THE PRODIGAL AND HIS RETURN

One of the most beautiful stories in the Divine Record is the one found in the fifteenth chapter of Luke, telling of the prodigal and his return. Here was a man, the son of a kind and loving father, who, demanding his share of the inheritance, left the parental roof and went out into the world for himself. He felt that he was sufficient to cope with the issues of life, that he was wise enough to decide the questions which might arise in his experience. He was restive under home restraint. He desired the thrill that came with new scenes and new experiences. He failed to realize that the responsibility of choosing involved as well responsibility in the results, and bitterly he learned this lesson.

Drawn on step by step farther and farther from the principles which had been his safeguard in early life, he plunged into the maelstrom of wild dissipation, spent his inheritance with evil associates, and at last was reduced to absolute penury. Starvation stared him in the face. He was lost and undone, without hope and without God in the world, a homeless wanderer, a derelict, driven by the wind and tossed about on the seas of misfortune. He had gone a long and winding way from his father’s house.
His abject humiliation brought him to himself. He reviewed the steps by which his feet had slipped. He saw the mistake he had made in departing from his father’s home, and he resolved to find his way back, not as a triumphant conqueror, as he had hoped to return when he went away, not as an honored citizen upon whom the world would shower distinction and praise, but as an outcast, a beggar clad in tattered garments. He sadly traveled back over the road which before he had traversed in his wild delirium of joy and new-found freedom.

He comes with no demands, with no effort at self justification, with no excuses for the part he has acted. He casts no blame upon his associates. His prayer is not the prayer of the Pharisee but the burdened
cry of the poor publican. He comes trusting his father’s mercy to treat him better than he deserves.

How graciously is he received! The father has anxiously waited through the long years for this turning about in his son’s experience. He has prayed that he might learn, even through failure and humiliation, the lesson of his own unworthiness and insufficiency. And now as he comes, humble and contrite, in beggar’s garb, the heart of the father is touched to pity and tenderness. His eyes discern him a long way off, and he hastens to meet him. He welcomes him home as he would a triumphant conqueror. He orders the fatted calf to he killed, and a feast to be prepared, and the relatives and neighbors are assembled to engage in a joyous festival in honor of the return of the long-lost son.

The Lesson for Us
What a lesson this affords us of God’s tender mercy for His penitent children! and what a lesson also as to the attitude of the prodigal who returns to the fold of Christ! When we in our failure and backsliding come back in sincerity to the Father’s house, we must come with no blare of trumpets, with no excuse for our own "prodigality", with no justification for our course, with no plea for extenuating circumstances.
We must not excuse our dissipation on the plea that others have been deceived. We shall have no disposition to charge our companions in guilt with the greater responsibility. We shall be willing to accept the full measure of our guilt.

This attitude, and this only, will put us in the path of reconciliation will restore the confidence of our brethren, will place us in that attitude of mind and condition of hem in which we can receive the divine
grace of forgiveness which the Father holds out to us.

The prodigal went a long way from home. He had to travel a long way back. When we sin against God and against His church, there is no short cut to restitution. There is no respectable confession which seeks to preserve our dignity and save our influence, that will meet the demand of the divine requirement.

May God help us to learn from the lesson of the prodigal and his return, the beauty of God’s forgiveness and loving grace, and the necessity of our returning in the same way as did the prodigal-not with the spirit of the Pharisee, seeking justification; but with the spirit of the publican, who could only smite upon his breast and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

Drifting With the Current
When I was a boy I lived near the Norfolk river in northeastern Tennessee. Many a time have I sat on its banks and watched logs and other debris drifting with the current. They were carried hither and yon by the various eddies in the river, making no resistance against the current which carried them downstream.

And many a time I have gone out on this river in a canoe and drifted, likewise, idly, listlessly, indefinitely. It took real energy and hard, Muscular work to paddle upstream.

I have thought of these experiences many times as applied to the life of a Christian. It is so easy to drift with the downward tides; it is so difficult to fight the current and make real progress against opposing odds. This has been the experience of the church of God in every age. Some, losing their first love, have drifted with the currents of the world around them. Others have faithfully and heroically stood their ground, resisting the evil influences by which Satan was seeking to lull them into the sleep of carnal security. The drift downward leads to destruction. upward way leads to final salvation. It rests with each one to choose the way he will take.