THE HEART OF GOD
L. McFarlane
This remarkable parable is one of those the Lord uttered while here. It brings out the heart of our Saviour God. Paul used that expression in 1 Timothy 2: 4, “Our Saviour God, who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”. This beautiful parable brings that out, the heart of God. What a God is presented in the glad tidings! Despite man’s self-will and waywardness, the heart of God is love. So the Father’s love is being preached in the glad tidings, a love that would allure us to Himself. How the Lord Jesus as He spoke would feel for men in their lost and ruined state. So He says there is joy before the angels of God over one repenting sinner. May I ask if everyone in this room knows what it is, not only to repent, but to be a repenting sinner?
The glad tidings are so great, so precious! You have all heard of Saul of Tarsus; he had to do with Jesus the Saviour, and for the remainder of his life he was a repenting sinner.
God’s desire for men, for you and for me, dear friend, is happiness. As the beloved apostle stood before the authorities in Caesarea in the Acts (Acts 26: 28), king Agrippa said, “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian”. And Paul answered, “I would to God ... that not only thou, but all who have heard me this day, should become such as I also am”. Mr: Darby once said that that audience was looking on a happy man. In chains, yes, a prisoner, yet his desire was that all in that audience should be like him. Well, he had had to do with Jesus. He had been an insolent overbearing man, Saul of Tarsus, but he had had to do with Jesus and it affected his entire life.
So now I would speak of these two sons. It is a description of your state and my state. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. Dispensationally, these two sons represent the Gentile and the Jew. The younger son, the Gentile, went away into this far country and wasted what the Father had endowed him with. That is the story of man’s history. “All have sinned”, Paul says, “and come short of the glory of God”, Romans 3: 23. “There is not a righteous man, not even one”, Romans 3: 10. It is the story of man’s history. God has so blessed us, has been so gracious in providing for us in His mercy the things of this life. We here this afternoon are a testimony to the goodness of God. So Paul says too, “the goodness of God leads thee to repentance”, Romans 2: 4. Let us be affected, dear friend. Consider for a moment how good God has been to you. It is intended to affect your heart, it is intended to cause you to return, wherever you may be at this point of time in your history. Maybe I am speaking to someone who has gone into this far country; brought up in a Christian household, but having given up the truth and gone far into this land of famine—‘Sin’s distant land of famine’, the hymn says. That is what the world is, but, thank God, in His government He reached this young man.
Many of us here are praying for all the young people, day and night praying for the young, and God is taking account of those prayers and He is able in His government to reach us, to reach you, friend. He desires to bless you. So this famine came in; “There arose a violent famine throughout that country, and he began to be in want”. What a contrast to the father’s house, a house of plenty, a house of fulness. It was a beautiful sight this very morning to see persons in the enjoyment of the fatness of that house. But it can be yours. The hymn says.
‘Repentance only. God requires from man,
And faith in Christ, His well-beloved Son’.
This young man came to himself. Oh, it is a great day in your history, a very great day, when you come to yourself. We have all had to come that way. We could never preach the glad tidings unless we had come that way. Come to yourself; come to acknowledge your wretchedness, your sinful nature. The young man said, “How many hired servants of my fathers’ have abundance of bread”. That is the blessedness of the sphere in which the Father would have us to be found, a sphere of fulness where even the hired servants have an abundance of bread.
Is there someone here who is hungry, perishing? Well, you can be in touch with this fulness this very evening; you can come into the blessedness of the Father’s provision for you as you come to yourself
and return. So he said, “I will arise”. A beautiful thing this; “I will arise”. Do not just sit there. “I will arise and go to my father”. That is how we come into the blessing, by repentance. “And he rose up and went to his own father”.
The rest of the section brings out the father’s love. How the father felt the loss of his younger son! Day after day he was looking out for his return. Such is the heart of our Saviour God; He is looking for men to return. In the glad tidings Jesus says, “Come to me all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”, Matthew 11: 28. Now what more could be provided for us? So it is said, “While he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion”. This brings out the ardency of the father’s love for his son; the slightest move you make this evening, the slightest desire in your heart to get to the Father.
He would take account of it. So it says his father was “moved with compassion”. These are the compassions of God. How He feels the ruin and the sinful state of man away from Himself. He has extended the day of glad tidings even to the present time. He has compassion; He is feeling for men. So it is said that the father “ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. What love! Friend, we never will know true love until we know something of the Father’s love, until we come to the Father. This young man had left the father’s house, but in truth he did not know his father. Now he is getting an impression of the father’s love for him. The father fell upon his neck and covered him with kisses—the father’s embrace. We had a sense of that here this morning, the Father’s embrace, and the delight He is finding in returning sons.
The son said to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy son”. Oh, the father had made full provision for him; it was not a question of his worthiness, it was a question of the father’s love, and what the father had provided in the fatted calf. Yes, the Father has provided One, even our Lord Jesus. Think of Him relating this parable and speaking of the fatted calf. The father says, “Bring the fatted calf and kill it”. That speaks of the way Jesus has gone for you and for me, friend. He went to Calvary’s cross, He suffered and He died there. Redemption had to be effected so that this young man might be set up in liberty in the house. “And let us eat and make merry: for this my son was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found”.
But before all that we have the best robe. “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet”. Well, the Father would cover you, dear friend.
His love would take account of your wretchedness. The best robe, everything in this scripture, speaks of Christ, the perfection of Christ. We were thus clothed this morning before the Father, in the best robe. And there is now a ring on his hand, the sense of the Father’s love, “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”, Romans 5: 5.
With the ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet, he is brought into the liberty of the house, to praise God. We recall the man in Acts 3: 7; when his feet and ankle bones became strong he began to walk and to leap and to praise God.
Well, that is what we experienced in this very room this morning, persons leaping in spirit and praising God; that is the merriment of the Father’s house. His desire, friend, is that you might be in it. The father says, “Let us eat and make merry: for this my son was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found”. So Christianity is an exceedingly happy system of things. The Lord Jesus would speak feelingly of what the Father is inviting men to come into—merriment. You young people like to be merry, well, come into the house. It says, “and they began to make merry”. What a remarkable setting forth of the glad tidings! The blessed God desires to share with us the blessedness He has found in His beloved Son, He could say from the excellent glory, “This in my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. He would take us into favour in Him. He would cause us to enjoy the blessedness of His house and to be there to go no more out. Who would want to leave such a sphere of things?
Now we come to the elder son, who was in the field. He never left home but he was a man of the field, a man of sport and the like. As I said at the outset, dispensationally he represents the Jew. He became angry when he heard of what the father had done. It says the servant said to him, “Thy brother is come, and thy father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him safe and well”. “But he became angry and would not go in. And his father went out and besought him”. That is God’s attitude this evening in relation to you if you are not in the house. The Father would come out and would welcome you in. He “went out and besought him” to come in. In the next chapter it says, “a great chasm is fixed”(Luke 16: 26). That is, if, we put off the blessedness of the invitation in this day of grace—O the wonder of the day we are in, the day of grace!—we might find ourselves in the place where the chasm is fixed. God has invited you, friend, to come in; His attitude is one of love, forgiveness, and longsuffering, and He is beseeching you to come in, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Melbourne
15 May 1988