The Elder Son
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We come now to the study of the elder son. In doing this we think it will be wise to give the dispensational picture a little stronger setting than we gave in our last study as we studied the prodigal son.
It was suggested last week that the prodigal son stood for the publicans and the sinners among the Children of Israel, and that the elder son stood for the Scribes and Pharisees, and the rulers of the people. We suggest now that the younger son stands for the down and outs, and the elder son stands for the up and outs. These two classes predominated in Israel.
1. The publicans and the sinners. This class among the people of God were the impoverished class. They were the class who, to a more or less extent, put God and religion out of their lives. They were oppressed and afflicted. The religion they did possess was forced upon them. The Scribes and the Pharisees put heavy burdens upon them, grievous to be borne. The publicans and the sinners were the class to whom Jesus chiefly came. They were the common people who heard Him gladly. They were the ones who, for the most part, were healed of body and healed of soul by Him. Somehow their penury and their shame made them long the more for the Saviour.
2. The Scribes and the Pharisees. The Scribes and the Pharisees stood for that class in Israel who were self-righteous. They sat in Moses' seat. They made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments. They loved the uppermost rooms at the feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues. They delighted in greeting's in the market places. It was a small matter with them to devour widows' houses, while, for pretence, they made a long prayer, seeking to cover up their villainy. They even encompassed sea and land to make a proselyte. They paid their tithes of mint and annis and cummin, but omitted law and judgment and mercy.
As we study the elder son, let us study him in the light of the younger son. With the twofold vision of this parable before us, we cannot but think of a few statements of Christ. He said that the publicans and the harlots went into the Kingdom of God before the Scribes and the Pharisees. Christ described these religionists (the elder son type of Israel), as saying, "I go," but they went not; while the prodigal boy type, He described as the ones who said, "I go not," but afterward he repented and went. The elder son was like the Pharisee who prayed within himself, boasting his righteous deeds; the younger son was like the publican, who beat upon his breast confessing his sin.
As we close these opening remarks, we wish to ask, To which class do we belong? Are we sinners, saved by grace, or are we self-righteous, proud, and haughty, parading our own goodness? May God make this a real blessing to all.
I. THE CRITICAL SPIRIT (Luke 15:25-26)
How different was the attitude of the elder son toward the prodigal, from that of his father's! The elder son was neither looking, nor longing, nor yearning for the return of his brother. When he heard the music and the dancing, as he drew nigh to the house, he quickly called one of the servants, and asked what it all meant. He had no heart to welcome, and no hand to extend to the wanderer who had come home.
To our minds the very basis of Pharisaism is the lack of sympathy for the lost. We may have a right conception of the Person of Christ; we may even know much of His power, and yet be lacking in His compassion.
When the Lord Jesus saw the multitudes, as sheep without a shepherd, His heart was moved toward them. He stood in their midst and said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink." The Lord Jesus always had a heart of sympathy, and of love and compassion toward anyone who was in distress, impoverished, or oppressed.
Let us examine our own hearts, and let us be true to ourselves. Do we weep with those who weep?
"Have we sought for the sheep that wandered
Far away on the mountain cold?
Have we come like the tender Shepherd
To bring him again to the fold?"
If we have not had this spirit of longing, we had better sit down by the side of the elder son and confess that we are possessed with his spirit. It is not alone giving money to foreign missions that counts with God; it is a heart that yearns for the lost of heathendom. It is not alone paying the preacher's salary that satisfies God; it is our going out "into the highways and hedges" and seeking the lost. Jonah carried the spirit of the elder son when he fled from Nineveh. He had no pity for the Ninevites. He wanted them destroyed. We know this because when God spared them Jonah complained and was angry, even unto death. God, give us the compassionate heart of the Son of God!
II. OVERCOME WITH ANGER (Luke 15:28)
It seems almost impossible that the elder son was not only foreign to compassion, but he was even angry because his father welcomed home the wanderer. Thus it was in the beginning of our chapter. We remember how the Scribes and Pharisees went so far as to criticise Jesus Christ for receiving sinners and eating with them.
They not only left the publicans and the sinners to their bitter state, but they had no sympathy toward anyone who sought to help them. They were even critical toward the Son of God, because He reached His hand down into the mud and the mire that He might lift men up into light, and life, and love. Jesus Christ is still seeking to save.
We remember very well how a poor sinner, intoxicated and undone, came to the altar one night. We remember how some of the "nice women," well robed and decked, were bitter against him. They did not think it proper for such a sinner to be welcomed by their pastor. They thought he should have been given the toe of a boot, instead of the lift of a hand. Beloved, we have neglected the lost long enough. Jesus Christ came to seek and to save them, while we have given them the cold shoulder, the sneer, and the slight.
We wonder sometimes if the spirit of the Pharisees which dragged the woman before Christ and demanded that she be stoned, is not the spirit of many reformers. Should we not rather go out into these dens of darkness, and preach Christ in these places of impurity? Does the darkness not need the light? Do the sick not need a physician? The attitude of the elder son, can receive from the true believer nothing but condemnation.
III. A BOASTFUL HEART (Luke 15:29, f.c.)
Our verse tells us that when the father entreated the elder son concerning his brother, that the elder son immediately began to flaunt his own goodness, in contrast with the profligacy of his brother. The elder son said, "Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment." Alas, alas, how we seek to make up for the tyranny of our temper, and the failure of our sympathy, by parading some cold, formal and lifeless service which we have rendered.
Of course the Pharisee could easily boast his adherence to the legalities or religion, that was his chief thought. He was very proper. He was very concise. He even added countless rites to the Law of God. He had included burdens heavy to be borne, and service hard to be rendered in the requirements of the Law. So far as an outward show of piety was concerned, he was a model. So far as religious service was concerned, he was a leader. All the time, however, his heart was wrong. Beloved, thinkest thou that God is more interested in a formal religion, properly conducted and ethically stated, than He is in the manifestations of love? Do you notice that the elder son never once said, "Father, all these years have I loved thee"? He merely said, "Do I serve thee." He did not ask, "At any time have I ever forgotten thy grace?" He did say he had never transgressed his commandment. Do you remember the Church at Ephesus? It was full of works, and of labor, and even of patience. It could not bear those who were evil. It tried them and found them at fault, and yet in it all the Lord detected a great lack. "Thou hast left thy first love."
IV. A COMPLAINING SPIRIT (Luke 15:29, l.c.)
How do these words strike you? "Thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." There is a complaint against the father's bounty.
1. That "Thou never gavest me a kid." This could not have been true, for the father said, "Son, * * all that I have is thine." Do we ever imagine that God has never given us a kid? If we do, let us lift up our eyes; let us stop and count our blessings. God has filled the earth with everything for our temporal and physical needs. Every good and perfect gift has come from Him. Not only that, but He "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Heavenly places." He has gone to prepare a city for us, a city, whose Builder and Maker is God. Do we dare to look into His face and say, "Thou never gavest me a kid"?
2. "That I might make merry with my friends." Ah, here is the heart of it all. The elder son was with the father, but he had no fellowship with the father. He sat at the table with the father; he walked constantly under the eyes of the father, but he knew nothing of a genuine love for the father. He said his father had never given him a kid to make merry with his friends. We feel that there are many sons who are not living in filial fellowship. Paul wrote to Timothy, "My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." In Jude we read, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." Is there no joy with the Father? Is there no consolation of love in Him, that we should seek to make merry with our friends? Must we warm at the enemy's fire? The Father had not killed the fatted calf, that the prodigal might make merry with bis friends the feast was one welcoming the wanderer back to the father's heart.
The friendship of this world still remains enmity with God. Whosoever therefore is a friend to the world is an enemy to God.
V. CONDEMNING THE FATHER'S HEART (Luke 15:30)
The elder son, at home, not only had no longing and no love for his brother, but he was angry that his father should love him. He said, "As soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf."
Oh, beloved, have we failed to see the heart of God? Not only that, Have we criticised Him because He has received back the prodigal, who had wandered away?
We wish for a moment to carry your minds to another scene. One of these days the Lord Jesus Christ will come. back to earth. The twelve tribes will, once more, be reunited in the land. There is a group, today, of Pharisaical self-satisfied Jews, who during all the centuries have kept up the rites of religion. The Lord Jesus Christ will restore unto them their land, and give back unto them their place among the nations. Shall that part of Israel, represented by the elder son, be angry with God if He restore back to their land the tribes who have been lost in the nations?
If that part of Israel, which has wasted the substance of the Father, returns, will the Israel, which has stayed at home, be angry?
Somehow, to us, there is a wonderful picture of a coming feast, in the killing of "the fatted calf." In the music and the dancing we can almost anticipate what will happen when Jesus Christ shall come and restore the disbursed of Israel. He will rejoice over His wandering children, as they come back to His side. Oh, how happy, how glad will He be! We tremble lest there should be any of the "stayers-at-home" who will criticise a loving God.
In the mean time let us seek to enter into God's love and care for every backsliding, but returning saint.
If God is "like as a father," let us be like as the Father.
VI. THE FATHER'S SELF-VINDICATION (Luke 15:32)
In the verse before us the father says, "It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad," He then proceeds to give his reason for the joy that filled his heart.
1. "Thy brother was dead, and is alive." We have here a vision of the past and of the present. Our mind at once goes to that expression in Ephesians two which says, "When we were dead in sins, [He] hath quickened us."
God's name for the prodigal as he wandered in the far country is the name "dead." Death carries with it invariably the thought of separation. The son was separated from the father. Anyone who lives in pleasure is dead while he lives.
Life carries with it the thought of fellowship. The younger son was alive again, because he was home again. He was back in the father's presence. He was restored to the father's embrace. He was walking in the father's love.
2. "Thy brother * * was lost, and is found." The word "lost" is descriptive of the estate of the one who is dead. He was lost because he was impoverished. He was lost because he was undone.
The Lord Jesus came from Heaven to seek and to save that which was lost. In the first part of the fifteenth of Luke there is a lost sheep; then, there is a lost coin; and finally, there is the lost son.
The word "found" carries with it all of the marvels of the grace of God. In that word lies hidden the long search of the Shepherd who sought the sheep; of the woman who sought the coin. In that word lies hidden all of the manifestation of grace which greeted the prodigal boy.
Whenever a soul which was dead is quickened; whenever a life which was lost is found, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God.
"Nor angels can their joy contain,
But kindle with new fire,
A soul on earth is born they claim,
And touch their golden lyre."
AN ILLUSTRATION
The elder son did not show the spirit of forgiveness as it is seen below:
One evening in Belgium, during the World War, some little children were playing outside a village that had been ruined by German artillery, when the Angelus sounded, calling them to prayer. They drew near to a wayside shrine, and, led by an older girl, began to repeat the Lord's Prayer. When they came to, "Forgive us our trespasses," she stopped, and so did the others. It was not long since the enemy had laid waste their homes and killed many of their loved ones. How could they go on and say, "As we forgive those who trespass against us"? There was silence for several moments, and then a man's voice behind them took up the prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," and steadily the clear strong voice led them through to the solemn "Amen." When the astonished children turned to look, there stood a tall, uniformed man with a group of officers. It was their beloved king! He had proved himself their king indeed, by leading them, through that great prayer, to the spirit of forgiveness. Christian Herald.