Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-06-26
THE PENITENT PRODIGAL
DR.. TALMAoE PORTRAYS THE
HOME-SICK SOUL.
The Pleasures OF SIN Not Equal Go
tho Promise Held Out-The Severe
Discipline OF Experience shown
by Vivid illustrations.

iShOOhLlNg ANs cbhC - LA'
Talmages sermon this morning was an
appeal to young men. Numbers of
these come to the Tabernacle services,
many of them from country homes,
where they received Christian training,
which, in the temptations of city life
has been cast off. DIR. Talmage called
his sermon, The Home-Sick Soul and
his text was from the Parable of the
Prodigal Son, Luke Is; Is. 81 will arise
and go to my father"
There is nothing like hunger to take
the energy out of q man. A hungry
man can toll neither with pen nor hand
nor foot. There has been many an
army defeated not so much for lack of
ammunition as for lack of bread. 1t
was that fact that took the fire out of
this young man of the text. A travel
err tells us that in Asia Minor there are
trees which bear fruit looking very
much like the long bean of our time.
1t is called the carab. Once in while
the people reduced to restitution would
eat these carabs, but generally the
carabs, the beans spoken of here in the
text, were thrown only to the swine
and they crunched them with great
avidity. But this young man of my
text could not even get them without
stealing them. So one day amid the
swine troughs he begins to soliloquise.
He says, "rhese are no clothes for
rich mans son to wear; this is no kind
of business for a Jew to be engaged in
feeding swine; I'll go home, I'll go
home; 1 will arise and go to my
father"
And when this young man resolved
to go home it was a very wise thing
for him to do, and the only question is
whether we will follow him. Satan
promises large wages if we will serve
him; but he clothes his victims with
rags, and he pinches them with hunger,
and when they start out to do better
he sets after them all the bloodhounds
of perdition.
The resolution of this text was
formed in disgust at his present cir
cumstances. If this young man had
been by his employer set to culturing
flowers, or training vines over an ar
Dor, or keeping account of the pork
market, or overseeing other laborers,
he would not have thought of going
home, If he had had his pockets full of
money, if he had been able to say, 81
have a thousand dollars now of my own;
what's the use of my going back to my
fathers house? Do you think l am go
ing back to apologize to the old man?
Why he would put me on the limits; he
would not have going on around the old
place such conduct as l have been en-
gagged in; won't go home; there is no
reason why l should go home; l have
plenty of money, plenty of pleasant
surroundings, why should go home?"
All! it was his pauperism, it was his
beggary. He had to go home.
Supposed 1 come into your house and
find you severely sick, and l know the
medicines that will cure you, and /
know the physician who is sllillful
enough to meet your case. You say:
Bring on that medicine, bring on
that physician. am terribly sick and
/ want help" II / come to you and
you feel you are all right in body and
all right in mind, and all right in soul,
you have need of nothing; but suppose
have persuaded you that the leprosy
of sin is upon you, the worst of all
sickness, O.then you say: Bring me
that balm of the Gospel, bring me that
divine medicament, bring me Jesus
Christ"
But gays someone in the audience,
show do you prove that we are in a
ruined condition by siu?" Well, can
prove it in two ways, and you may have
| your choice. l can prove it either by
the statements of men, or by the state
ment of God. Which shall it be? You
all say, ''let us have the statement of
God" Well, he says in one place: "the
heart Is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked" He says in
another place: What is man that
he should be clean? and he which is
| born of a woman, that he should be
righteous?" lie says in another place:
"rhere is none that doeth good, no,
not one" lie says in another place:
GAS by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin; and so death
passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned." ''Well," you say, 81 am will
! ing to acknowledge that, but why
should take the particular rescue that
you propose?" This is the reason:
Except a man lie born again he cannot
see the kingdom of God" This is
the reason. There is none other name
| given under Heaven among men where
| by they may be saved" Then there are
a thousand voices here ready to say:
"Well, L am ready to accept this help of
the Gospel; l would like to have this
divine cure how shall go to work p
Let me say that mere within, an un-
defined longing amounts to nothing.
| You must have stout, tremendous
resolution like this young man of the
text when he said: 81 will arise and go
to my father"
Again, notice that this resolution
of this young man of the text was
founded in sorrow at his misbehavior.
1t was not mere physical plight. 1t
was grief that he had so maltreated his
father. 1t is sad thing after father
has done everything for child, to
have that child be ungratefuL.
"How sharper than serpents tooth. 1t Ia,
| To have "A thankless child"
That is Shakespeare. "a foolish son
is the heavfness of his mother" That
is the Bible. Well, my friends, have
not some of us been foolish prodigals?
Have we not maltreatcd our Father?
And such n Father? So loving, SO
kind. We apologize for wrongs done
20 our fellows, but some Of us perhaps
have committed ten thousand times
ten thousand wrongs against God and
never apologized.
l remark still further that this reso'
luton of the text was founded in feel