3406. Fulness Of Joy Our Privilege

A Sermon Published On Thursday, May 21, 1914.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.” {Lu 5:8}

1. The disciples had been fishing all night. They had now quit fishing; they had left their boats and were mending their nets. A stranger appears. They had seen him, probably, once before, and they remembered enough of him to command respect. Besides, the tone of voice in which he spoke to them, and his manner, at once ruled their hearts. He borrowed Simon Peter’s boat and preached a sermon to the listening crowds. After he had finished the discourse, as though he would not borrow their vessel without giving them their hire, he told them to launch out into the deep and let down their nets again. They did so, and, instead of disappointment, they at once took so vast a haul of fish that the boats could not contain them all, and the net was not strong enough, and began to break. Surprised by this strange miracle, overawed, probably by the majestic appearance of that matchless One, who had performed it, Simon Peter thought himself quite unworthy to be in such company, and fell on his knees, and cried this strange prayer, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.”

2. I. So I desire that, first of all, we shall hear: — THE PRAYER IN THE WORST SENSE WE CAN GIVE TO IT.

3. It is always wrong to put the worst construction on anyone’s words, and therefore we do not intend to do so, except by way of licence, and for a few moments only, to see what might have been made out of these words. Christ did not understand Peter in that way. He put the best construction on what he said, but if a critic had been there, a wrong interpretation would have been given to this sentence: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.”

4. The ungodly virtually pray this prayer. When the gospel comes to some men, and disturbs their conscience, they say, “Go your way for this time; when I have a more convenient time, I will send for you.” When some troublesome preacher tells them about their sins, when he puts a burning truth into their conscience, and rouses them so that they cannot sleep or rest, they are very angry with the preacher, and the truth that he was constrained to speak. And if they cannot tell him to get out of their way, they can at least get out of his way, which amounts to the same thing, and the spirit of it is, “We do not want to give up our sin; we cannot afford to part with our prejudices, or with our darling lusts, and therefore depart, go out of our country; leave us alone; what have we to do with you Jesus, you Son of God? Are you come to torment us before our time?” Peter meant nothing of this kind, but there may be some here who do, and whose avoidance of the gospel, whose inattention to it, whose despite to it, and hatred for it, all put together virtually make up this cry, “Depart from us, oh Christ.”

5. Alas! I fear there are some Christians who do in fact, I will not say intentionally, really pray this prayer. For example: if a believer in Christ shall expose himself to temptation, if he shall find pleasure where sin mingles with it, if he shall forsake the assemblies of the saints, and find comfort in the synagogue of Satan; if his life shall be inconsistent practically, and also he shall become inconsistent by reason of his neglect of holy duties, ordinances, private prayer, the reading of the Word, and the like — what does such a Christian say but, “Depart from me, oh Lord”? The Holy Spirit remains in our hearts, and we enjoy his conscious presence if we are obedient to his admonitions; but if we walk contrary to him, he will walk contrary to us and before long we shall have to say: — 

   Where is the blessedness I knew

   When first I saw the Lord?

6. Why does the Holy Spirit withdraw the sense of his presence? Why, but because we ask him to go? Our sins ask him to go; our unread Bibles do, as it were, with loud voices ask him to be gone. We treat that sacred guest as if we were weary of him, and he takes the hint, and hides his face, and then we sorrow, and begin to seek him again. Peter does not do so, but we do. Alas! how often ought we to say, “Oh! Holy Spirit, forgive us, that we so vex you, that we resist your admonitions, quench your promptings, and so grieve you! Return to us, and remain with us for evermore.”

7. This prayer in its worst is sometimes practically offered by Christian churches. I believe that any Christian church that becomes divided in feeling, so that the members have no true love for each other, that lack of unity is an act of horrible supplication. It as much as says, “Depart from us, you Spirit of unity! You only dwell where there is love: we will not have love: we will disturb your rest: go from us!” The Holy Spirit delights to remain with a people who are obedient to his teaching, but there are churches that will not learn: they refuse to carry out the Master’s will, or to accept the Master’s Word. They have some other standard, some human book, and in the excellencies of the human composition they forget the glories of the divine. Now I believe that where any book, whatever it may be, is placed above the Bible, or even set beside it, or where any creed or catechism, however excellent, is made to stand at all on an equality with that perfect Word of God, any church that does this, in fact, says, “Depart from us, oh Lord,” and when it comes to actual doctrinal error, particularly to such grievous errors as we hear of nowadays, such as baptismal regeneration, and the doctrines that are congruous to it, it is, as it were, an awful imprecation, and seems to say, “Go away from us, oh gospel! Go away from us, oh Holy Spirit! Give us outward signs and symbols, and these will suffice us; but depart from us, oh Lord; we are content without you.” As for ourselves, we may practically pray this prayer as a church. If our prayer meetings should be badly attended; if the prayers at them should be cold and dead; if the zeal of our members should die out; if there should be no concern for souls; if our children should grow up around us untrained in the fear of God; if the evangelisation of this great city should be given over to some other band of workers, and we should sit still; if we should become cold, selfish, listless, indifferent — what can we do worse for ourselves? How, with greater potency, can we raise the dreadful prayer, “Depart from us: we are unworthy of your presence: go away, good Lord! Let ‘Ichabod’ be written on our walls; let us be left with all the curses of Gerizim ringing in our ears.”

8. I say, then, the prayer may be understood in this worst sense. It was not meant to be understood like that: our Lord did not read it that way: we must not read it in that way concerning Peter, but let us, oh! let us take care that we do not offer it like this, practically concerning ourselves.

9. II. But now in the next place we shall strive to take the prayer as it came from Peter’s lips and heart: — A PRAYER WE CAN EXCUSE, AND ALMOST COMMEND.

10. Why did Peter say, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord”? There are three reasons. First, because he was a man; secondly, because he was a sinful man; and again, because he knew this, and became a humble man.

11. So, then, the first reason for this prayer was that Peter knew that he was a man, and therefore, being a man, he felt himself amazed in the presence of such a one as Christ. The first sight of God, how amazing to any spirit, even if it were pure! I suppose God never did reveal himself completely, could never have revealed himself completely to any creature, however lofty in its capacity. The Infinite must overwhelm the finite. Now, here was Peter, beholding probably for the first time in his life in a spiritual way the very great splendour and glory of the divine power of Christ. He looked at those fish, and at once he remembered that night of weary toil, when not a fish rewarded his patience, and now he saw them in masses in the boat, and all done through this strange man who sat there, having just preached an even stranger sermon, of which Peter felt that never a man spoke like that before, and he did not know how it was, but he felt abashed; he trembled, he was amazed in the presence of such a one. I do not wonder, if we read that Rebekah, when she saw Isaac, came down from her camel and covered her face with her veil; if we read that Abigail, when she came to meet David, alighted from her donkey and threw herself on her face, saying, “My Lord, David!”; if we find Mephibosheth depreciating himself in the presence of King David, and calling himself a dog — I do not wonder that Peter, in the presence of the perfect Christ, should shrink into nothing, and in his first amazement at his own nothingness and Christ’s greatness, should say he scarcely knew what, like one dazed and dazzled by the light, half-distraught, and scarcely able to gather together his thoughts and put them connectedly together. The very first impulse was as when the light of the sun strikes on the eye, and it is a blaze that threatens to blind us. “Oh! Christ, I am a man; how can I bear the presence of the God who rules the very fishes of the sea, and works miracles like this?”

12. His next reason was, I have said, because he was a sinful man, and there is something of alarm, mixed with his amazement. As a man he stood amazed at the outshining of Christ’s Godhead: as a sinful man he stood alarmed at its dazzling holiness. I do not doubt that in the sermon which Christ delivered there was such a clear denunciation of sin, such laying of justice to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, such a declaration of the holiness of God, that Peter felt himself unveiled, discovered, his heart laid bare: and now came the finishing stroke. The One who had done this could also rule the fishes of the sea: he must, therefore, be God, and it was to God that all the defects and evils of Peter’s heart had been revealed and thoroughly known, and almost fearing with a kind of inarticulate cry of alarm, because the criminal was in the presence of the Judge, and the polluted in the presence of the Immaculate, he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.”

13. But I have added that there was a third reason, namely, that Peter was a humble man, as is clear from the saying, because he knew himself, and confessed bravely that he was a sinful man. You know that sometimes there have been people in the world who have suddenly found some king or prince come to their little cottage, and the good housewife, when the king himself was coming to her hut has felt as if the place itself was so unfit for him that, though she would do her best for his majesty, and was glad in her soul that he would honour her hovel with his presence, yet she could not help saying, “Oh! that your majesty had gone to a worthier house, had gone on to the great man’s house a little ahead, for I am not worthy that your majesty should come here.” So Peter felt as if Christ lowered himself almost in coming to him, as if it were too good a thing for Christ, too great, too kind, too condescending a thing, and he seems to say, “Go up higher, Master; do not sit down so low as this in my poor boat in the midst of these poor dumb fishes; do not sit down here, for you have a right to sit on the throne of heaven, in the midst of angels who shall sing your praises day and night; Lord, do not stay here; go up; take a better seat, a higher place; sit among more noble beings, who are more worthy to be blessed with the smiles of your Majesty.” Do you not think he meant that? If so, we may not only excuse his prayer, but even commend it, for we have felt the same. “Oh!” we have said, “does Jesus dwell with a few poor men and women who have come together in his name to pray? Oh! surely, it is not a good enough place for him; let him have the whole world, and all the sons of men to sing his praises; let him have heaven, even the heaven of heavens: let the cherubim and seraphim be his servants, and archangels loose the latchets of his shoes: let him rise to the highest throne in glory, and there let him sit down, no more to wear the thorn-crown, no more to be wounded and despised, and rejected; but to be worshipped and adored for ever and ever.” I think we have felt like that, and, if so, we can understand what Peter felt, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.”

14. Now, brothers and sisters, there are times when these feelings, if they cannot be commended in ourselves, are yet excused by our Master, and have a little in them, at any rate, which he looks at with satisfaction. Shall I mention one?

15. Sometimes a man is called to an eminent position of usefulness, and as the vista opens before him, and he sees what he will have to do, and with what honour his Master will be pleased to load him, it is very natural, and I think it is almost spiritual for him to shrink and say, “Who am I that I should be called to such a work as this? My Master, I am willing to serve you, but oh! I am not worthy.” Like Moses, who was glad enough to be the Lord’s servant, and yet he said, and he meant it so heartily, “Lord, I am slow of speech; I am a man of unclean lips, how can I speak for you?” Or, like Isaiah, who rejoiced to say, “Here I am, send me” but who felt, “Woe is me, for I am a man of uncircumcised lips; how shall I go?” Not like Jonah, who would not go at all, but needed to go off to Tarshish to escape working at Nineveh; yet perhaps with a little seasoning of Jonah’s bitters, too, but mainly a sense of our own unworthiness to be used in so great a service, and we seem to say, “Lord, do not put me in that position; after all, I may slip, and dishonour you; I would serve you, but lest by any means I should give way under the strain, excuse your servant, and give him a humbler post of service.” Now, I say we must not pray in that way, but still, while there is some evil there, there is a sediment of good which Christ will perceive, in the fact that we see our own weakness and our own unsuitableness. He will not be angry with us, but, separating the chaff from the wheat, he will accept what was good in the prayer, and forgive the bad.

16. Sometimes, again, dear friends, this prayer has been almost on our lips in times of intense enjoyment. Some of you know what I mean, when the Lord draws near to his servants, and is like the consuming fire, and we are like the bush that seemed to be altogether ablaze with the excessive splendour of God experienced in our souls. Many of God’s saints have at such times fainted. You remember Mr. Flavel tells us that riding on horseback on a long journey to a place where he was to preach, he had such a sense of the sweetness of Christ and the glory of God, that he did not know where he was, and sat on his horse for two hours straight, the horse wisely standing still, and when he came to himself he found that he had been bleeding freely through the excess of joy, and as he washed his face in the brook by the roadside he said he felt then that he knew what it was to sit on the door-step of heaven, and he could hardly tell that if he had entered the pearly gates he could have been more happy, for the joy was excessive. To quote what I have often quoted before, the words of Mr. Welsh, a famous Scottish divine, who was under one of those blessed deliriums of heavenly light and rapturous fellowship, and exclaimed, “Hold, Lord! hold: it is enough! Remember, I am only a clay vessel, and if you give me more, I will die!” God does sometimes put his new wine into our poor old bottles; and then we are half inclined to, say, “Depart, Lord: we are not ready yet for your glorious presence.” It does not come to saying that: it does not amount to all that in words, but still, the spirit is willing, and the flesh is weak, and the flesh seems to recoil from the glory which it cannot bear as yet. There are many things which Christ would tell to us, but which he will not, because we cannot bear them now.

17. Another time, when this has passed over the mind, not altogether rightly, not altogether sinfully, like the last two, happens when the sinner is coming to Christ, and has indeed in a measure believed in him, but when at last that sinner perceives the greatness of the divine mercy, the richness of the heavenly pardon, the glory of the inheritance which is given to pardoned sinners. Then many a soul has fallen back and said, “It is too good to be true; or if true, it is not true to me.” Well do I remember a staggering fit I had over that business. I had believed in my Master, and rested in him for some months, and rejoiced in him, and one day, while revelling in the delights of being saved, and rejoicing in the doctrines of election, final perseverance, and eternal glory, it came across my mind, “And all this for you, for such a dead dog as you — how can it be so?” and for a while it was a temptation stronger than I could overcome. It was just saying spiritually, “Depart from me; I am too sinful a man to have you in my boat, too unworthy to have such priceless blessings as you bring to me.” Now, that, I say, is not altogether wrong, and not altogether right. There is a mixture there, and we may excuse, and somewhat commend, but not altogether. There are other times in which the same feeling may come across the mind, but I cannot take time now to specify them.

18. III. It may be so with some here, and I ask them not to concern themselves utterly, nor yet to excuse themselves completely, but to go on to the next teaching of this prayer: — A PRAYER THAT NEEDS AMENDING AND REVISING.

19. As it stood it was not a good one: now, let us put it in a different way, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord.” Would it not be better to say, “Come nearer to me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord”? It would be a braver prayer, and a more tender prayer as well: more wise, and not less humble, for humility takes many forms. “I am a sinful man,” here is humility. “Come nearer to me,” here is faith, which prevents humility from degenerating into unbelief and despair. Brethren, that would be a good argument, for see: “Since, Lord, I am a sinner, I need purifying; only your presence can truly purify, for you are the Refiner, and you purify the sons of Levi: only your presence can cleanse, for the fan is in your hand, and only you can purge your floor. You are like a refiner’s fire, or like fuller’s soap: come nearer to me, then, Lord, for I am a sinful man, and would not be always sinful; come, wash me from my iniquity so that I may be clean, and let your sanctifying fire go through and through my nature until you burn out of me everything that is contrary to your mind and will.” Dare you pray that prayer? It is not natural to pray it; if you can, I would say to you, “Simon Barjona, blessed are you, for flesh and blood have not taught you this.” Flesh and blood may make you say, “Depart from me”; it is only the Holy Spirit who, under a sense of sin, can yet give you a divine attraction to the purifying fire, and make you long, therefore, that Christ should come near to you.

20. Again, “Come near to me, Lord, since I am a man, and being a man am weak, and nothing can make me strong but your presence. I am a man, so weak that if you depart from me, I faint, I fall, I pine, I die; come near to me, then, oh Lord, so that by your strength I may be encouraged and be outfitted for service. If you depart from me, I can render you no service whatever. Can the dead praise you? Can those with no life in them give you glory? Come near me, then, my God, though I am so feeble, and as a tender parent feeds his child, and the shepherd carries his lambs, so come near to me.”

21. Do you not think he might have said, “Come near to me, Lord, and remain with me, for I am a sinful man,” in the memory of how he had failed when Christ was not near? All through that night he had put the net into the sea with many a splash, and had drawn it up with many an eager look as he gazed through the moonlight, and there was nothing that rewarded his toil. In went the net again, and now when Christ came, and the net was full to bursting, would it not have been a proper prayer, “Lord, come near to me, and let me succeed every time that I work: and if I am made a fisher of men, keep nearer to me still, so that every time I preach your Word, I may bring souls into your net, and into your Church so that they may be saved?”

22. What I want to draw out from the text — and I shall do so better if I continue bringing out these different thoughts — is this: that it is good when a sense of our unworthiness leads us, not to get away from God, in an unbelieving, petulant despair, but to get nearer to God. Now, suppose I am a great sinner. Well, let me seek to get nearer to God for that very reason, for there is great salvation provided for great sinners. I am very weak, and unfit for the great service which he has imposed on me; do not let me, therefore, shun the service or shun my God, but consider that the weaker I am the more room there is for God to get the glory. If I were strong, then God would not use me, because then my strength would get the praise for it, but my very unfitness and lack of ability, and all that I lament in myself in my Master’s work, is only so much elbow-room for omnipotence to come and work in. Would it not be a fine thing if we could all say, “I do not boast in my talents, not in my learning, not in my strength, but I boast in infirmity, because the power of God rests on me”; men cannot say, “That is a learned man, and he wins souls because he is learned”; they cannot say, “That is a man whose faculties of reasoning are very strong, and whose powers of argument are clear and he wins sinners by convincing their judgments”; no, they say, “What is the reason for his success? We cannot discover it; we see nothing in him different from other men, or perhaps only the difference that he is less gifted than they are.” Then glory be to God; he has the praise more clearly and more distinctly, and his head who deserves it wears the crown.

23. See, then, what I am aiming at with you, dear brothers and sisters. It is this — do not run away from your Master’s work, any of you, because you feel unfit, but for that reason do twice as much. Do not give up praying because you feel you cannot pray, but pray twice as much, for you need more prayer, and instead of being less with God, be more. Do not let a sense of unworthiness drive you away. A child should not run away from his mother at night because he needs washing. Your children do not stay away from you because they are hungry, nor because they have torn their clothes, but they come to you just because of their needs. They come because they are children, but they come more often because they are needy children, because they are sorrowful children. So let every need, let every pain, let every weakness, let every sorrow, let every sin, drive you to God. Do not say, “Depart from me.” It is a natural thing that you should say so, and not a thing altogether to be condemned, but it is a glorious thing, it is a God-honouring thing, it is a wise thing, to say, on the contrary, “Come to me, Lord; come even nearer to me, for I am a sinful man, and without your presence I am utterly undone.”

24. I shall say no more, but I wish that the Holy Spirit would say this to some who are in this house, who have long been invited to come and put their trust in Jesus, but always plead as a reason for not coming, that they are too guilty, or that they are too hardened, or too something or other. Strange, that what one man makes a reason for coming, another makes a reason for staying away! David prayed in the Psalms, “Lord have mercy, and pardon my iniquity, for it is great.” “Strange argument,” you will say. It is a grand one. “Lord here is great sin, and there is something now that is worthy of a great God to deal with. Here is a mountain sin, Lord, have omnipotent grace to remove it. Lord, here is a towering Alp of sin; let the floods of your grace, like Noah’s flood, come twenty cubits over the top of it. I, the chief of sinners am; here is room for the chief of Saviours.” How strange it is that some men should make this a reason for staying away! This cruel sin of unbelief is cruel to yourselves; you have put away the comfort you might enjoy. It is cruel to Christ, for there is no pang that ever wounded him more than that unkind, selfish thought, that he is unwilling. Believe, believe that he never is so glad as when he is clasping his Ephraim to his breast, as when he is saying, “Your sins, which are many, are all forgiven you.” Trust him. If you could see him, you could not help it. If you could look into that dear face, and into those dear eyes once red with weeping over sinners who rejected him, you would say, “Behold, we come to you; you have the words of eternal life; accept us, for we rest in you alone; all our trust rests on you”; and that done, you would find that his coming to you would be like rain on the mown grass, as the showers that water the earth, and, through him, your souls should flourish; your sackcloth should be taken away, and you should be clothed with gladness, and rejoice in him world without end. May the Lord himself bring you to this. Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Lu 15:1-27}

We shall read tonight a chapter which, I suppose, most of us know by heart. But as often as I have read it, I do not remember ever reading it without seeing some fresh light in it. May it be so tonight.

1. Then all the Publicans and sinners drew near to him in order to hear him.

A rare crowd they must have been, when it is said all the Publicans and sinners. All kinds of sinners came in such numbers that it seemed as if the city had sent out all its hosts of sinners. And these drew near — came as close as they ever could, for fear of losing a single word. They made the inner ring around the Saviour. He had a body-guard of sinners, and certainly there are none who will ever glorify him as these people will do.

2. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners, and eats with them.”

They stood farther off. Not to listen, but to murmur. Here was the old fable of the dog in the manger. They did not want Christ themselves, but they murmured that other people should have him. They despised him. They thought themselves too righteous to need a Saviour. Yet they murmured when the Physician came to his patients to give them the healing medicine.

3. And he spoke this parable to them, saying,

They were hardly worth his trouble. But though he spoke it to them, others who are not of that kind have sucked sweetness out of it ever since. This is a parable we are told, but on looking at it we find it to be three. Have you never seen a picture in three panels and all of the panels are necessary to complete the picture? So it is here. Different views of the great work of grace suiting different people, so that if we do not see on one panel, we may use a second, and a third.

4-7. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after what is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ I say to you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just people, who need no repentance.

Not that one repenting sinner is held in more esteem in heaven than ninety-nine saints, who have been kept by the power of God. No, not so; but there is a greater stir of joy in heaven at the time of the sinner’s repentance than there is over all the ninety-nine. And you know how that is. You may have many children, and you may love them all equally, yet if one is ill, you take far more notice of him just then, and all the house is ordered for the benefit of that sick child. He may not be the best child you have, but still, for the time being, there is more thought concerning him because he is ill. And if you should happen to have in your family a boy that has greatly grieved you, and has gone astray, I am sure that, if he were to repent, you would feel intense joy over him. But it would not be true that you thought more of him than of his brothers and of his sisters, who are with you, and are obedient to you. We must not learn from a passage more than it teaches. At the same time, let us learn as much as we can from it. It sets heaven ablaze with joy when one single penitent turns to his Father.

8. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she loses one piece, does not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she finds it?

Eastern houses generally are very dark, and if you want to find anything you must light a candle. Now, this is one piece of money out of ten, as the sheep was one out of a hundred. The woman does not stand counting over the other nine, but she leaves them in the box, and lights a candle, and begins to make a stir. No doubt other people who were in the house would say, “What an inconvenience this dust is.” She must find her piece of money. So sometimes in a congregation, we feel it necessary to have special services and make a little stir, and there are some good souls who are inconvenienced, and they do not like making a dust. Oh! it does not matter what dust we make, as long as we find the lost piece, and if a soul is found, we can put up with some irregularities, as long as the precious thing is discovered and brought to its owner.

9, 10 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and her neighbours together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.’ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Here follows this most wonderful of all parables. The best picture of man’s folly and lost estate that was ever sketched, and at the same time the most wonderful picture of the mercy and love of God that was ever painted. Hear it.

11, 12. And he said, “A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ And he divided to them his living.

In the East the younger son has a smaller portion of the estate, compared with the elder. But it is a usual thing — certainly not an unusual thing — to let him have his portion while his father is still alive, so that he may make use of it, and be able, by his industry, to increase it until he becomes a substantial person — a custom not altogether without wisdom in it, if there must be a distinction between elder and younger sons. You remember how Abraham gave his sons, by Keturah, portions, and sent them away, whereas Isaac had nothing, because he was the heir and had everything. So this younger son asks for his portion, and the father divided to them his living.

13. And not many days later the younger son gathered everything together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

His heart was distant from his father. Therefore he did not feel at ease until he put himself at a distance, where he could do just as he liked — could do what he knew his father would not approve of, and what he would not like to do in his father’s house. And is this not a true picture of the man who is not a friend of God? He wants to do just as he likes. He desires to be independent, and as he knows that what he likes to do will not please God, he tries to forget God. He gets into a far country by his forgetfulness. He says in his heart, “No God.” He wishes there was none. He gets as far away from God as he ever can. It is then that he wastes his substance. Did you ever look at an ungodly life as the wasting of precious substance, for it is just that? The love which ought to go to God is wasted in lust. The energy that ought to be spent in righteousness is wasted on sin. The thought, the ability that ought to be laid at Jesus’ feet is all used for selfish pleasure, and so it is wasted. He wasted his substance in riotous living.

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

“Began to be in need.” What a change! At home with his father, then with plenty to waste, and now in need. Those two words “in need” describe the condition of every ungodly man. After a time, he is in need — in need of everything that is good and worth having. His soul is a pauper he is in need.

15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country;

A gentleman with whom he had spent a fortune. Many a time had this citizen sat at his table and drank his best wines. And what does this fine fellow do for him?

15. And he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

A very low occupation anywhere, but in Judea, a particularly degrading occupation. He sent him, a Jew, into the fields to feed swine.

16. And he would gladly have filled his belly with the husks that the swine ate:

It does not say that he would have satisfied his hunger with the husks, for that could not be done. He would only fill his belly — fill it up, as it were, with anything, just to choke his sense of need. And there are many men who know that the world could not satisfy them, but it could at least distract their thoughts for a little while from their inward need, and so they gladly would fill up their belly with the husks that the swine eat.

16. And no man gave to him.

He gave to them: he spent all his money with them. He was a fine fellow then, so they said. But now no man gave to him. And what a mercy it was, for if they had given him all he needed he would not have gone back to his father. There is nothing like a little gracious starvation to bring a man home to Christ. And it is a blessed providence, and a blessed work of the Spirit of God when a man at last is starved until he must go home to God.

17-20. 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! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, Father, "I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants."’ And he arose, and came to his father.

“And when he came to himself.” He had been beside himself before. There are two things on which ungodly men are very ignorant — God and themselves. “He arose and came to his father”: that was the best of all. He did not just make resolutions, but he actually did the deed. This was the turning-point with him. He arose and came to his father.

20, 21. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son.’

But the father interrupted the prayer. He would not let him conclude it. “Before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking I will hear.”

22-24. But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe, and put it on him; and a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this son of mine was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

What a change between being in need and “let us eat and be merry.”

   “Wonders of grace to God belong.”

Here is no wishing to fill his belly with husks now. But the word is passed around, “Let us eat and be merry.”

25. Now his elder son was in the field:

There is a great deal of questioning about who this man was — this elder son. Why, dear me, I have known him. I have the misfortune to meet him every now and then. He is a very capital man — one of the best of men, but he does not care about revivals, and about having a great many converted. He is very suspicious about such things, he does not care about making so much fuss over men who have recently repented. He holds rather harsh views about them. “He was in the field at work.”

25-27. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother is come; and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.’”

Did you ever notice that point — the father’s gladness because he had received him safe and sound: no bones broken: his face was not disfigured? He was safe and sound. It is a wonderful thing that the sinner should come back to Christ safe and sound, considering where he has been. He has been in much worse danger than if he had been in battle or in shipwreck. He has been with drunkards and with prostitutes, and yet he is received safe and sound. Oh! the wonders that grace can do. To put safeness and soundness into us who went so far astray.