Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

there are many modes of departure from God:-a man may be very unlike this prodigal in his way of life, and yet be very little superior to him as to the state of his soul. He may be sober and diligent, yet God may not be in his thoughts: he may be temperate, but covetous and selfish: he may be strictly just and honest, yet malicious and uncharitable he may be outwardly moral, and so far it is well; but there may be no humility within: no preparation for heaven; no love of God, no peace with God: the whole affections may be set on things below. Remember, whether it be gross and wilful sin, or whether it be covetousness, or whether it be pride, or whether it be pleasure, or whether it be worldly care, or whatever it be that keeps the heart at a distance from our heavenly Father; the heart that is not with him, is not in its right place; has wandered from its only safe home; and is separated from God by a gulf as wide as that which separates one country from another.

We can examine ourselves by a sure test. Do we act with God, as towards a Father? Do we hold with him the constant intercourse of prayer? Do we resort to him in our joys as a Benefactor, and as a Protector in our sorrows or our temptations? For this it is to be at home with God, as in a father's house: this it is to "have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." 1

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

1 Rom. viii. 15.

Such is the end of alienation from God.

When

A man

he had spent all, he began to be in want. may not, indeed, have wasted his substance; he may even have increased it by rapacity, by avarice, by unremitted attention to worldly concerns, by seizing every opportunity of advancing his own interest. But the time will arrive, when there will be a famine in the land. His days have been consumed: old age draws on this world fails him: and he is in want of anything to cheer his heart, to excite hope, to comfort a sick bed, and enable him to look towards eternity.

This wretchedness is feelingly described in what follows.

15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him out into his fields to feed swine.

The circumstance here introduced deserves particular remark. The Jews were forbidden to keep swine: the animal was unclean, according to the law of Moses. But this man had departed from God; and he is reduced to a state of misery and degradation which in his father's land he would not have known. He went and joined himself to a citizen of that country: and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So when the Christian leaves his father's house,-abandons the faith and practice of a Christian, he is often led into evils which living as a Christian he would have avoided, and brought into straits which one who leads a christian life is never suffered to experience.

16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him.

This represents a state of great temporal distress. It may represent no less accurately the state of one who strives to satisfy his mind with things which give no real satisfaction. Why do ye labour for that which is not bread? In the season of sickness, of sorrow, of privation, of those reverses which often attend the worldly man, what is the return which the world makes him? It has nothing but husks to offer, which cannot minister food to the diseased mind. Pleasures! what are they in such an hour? Those that may have been innocent, are now vanity : and those that were not innocent, are now vexation of spirit; grievous to look back upon. Riches! what can they do? They can furnish outward comforts : but little indeed is the difference which outward comforts make, when the heart is sick and will not be comforted. And no man gives unto him. Worldly friends soon abandon the companion who can no longer partake of their pursuits, or assist their interests and if they do look in upon him, what can they give? Nothing better than husks. All which they can give is of the earth, earthly; and when earth is receding, and eternity opening to the view, earthly things have lost their value; they are truly unsatisfying, whether a man has anything instead of them or no.

The children who have remained in their Father's house, and conformed to the rules of his family, are not reduced to a state like this. Many who have walked before him in righteousness, are no strangers to pain, and sickness, and poverty: many who have sought first the kingdom of God, have proved that his kingdom is not of this world. But they

are not reduced to feed on husks:-they have still "the bread of life," which those who eat "shall never hunger;"-and they are not destitute:-for they cast their care upon God, and he careth for them. The words of David are verified, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." 2

LECTURE LIX.

REPENTANCE, RETURN, AND RECEPTION OF THE PRODIGAL SON.

LUKE XV. 17-24.

17. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

18. I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 19. And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

We left the prodigal in a condition of great wretchedness. It was well, that he felt his misery. Many are really as wretched as he was, because they are as distant from the Author of all happiness, and yet are not conscious of their state, their spiritual destitution.

Misery however was the means, in the hands of God, of bringing this man to himself: to a sense

2 Ps. xxxvii. 25.

of what he was, and what he might have been, if he had never gone astray, and dealt wickedly. How many hired servants of my father have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

We may here remark the blessings which attend a religious family, a religious education. The prodigal remembers what he had seen in his father's house : he had seen comfort and peace; not perfect comfort, indeed, nor uninterrupted peace; but such peace and comfort as is attainable in a fallen state, and can belong to corrupt hearts and a sinful world : peace and comfort such as is only to be found in the ways of righteousness. And though he had once disliked the restraints which order and duty lay upon perverse inclination, though he had left his father's house that he might be free from them; he now looks back with sad remembrance on what he had formerly despised and abandoned.

Still a resource remains. He knows the character of the father whom he had deserted: and he may possibly find a place in his family again. 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.

Reflect here upon the blessing which belongs to us, to whom is made known the mercy of God as revealed in the gospel. We know that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that all that believe in him might not perish." We know that "God willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." The unenlightened heathen is sometimes affected

« ÖncekiDevam »