Charles Spurgeon Commentary Luke 15:17-19

"But when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father`s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of thy hired servants." — Luke 15:17-19 (ASV)

He said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

It was the knowledge that there was plenty in his father’s house that led him back; and you may depend upon it that the preaching of full salvation rich in blessing, is a strong inducement to a sinner to cry, I will arise and go to my Father. This prodigal son might never have gone back if his father had kept a miserly house with a scanty table; but he knew that even the servants in the kitchen had bread enough and to spare, his father never stinted them, they had what they needed, and there was always more than they could eat, so there was no need for his son to perish with hunger. In like manner, the extraordinary bounty of God in Christ Jesus, the richness of his free redemption is, I doubt not, the means of bringing many a starving soul to Christ.

The prodigal said that the servants had bread enough and to spare. There are some who seem to think that, in Christ, there is only just bread enough, but we believe that the largest possible idea of the value of his redemption may be indulged, and, oftentimes, the thought that first enters the sinner's ear and heart is that there is "bread enough and to spare, so why should he not have some of the spare bread, at any rate?" That was the way that the prodigal argued; he felt sure that his father could feed another hired servant, so he resolved that he would ask to be engaged in that capacity; yet you know that he never did ask that, his father stopped him before he could make that request.