A prodigal yet a son (Quality: Very good

[0:00] Dependent as ever on the Lord for his help I would ask your attention to what we read the 15th chapter of the Gospel as recorded by Luke and the last part of the 14th verse 15th chapter of the Gospel as recorded by Luke and the last part, the last clause verse 14 and he began to be in want and he began to be in want I suppose that we've all heard various discourses from these from this chapter a chapter which speaks of that grace of repentance and that blessed confession which is formed and found in the heart of all that fear the Lord and I don't feel I could add nothing or anything to what has been written here it is an account it's an earthly story with a heavenly meaning but the truths that lie in these words and what accompany them shall be only known by the children of God leaving aside the word as far as the parable is concerned we would look to see and to draw from gracious teaching what it is and who it is that is spoken of here as the prodigal and indeed how it was that he became to be in want as he was by relationship a son and that relationship could never alter it could never be taken from him because as a son he was the subjects of his father's love and this relationship must must and surely be applied to the people of God and to them only because it is only the people of God that shall in time begin or as we have the text and he began to be in want it's only the Lord's people and who you are and how you are this morning the Lord knows but if you are in want and if what you want is in your father's house and that is your eternal father in glory and those blessings which you know the people of God have are the things that you want you are amongst his children and you will be with them in glory forever but you will not be in possession of these blessings that are laid up for his sons and daughters until and unless you come to be in want the Lord never disposes of his blessings to the dead nor to the lost nor to the ruined by sin and those destitute of grace by his wonderful work of grace by his wonderful work within the soul enlivening them bringing them into divine life they then they then begin to be in want and what is said here is said to the people of God throughout their lifetime there may be times when you shall be refreshed with his goodness in your soul there may be times when you shall rejoice in hope at the glory of God there may be times when you come into that word that's in

[4:50] John's gospel where it says and you shall ask me nothing because there'll be nothing to ask for but whilst you and I live in this world of sin and woe and if we have grace in our soul we shall from time to time as we go on to the end of time to the end of our time we shall have these times when we shall begin to be in want and those are the characters that are found in Zion and those are the souls that we would have in the congregations of Zion also these are the ones you can preach to you know those who are in want not those whose cases are but mere formality and their soul is in just as dead a condition as the world outside my friends these blessed characters sons and daughters of the most high God shall be known as the sons and daughters of God by reason that inward work and that inward teaching and that degree and purpose of God that they shall be in want because there was nothing you know let's just go back for a moment to the substance of the word when he left his father's house what a hard heart he had

[6:16] I thought of that man you know and it's in us too in unregenerous sea he despised the mention of his grace to proud to seek a hiding place he despised his father's house that was for the few and poor people of God but it wasn't for him their sights to set on things which is in this world and this world only that is the substance they want those are the blessings that they seek for to be respectable and to be thought one of and to possess this world in their heart and to go on add religion to it to make it a little bit more respectable but never in want I told you once before I went into an office of a manager in our company and there in his bookshelf was a bible and I said oh

[7:18] I'm surprised you've got a bible there he said well I don't read it he said I'll just put it there because it looks alright no he was one of those characters no want no need no soul to save no soul to be lost no knowledge of eternity no feelings towards God no grace and so my friends that is all of us that describes all of us in our unregenerate condition and then we sang in that first hymn glory to God they ne'er shall roam beyond the limits of his love fenced by Jehovah's shells and wheels firm as the everlasting hills the appointed time rolls on a pace not to propose but called by grace to change the heart renew the will and turn the feet to Zion's heel and that's when you begin to be in want there was nothing you know when a soul is touched by the hand of

[8:27] God when grace enters the soul when life enters the soul needs become more urgent concerns become more desperate and instead of that shallow horizon of worldly pursuits and worldly ways and worldly needs it will be your soul and it will be the value of your soul that will make you grow under the sense of indwelling sin it will be the fear of eternity how stands the case my soul with thee is heaven thy credentials clear is Jesus blood thine only plea is he thy grace for under there this man despised his father's house but you know when he began to be in want he couldn't get back there quick enough and he began to be in want no more the riotous living that couldn't satisfy no more the friendship with the world no more the ways of the world that is those ways which were excess of the providential pathway of the people of God why was it so what made the difference you ask you ask your God and he'll tell you it's this my friends death is stamped on it all death is stamped on it all and there's a blight on it now and that blight and that death so affects your spirit that you shall be found seeking for those things which shall have life stamped on it that you shall have mercy that you shall have love stamped on it and he began to be in want and there was nothing you know when your soul is quickened into life how can that feed off the husks that the swine eat how can the things of this world and I'm talking about the excesses

[10:45] I'm not talking about those providential things we all have to pray the Lord for and that he might sanctify the gift of providence to us I'm talking about what the world is delighting run after rejoicing and can't possess enough of my friends these things will never do your soul any good they are empty substance it's an empty substance it's a shell without anything in it it's a myth of which will never be of any profit to an immortal soul what is needed is what you are want for and the Lord will put in your soul this want there's a lot of people say the Lord grants you your need but not your want that can only be applied for providential things what you and

[11:47] I need the Lord will provide he that hath made my heaven secure will hear all good provide but the wants is what you must have seek for long after desire for pray for and look for the wants these things which will be for your souls profit and he knew this man knew that his wants were in his father's house not his father's house literally and dare I say also not in his father's house as far as the means of grace concerns it does please the Lord and it has pleased the Lord that he will use the means of grace what it really means is everything that that poor soul now needs is with his

[12:48] God that he may dispose it upon them that they may be in possession of it and it may and it shall please the Lord at some time some place according to his will and purposes that they shall come into possession for what they want and it may well be in his house that that will be so but it might be in your house it might be on a bed of affliction it might be in the midst of a great trial it might be where the Lord will have it to be but till then and till that gracious time comes this work he works in the souls of all his people let me say again lest any should be dismayed or distressed that this is only a word for someone who's in the beginnings of the way my friends as you and

[13:53] I go on in the way you'll always be in want you'll always be in what how did you come to chapel what went before I used to hear this said and it is I believe very true what was spoken of what is written rather in the gospel of Luke and chapter 23 is this that that day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew on and it used to be said like this Lord grant us a Saturday preparation in other words that the Lord will exercise our soul on the Saturdays before the Sabbath days that we might lay before him the needs of our soul well if you're not in wants you won't do it but if by divine grace your soul is in life and you hunger and thirst for the things of God and you long to meet where his people meet and you come in with that hymn that

[14:55] I love I love to meet among them now and at thy gracious feet to bow though vilest of them all but can I bear the piercing thought what if my soul should be left out when thou for them shalt call now dear friends if you are there in that hymn and in that desire in that exercise well you might say to me well I don't know what to do want you'll want what all the sons and daughters of God possess it's not in them that they possess it is in their Lord and Master Jesus Christ that is where their possessions lie we did speak once somewhere it might be here that they shall possess their possessions now their possessions are in Christ he is the channel of mercy the blessed spirit of truth the Holy Ghost will not only convince of sin begin to be in want and I say it again there is only a beginning to be in want we might say this and we would not alter the scriptures in so saying that there is a continuing to be in want but that blessed spirit work as you so often hear me quote and I can't quote it enough because it's so real so true so necessary he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you now this is a blessing my friends as he's shown you what you want and have you seen it as being in the possessions of Jesus

[16:35] Christ for his church but you say well I know what I want I long for this or I long for that but it's coming into the possession of it that is the trouble and the trial in my life and my friends till it is so you will begin to be you'll continue in this state of want and he began to be in want he went here to a citizen of that country who sent him into his fields to feed swine and he would have fain as filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him and only heightened or strengthened the want and he found a soul that is under grace my friends that wants that which is in the person of Christ and that which is in the possession of Christ that for which Christ went to the cross at Calvary to provide those possessions those things which the world seems to find a satisfaction with will only heighten the urgency only make them feel the hunger and the thirst more acute

[18:03] I said somewhere recently I don't know where it was here or elsewhere but there is a word or it might even have been in a conversation there is a word somewhere which says I shall be satisfied when I awake in his likeness now that's when you'll be finished your wanted that's when every need shall be supplied but it would be true then what Christ said in the 16th of John in that day you shall ask me nothing but till that day my friends those characters under grace one of the clearest evidences of grace you know is the want in one soul you know one of the greatest trials for a mother is when a child hasn't got an appetite you know one of the most clearest evidences of life is the cry as we've often referred to it but you know as a child grows it needs to feed and if it goes off its food or cannot seem to be satisfied with its food or hers and it doesn't seem to get hungry it will suffer because of it the faculties of the body will suffer because of the lack of the intake of that which is for their good so it is spiritually so it is more so spiritually my friends you may write yourself off because of all the wants you have my friends it's the most blessed gracious evidence of life within to possess a spiritual want because like this man it will make you cry it will make you pray and it will bring you to the edge of despair when he joined himself to a citizen of that country for the purpose of what to supply his want and he was employed by that citizen and it was to feed swine not to feed him and he would have faint of filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat and no man gave him to him so it increased his hunger made his want seem that much more urgent brought him to feel that though the swine were fed he wasn't though the swine was satisfied with husks he couldn't husks you know and I better be careful because I don't know anything about husks but I would say this of husks that there's nothing any good in it it'll satisfy swine but it won't satisfy the soul of the people of God formality letter

[21:23] I say it very carefully my friends those two things won't satisfy a living soul go and listen to these good gifted men and you listen and listen to see whether there's any substance in these gifted men talking to a minister last night and he was telling me about a pastor and he said oh he is a gifted man he's a very able man he's able to take the scriptures and to be able to preach from the those truths that lie between and I said is he a gracious man you know gifts and grace are a great blessing but gifts don't always make grace and some of the most dearest ministers I have loved for the truth sake could ever be called gifted but they were gracious and they were led into the truth and they were brought the truth out and it was made sweet to my soul so my friends this it is one of those traps I was going to say that Satan uses we live in a day of course of high education great abilities and it creeps into the church of Christ and you hear great orations or you can if you go certain places and it's wonderful really what the wisdom of man can find out in spiritual things but listen to the truth and see if there's any that in it listen to the experience will it do a poor and needy soul any good will it satisfy the longing soul and you know I was going to say it does take a little to satisfy the longing soul doesn't need great orations doesn't need those gifted sermons you know they study up and they get all their facts right and they put all things in order they stand up and they talk well off because of these gifts and their abilities and so on my friends he won't do the poor and needy any good and he began to mean what these are husks that the swine feed off of

[23:48] I remember a dear saint of God servant of God rather well he was a saint of God and he preached in our hearing months somewhere but my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus and one of these people that talk much about religion came out and said well that was a wonderful sermon wasn't it and I said it was if he was in need it wasn't any good if he wasn't nothing wrong with his preaching my friends but you must be brought to be in want that's what the Lord's people shall be found but there be nothing that satisfies them but substance nothing that satisfies them but spiritual food and it's got to come from their father's house but I want to say this too as we go on you know what mercy there is in this case and this is what these dear souls will experience in it all it is of mercy that they are brought to be in one what struck me with this account again as we've read it and re-read it is this that what this son did didn't bar him from the blessings did it didn't take didn't as it were bar him from the possessions of the blessings that were his as a son when he came to his father's house in that condition his father didn't turn him out when he came in that condition of poverty because he must have been in abject poverty what a sight he must have been in want a no man gave on to him but you know those blessings which were in his father's house were hid still there was no retribution there was no speaking against didn't charge him with foolishness didn't chasten him because of what he done he took him in as he was took him in as he was he didn't say go away and clean yourself up come back a bit later when you were a bit more respectable he came as he was this is where this man was you know he didn't put on a false veneer of religion he didn't dress up as it were some notion that it would appeal to his father when he came home he came just as he was and he began to be in want couldn't put his hand to anything that made his appearance or his state anything better than it really was and that's of total poverty he began to be one he began the chapter and read the chapter familiar words of course experience

[26:55] I trust my friends experience says this because this is where it all began this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them you may put and we do put respectable clothes on to come to the Lord's house but we can't touch this can we we can't touch this old heart of sin nor can we erase the iniquity of the weakness past we might put respectable clothes on and we should do in the house of God is a respect to the Lord's house not to come like as if he was in a company of the world but to come respectably dressed and so on my friends you can't change your heart nothing you can do it's all outward and it's right but my friends inwardly you can be in want and he began to be in want and I tell you this my friends if there was more spiritual want there would be more spiritual blessings and those that look on the house of

[28:04] God with likeness and difference and contempt some of them my friends if the Lord only touched their soul they'll be there because they'll be in want and what they'll want is what's in the Lord's house what's in his father's house in the Lord's house these blessings and truths which are in this gospel and which flow from Christ to the soul of his people but you'll want it first you'll want it these evangelicals who keep on trying to twist people's arms to take up with Jesus Christ and to enter into the gospel blessings which are in Jesus Christ how can a dead soul want anything how but it's only a living soul they'll have them in the church some way or other my friends that's not the people of God that's false religion and that's false work he began to be in want and that's where the tide turned that's where the circumstance turned towards him and that's where his blessings will be coming from from the time when he began to be in want and if there's no want there's no need and if there's no need there can never be any cry and those blessings which are for those in need will not be their possessions but these things will bring repentance and he began to be in want this is the account here throughout this 15th chapter is on the grace of repentance and you know there's many people that speak about confession and it's right to preach confession if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness my friends but what about the grace of repentance that is essential real that is real truth in the soul repentance before confession and he came to that repentance

[30:18] I will arise and go to my father that was repentance this was restoring mercies he was after this was returning grace is given and it wasn't now to turn away but it was a turning to people say well we can't do anything about our condition we're told taught preached to that there's nothing in us that can do it but my friends this is the truth and he began to be in want and what brought that about not by man's effort not at all not by man's effort but by that gracious spirit's work in the soul beginning to be in want what a blessed character and all the time my friends he was a son and whether he lived in his father's house as he obviously done previously or whether he turned in disrespect to his father's house to a lifetime of righteous living he was still a son you can't change sonship you know change your name you can today but you can't change sonship you can't alter my friends that which was given you at birth and those blessings which are in the births in a spiritual birth shall remain they shall be sons and daughters whatever and wherever they are found though he spent his substance in righteous living didn't alter his relationship to his father and neither did it alter his father's relationship to him my friends what he needed his father possessed what he cried after what he wanted something for his spiritual life he began to be want true repentance was found in his heart true confession you will notice in his confession too and perhaps this evening if the lord keeps this word with us we shall look at those things which they shall come into possession of which belong to their father which he gives to them freely but you will notice in his confession he begins where all sinners should begin

[32:51] I will arise and go to my father and say unto him father I have sinned against heaven and before thee he was conscious of the frown of heaven was upon him but you will notice too as we read down that 15th chapter when the lord jesus christ was teaching these pharisees the necessity of repentance that he says twice I think it is I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repented more than over ninety and nine just persons and again in the tenth verse I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the angels of god over one sinner one sinner that repented and he began to be in want my friends when your soul is in want it's in health oh that's desire my friends

[33:55] I would desire for us all to have a soul that's in want a longing for the things of god a desiring for those things which are in possession christ jesus but in blessings are for every vessel of mercy in the covenant of grace but to want for them said this now as when I started this state of being in want is the exercise of the living soul to the end of his journey and we might use again what I sometimes do what I sometimes say is that take this word and measure it measure your religion with that as the rule to measure it take this word my friends and upon the attendance of the house of god and the evidence of it against the attendance the attendance on the house of god take this word to in your morning and evening readings of the word of god and your prayers and supplications at the family altar take this word and use it as a measure my friends and you'll have to say with me we can grow very well under formality and when you grow into formality you know you grow unawares of your condition and when you grow like that you know you can grow careless and you'll be satisfied with just the mere attendance to these all important matters whether it's the throne of grace or the means of grace but then if you're a son or a daughter he won't leave you to grow satisfied with the custom or the letter or the attendance either you'll say again I love to meet among them now and at thy gracious feet to bow thou vilest of them all but can

[36:14] I bear the piercing thought what if my soul should be left out when thou for them should call we might say this and we must never use supposition my friends the truth is there the truth we must keep to in the book of Ruth there were two daughters in law one was as affectionate as the other but one was prepared to go back and was and indeed did go back Ruth clave unto her or pa kissed her mother-in-law she was as much in affection as one was to the other as far as the outward scene was but in Ruth there was found a cleaving in Ruth there was found a want entreat me not to leave the or to return from following after thee for whither thou goest

[37:22] I will go where thou lodgest will I lodge thy people shall be my people and thy God my God where thou diest will I die and there will I be buried the Lord do so to me and more also in all but death part thee and me there was something in Ruth that wasn't in all part relationships was the same they were daughters in law of Naomi but in one's heart and spirit there was a oneness with Naomi and whatever lie in the path whatever lay before Naomi it would be the same for Ruth and he began to be in want now I hope the Lord will keep it with us and then we shall see those things that a child of God wants and must of necessity possess in this tenth chapter in the tenth chapter of this gospel the

[38:31] Lord Jesus said to Martha but one thing is needful and your desire for that one thing will never be satisfied without that one thing what this man wanted to was to be found in his father's house however low that position might be I've often said you know there's a difference between the rehearsal of this confession and the confession itself in the rehearsal was make me as one of thy hired servants but you know after his father saw him and he saw him yet a great way off and had compassion ran and fell on his neck and kissed him he didn't want to be a servant then those affections took away the desire only to be a servant that was the evidence of a son those were the blessings that a son is entitled to and shall be in possession of they are between the father and the son this is the evidence that was in the heart of the father towards the son and it showed and it fell and it was his blessing and his blessing only no servant shall possess no hired servant shall possess these blessings but sons and daughters will and he began to be in want amen god willing there's a prayer meeting wednesday and i hope to be here next lord's day shall we sing the remaining four verses of him 519 verse 6 he said and off he goes towards his father's house face with neither shoes nor hose nor any other dress except his base and filthy rags of sin and guilt the very drakes but oh good news of grace the father saw him come and with a smiling face he ran to fetch him home he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him for his mercy's sake verse 6 in 590오 said i could be

[41:50] Thank you.

[42:20] are dead and frozen and ¶.

[42:57] ¶. ¶. ¶. ¶.

[43:14] ¶. Thank you.

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[45:16] Thank you.

[45:47] Lord, thy blessing we pray for, and thy forgiveness we seek for. And now go with us, Lord, through this day.

[45:58] Gather us together later. Father, we pray thee, and may we be again given aid of thy Spirit. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the sweet communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, abide with us each, both now and forever. Amen.

[46:29] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[46:41] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

[47:20] Thank you.