Simple truth spoken to working people

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Contents

PAGE

The Wonder of Indifference i

Not Saved ii

Part I

"A certain man had two softs: and tJu younger of them said to his /athert Father, give me the portion of goods that /alleth to me. And he divided unto them his living" &»c. &*c. — St. Luke xv. 11-32.

T HAVE already addressed you on the first portion of the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St Luke, and explained the peculiar circumstances which led our Lord to utter those parables contained in the chapter, of which that of the Prodigal Son is the last.

I shall now give you an exposition of this most touching and glorious portion of our Lord's teaching.

LOST CONFIDENCE.

" A certain man had two sons : and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me."

This young man lost confidence in his father. He did not believe that he could be so happy in the fulness of his father's house, and in the enjoyment of his portion of goods there, as he would when spending it, according to his own likings, in a far country.

This is a picture of a sinner's falling away from God through unbelief. He loses confidence in God as his Father, He ceases to trust in his good-will towards him, or to believe in the reality of his wish to make him good and happy, and to give him, according to the riches of his grace, through Jesus, the best things in the best way, at the best time. He thus departs from God, first of all in heart, and desires to enjoy the portion of his goods without a sense of his presence, a wish for his blessing, or a thought for his glory. His secret prayer is, — not expressed indeed in words, and not consciously, perhaps, in thought, but nevertheless really in acts, — "Lord, give me my portion of goods, and let me use that portion as / will Give me my body, and let me gratify its appetites ; give me my mind, and let me employ its powers ; give me my heart, and let me pour forth its affections j give me my time and talents ; — ^and let me employ all according to my own wishes, and as I think best for my own pleasure." This is lost con- ^ence.

"Take heed, brethren," says the Apostle, ^^ksi there be in you the evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." For this unbelief is indeed ^^the evil heart;" it is essentially evil, and the source of all sins, the root of all misery. What is the real source of discontent, in which the bitter cry is heard : — " What shall I eat and drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed ?" — Lost confidence in God our Father, who knoweth that we have need of all these things ! Why is it that we fall into grievous error, which tends to ruin the soul ? Because of lost confidence in our Father's wisdom, to teach us, and a consequent leaning as " fools," on our own understanding. Whence arises hopeless despair ? — From lost confidence in our Father's love and mercy to give us all good ! Confidence in God is the soul's life : want of confidence the soul's death. The one is union with God; the other, separation. The one is heaven ; the otlier, heU!

THE GOODS DIVIDED,

"And he divided unto them his living." It is sufficient for my present purpose, to notice merely the fact, that the younger son got all he asked. He asked the portion of his goods, and his father granted his request Strange! you are disposed perhaps to exclaim. Yet does not God thus act towards the sinner ? Ah I it is a very solemn fact that he does so. If the sinner rebel- Uously insists upon it, God may permit him to eat of his own way, and be filled with his own devices. The body of the prodigal is not slain, nor his mind destroyed, nor his affections rooted out, nor his time ended, nor his talents taken away, on the day when he presumptuously seeks to enjoy all, without God. Unless he "chooses the fear of the Lord," he cannot be forced by any outward compulsion to do so. Jesus did not force the young man who came to Him for eternal life, to sell all he had, and to take up his cross and follow Him. Nor did He compel Judas to resign his thirty pieces of silver, but said to him, " What thou doest, do quickly." Let us take heed! If, despising his counsels, neglecting his warnings, and treating lightly his messages, and losing confidence in his fatherly love, we insist upon getting the portion of our goods, to dispose of them according to the inclinations of our own selfish, deceitful, and desperately wicked heart, — then may God, in righteous judgment, permit us to have our own way, and give us the portion which we desire to possess without himself ! But " the backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways." So was it with this Prodigal Son.

THE DEPARTURE.

" Not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his Journey into a far country J'*

This departure from his father was the necessary and immediate result of lost confidence. It is so with every man who loses his trust in God. "The evil heart of unbelief" is soon evidenced by his openly "departing fi:om the living God." But how, it may be asked, can we depart from God? "Whither shall we go from his Spirit, or flee from his presence?" It is true that we cannot so depart from God our Father, as to be concealed firom his sight; for "his eyes are upon the ways of man, and He seeth all his goings."

" There is no darkness nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniqiiity may hide themselves." Could the sinner, terrified by the consciousness of the Divine presence, fly with the rapidity of light to the uttermost parts of the sea, there he would meet the same God. That all-seeing Eye ever searches us : that omnipotent Hand is ever " laid upon usj" "He besets us before and behind.** In one sense, then, we can never depart from God. But we may yet do so in another. We may depart from Him in spirit^ by forgetting Him, forsaking his ways, and ceasing to have any holy and loving communion with Him. Though we cannot blot the sun out of the blue vault of heaven, we may nevertheless shut our eyes, and seal them against his light and beauty; and, as far as we are concerned, this would be the same as if the sun ceased to illuminate our path, or to be the light of the world. And thus, too, may we depart from a friend, by shutting him out of our hearts. What ^ though he may dwell with us in the same home, what though we may hear his voice, or come into contact with his person, yet if we have no communion whatever with him in spirit, how wide is the distance which separates us! And thus the sinner departs from his Father. He shuts his heart against his light and love. He ceases to cultivate acquaintance with Him, by meditating upon his word and ways, by walking with Him in loving obedience, or by enjopng commxmion with Him in prayer. " God is not in all his thoughts." " He forgets God," and lives practically ^^ without God in the world." It is true, God ever sees him, and daily provides for him, causing " the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice over him," and speaks to him by his works of creation and providence, by conscience, by his Word, by friends and ministers, by mercies and afflictions, and "spares him as a man spares his son;" but the sinner is blind and sees Him not, deaf and hears Him not, hard-hearted and loves Him not! He has taken his journey to a far country.

The prodigal did not immediately depart He waited for some days, though "not many days." Neither does the man who loses faith in God manifest at once, by any outward acts, his lost confidence. For some time he may keep up the Gatw2C[^ forms of love. He may come before God as his people come, — ^but his heart is far from Him I He may engage in those outward dutier

94 T^f^ Story of the Prodigal Son.

which are the natiiral expressions of a loving and obedient soul, — ^but the living spirit is wanting! God's service is a drudgery, for it is not the service of sonship. He may have a religion of many works, but he has not any work of true religion, God hathi departed from him; for he hath departed from God !

LIFE IN THE FAR COUNTRY.

" He took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living,^'

Self cannot suffice for self. We must have something without us to support the spirit within us. Therefore he who gives up serving God as a son, immediately serves Satan as a slave. " Two evils " are necessarily committed by the sinner who gives up God: the one is, that of forsaking the "foimtain of living waters;" which is soon followed by the other, that of " hewing out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." It was so with the prodigal. He separated from his father, and then "wasted his substance in riotous living." It is so with sinners. All waste their substance, though it may be in different ways. They waste their bodies by riotous living; by mad intoxication, or by sensuality, in its degraded or more refined forms; — they waste their money , by appropriating all to the service of mere self, to gratify their vanity, ambition, or luxury; — they waste their tiTne, by idleness, or by the pursuit of everything save "the one thing needful;" — they waste their influence over others, and in society, by using it in the cause of evil, and seldom, if ever, in spite of opportunities innumerable, in the cause of good for its own sake; — they waste their affections^ by bestowing them on unworthy objects; — and they waste their mental powers^ by neglecting their cultivation, or by devoting them solely to paltry and perishable ends. Their whole life is an extravagant waste of every 'talent, — z. perversion of every gift, — the destruction by wild riot or slow decay of the immense substance which the Master has given his servants to occupy till He comes. Verily, "treasures of wickedness profit nothing ! " " For what profit is it if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soulP* And it is this death which many men call "life"!

But every prodigal who thus seeks life in a far country finds emptiness of heart and spirit, and no peace ! It was so with him whose history we are considering.

q6 The Story of the Prodigal Son.

THE FAMINE.

"And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want."

He did not, at once, spend all his substance. It lasted some time. He was in a land of famine, indeed, but that famine did not touch him for a season. It reached him, however, at last, and he ^^ began to be in want!" Nor does the sinner who departs from God, at first experience the famine which essentially belongs to the "far country" to which he has wandered. He has substance sufficient to banish for a time, however short, the cravings of his higher nature. The fascinations of society congenial to his mere earthly mind; the love of the creature filling up his mere earthly affections ; the indulgence of more refined tastes ; the excitement connected with dissipation, — ^in all this wasting of his substance there is a partial filling up of his wants, and there seems even to be an abundant supply for him until the end of life.

But a change, sooner or later, must come, when even he suffers from the "mighty famine," which has desolated that far country since the beginning

The Story of tlie Prodigal Son. 97

of the world, and recjuced every dweller in it to beggary. When the prodigal sees all the water of his pleasure run out, and the broken cistern alone remaining, then he is compelled to feel that "it is an evil and a bitter thing to forsake the Lord his God!"

He began to be in want! And what is this great want of the sinner? What, let me ask, is the want of the eye which is closed against the light? Put gold upon the eye, does that supply its want ? Give food to it, or cover it with purple and fine Unen, do these things supply its want? No ! But give it the light again, and that will do it, or nothing will. And just as the eye is made for hght, so is the soul made for God ! Give to the soul all created things, and pour at man's feet the treasures of earth, and adorn his body with the finest apparel, and give him sumptuous fare every day, and permit music and art to do their utmost to please him, — ^is his want therefore suppUed ? The experiment has been tried for six thousand years, and it has utterly failed ; and must fail, because there is a God! When not loving Him, there is a yearning in man's nature, which nothing else can satisfy — a gnawing hunger for some food

H not yet obtained — a deep thirst for some fountain never yet drunk from. And all creation cannot fill up this want of an immortal spirit, which even in its very misery thus unconsciously seeks after the infinite God !

I do not say that every man knows this secret of his sorrow or of his joy. The babe who cries out in its uneasiness, does not know, and cannot tell, why it suffers, and those who minister to it are often as ignorant. Neither may the unhappy sinner know what he wants, and his friends may not be any wiser. But this much, at least, he knows, that as a man he wants something which he has never yet possessed. His very wretchedness and agony of mind witness to this. They are the signals of distress from one who has made shipwreck of his faith ! It is also true — ^too true — ^that the sinner may disbelieve when he is told that God is the only supply of his want; and he may also refuse to return to God, or open his heart to Him ; but it is nevertheless equally true, that until his heart finds God, it will search in vain, though it search for ever, for any other food to satisfy its hunger, or for any other water to assuage its thirst ! " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." But

" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee!"

HELP IN FAMINE.

" He went and joined himself to a citizen of that coimtry; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine."

To feed swine was a most degrading employment for a Jew. The citizen of the far country thus helped the prodigal only by degrading him.

The sinner^s progress in sin and misery is here vividly described. This fellowship with the citizen of the far country represents that period in his history when, becoming more hardened in evil, he becomes the " companion of fools," and seeks the friendship of those who will quiet the risings of conscience by ridiculing the fears which it creates and by applauding the vice which it condemns; who will help to drown every care in draughts of maddening liquor, or silence the secret anguish of the heart by the song and excitement of midnight revelry. If the "fellow-citizens of the saints" are, imder God, our best helpers to keep us within the holy precincts of our Father^s home, so are the citizens of the far country the most conunon and

H 2 icx> The Story of the Prodigal Son.

influential means, in the hands of Satan, for ruining and degrading all prodigals who associate with them. How many brokenhearted .wanderers have in their hour of bitterness or of penitence, remembered " bad companions " as the chief instruments of their crimes] The cell, the hulk, the penal colony, the scaffold, have echoed the same confession. How many, too, who began their Christian course apparently under every prospect of advancing from strength to strength, and from glory to glory, have been gradually alienated from God, by the subtle influence of a friendship which, without being characterised by riotous living, was at least worldly and godless. Many a wife, many a husband, by such imholy alliances, have been kept for ever in a fax country, never, never to meet in their heavenly Father's home ! " Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." "The companion of fools shall be destroyed," For what can those citizens do, who are "strangers and foreigners from the commonwealth of Israel," to relieve the wants of this poor prodigal? His want they do not understand, and so they cannot help to supply it. Alas! they only degrade him, and sink him deeper and deeper. They have no home for his

The Story of the Prodigal Son. loi

heart; but send him to the naked plains. They have no employment to engage his great powers ; and they give him, accordingly, the lowest work of the lowest slave. It would not have been so in his Father's home! In his service, and in his alone, is " perfect freedom," dignity, and joy I Ohl poor prodigal, hast thou not found it so? What have thine ungodly friends done for thee? what have they given thee ? what peace afforded thee? what enduring good bestowed on thee? what sacrifices made for thee? Would thy God and Saviour, whom thou hast forsaken, — ^would thy Christian friends, whom thou hast despised, have so treated thee ? Thou hast tried the one in vain; I beseech thee to try the other, and thou shalt not be put to shame!

HUSKS.

" He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat."

But he could not. Husks are food for beasts, but not for men. And such is the character of every kind of food which the sinner, who rejects God's will as his "meat and drink," would "fill" himself with. Mere husks ! Wealth, honours,

I02 The Story of the Prodigal Son.

fame, science, art, society, business, self-indulgence, creature-love, — all, all are husks when not received from God, with his blessing, and enjoyed according to his will. Of themselves, they are utterly unfit to support the soul. The sinner would fain fill himself with these, but he cannot. Having " perverted his way," he may "fret against the Lord," who righteously permits him to eat the fiiiit of his way ; and this does not cure, but increases his misery, and makes it the more devilish. Well might the poet exclaim, who all his life had so lived and suffered, —

" We wither from our youth — ^we pine away ; Sick, sick^unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst I "

The sinner speaks of the pain and difficulty of serving God, and pictures, in colours startling to flesh and blood, the agony and self-denial of dying daily, and of carrying the cross. But does he not speak of what he has never experienced ? The whole Church of the living God in every age, who have tried this life, declare, with one voice, that it is liberty, peace, and joy unspeakable ! But ail men have partaken of the sinner's food, and experienced, in some degree, life without God, and they know it to be abject slavery, — ^bitter misery ] and tiiat Satan and self are the worst and most crael masters men can serve ! What a slavery is self-will ! — ^what a gnawing at the heart are unsatisfied desires! — ^what wretchedness in the appetite for sinful gratifications growing stronger and stronger, while the pleasure which is ever hoped for from them is growing fainter, the sense of the horrible nature of the bondage is ever recurring, and the power of throwing off" that bondage is ever diminishing! Oh! what sights must be seen — ^what agonies endured — ^what battles fought by the man who forsakes God! In vain — in vain he would seek to fill himself with the husks of sin, — ^he cannot! His heart being empty of God as his portion, all creation, we repeat it, must to him be husks I And yet is it not merciful in God, as well as just, to permit misery to abound to the sinner, so long as he loves sin ? Is not this a testimony at once of God's hatred to the sin, and his desire that the suffering it brings shotdd, if possible, lash the criminal away firom it, to Him who has mercy to pardon and grace to help.

SELFISHNESS.

" No man gave unto him."

The husks had failed — ^the citizens could give

I04 The Story of the Prodigal Son.

no more. The watchword of the far country is, "Every man for himself;" while the household word of the Father's home is, " Love thy neighbour as thyself." "No man gave unto him !" What a picture of the selfishness of the sinner ! — ^for sin is essentially selfish. Self always takes, and is ever getting poorer; love is ever giving, and is ever getting richer. Self thinks it more profitable to receive than to give; love knows it is "more blessed to give than to receive." Self may bestow much ; but love alone can bestow itself. * Where this divine grace of love is wanting, how small is the sympathy between man and man ! How small is the sympathy of the mere worldly man for the old companion of his guilty pleasures, when he is overtaken by misfortune, and can no longer contribute his share to add to the enjoyment of his fellows ; and how small are the sacrifices which he is disposed to make, mth no hope of remuneration save the gratitude of a broken heart ! Who of his associates in guilt tends him in his sickness; mourns with him in his sorrows ; pours oil into his wounds ; drops a tear, even of affection, on his grave ; or cherishes his memory when he is gone? And no wonder ; for the sinner was as selfish as

7^ Story of the Prodigal Son. 105

themselves, and gets but what he gave. Oh ! how loving seem those "riotous livers" as the glass goes round, and as they pledge each other to lasting friendship ! They call each other friends and brothers ; — ^but, alas ! the thread which binds them is a mere gossamer, which a breath may sever. Let the working man who spends his wages among such " friends " be ruined in body and soul, and when he is gone, the dead dog is hardly less missed, or less cared for than he. Will they sing a song less at their next jovial meeting because he is away? or take a single thought whether he is miserable or happy, ruined or saved for ever? Does he ask their sincere love — their hearty sympathy — their brotherly aid — ^their purse to relieve his famished family, or then: prayers to relieve his famished soul? He asks in vain! They have got out of him all he can give them, and now "no man will give to him!" Be assured, that sin, whatever mask she may wear, is selfishness in disguise — ^and that the only hearts we can depend upon through the trials and struggles of our earthly life, are those who are really possessed by the spirit of Him who died for sinners, — a love this which "suffereth long and is kind," " seeketh not her own,"

io6 The Story of the Prodigal Son.

"beareth all diings," "endureth all things;" a love "which never fails," and which adds to its own inexhaustible riches while pouring them into the empty hearts of others !

But here, from a sad experience, many ask almost in despair, does such love exist among men ? if so, w/iere ? The hollow vaults echo back the cry of despair, and answer "where?" — but there is still many a loving Christian home that sends back no echo, and where love can give liberally, and a hearty welcome to the penitent prodigal

THE AWAKING.

"When he came to himsel£"

The prodigal had sunk to the lowest state of degradation and misery. He had been like one out of his mind — ^mad I And who so mad as a sinner set upon the indulgence of his evil desires ? Consider only, in the light of eternal truth, the history of any man who spends his life in seeking to obtain peace for his immortal spirit in what is seen and temporal; and it is a moral madness of the most terrible kind. It is a pursuit of shadows — a grasping at bubbles — a building upon quicksands — a believing in mere dreams. Is it not madness to seek peace where misery alone has ever been fomid? — ^to act against the dictates of reason, and the convictions of conscience, and the findings of experience? To Ipiow that there is a hell, and yet to rush into it, — that there is a heaven, and yet to fly from it, — ^that there is to be a day of judgment, and yet to treasure up guilt for it, — ^that there is a Saviour, and yet to despise Him, — that there is a Gk)d who loves us, yet to cherish a carnal heart at enmity to Him, — that there is a Saviour, yet to refuse Him, — z. Holy Spirit, yet to reject Him ! And all for what ? — For self, for riotous living, or for feeding on husks with swine ! This is the incredible madness of sinners.

But we may view the coming of the prodigal to himself, as a finding of himself the moment he resolves to find his Father. He had gone to a far country to find "j<js^" in everything; but he lost himself in the pursuit of his own shadow. And this is true of every man who imagines that the best way to love self, is not to love God. In thus seeking to gain his "life" he loses it. He does not get what he desures, and he does not desure what he gets. Mere self is the blindest guide to lo8 The Story of -the Prodigal Son.

self, the greatest cheat, the poorest provider, the most cruel tyrant ! Selfishness is self-destruction, — its wisdom, folly ; its independence, slavery ; its sources of happiness, dried up cisterns; and its promises, vain delusions. We never find ourselves, or possess ourselves, or enjoy ourselves, until we cease to seek ourselves, and with a single eye seek God In all things we shall find our good, when in all things we find our God ; and we shall succeed in doing what is pleasing to ourselves, only when we begin by, and steadily aim at, doing what is pleasing to our Father.

THE QUESTION OF HOPE.

" How many hired servants in my father's house have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger !"

There can be no repentance without some hope — some apprehension of mercy. Sorrow for sin is inseparable firom seeing the love of God to us as sinners. Oh ! there was life to the spirit of the prodigal in that word "Father!" He had still a father, who had not changed — ^who had still abundance to give, and a loving heart to give it The light of love again rdsts upon the old forsaken home ! He no longer thinks of it as a place from which he desires to depart ; but to which he would gladly return. The confidence which, for a time, was lost, again begins to dawn upon his disconsolate heart, and to give it some drops of comfort. He asked himself. Why he, who, in spite of all his wanderings, was still a son, should not partake of some of the bounty which his father liberally bestowed upon his hired servants ? Every objection and difficulty vanished before the glad thought that he had a father. It was enough ! A father's heart contained a pledge for every needful blessing.