The Hunger of the Soul.
I. Why did God make it so natural for us all to grieve over the past, and to lament so bitterly for sin? One way of looking at the matter may be suggestive to us all. Does it not seem as if this same penitence and sorrow for misdoings were like to the pains of hunger in the body, which at once tells of weakness and waste and toil, and which at the same time prompts us to seek for refreshment and renewal of our fasting. But for the pangs of hunger urging us to eat, the human race would disappear infallibly; the pain that is so terrible is the very cause of our continuing to live. And such a pain is it which the remembrance of sin arouses; it, too, tells of a waste that has been going on within; the waste of blessings on the right hand and on the left; the waste of spiritual purity and faith and earnestness; the loss of spiritual strength and devotion; the want of strenuous zeal for truth; the wear and tear which the frivolities and vices of the world around us must infallibly produce upon us all; but it is a pain which God gives us, not it may be painful and no more, but that its painfulness may tell us of an evil state of things, and not suffer us to be content therewith.
II. Therefore, if on you there comes at times, as God grant there may:
"A sense of emptiness, without the sense
Of an abiding fulness anywhere;"
a sense of weariness and self-reproach as you see to how little purpose you have lived; a sense of pain and grief as you reflect how you have been mastered in the evil language and bad passions that tempt us all to wrong; then thank God for the pain and shame and penitence, and do not strive to check it, or forget it, or drive it off. Arise, and go to your Father, "and say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son."
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons,p. 201.
A happy Meeting.
I. God is infinitely holy, and sin is His abhorrence. But the great sin is departure from the living God, and this never ceases till you return. And if you yourself long to be holy, it is in forgiveness that the fresh start, the new obedience, begins; if you would escape from the bondage of corruption, you must retreat into the home of God and gain the glorious liberty of His children.
II. The relation which the Most High sustains to His intelligent and accountable creatures is too comprehensive and too intimate to be perfectly imaged by any earthly tie; but in the relation which runs through this parable it finds its nearest equivalent. And what among ourselves is fatherhood? It is the relation which identifies greatness with littleness; it is the relation which lives in the loved one's joy or honour, and which is wounded in his grief or disgrace; which feels no pride like a son's promotion; which delights in being trusted, and which desires to be loved in return. Wonderful is parental affection, and wonderful the love of God. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."
J. Hamilton, Works,vol. ii., p. 351.
References: Luke 15:20. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1189; vol. x., No. 588; vol. iv., No. 176; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide,p. 442.Luke 15:21. J. Vaughan, Sermons,13th series, p. 29. Luke 15:22. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 129; Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 99. Luke 15:22; Luke 15:23. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1204.