And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
The father commands the best the house can give to be prepared for a glad feast of welcome for his returned son. The merriment is his joy that the lost is found and the dead is alive again, restored not as a servant but to full sonship at the family table. The father stands for God, whose tender pitying love welcomes straying returners with free full pardon without reproach or reminder of unworthiness. That feast reflects the joy of God Himself and all heaven over one sinner who repents, greater than over ninety-nine who need no repentance. Those who serve Him must share that joy and never take the cold complaining part of the elder brother toward the returning prodigal.
Parable Setting and Purpose
The command to bring the fatted calf belongs to the parable of the prodigal son, spoken to answer the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees against receiving and eating with sinners, to set forth mercy and forgiveness. That parable reveals pitying love toward those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive and turned away into misery and exposure to temptation, yet are not left abandoned, for He remains kind and tender toward them in their straying.
The lesson is drawn from facts of daily life and experience familiar to the hearers, using the homely surroundings of the father's house and the return home to make unseen spiritual truth plain and to brighten ordinary work with constant reminders of the spiritual. It is set forth as a pathetic, touching scene of a father rejoicing that a son thought dead is alive again, reaching the heart and awakening sympathy. Truth both new and old is drawn from the treasure-house and commended to the conscience directly, without long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, leaving hearers free to accept or reject and forcing none to believe.
The picture given is tender yet incomplete, for infinite compassion cannot be fully told: while the sinner is still far off the Father yearns for him, and every longing to return is awakened by the Spirit drawing the wanderer back. So the parable is encouragement to despondent and distrustful sinners, showing that God takes the first step to seek the rebellious and welcomes the wanderer who returns. The companion parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin carry the same assurance, that heaven rejoices when the lost are restored.
Prodigal's Fall and Return
The son selfishly demanded his portion when he could rightfully claim nothing and should have had nothing, bracing his selfish rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belonged to him in order to separate his interest from his father and manage his share according to his own inclination and pleasure without advice, restraint, counsel, reproof, or mutual obligation. Having undeservedly received the treasure he withdrew far from his father even to forget him, despising restraint and determined to have pleasure in any way he chose, then by sinful indulgences spent all his father gave him until famine brought pinching want and destitution and regret for his extravagant course, bringing him down to the low business of feeding swine. In this he pictures one ruined by selfish indulgence and needing tender sympathy, whose separation from his father through sin brought him to hunger and destitution and led him to return in humble confession. The parable is given for the instruction of youth, because many youth do as the prodigal did, living a careless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift life in a strange friendless condition of rags and hunger, forsaking the fountain of living waters and true pleasure to hew out broken cisterns which can hold no water.
Prodigals are made such by indulgence and parental neglect, as children led into wrongdoing through indulgent home training. Separation through sin brings hunger and destitution that leads to return in humble confession. The sinner who had sinned and neglected filial duties becomes sensible of great sin and neglect, suffers and feels need, appreciates the father's love and acknowledges his claims, recognizes his need and returns to the father as the only one able to meet it and supply that need.
The story illustrates a backslider's return to God and to the service he had abandoned. Its history is applied to a man who once loved and served the Lord but left his Father's house, and it pictures people who have left their Father's house and blessing as prodigals who need to return to Jesus, confess their backsliding, and turn toward heaven. It also represents someone who has neglected the invitation to return to God and is still away from the Father, yet those who turn toward the Father can be saved.
Father's Feast and Restoration
The father commands the fatted calf to be killed and calls the whole household to eat and be merry in glad welcome for the returned son. The feast honors him with the best the household affords and with the service of the household itself. It is a joyful celebration prepared for his reception, marking his safe return.
The celebration restores him to sonship and not to servanthood, though he had been willing to be made as a hired servant. He is given again his place and privileges in the household, with his seat at the family table, living as a son in the father's house. Return is held out as an offered privilege, with the father inviting him home, yet enjoying those privileges requires complying with the conditions and obligations of sonship. That means receiving Christ, renouncing the world's favor and friendship, obeying His word, remaining under the father's care, and not resuming wandering.
The feast expresses the father's joy that his son who was lost is found, that one who was dead is alive again, and that he has come back safe and sound. It is joy over restoration to place in the family and over repentance that makes the lost alive again to the father. That rejoicing belongs to heaven as well as to the household, for heaven rejoices over the restored soul.
The welcome carries no reproach, taunt, contempt, or reminder of past unworthiness. Pardon is free and full, in which the past is forgiven and forgotten, met with tender pity and signs of sonship again. The completeness of the forgiveness does not make the sin less grievous.
God's Love and Pardon
The father in the feast is God, and the killing of the fatted calf and call to eat and be merry is His tender, loving, pitying care and compassion for those who have strayed and come back to Him. It is yearning love welcoming the repentant sinner with joy and celebration, honoring him with the best the household affords, not receiving him as a servant but as a son. There is no contempt, no accusation of wrath, no reproach or taunt for the past, for the past is forgiven and forgotten. The celebration is God's rejoicing over restoration when the sinner returns to Him.
That welcome flows from infinite and boundless love in giving His beloved Son Jesus as a sacrifice and in assuming humanity in the person of His Son, thereby opening a channel for His love to reach the fallen race. At Calvary He sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, not for some only but also for the sins of the whole world, with regard for wandering sinners far from His house and perishing with hunger. The purpose is that souls may be saved from sin, that man may be made one with God, and that wandering people may be brought back to the Father. Infinite benevolence pours out its treasures for this saving, and Christ became poor and left His home to die that through His poverty the perishing might come into possession of eternal riches.
The love manifested on Calvary is the sinner's assurance of acceptance, peace, and love, and Christ's dying love assures the sinner of the same. God in Christ daily beseeches men to be reconciled to God, ready with outstretched arms to receive and welcome not only the sinner but the prodigal. Christ has undertaken the work of saving all who trust in Him for salvation, seeking and saving the lost, seeing the wrongs that need to be righted and the evils that need to be repressed, and restoring the sinner to divine favor through goodness and mercy. He casts out none who come to Him.
Those who return to God are received and covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, clothed in His righteousness and restored to favor. They are forgiven their sins, reconciled with the Father, received into fellowship with Him, and welcomed to the family table, and their restoration brings rejoicing in heaven.
The Majesty of Heaven even now meets the prodigal who has separated from Him and stayed away long, and invites him to come that he may have life, with all things ready. Christ is ready to cleanse him from sin when he lays hold upon Him, if he will but come to be accepted and pardoned. Serving sin and serving the flesh and the devil brings no profit but poor wages. To go on neglecting this mercy is to perish in sins with no certain hope of eternal life, so the sinner must turn and live.
All who believe on Jesus Christ are restored to favor, and believing on Him brings obedience to all of God's commandments and life in Jesus Christ. Enjoying the privileges of a son requires complying with the conditions of sonship, for Christ will freely cooperate with and gladly receive all who receive Him as Saviour, renounce the favor and friendship of the world, and make Him their all and in all. Friendship with Him is measured by His dominion over them as they walk in accordance with His Word and do whatever He commands.
The good the father prepared shows the heart of Jesus toward His own sons and daughters who are acting as the prodigal son. They claim to be commandment keepers yet transgress the law, living unthankful and unholy lives and using their entrusted talents to counterwork God, with no light in them and an influence that does not lead to sanctification or holiness. Jesus yearns after them and longs to do them the good He delights to do, as the father prepared good for the returned son, but the perversity of their characters prevents Him from doing it. The same loving care in welcome and feast was shown for Israel, though Israel had rejected repeated offers of mercy. In that fatherly dealing with a wayward son, God was willing to suffer for His people's sins and bear their guilt.
Heaven's Joy Over Repentance
The killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry pictures the joy in heaven and among the heavenly host when one who was lost is brought back to God. There is greater joy over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance, for the father's feast and gladness over his lost son found answers to the joy in heaven over the restored soul. The joyful welcome given to the repentant sinner who returns to the Father is without reproach, taunt, or reminder of past unworthiness, and those who return are received and clothed in His righteousness. The parable is thus encouragement to despondent and distrustful sinners, because God takes the first step to seek the rebellious and welcomes the wanderer who returns, as the lost sheep and the lost coin show heaven rejoicing when the lost are restored, and penitence is required.
That merriment is the joy of God Himself and of all heaven over a lost sheep found. It reveals God as the true Shepherd who seeks the wandering, calls the distressed soul to return to Him, and promises to heal backsliding and love freely. Those who serve God are to partake of that spirit by rejoicing at the return of the repentant, since indifference or careless disregard toward those ready to die, refusing to rejoice and welcome them, manifests the spirit of the elder brother.
When wanderers like Edson and his wife turn back and obtain a rich experience as the Lord leads them step by step in submission to His will and way, their return brings joy that breaks out in praise to the Lord and weeping. The return of the lost is part of God's work to reclaim them, and the joys of heaven, angelic company, and communion with God and His Son are rewards that encourage a loving response to the Creator and Redeemer.
Conditions for Remaining Sons
The killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry is the joyful welcome prepared for the repentant sinner who returns to the Father's house, received without reproach, taunt, or reminder of past unworthiness. Coming back means coming humbled and penitent, telling mistakes and failures, asking for strength for fresh endeavor, and knowing confidence will never be disappointed or abused. It means grasping Christ by faith with the eye fixed upon Him, casting oneself helpless upon His mercy, turning to Jesus, ceasing known sin, giving heart and soul and the little remnant of life to Him in full decision of soul, linking with God, and relying on Jesus' strength rather than one's own, because heaven must not be lost and delay must not be allowed. One so accepted is blessed and then worked with to help other youth give their hearts to God and be converted.
The restored place at the table is sonship and not servanthood, and enjoying the privileges of a son requires complying with the conditions and obligations of sonship. That means receiving Christ as Saviour, renouncing the favor and friendship of the world, making Him all and in all, walking in accordance with His Word and doing whatever He commands, with friendship with Him measured by His dominion. The returned wanderer must remain under the Father's care, guided by God's word and submissive to His control in unreserved surrender of the whole life in order to keep deliverance from sin, repaying love by obedience and not resuming wandering to the devil's side in disobedience. The welcome itself rests on boundless love in assuming humanity in the person of His Son and on Christ's propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and Christ freely cooperates with and gladly receives all who so receive Him.
A thorough backslider returns in the same way, leaving the service of Satan and of sin and turning square about at once to be a Christian before God and angels and witnesses, even if keeping the Sabbath costs position and trade. Severity of brethren toward youthful indiscretions is no reason to stay away and grieve the heart of Christ who died to redeem him. When he returns with earnest prayer and tears he comes into a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes and a solemn sense of responsibility, rejoicing with thankfulness and sleepless happiness at the evidenced pardon and love of the Lord in the joy and feast of the Father's house and the Father's service.
Those who turn toward the Father in this way can be saved, for the feast is a picture of the joy of receiving one who comes back. There is hope if one believes and takes Jesus as personal Saviour, as Arthur was invited to return to God and to his father's house.
Church and Family Duty
Those who serve God are to share the father's gladness at the killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry, and never to take the complaining elder brother's attitude toward a returning prodigal. Coldness, reproach, jealousy, resentment, indifference and careless disregard toward those ready to perish, refusing to rejoice and welcome them, is manifesting his spirit in contrast to the father's tender love and compassion. His complaints against such a welcome are natural but not right, and brother must not pursue that course toward brother. Poor Christian character that wounds and drives prodigals away can keep them from the kingdom, while carefully studying and practicing this lesson of seeking the lost and rejoicing over the repentant involves eternal interests.
Those who have erred and repented need pity, help, sympathy, and above everything else free forgiveness. They are not to be met with efforts to make them feel where they erred and with constant reminders of their mistakes. They already suffer in feeling and are often desponding and discouraged, having become sensible of great sin and neglect after suffering and feeling need, and coming back appreciating the father's love and acknowledging his claims as the only one who can supply that need. Those who have received God's mercy must show the same mercy to others, receiving the repentant sinner with compassion and joy.
A parent is to receive an erring child who returns and confesses with full pardon and pitying love in the welcome and restoration pictured by the feast. That free and full pardon does not make the sin less grievous.
The elder brother's resentment of the celebration pictures those who should rejoice when the wandering are brought back to God but instead become envious when attention and labor are given to them. It pictures church members who resent labor to save the lost when they want constant sermons for themselves. Those who truly know God and have Christ formed within as the hope of glory share the father's spirit and pleasure when the lost are recovered by seeking to save the lost, carrying the message of salvation, bearing light, praying sincerely for others, and witnessing by precept and example. They do this instead of gossiping, planting doubt and questioning, envying, and expecting to be fed.
The lessons of the prodigal son and the lost sheep call for having the Spirit of Jesus Christ in councils and for going into the wilderness of darkness and confusion to search for straying sheep who cannot find their way back without help. The search endures storm, cold, and roughness of the way to find them and bring them back to the fold. The restoration is by tender, merciful efforts to welcome and rejoice over one who returns after going astray, rather than by coldly condemning or abandoning him.
The return of the prodigal pictures sinners being brought back to God, and many prodigals can likewise be brought to the Father. The joy of the feast calls those chosen as laborers together with God to cooperate with Him in His great purpose by sympathy with the gospel plan, by denying self, by refraining from needless and selfish spending, and by bringing an offering in righteousness. That offering, large if possible and blessed if small when it is their best, is that souls perishing with hunger far from His house may be brought to a saving knowledge of the truth and His work may go forward with power until the whole world is encircled with an atmosphere of grace.
The story welcomes the erring son with love rather than rejecting him, and makes the celebration a cause for rejoicing in contrast to contempt and to the contempt shown by those who should help him. It presents the one far from his father and perishing with hunger as someone to be met with compassion. It is to be used to encourage those who have left the Father's house to return, showing that a backslidden young man comes back to his father's house through labor in Christ for him unto restoration to God and His service, and inviting particular wanderers to return and receive God's continuing love as His children.
The father commands the best the house can give to be prepared for a glad feast of welcome for his returned son. The merriment is his joy that the lost is found and the dead is alive again, restored not as a servant but to full sonship at the family table. The father stands for God, whose tender pitying love welcomes straying returners with free full pardon without reproach or reminder of unworthiness. That feast reflects the joy of God Himself and all heaven over one sinner who repents, greater than over ninety-nine who need no repentance. Those who serve Him must share that joy and never take the cold complaining part of the elder brother toward the returning prodigal.
Parable Setting and Purpose
The command to bring the fatted calf belongs to the parable of the prodigal son, spoken to answer the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees against receiving and eating with sinners, to set forth mercy and forgiveness. That parable reveals pitying love toward those who once knew the Father's love but were led captive and turned away into misery and exposure to temptation, yet are not left abandoned, for He remains kind and tender toward them in their straying.
The lesson is drawn from facts of daily life and experience familiar to the hearers, using the homely surroundings of the father's house and the return home to make unseen spiritual truth plain and to brighten ordinary work with constant reminders of the spiritual. It is set forth as a pathetic, touching scene of a father rejoicing that a son thought dead is alive again, reaching the heart and awakening sympathy. Truth both new and old is drawn from the treasure-house and commended to the conscience directly, without long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, leaving hearers free to accept or reject and forcing none to believe.
The picture given is tender yet incomplete, for infinite compassion cannot be fully told: while the sinner is still far off the Father yearns for him, and every longing to return is awakened by the Spirit drawing the wanderer back. So the parable is encouragement to despondent and distrustful sinners, showing that God takes the first step to seek the rebellious and welcomes the wanderer who returns. The companion parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin carry the same assurance, that heaven rejoices when the lost are restored.
Prodigal's Fall and Return
The son selfishly demanded his portion when he could rightfully claim nothing and should have had nothing, bracing his selfish rebellious spirit with the thought that part of the property belonged to him in order to separate his interest from his father and manage his share according to his own inclination and pleasure without advice, restraint, counsel, reproof, or mutual obligation. Having undeservedly received the treasure he withdrew far from his father even to forget him, despising restraint and determined to have pleasure in any way he chose, then by sinful indulgences spent all his father gave him until famine brought pinching want and destitution and regret for his extravagant course, bringing him down to the low business of feeding swine. In this he pictures one ruined by selfish indulgence and needing tender sympathy, whose separation from his father through sin brought him to hunger and destitution and led him to return in humble confession. The parable is given for the instruction of youth, because many youth do as the prodigal did, living a careless, pleasure-loving, spendthrift life in a strange friendless condition of rags and hunger, forsaking the fountain of living waters and true pleasure to hew out broken cisterns which can hold no water.
Prodigals are made such by indulgence and parental neglect, as children led into wrongdoing through indulgent home training. Separation through sin brings hunger and destitution that leads to return in humble confession. The sinner who had sinned and neglected filial duties becomes sensible of great sin and neglect, suffers and feels need, appreciates the father's love and acknowledges his claims, recognizes his need and returns to the father as the only one able to meet it and supply that need.
The story illustrates a backslider's return to God and to the service he had abandoned. Its history is applied to a man who once loved and served the Lord but left his Father's house, and it pictures people who have left their Father's house and blessing as prodigals who need to return to Jesus, confess their backsliding, and turn toward heaven. It also represents someone who has neglected the invitation to return to God and is still away from the Father, yet those who turn toward the Father can be saved.
Father's Feast and Restoration
The father commands the fatted calf to be killed and calls the whole household to eat and be merry in glad welcome for the returned son. The feast honors him with the best the household affords and with the service of the household itself. It is a joyful celebration prepared for his reception, marking his safe return.
The celebration restores him to sonship and not to servanthood, though he had been willing to be made as a hired servant. He is given again his place and privileges in the household, with his seat at the family table, living as a son in the father's house. Return is held out as an offered privilege, with the father inviting him home, yet enjoying those privileges requires complying with the conditions and obligations of sonship. That means receiving Christ, renouncing the world's favor and friendship, obeying His word, remaining under the father's care, and not resuming wandering.
The feast expresses the father's joy that his son who was lost is found, that one who was dead is alive again, and that he has come back safe and sound. It is joy over restoration to place in the family and over repentance that makes the lost alive again to the father. That rejoicing belongs to heaven as well as to the household, for heaven rejoices over the restored soul.
The welcome carries no reproach, taunt, contempt, or reminder of past unworthiness. Pardon is free and full, in which the past is forgiven and forgotten, met with tender pity and signs of sonship again. The completeness of the forgiveness does not make the sin less grievous.
God's Love and Pardon
The father in the feast is God, and the killing of the fatted calf and call to eat and be merry is His tender, loving, pitying care and compassion for those who have strayed and come back to Him. It is yearning love welcoming the repentant sinner with joy and celebration, honoring him with the best the household affords, not receiving him as a servant but as a son. There is no contempt, no accusation of wrath, no reproach or taunt for the past, for the past is forgiven and forgotten. The celebration is God's rejoicing over restoration when the sinner returns to Him.
That welcome flows from infinite and boundless love in giving His beloved Son Jesus as a sacrifice and in assuming humanity in the person of His Son, thereby opening a channel for His love to reach the fallen race. At Calvary He sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, not for some only but also for the sins of the whole world, with regard for wandering sinners far from His house and perishing with hunger. The purpose is that souls may be saved from sin, that man may be made one with God, and that wandering people may be brought back to the Father. Infinite benevolence pours out its treasures for this saving, and Christ became poor and left His home to die that through His poverty the perishing might come into possession of eternal riches.
The love manifested on Calvary is the sinner's assurance of acceptance, peace, and love, and Christ's dying love assures the sinner of the same. God in Christ daily beseeches men to be reconciled to God, ready with outstretched arms to receive and welcome not only the sinner but the prodigal. Christ has undertaken the work of saving all who trust in Him for salvation, seeking and saving the lost, seeing the wrongs that need to be righted and the evils that need to be repressed, and restoring the sinner to divine favor through goodness and mercy. He casts out none who come to Him.
Those who return to God are received and covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, clothed in His righteousness and restored to favor. They are forgiven their sins, reconciled with the Father, received into fellowship with Him, and welcomed to the family table, and their restoration brings rejoicing in heaven.
The Majesty of Heaven even now meets the prodigal who has separated from Him and stayed away long, and invites him to come that he may have life, with all things ready. Christ is ready to cleanse him from sin when he lays hold upon Him, if he will but come to be accepted and pardoned. Serving sin and serving the flesh and the devil brings no profit but poor wages. To go on neglecting this mercy is to perish in sins with no certain hope of eternal life, so the sinner must turn and live.
All who believe on Jesus Christ are restored to favor, and believing on Him brings obedience to all of God's commandments and life in Jesus Christ. Enjoying the privileges of a son requires complying with the conditions of sonship, for Christ will freely cooperate with and gladly receive all who receive Him as Saviour, renounce the favor and friendship of the world, and make Him their all and in all. Friendship with Him is measured by His dominion over them as they walk in accordance with His Word and do whatever He commands.
The good the father prepared shows the heart of Jesus toward His own sons and daughters who are acting as the prodigal son. They claim to be commandment keepers yet transgress the law, living unthankful and unholy lives and using their entrusted talents to counterwork God, with no light in them and an influence that does not lead to sanctification or holiness. Jesus yearns after them and longs to do them the good He delights to do, as the father prepared good for the returned son, but the perversity of their characters prevents Him from doing it. The same loving care in welcome and feast was shown for Israel, though Israel had rejected repeated offers of mercy. In that fatherly dealing with a wayward son, God was willing to suffer for His people's sins and bear their guilt.
Heaven's Joy Over Repentance
The killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry pictures the joy in heaven and among the heavenly host when one who was lost is brought back to God. There is greater joy over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance, for the father's feast and gladness over his lost son found answers to the joy in heaven over the restored soul. The joyful welcome given to the repentant sinner who returns to the Father is without reproach, taunt, or reminder of past unworthiness, and those who return are received and clothed in His righteousness. The parable is thus encouragement to despondent and distrustful sinners, because God takes the first step to seek the rebellious and welcomes the wanderer who returns, as the lost sheep and the lost coin show heaven rejoicing when the lost are restored, and penitence is required.
That merriment is the joy of God Himself and of all heaven over a lost sheep found. It reveals God as the true Shepherd who seeks the wandering, calls the distressed soul to return to Him, and promises to heal backsliding and love freely. Those who serve God are to partake of that spirit by rejoicing at the return of the repentant, since indifference or careless disregard toward those ready to die, refusing to rejoice and welcome them, manifests the spirit of the elder brother.
When wanderers like Edson and his wife turn back and obtain a rich experience as the Lord leads them step by step in submission to His will and way, their return brings joy that breaks out in praise to the Lord and weeping. The return of the lost is part of God's work to reclaim them, and the joys of heaven, angelic company, and communion with God and His Son are rewards that encourage a loving response to the Creator and Redeemer.
Conditions for Remaining Sons
The killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry is the joyful welcome prepared for the repentant sinner who returns to the Father's house, received without reproach, taunt, or reminder of past unworthiness. Coming back means coming humbled and penitent, telling mistakes and failures, asking for strength for fresh endeavor, and knowing confidence will never be disappointed or abused. It means grasping Christ by faith with the eye fixed upon Him, casting oneself helpless upon His mercy, turning to Jesus, ceasing known sin, giving heart and soul and the little remnant of life to Him in full decision of soul, linking with God, and relying on Jesus' strength rather than one's own, because heaven must not be lost and delay must not be allowed. One so accepted is blessed and then worked with to help other youth give their hearts to God and be converted.
The restored place at the table is sonship and not servanthood, and enjoying the privileges of a son requires complying with the conditions and obligations of sonship. That means receiving Christ as Saviour, renouncing the favor and friendship of the world, making Him all and in all, walking in accordance with His Word and doing whatever He commands, with friendship with Him measured by His dominion. The returned wanderer must remain under the Father's care, guided by God's word and submissive to His control in unreserved surrender of the whole life in order to keep deliverance from sin, repaying love by obedience and not resuming wandering to the devil's side in disobedience. The welcome itself rests on boundless love in assuming humanity in the person of His Son and on Christ's propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and Christ freely cooperates with and gladly receives all who so receive Him.
A thorough backslider returns in the same way, leaving the service of Satan and of sin and turning square about at once to be a Christian before God and angels and witnesses, even if keeping the Sabbath costs position and trade. Severity of brethren toward youthful indiscretions is no reason to stay away and grieve the heart of Christ who died to redeem him. When he returns with earnest prayer and tears he comes into a new channel with purified thoughts and changed purposes and a solemn sense of responsibility, rejoicing with thankfulness and sleepless happiness at the evidenced pardon and love of the Lord in the joy and feast of the Father's house and the Father's service.
Those who turn toward the Father in this way can be saved, for the feast is a picture of the joy of receiving one who comes back. There is hope if one believes and takes Jesus as personal Saviour, as Arthur was invited to return to God and to his father's house.
Church and Family Duty
Those who serve God are to share the father's gladness at the killing of the fatted calf and the call to eat and be merry, and never to take the complaining elder brother's attitude toward a returning prodigal. Coldness, reproach, jealousy, resentment, indifference and careless disregard toward those ready to perish, refusing to rejoice and welcome them, is manifesting his spirit in contrast to the father's tender love and compassion. His complaints against such a welcome are natural but not right, and brother must not pursue that course toward brother. Poor Christian character that wounds and drives prodigals away can keep them from the kingdom, while carefully studying and practicing this lesson of seeking the lost and rejoicing over the repentant involves eternal interests.
Those who have erred and repented need pity, help, sympathy, and above everything else free forgiveness. They are not to be met with efforts to make them feel where they erred and with constant reminders of their mistakes. They already suffer in feeling and are often desponding and discouraged, having become sensible of great sin and neglect after suffering and feeling need, and coming back appreciating the father's love and acknowledging his claims as the only one who can supply that need. Those who have received God's mercy must show the same mercy to others, receiving the repentant sinner with compassion and joy.
A parent is to receive an erring child who returns and confesses with full pardon and pitying love in the welcome and restoration pictured by the feast. That free and full pardon does not make the sin less grievous.
The elder brother's resentment of the celebration pictures those who should rejoice when the wandering are brought back to God but instead become envious when attention and labor are given to them. It pictures church members who resent labor to save the lost when they want constant sermons for themselves. Those who truly know God and have Christ formed within as the hope of glory share the father's spirit and pleasure when the lost are recovered by seeking to save the lost, carrying the message of salvation, bearing light, praying sincerely for others, and witnessing by precept and example. They do this instead of gossiping, planting doubt and questioning, envying, and expecting to be fed.
The lessons of the prodigal son and the lost sheep call for having the Spirit of Jesus Christ in councils and for going into the wilderness of darkness and confusion to search for straying sheep who cannot find their way back without help. The search endures storm, cold, and roughness of the way to find them and bring them back to the fold. The restoration is by tender, merciful efforts to welcome and rejoice over one who returns after going astray, rather than by coldly condemning or abandoning him.
The return of the prodigal pictures sinners being brought back to God, and many prodigals can likewise be brought to the Father. The joy of the feast calls those chosen as laborers together with God to cooperate with Him in His great purpose by sympathy with the gospel plan, by denying self, by refraining from needless and selfish spending, and by bringing an offering in righteousness. That offering, large if possible and blessed if small when it is their best, is that souls perishing with hunger far from His house may be brought to a saving knowledge of the truth and His work may go forward with power until the whole world is encircled with an atmosphere of grace.
The story welcomes the erring son with love rather than rejecting him, and makes the celebration a cause for rejoicing in contrast to contempt and to the contempt shown by those who should help him. It presents the one far from his father and perishing with hunger as someone to be met with compassion. It is to be used to encourage those who have left the Father's house to return, showing that a backslidden young man comes back to his father's house through labor in Christ for him unto restoration to God and His service, and inviting particular wanderers to return and receive God's continuing love as His children.