Luke 15:11-32 And he said, A certain man had two sons:… There is something very ominous in that expression, "He began to be in want." It was only a beginning of want, but it was the pressage of starvation, and brought along with it the forecast of an agonizing death. Let me ask you to put side by side this expression and another, in which the same word occurs just at the end of the parable — "They began to be merry." Surely both the parallelism and the contrast are alike instructive. Want begins when we wander into the far country, and joy begins when we find ourselves restored to the Father's house; but the want is only the beginning of want, and the joy is only the beginning of joy. The want must go on, becoming more and more cruel and tormenting as the mighty famine increases, while the "merriment," the spiritual mirth of that "happy day" which fixes our choice upon our Saviour and our God, develops into the quiet and calm but deeper and fuller happiness of a life in which the soul feeds on Christ, rejoices in the Lord, and joys in the God of his salvation. Indeed, do not these contrasted sentences suggest to our minds the thought that heaven and hell have their commencements here on earth, to whatever each may develop hereafter? For heaven is that condition of existence that is induced by the satisfying of the soul in God. As yet our heaven is incomplete, for the satisfaction is not yet full. Only when we wake up in God's likeness shall we be saris. fled fully; but even here we are possessed of the secret of satisfaction, and when the sense of want arises we know where to turn to find what our spirits need. And while our joy in this satisfaction comes very far short now of what it will be, yet is it in kind, though not in degree, identical with the very joy of heaven. We have begun to be merry. The chief cause of the joy is the same, whether it be felt in heaven or on earth; its source is the same, and its character is the same. It is the very joy of God in the heart of man. And hell has its commencement here on earth in the restlessness and inanity of the godless life, and in the weariness and dissatisfaction of the godless heart. As fleeting pleasures and visionary acquisitions pass away, as one broken cistern after another falls to pieces, as sorrow casts its shadow on the home, as failure embitters our experience or success disappoints us, the want increases; and the pain and sorrow of that want are the same in kind, though not in degree, as that which falls to the lot of the lost under the sentence of doom; for hell is a want that cannot be satisfied, and a loss that cannot be repaired. (W. M. Hay Aitken, M. A) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said, A certain man had two sons: |
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