home or his gray-haired father. How much he would have saved himself if he had turned about and gone back the next morning! But not he! And he did not wish to stop so near home that his father would hear how he was doing. Everywhere he went, he was a big man. He became as proud as Lucifer. He was receiving honor for what his worthy father had worked hard to get. He dreamed big plans for himself; but he never carried them out. Jesus tells us that when he arrived in the country he had so fondly wished for, he "wasted his substance with riotous living." The people are to be pitied who have plenty of money and do not know how to use it. One hundred thousand dollars will buy for nine out of every ten boys a ticket to the City of Destruction. They will check their baggage right through, and heaven or earth can not stop them. Still, for a while, the boy had what he regarded as a good time. How he pitied his elder brother at home on the farm! His conscience seldom bothered him now, and he imagined he was enjoying the best that life could afford. He scoffed at religion, and hardly thought of God and the coming judgment. But one day, he noticed that his money was running short. Then he began to gamble and to enter into all kinds of speculation, hoping to repair his fortune. But alas, the opposite happened, as it usually does. He soon discovered himself "broke." He was compelled to work for a living. All his friends were gone. Jesus tells us that not long after this, there came a great famine in that gay land. Take a look at the next picture. It is a country scene, but it is not a pretty one. The result of the famine is seen everywhere. The fields are brown and the streams are dry. The trees have lost most of their leaves. In the center of the picture, sitting under a tall carob tree, is the prodigal. His clothes are in rags, his face is pinched with hunger, and his form is marked by dissipation. Around him are a number of gaunt, hungry hogs. They are nosing about in the dry leaves, hunting for pods of the carob tree. He has become a swineherd, and has almost nothing to eat. He who once had plenty, is now slowly starving. He, too, would gladly eat the husky pods of the carob tree; but when he goes up into a tree to shake down fresh pods, the hogs get them before he can reach the ground again. Not even the hogs will share with him. He gets enough to keep body and soul together, and no more. In these two pictures, Jesus gives us the results, or the fruit, of sin. The first was pleasure. I would not tell you there is no pleasure in sin. You know better. Paul, in the book of Hebrews, speaks of this in his account of Moses. Moses chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin." And he adds, "for a season. The pleasures of sin are short-lived. Some one has said that the devil is too wise to go fishing without bait. The pleasures of sin are his bait. But every piece of bait has a hook in it, as this poor fellow found out, and all who follow it will sooner or later be caught by the devil. The next result was "want." "He began to be in want." Everything he had was gone. He had pawned his shoes even. He had not a comb with which to comb his hair. After the pleasures of sin, always comes want. It is sure to come in one form or another. A man has not been long in the "far country" until he finds that everything his heavenly Father had given him is gone. Only husks remain the devil has never had a famine of husks. A mother's prayers are forgotten. A father's loving counsel has been thrown away. All is gone. His Bible is gone. His conscience is seared. Holy thought is gone. Everything good has been forgotten. He is in want. Sinful pleasure has made many a man a beggar, who once had wealth. Not all who serve sin come to actual physical want; yet they are in want, for all that the worst kind of want. A man has a soul as well as a stomach. If you wish to see a picture of a bankrupt soul, look at the most degraded physical wreck you can find. The last result of sin is that a man becomes a slave. The prodigal became a swineherd the lowest work a Jew could do. That is where sin leads one. How many are slaves to lust, to pride, to appetite, yes, even to pleasure! They are bound with chains of their own forging. They are helpless of themselves, and sooner or later they will starve if they remain in the "far country." You may make your choice. This young man might have been an honored son in his father's house; instead, he is swineherd for a stranger. You may be either sons of God or hog tenders for the devil. But the scene changes a little. We are in the same scorched field. We see the same trees, only they have fewer leaves and fewer pods. In the scant shade of one of them sits the boy. His head is bowed upon his arm, and he is thinking seriously thinking. His spare diet has cleared up his mind, and now he can think. What is he thinking about? His old home. He had not given it much thought for months. He thinks he is about tired of herding hogs. He compares his present condition with that of his brother at home. He does not pity him any longer. He even compares his own lot with that of his father's servants. He remembers his poor old father, so long forgotten. The hardest thing a minister has to do is to get men and women to think. In these times, people do not think; they only have sensations. Many are more willing to take the advice of some other hog tender than to think about their father's good home. If we could only get people to think, we could get most of them con verted. More would be willing to go home, if they would only think and make comparisons. Pick out the best servant of the devil you know. Pick out the best servant of the Lord Jesus. Stand them up together, and then look at them and think. Which one would you rather be? Weigh both the present and the future of each; which has the brighter prospects? One has only the ashes of Sodom ahead of him; the other has an eternity in his Father's house. But some people will never think until the good Master gives them husks for a while. It was well this boy did not stop with thinking. He came to a definite decision. "I will arise and go to my father. I will turn my back on hogs and husks and hunger, and I will go home!" I like to think about that trip home. You may be sure he dodged all the places where he had stopped on the outward journey. Many times, I am sure, he said to himself, "I wish I had not gone so far away." He was proud when he left, but he is very humble now. It makes all the difference in the world whether a person is headed toward a hog pen or away from it. I am certain he wished he had money to buy some new clothes; but he had none. One thing he has now which he has never had before — he has sense. He has sense enough to go to his father just as he is. When the sheep went astray, some one went after it. When the piece of money was lost, some one hunted for it until it was found. But when the prodigal ran away, Jesus does not tell us of anyone's going after him. It was useless to force him to come back against his will. He must himself walk back all the way he had wandered. God sends His Holy Spirit to help us think and to implore us to make a decision to return; but He will not force anyone to come. And the young man came with a confession. This is the only way a sinner can come back to God. When |