Compunctious visitings and repentant resolutions.
I. I will not enter now into what we may call the more exceptional regrets and remorses of sinful souls. Our Lord touches a different and a more thrilling chord when He makes the wanderer in His utmost destitution, think of the plenty of his home; compare what he might have been with what he is; and say, as he comes to himself, only just this, "How many hired servants of my father's have had enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?" This is the compunction which I would have to visit us.
II. The Resolution. "I will arise and go to my Father." (1) Mark first how the repentant resolution speaks of God. "My Father." Happy is he, who, in his remotest exile, in his uttermost destitution, still speaks, still thinks, of God as his Father. (2) " I will arise." There is need of exertion. Sit still and thou art bound; sorry, but not contrite; miserable, but not repentant. There is a journey, though it be but in the soul's going, and therefore there must be a rising, a rousing of the whole man, like that, which, in the days of the Son of God below, enabled one whose hand was withered, yet, at the Divine command, to stand forth and stretch it out. (3) " I will go."Whither and how? (a) In prayer. The soul must arise and pray. Say, Father, I have sinned. Say it: He hears, (b) Go in effort. We must not trifle with or mock God, and therefore he who would pray must endeavour too. In particular, we must give up resolutely known sins. Give up yoursin, is the first word of Christ to those who would return to their Father. (c) Go in the use of all means. God has furnished us with various means and instruments of access to Him. His Holy Word, public worship, Holy Communion. (d) "I will arise and go to my Father." We must get to Him somehow. If we do not get to God Himself, we have done nothing after all.
C. J. Vaughan, Voices of the Prophets,p. 291.
I. Human life is established upon a disciplinary basis.
II. The value of discipline depends upon its right acceptance.
III. Application. (1) There is a yoke in sin. (2) There is a yoke in goodness. God helps the true yoke-bearer.
Parker, City Temple,vol. i., p. 369; see also Pulpit Notes,p. 177.
References: Jeremiah 31:18. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiii., No. 743.Jeremiah 31:29. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1645.Jeremiah 31:31-34. A. B. Bruce, Expositor,1st series, vol. x., p. 65.