Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-06-26

saw him." Perhaps he had been look.
ing for the return of that boy especially
that day. / do not know but that he
had been in prayer, and that God had
told him that that day the recreant boy
would come home. THE father saw
him great way off,"
wonder if Gods eyesight can descry
us when we are coming back to Him?
| The text pictures our condition-we are
a great way off. The young man was
not farther off from his fathers house,
sin is not farther off from holiness, hell
is not farther off from 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 vehemently He
has called us year after year. / do not
know what bad habits you may have
formed, or in what evil places you have
been, or what false notions you may
have entertained, but you are ready to
acknowledge, if your heart has not been
changed by the grace of God, that you
are great way off-aye, so far off that
you can not get back of yourselves.
You would like to come back. Aye,
this moment you would start, if it were
not for this sin, and that habit, and this
disadvantage. But L am to tell you of
the Fathers eyesight. ''He saw him a
great way off," He has seen all your
frailties, all your struggles, all your dis
advantages. He has been longing for
your coming. He has not been looking
at you with critics eye or a bailiff's
eye, but with Fathers eye; and if a
parent ever pitied a child, God pities
you. You say: 80, 1 had so many evil
surroundings when 1 started life. :"
Your Father sees it. You say: 'Ihave
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 heaven
ward-as L pray you may-yOur Father
would not sit idly down and allow you
to struggle on up to Him. o, no. See
ing you great way off he would fly to
the rescue. How long does it take a
father to leap into the middle of the
highway if his child be there, and a
swift vehicle is coming, and may de-
stroy him? Five hundred times longer
than it takes our Heavenly Father to
spring to the deliverance of lost child.
when he was a great way off his
Father saw him."
And this brings me to notice the
fathers haste. The Bible says he ran.
No wonder! He 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. Sin the fourth watch
of the night" it says, "Jesus came unto
them walking on the sea-" ''He walketh
upon the wings of the wind" Our first
parents heard the voice of the Lord,
walking in the 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 Redeemer. Take thine ease,
eat, drink and be merry" Ten thousand
voices say: Back with you. God is
hard master. The church is collection
of hypocrites. Back into your sins;
back to your evil indulgences; back to
your prayerless pillow. The silliest
thing that young man ever does is to
come home after he has been wander
ing"
o, how much help a man does want
when he tries to become a Christian.
Indeed, the 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 |
What are we to do? |
Are we to fight the battle alone and |
trudge on with no one to aid us and no |
rock to shelter us and no word of en-
to cheer us? Glory be to |
God, we have in the text the announce |
nent: ''When he was yet a great way |
off his father ran" When the sinner |
starts for God, God starts for the sinner. |
Tod does not come out with a slow and |
lesitating pace. The infinite spaces
Zip beneath His feet, and He takes
worlds at bound. 1.-The father ran"
}, wonderful meeting, when God and
he soul come together. ''The father
an" You start for God and God starts
or you, and you meet; and while the
Ingels rejoice over the meeting your
ong-injured Father falls upon your
leck with attestations of compassion
md pardon. Your poor, wandering,
inful, polluted soul and the loving, the
ternal Father have met.
remark upon the fathers kiss. "He
ell on his neck" my text says, land
,issed him." 1t is not every father
hat would have done that way. Some
would have scolded him and said /:
Here, you went off with beautiful
lothes, but now you are all in tatters.
you went off healthy and come back
ick and wasted with your designations.
lie did not say that The son, all hag-
ard, and ragged, and filthy, and wretch
d, stood before his father. The father
harged him with none of his wander
1gs. He just received him. He just
Used him. His Indebtedness was a
!, that fathers kiss! How shall de-
cribe the love of God?-the ardor with
-hich He receives sinner back again?