Your Brother Was Dead, Part III

"It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found." (1)

"The love of God still yearns over the one who has chosen to separate from Him, and He sets in operation influences to bring him back to the Father's house. The prodigal son in his wretchedness "came to himself." The deceptive power that Satan had exercised over him was broken. He saw that his suffering was the result of his own folly, and 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.' Miserable as he was, the prodigal found hope in the conviction of his father's love. It was that love which was drawing him toward home. So it is the assurance of God's love that constrains the sinner to return to God. 'The goodness of God leads you to repentance.' (2) A golden chain, the mercy and compassion of divine love, is passed around every imperiled soul. The Lord declares, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you.' (3)

"The son determines to confess his guilt. He will go to his father, saying, 'I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son.' But he adds, showing how stinted is his conception of his father's love, 'Make me as one of your hired servants.'

"The young man turns from the swine herds and the husks, and sets his face toward home. Trembling with weakness and faint from hunger, he presses eagerly on his way. He has no covering to conceal his rags; but his misery has conquered pride, and he hurries on to beg a servant's place where he was once a child.

"Little did the gay, thoughtless youth, as he went out from his father's gate, dream of the ache and longing left in that father's heart. When he danced and feasted with his wild companions, little did he think of the shadow that had fallen on his home. And now as with weary and painful steps he pursues the homeward way, he knows not that one is watching for his return. But while he is yet 'a great way off' the father discerns his form. Love is of quick sight. Not even the degradation of the years of sin can conceal the son from the father's eyes. He 'had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck' in a long, clinging, tender embrace.

"The Father will permit no contemptuous eye to mock at his son's misery and tatters. He takes from his own shoulders the broad, rich mantle, and wraps it around the son's wasted form, and the youth sobs out his repentance, saying, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son.' The father holds him close to his side, and brings him home. No opportunity is given him to ask a servant's place. He is a son, who shall be honored with the best the house affords, and whom the waiting men and women shall respect and serve.

"The father said to his servants, 'Bring the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." (4) To be Continued.

1. Luke 15:32.
2. Romans 2:4.
3. Jeremiah 31:3.
4. Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 202-204.