The Tupelo journal., 1904-05-13

turn unto the Lord.-Hos. 81.
OUTLINE OF SCRIPTURE SECTION.
Parable of Barren Fig Tree.....Luke 1919
Healing Infirm Luke 13:1O-21
Teaching About the Kingdom. Luke 13:22-30
Warned Against Herod ....... Luke 10 :3l-35
Discourse at Pharisee's Table. Luke 14:1-4
Discourse on Counting the Cost.......
l4:2o-3o
PARALLELS, Lost Sheep and Lost Coin.
15:l-10
Parable, Lost Luke 15:l1-32
TIME.-January, A. D.. 30.
PLACE.-Peraea; the same as the last
lesson.
NOTES AND COMMENTS.
Jesus hds SO far Tvs. LID illustrated
from things lost; nov it is a person, a
son, and it Is a fathers heart that bleeds
for him. In this, the greatest Of all
parallels, Jesus comes back to His own
illustration of the relation between God
and man, and pictures it in the simplest
and most beautiful and most winning
way possible. Most of us are not and
need not be t%heologians in the ordinary
sense. but We may all master the theol-
ogy of the parable of the~Prodigal Son,
and with that we have the essence Of
the theology of Jesus. There are sew
eral varieties of theology to be found
in the 66 books that we call the Bible,
but whether they took shape before the
birth of Jesus, or after His death, they
must square with His W teaching with
regard to God and man and salvation or
we cannot accept them for ourselves.
"a certain man had two sons" The
whole point of the parable is in the re-
lationship; father and sol THE young
er of them" He was inexperienced and
headstrong. 1t is the old story of a boy
with a hankering, in itself natural and
right, to see the world and a broader
life than hat of the home of his child
hood; he supposedhe knew the world
had probably Dragged of it; distance
had lent enchantment and he was wild
to enter its varied and fascinating life.
1.-THE portion of thy substance that fall
eth to me-" One-third of the property
would be the portion" of the younger
SON; two-thirds that of the elder. A
boys desire to realize the freedom and
activities of manhood becomes wrong
the moment it forgets to have considera-
ton for the rights and feeling of others,
and the restraints existing because of
his relationship to home or society or
God. He divided unto them his liv-
ing" Not because he had to; not be-
cause he was convinced that his boy
would use the money wisely; but per-
haps because he saw that a time had
come in the boys life when he must be
thrown on his own responsibility. Men
are creatures of free will, and his boy
was become a man. "Took his journey
into a far country" He wanted to get
away from all who had ever seen or
known him, from the restraint that
their presence would be to him Riot
Gus living" Perhaps he had meant
only to see it; perhaps seeing life" to
him meant seeing low. immoral, abb
normal life, as it does to SO many; per-
haps he thought he could play with fire
and not be burned, or perhaps it was a
case of the candle and the moth-the
life of gay revelry had an almost ire
sistible attraction for him. and he flew
to it the moment he was free.
when he had spent ALL" That he
spent all indicates the sheer madness
of his course. He ignored almost every
consideration that should influence a
young man beginning life. There arose
~,;ohfu 70 poino.p Tho Hfominpv
usually comes to the one who has
thrown away his opportunities. 1t is
neither good economy nor good morals
TO learn wisdom only from the bitter
experiences of foolishness and sin.
This young man had not sense enough
to learn it in any other way. He did not
begin to see the point till he was Gin
want" Then, when the terribleness Of
his mistake came to him, what did he
do? Did he say: Il will arise and go to
my father" Did he admit that he had
been wrong and go back? Not yet. 1t
Is hard to do that. He became a swine
herd. "Husks:" The nutritious pods
of the carob tree; somewhat like locust
pods. The last resort of starving Syrians
even to-day.
when he came to himself" One Of
the most significant sentences in the
whole parable; Jesus did not assume
that man is naturally d~epraved-a child
of wrath, but the reverse. The far
try. with it's drunkenness and misery,
he is in, to be sure, but it is not his
home and that life is not his life. 1t
is unnatural, abnormal and insane.
When the prodigal came to his senses,
to himself, his real self, he realized 1t,
too-that though he was with the swine
he was not one of them-that he was the
child of his noble father, that "his better
self" was his true self and that in leav-
ing that nightmare land he was return
ing home. In calling men to follow Him
Jesus is not calling them to leave their
own life to live one that is not their
own, but from an abnormal and unsat-
i~sfactory life of wrong and unrest back
to the wholesome, natural life of chill
dren of God. He only wants us to come
to ourselves, for that will mean coming
to Him.