I shall not seek to recall the story which was read us in the lesson a few minutes ago, suffice to say that it is a truly wonderful story; one that has gripped the imagination of men in all ages. So simple that a child can understand the broad outlines of its teaching. And yet so profound that it unfolds to us the very heart of God himself. For the householder of the parable is our loving heavenly Father—God, who created man in his own image, a living, thinking, willing soul. He has not only created, but he sustains us. He has placed us in this wonderful world with its ample provision for all our needs and desires. We all owe him honour, love, obedience; but like the younger son of the parable we are filled with discontent and sinful longings.
God does not want our unwilling service. He gives us our inheritance, all those rich endowments which are ours as the children of God, made in his image, conscience, reason, memory and many talents. And then the privileges which are ours in the family of God's children,—his love, his word, the means of Grace—And wordly blessings beyond measure. And with all this, he has also given us free will. Alas how often we fail to appreciate all that it means to be at home in the family of God's people, and in communion and fellowship with him! What a source of strength we have in our privileges by the means of grace, prayer and the sacraments! And take all that we are and have become by birth and Christian training, and take our journey in to the far country. For spiritually interpreted, the request of the Son is just this,—man's selfish, ungrateful, shortsighted desire to be independent of God's control and free to indulge in unrest trained lust and desire. And the far country is any place where God's will is trampled under foot,—anywhere that the principles of Christ do not obtain. The far country is being far from God in character, in motives, in feelings, in works, in sympathy. It is estrangement from God, dislike of his rule. Opposition to his laws.
After a while in the far country the prodigal began to be in want. It is ever so. Sooner or later the world ceases to make even a show of satisfying us. One after another its attractions pall, and our capacity for enjoying them becomes less and less. This is a common-place of experience,—so much so that it hardly needs illustration. The world has never and can never ultimately satisfy a human soul. Its pleasures turn to husks which may satisfy and support swine, but not man made in e image of God.
And then the boasted freedom of sin is seen in its true light as the most degrading slavery. Feeding swine was the most debasing work a Jew could do, Our Lord gives us here a hint of that awful mystery in the downward progression of souls, whereby he who begins to use the world to minister to his pleasures. submits in the end to a strange reversing of the relations that exist between them, and becomes the drudge and slave of the world. The prodigal son feeding swine in the far country, is a graphic illustration of one who has become the slave of his own evil habits.
But thank God the story does not end there. Before it is too late, before the chains of sin are rivetted upon him, the prodigal comes to himself; he comes to the realization of his foolishness; he remembers his father's house, and remembers how much better off are the servants there than the son in the far country, and he resolves to return.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.