will end the parable here:

{15:31} And

he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I

have is thine. {15:32} It was meet that we should make

merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is

alive again; and was lost, and is found.

For it says in 1 Timothy 2:3-4, God will have all mankind to be saved, that is, God wants all mankind to be saved, including all ‘prodigal sons’ (and daughters, too).

You can purchase The Prodigal Band Trilogy or the other books that make up the trilogy and/or download the FREE PDF The Prodigal Band at the links in the menu at the top of the page.

The Prodigal Band Trilogy © 2019 by Deborah Lagarde, Battle of the Band © 1996 by Deborah Lagarde, The Prophesied Band © 1998 by Deborah Lagarde and The Prodigal Band © 2018 by Deborah Lagarde. Permission needed to copy any materials off this page.