Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

“There arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.”

“Where is the world?
   I looked for it, ’tis gone —
A globe of glass,
   Cracked, shivered, vanished,
Scarce gazed upon
   E’er a silent power dissolved the glittering mass.”

The prodigal journeys into the far country because he thinks it will do better for him than God will. He hopes for good things from it for it beckons to him with a pleasant smile, and makes great promises. It appears to be a nursing mother from whose breasts he may draw the milk of complete satisfaction. For a while he is not undeceived, it gives him the heartiest of welcomes, and spreads out its wares for him as Vanity Fair did for Christian and Faithful in Bunyan’s Book. But at last he discovers it to be what it is, not a kindly mother that cares for her children, but a veritable vampire that will suck the blood of his soul and cast him aside at last as a worthless thing. If I were to quote Solomon to prove this, the king who tested every phase of the world, and declared it all to be “vanity and vexation of spirit,” I might be charged with putting forward one-sided evidence, so I will not quote him, nor any Bible text, nor any saying of a Spurgeon or a Moody, but I will quote one of the world’s own poets, a man, titled, wealthy, and talented, who could say, “I awoke one morning to find myself famous.” He wrote after a few years of it,
“I fly like a bird of the air
   In search of a home and a rest,
 A balm for the sickness of care,
   A bliss for a bosom unblest.”

And hear the confession of a man who was at one time a pampered leader of the gaiety of the world, he wrote: “I threw the pearl of my soul into the cup of wine, and went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes, I lived on honeycomb; I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless ease. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in disgrace. Where I walk there are thorns, and like many or all who have placed their heaven in this earth … I have found the horror of hell.“

He wasted his substance, and the substance wasted can never be regained, it is gone for ever. Then it is when the prodigal reaches this point in his experience that he discovers the world’s true character. The mighty famine arises; and he begins to be in want, and is wanted no more. I heard of a young man who came into a large fortune at the age of 23. In a few years it had all gone, it had melted away like snow, and he had nothing left but a great quantity of corks; the corks were his only possession. But what were they and why did he keep them? It had been a notion of his whenever he split a bottle of champagne with a friend to ask him to initial the cork, and he kept these as souvenirs of the good times he had had, and now the fortune was gone, and the champagne was gone, and the friends were gone, and the corks were left. The poetess was not far wrong when, having observed that sort of thing, she wrote,
“Feast, and your halls are crowded,
   Fast, and they’ll pass you by
 Succeed and give, and they’ll let you live,
   Fail, and they’ll let you die.”

But the prodigal of the parable had not yet reached the nadir of his fortunes; when he began to be in want the gay side of the far country had no more use for him, but a certain citizen of it to whom he joined himself thought that he could still squeeze some service out of him, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. The degradation and horror of that could only be appreciated by the Jewish audience that listened to the words of the Lord. That certain citizen is the devil; and whoever found any pity in the devil’s heart? Though he transforms himself into an angel of light, as the Bible says he does, there is no mercy in him, he is “a murderer from the beginning”: yet as surely as a man flies from God, he flies into the arms of the devil, whose other names are, “the dragon, that old serpent, and Satan.”

It was not until he reached the level of the grunting swine, and was so hungry that he would fain have filled his belly with their food, that the prodigal came to himself, and began to assess things at their right value. What must have been his feelings as he brooded amid the wreck of his life? It has been the experience of many sinners. Thompson expressed it well in his great poem,
“In the rash lustihood of my young powers
   I shook the pillaring hours,
 And pulled my life upon me, grimed with smears;
   I stand amid the dust of mounded years —
 My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap,
 My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
 Have puffed and burst like sun-starts on a stream.”

The blinders are off his eyes, he sees at last, but where can he turn in his misery and despair? Who will help a wretch that the world does not want, and who may well be described as “the devil’s castaway”? Memories of his father’s house come back to him. The bounty of that house was proverbial, the very servants had bread enough and to spare; no beggar ever called at that house in vain, and he, a son, was perishing with hunger. “I perish with hunger” was the cry of his soul. And if his father’s house was a house of plenty, what of his father himself? He will go and see, and he will cast himself upon his mercy and as he makes that decision he is encouraged to believe that his misery will move his father to pity.

God is the ruined sinner’s only hope; I proclaim the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to be the ruined sinner’s only hope and more than friend. He loves the souls of men and the cry of need ever reaches His heart. When a sinner sinks to the lowest depths of his degradation he may still look up and meet a God whose heart yearns after him with unspeakable love. We have a telling incident in Old Testament history. Nebuchadnezzar, the great king, because of his pride had been reduced to the level of the beasts, and for seven years he ate grass like an ox, until his hair grew like eagle’s feathers and his nails like birds’ claws. At last his reason returned to him, he came to himself, and where could he look when he realised how debased he had become? He would be an object of contempt to the meanest of his slaves and would shrink away from their sight; but then, at that very time and in that condition, he says, “I lifted up mine eyes to heaven.” He could turn to God. But here is something greater than that. The prodigal says, “I will arise and go to my father.” But his father had risen up before him, and had prepared everything for his return and welcome. God is ahead of the sinner and heaven’s rich provision and the Father’s welcome awaits every prodigal that arises to return to God.