Your Brother Was Dead, Part IV

"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)

"In his restless youth the prodigal looked upon his father as stern and severe. How different his conception of him now! So those who are deceived by Satan look upon God as hard and exacting. They regard Him as watching to denounce and condemn, as unwilling to receive the sinner so long as there is a legal excuse for not helping him. His law they regard as a restriction upon men's happiness, a burdensome yoke from which they are glad to escape. But he whose eyes have been opened by the love of Christ will behold God as full of compassion. He does not appear as a tyrannical, relentless being, but as a father longing to embrace his repenting son. The sinner will exclaim with the Psalmist, 'As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him.' (2)

"In the parable there is no taunting, no casting up to the prodigal of his evil course. The son feels that the past is forgiven and forgotten, blotted out forever. And so God says to the sinner, 'I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions and like a cloud, your sins.' (3) 'I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.' (4) 'Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.' (5) 'In those days and in that time' says the Lord, 'The iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found.' (6)

"What assurance here, of God's willingness to receive the repenting sinner! Have you, reader, chosen your own way? Have you wandered far from God? Have you sought to feast upon the fruits of transgression, only to find them turn to ashes upon your lips? And now, your substance spent, your life-plans thwarted, and your hopes dead, do you sit alone and desolate? Now that voice which has long been speaking to your heart but to which you would not listen comes to you distinct and clear, 'Arise and depart, for this is not your rest; Because it is defiled, it shall destroy, Yes, with utter destruction.' (7) Return to your Father's house. He invites you, saying, 'Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.' (8)

"Do not listen to the enemy's suggestion to stay away from Christ until you have made yourself better; until you are good enough to come to God. If you wait until then, you will never come. When Satan points to your filthy garments, repeat the promise of Jesus, 'The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.' (9) Tell the enemy that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Make the prayer of David your own, 'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.' (10)" (11) To be Continued.

1. Luke 15:32.
2. Psalms 103:13.
3. Isaiah 44:22.
4. Jeremiah 31:34.
5. Isaiah 55:7.
6. Jeremiah 50:20.
7. Micah 2:10.
8. Isaiah 44:22.
9. John 6:37.
10. Psalm 51:7.
11. Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 204-206.