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It takes a great deal longer to make money than to spend it. Although it is only a little while since this young man got one-third of his father's property, it is all gone — every cent of it. So you have known men toiling for twenty, thirty, forty years in commercial or mechanical life, have acquired large property, to lie down and die, leaving a great estate; and in five years the boys have got all through with it. So this young man of the text and his money was soon parted. I do not know just how it went, but there, in the first place, were his travelling expenses. A man who had been brought up as luxuriantly as he evidently was, from the surroundings of that home, could not lodge just anywhere, nor be contented with plain fare. He had been used to see things on a large scale, and I do not suppose he closely calculated the expense. I do not suppose he always stopped to take change. I suppose that sometimes he bought things without any regard to what they cost. Then, besides that, there came in the bill for his personal apparel, and a young man who had a third of his father's property in his pocket could not afford to go shabbily dressed, and so he must have clothes of the best pattern and of the finest material. Besides that, the young man of the text had to meet the bill for social entertainment. He must treat, and it must be with the costliest wines and the rarest viands. Besides that, the sharpers found out that this young man had plenty of money, and they volunteer their services. They will show him the sights. They can tell him things ha never imagined away off on that father's homestead. Well, they undertake to show this man the sights, and after a while he wakes up one day and he says, "I think I will count my money." And he counted his money. It was half gone; but as his habits were thoroughly fastened upon him he could not stop. After awhile he counted his money again, and it was three-fourths gone; but he was on the down grade, going swifter and swifter and swifter, until, when he comes to look for his money, it is all gone. Now, these associates, who stuck to him as long as he had plenty of money, are gone. Morning-glories bloom when the sun is coming up, not when the sun is going down. There is no money with which to meet his expenses. Besides that, the crops have failed, and there is famine in the land, and at a time when affluent men are straitened about getting their daily bread, what is to become of this poor fellow, with an empty pocket and a discouraged heart? "Oh!" you say, "let him work." He cannot work. His hands, soft and tender, would be dreadfully blistered with toil. Perhaps he comes then to some place where he can get occupation, he thinks, appropriate for an educated young man. He comes to a commercial establishment and asks for work. "No," says the head man of the business firm, "we can't have you. Why, you are nothing but a tramp of the street." Perhaps he comes to the office of some official of the government, and seeks employment by which he can support himself. "No," says that officer, "a man clad as you are cannot find any employment in my office." What is he to do? In a strange land. Money all gone. No friends. Ragged. Wretched. Undone. My text with one stroke gives the awful full-length photograph: "He began to be in want." Now, what does all that mean? It means you and me. Our race had a good starting; but we all went away from God, our home, and we have found sin to be an expensive luxury. It despoiled us. It hungered us. It robbed us. It made us hopeless and godless. We had a fine spiritual fortune to start with, and we spent it, and we "began to be in want." I care not how fine our worldly estate may be, or how much bank stock we may possess, or how elegant our social position, sin has pauperized the whole race, and until we go back to God, our home, we are in an awful state of beggary and want. There is no exception to it.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: And he said, A certain man had two sons:

WEB: He said, "A certain man had two sons.