The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-06-26

him that that day the recreant boy
would come home. THE father saw
him a great way off,"
wonder il Gods eyesight can descry
us when we are coming back to Him.
The text pictures our condition-we arc
great way off. That young man was
not farther off from his fathers house,
sin is not farther of from holiness, hell is
not farther off Heaven, than we have
been by our sins away off from our God
aye, so far off that we could not hear
His voice, though vchemently lie has
called us year after year. do not
not know what bad habits you may
have formed, or in what evil places you
may have been, or what false notions
you may have entertained, but you are
ready to acknowledge, If your heart h as
not been changed by the grace of God,
that you are a great way ofT-aye, SC
far that you can not get back of your
selves. You would like to come back.
Aye, this moment you would start, if il
were not for this sin, and that habit,
and this disadvantage. But am to
tell you of the Fathers eye
sight lie saw him great way
off," He has seen all your frail.
ties, all your struggles, all
your disadvantages. lie has b,en
longing for your coming. lie has Il It
been looking at you with a critics ey,
nor a bailif's eye, but with fathers
eye; and il parent ever piticd child,
God pities you. You say: "Oh, I had
IL,
cd life" Your Father sees it. You
say: II have so many bad surroundings
now, and it is very difficult for me to
break away from evil associations. "
Your Father sees it, and if you should
start heavenward-as | pray you may
your Father would not sit idly down
and allow you to struggle on up toward
Him. Oh, no! Seeing you a great way
off, lie would fly to the rescue. How
long does it take father to leap into
the middle of the highway if his child
be there, and swift vehicle is coming
and may destroy him? Five hundred
times longer than it takes our heavenly
Father to spring to tho delivcrance OF
lost child. when he was great
way off his father saw him."
And this brings me to notice the
fathers haste. The Bible says he ran.
No wonder! lie did not know but that
the young man would change his mind
and go back. He did not know but that
he would drop down from exhaustion.
He did not know but that something
fatal might overtake him before he got
up to the doorsill; and so the father ran.
The Bible, for the most part, speaks of
God as walking. I'm the fourth watch
of the night" it says, Jesus came unto
them walking on the sea-" "He walk
eth upon the wings of the wind" Our
first parents heard the voice of the
Lord, walking in tho garden in the
cool of the day; but when sinner
starts for God, the Father runs to meet
him. Oh! if a man ever wants help,
it is when he tries to become a
Christian. The world says to him:
Back with you. Have more spirit.
Don't be hampered with religion.
Time enough yet. Wait until you get
sick. Wait until you get old" Satan
says: Back with you; you are so bad
that God will have nothing to do with
YOU" or, You are good enough, and
need no Redcemer. Take thine ease,
eat, drink and be merry" Ten thou
sand voices say: Back with you. God
is hard Master. The church is col
lection of hypocrites. Back into your
sins; back to your evil indulgences;
back TO your prayerless pillows. The
silliest thing that a young man ever
does is to como home after he has been
wandering" Oh, how much help man
does want when he tries to become a
Christian! Indeed, tho prodigal can not
find his way home to his Fathers house
alone. Unless some one comes to meet
him he had better have stayed by the
swine troughs.
When the tide comes in, you might
more easily with your broom sweep back
the surges than you could drive back
the ocean Of your unforgiven transgres-
sions. What are we to do? Are we tC
| fight the battle alone, and trudge on
with no one to aid u.s. and no rock to
shelter us, and no word of encourage
ment to cheer us? Glory be to God, we
have in the text the announcement:
''When He was yet a great way off, His
Father ran" When the sinner starts
for God God starts for the sinner. God
does not come out with a slow and
hesitating pace. The infinite spaces
slip beneath His feet, and He takes
worlds at a bound. THE Father ran"
Oh, wonderful meeting, when God and
the soul como together. THE Father
ram" You start for God and God starts
for you, and you meet; and, while the
angels rejoice over the meeting, your
long injured Father falls upon your
neck with attestations of compassion
and pardon. Your poor, wandering,
sinful, polluted soul, and tho loving,
the eternal Father, have met.
/ remark upon the fathers kiss. "He
fell on his neck" my text says, land
kissed him." 1t is not every father
that would have done that way. Some
would have scolded him, and said:
Here, you went off with beautiful
clothes, but now you are in tatters. You
went off healthy, and come back sick
and wasted with your designations. y
He did not say that The son, all hag-
gard, and ragged, and filthy, and
wretched, stood before his father. The
father charged him with mono of his
wanderings. He just received him. He
just kissed him. His wretchedness was
a recommendation to that fathers love.
Oh, that fathers kiss! How shall de-
scribe the love of God?-the ardor with
which He receives a sinner back againf