Gospel Message

The older brother 3

Tue, 11 May 2010 11:51:43 +0100

Luke 15v25-32, The older brother in the parable of the prodigal son

Works, Blame and Contempt, v29-32

In v29-30 the son really gets it all off his chest. In an astonishing quadruple attack he stands proud over his own life as worthy of grace, he blames his father for not doing more for him and he spits out contempt towards his younger brother. He ends with pouring scorn on his father’s welcome of the younger son (Remember v2: it is the key to the chapter!).

Now this scorn is a bitter and vile slur on his father.
Perhaps, being generous, you could say that you might detect a cry to be saved in there.

But how does the father respond? It is the Father’s kindness that catches our breath, even more than the son’s malice.
He responds once more with the Gospel.
The Lord Jesus pictures himself for the third time as bringing the same Gospel to the older brothers of the world as to the rogues and the down-and-outs; the publicans & sinners.
V31 is difficult. But remember the context. The older son has blamed the father for not favouring him. The father shows him the real issue. Instead of the father not giving, it is that the son did not take. It was all his to take. It was all his to make use of.
Dear soul, have you long held this grudge with Jesus, that he has never yet chosen you, never yet favoured you?
Oh, friend, he says to you in his Gospel - it is here. Take of it. I have again and again intreated you. That was not the problem. Soul, realise what you have, that you have the Gospel. The whole of Christ’s redemption is offered to you every week. You stand at the threshold of untold wealth.
Thou art ever with me - you are always here. Always at the gate, always welcome to come in. If only the older brothers here would realise the wealth of their position.
Do you want to know tonight if you may come in? Christ says, you may.
In closing, in v32, the father puts him right back where he was. He captures once more the very scene that had so annoyed his older son. How will he react this time?

Yes, others, others who may have sinned less than you - right now they revel and rejoice in free, sovereign and amazing grace. How will you react?

The older brother 2

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:15:48 +0100

Luke 15v25-32, The older brother in the parable of the prodigal son

Angry and Stubborn, v28
Now the reticence and ignorance of the older brother changes. Instead he becomes angry and stubborn. It is clearly a ridiculous anger, an unreasonable anger. It is a case of cutting of your nose to spite your face. He could be inside rejoicing, joining in the happiness, but instead he is outside, alone, excluded, upset and boiling.
Now while it is clear that he has no one to blame for this but himself, lets still take time to think over it. News that should have lifted his heart with joy and fuelled his steps to run into the happiness of that tent instead infuriated his heart and locked his steps.

Lets examine the anger. Not all unconverted souls get angry when someone else is saved. But often it depends who that person is. I am sure there is a reason Jesus told us about an older brother. He probably wouldn’t have reacted like this with anyone else. If he had just heard of some other waster who had come to his senses, he would have been quite reasonable. But examine - whose conversion has or would make you spitting mad? Often it might be a brother or a sister. Maybe a young person.

Next lets examine the paralysis, an inability to follow. Even if you aren’t mad at conversions can you follow them? Do you know just exactly what it was like for this older brother to be rooted to the spot outside the tent. Perhaps his heart was yearning just to be able to go in, to enjoy, to join himself to the others, but he could not. Have you ever felt like the Gospel has left you high and dry? Outside and in the cold?
And yet what do we read - v28b. To this irrationally angry man, to this bitter and stubborn man, to this paralysed, impotent man, the Gospel comes once more.
Oh friend, if you feel like the Gospel has cold-shouldered you, abandoned you and rejected you, look at this verse! You who are good, decent, upright and salt of the earth, the Gospel is to you too! Jesus is not only interested in the hardest cases. He is not out to save those who would be left with a breathtaking testimony. What about the 99, what about the 9? The Gospel comes to you too.
The word intreated is expressive. It means that the father called him to his side. The Gospel calls you to the wounded side of Christ. It does not leave you. Just as surely as the shepherd went after the lost sheep, so the father comes out after the older brother. Satan wants you to believe the Gospel has given you a raw deal. But Christ intreats you.

The older brother

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:49:31 +0000

Luke 15v25-32, The older brother in the parable of the prodigal son

IN this parable focus is usually concentrated on the prodigal son. He was the one lost, just as earlier int he chapter we have the lost sheep and the lost coin.
And in every case Jesus represented himself as going through whatever was necessary to find what was lost and bring it home safe and well.

But you can be a non-Christian without feeling particularly lost. You can be not far from the kingdom, as Jesus once said to a scribe. You may never have really rebelled, always been a church-goer, always a good husband or wife, and yet not be born again.
You are not a prodigal. You are not an elusive lost coin - you are in church, under the Gospel - every week, while the Lord seems to go after these sinners and publicans.
So tonight we turn to the older brother. In Ephesians 2v17 the Bible speaks about how Jesus
came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

So here is the Gospel to them that are nigh; Near the Kingdom; almost persuaded. Here is the Gospel to those who are waiting, wondering why God hasn’t given you the attention that he has given to others much worse than you. Here is the Gospel preached to the older brother. If we miss that, we miss everything in the epilogue to this parable.

The Older Brother is Busy & Bemused, v25-27
I have often been confused over the older brother. Is he saved, backslidden or lost? He is an outwardly decent, evidently moral man, but a man who despite all that is not saved.
What are we to make of the 99 sheep, or the nine coins? Three times Christ has illustrated how he gladly brings the gospel to the lost, the awkward, the rogues. Now, 3 times, he shows how he brings the Gospel to those who are nigh, just as to those who are afar off. This week we look at the first instance.

We first meet the brother as both busy with his jobs and bemused by the commotion he hears. Here is someone out in the field. He was presumably working hard. This is what he did. You could probably depend on him to be in the field.
Now as he gets back home he heard the dancing and the music. And his reaction is telling. He doesn’t go to join in. He is bemused. He is doubtful. He feels instinctively left out, v26. His heart fills with a sense of foreboding.

Now what a perfect picture of some who read articles like this and who go to church every Sabbath. Decent hard working folk. Dependable. But even when you hear with your ears or see with your eyes the joy of the Gospel, you instinctively feel left out. How do you react when you hear of someone converted? Can you join in that dance?
No. You are outside. Just like the older brother.

Now what we need to note well is that the Gospel does indeed still come to this man, v27. He hears the account of a changed life. Christ is teaching that he doesn’t leave you left out. He sends his servants to tell you about it. When a Christian speaks to you about how they were converted, they are on an errand from Christ. In that instance Christ is preaching peace to your soul.

Britain’s Lost Christians

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:30:48 +0000

This was the headline in my paper. It said that four in ten Britons had no religion. However, the bleakness of the picture is perhaps more realistically indicated by the observation that 62% of those interviewed in the study of religious trends said they never attended services. A sociologist who analysed the data described a large proportion of the country as the “fuzzy faithful”, people who have a vague belief in God but do not belong to a particular denomination or attend services. What sort of religion is that?
One striking thing nowadays is the gross ignorance of what Biblical Christianity is, and what the nature of true Christian profession is. Sadly, nominality is widespread and the Christian voice in the land is extremely weak. As far as Church is concerned people are just not interested, either superficially persuaded that science has debunked faith, or using all sorts of other excuses: divisions within Churches; the perception that the message of the Bible isn’t even believed in Churches these days; scandals that hit the Church and are so well-publicised, and the like. No doubt the fact that people can be entertained from cradle to grave through an attractive media is a pacifier of a sense of God and of an active informed conscience.
It means of course that people have little or no direction in their lives. A spin-off has been the want of moral principles and the undermining of institutions which have given stability to society, such as the family, marriage, and the Church (when its message is clear and Biblical pointing to the reality of sin and judgement, and Christ as the only remedy).
In the same edition of my newspaper, alongside the article about ‘Britain’s lost Christians,’ was another sad piece about Scotland: “One in 10 Scots takes depression medicines every day.” 10% of people taking some sort of anti-depressants? Perhaps this is not surprising in a day when the gospel of Christ is so little known.
One of the most searching of all the sayings of Jesus is found in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, cast out demons in Thy name, and done many wonders in Thy name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
In the end of the day nominal religion will not do. Only a living, evangelical faith in a living, exalted Saviour will suffice as we face eternity, seek to flee from the wrath to come, and entertain a realistic hope of heaven beyond.

The first shall be last and the last first.

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:10:50 +0000

Text: Matt 20v1-16

Now our account is bound by two important facts. Up front comes the account of the rich young ruler, along with Peter’s question about what they will get out of it, given that they did forsake all, which the ruler would not do.
Jesus warns him not to think too much in terms of due reward, but the graciousness of God in giving it. The order of things might not be at all what Peter expected. First shall be last and last first.

Then at the other end of the parable we have the very same phrase and also the same strife - who is important - who gets the biggest reward?

1. The result of the Gospel Call
Here in this parable there are some difficult things to determine. As so often with these simple stories that Jesus told, the intricacies of the account can give rise to plenty of queries as to exactly what is going on.

But if we are going to rightly understand our parable we can study first what is more clear to us. And the summary given in v16 is crystal clear. Whatever else is going on earlier in the parable, it is clear that the Gospel call was going out.

And what is the result of the Gospel call? What happens at the end of the day?
Something unexpected. Some of those who were early called to work in the kingdom show themselves to be in it for the reward, they expected some return from their long hours in church services, from their having been church goers all their lives.
They were quite content for others to join in the work, to take some of the burden from them, they liked to see the church grow with younger ones. But as far as they were concerned God would have to be more merciful to them.
They use the term, but devalue its meaning. Mercy becomes reward, grace becomes payment, favour becomes merit.

But the result is plainly put - bluntly put. Some of those who were long labouring after the penny of grace will be left out. They will be last in God’s reckoning. When God reads out the roll call of grace, their names will not be int he blessed first group, called out of the mass of the reprobate, but their names will be in the latter group, the last group. They will be called out just as surely, but last of all, in the graceless group of names.

The last will be first. The first will be last. Oh, soul, let me put it to over your soul, let me hang these words around your neck, while they are still a warning, before they become a noose!

2. The reason for this surprising result
The reason is the Sovereign choice of God. This is devastating to the man whose religion is all about works. You can try your heart on this point, you who have thought yourself labourers after salvation, as due some long service reward. When you heart bucks and kicks like an untrained bronco, then know, you are in soul danger.

The sovereignty of God is absolute, yes in salvation too. Grace itself does not interfere with the sovereignty of God. It does not diminish it, it does not lessen it. Yes you have been called to work in the vineyard. Yes it may be a long time since you began to work at your salvation. But what is that?
Friend, do you not realise that many are called? Many are called! That cannot be a comfort to you. Do not make the call of God you pillow, poor stupified soul. You misunderstand, you mis-take the call of the Gospel, if you rest on that. There is no salvation in having heard the call. Many are called.

Well then where is there salvation, if not in the Gospel calling a sinner to salvation?
Oh friend security is in the choice of God. Peace is in the doctrine of an electing God, choosing poor sinners out of this world and setting his saving love upon them in eternity, calling them in time in the Gospel, and making that call effectual by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Death is all that awaits otherwise!

Election is the reason for the Gospel. Many make it the enemy of the Gospel, many see it as an obstacle to squeezing more sinners into heaven. No. But without election no one is or can be saved. If God had not chosen sinners, then there is nothing we could have done about it.

3. The reaction to this expression of God’s Sovereignty
Are you left behind by election? Are you thrown out of your comfort zone by the way God chooses some sinners?
Have you seen others converted before you, who were at one time, miles behind you in the queue for heaven? How did they get past you? Why are you yet outside?

Oh soul, is there an argument in your heart against the salvation of some Christians? What is it? It boils right down to this:
You feel more worthy of being saved than them.

Now this can come out in two ways:

a. You are jealous of new converts. You can react in a hard way to them, maybe it even catches you, maybe you surprise yourself with the tone you use towards them. Soul, bitterness is in your heart.

b. You are indignant at God above all. That is the source. You do not feel he has the right to pick them above you. That you deserve salvation.

What does Scripture say: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Is this your problem - does God resist you in your pride?
Climb down from your feelings that you deserve to be saved. How?

There is only one way: repent.
Who has God chosen? To whom does he give grace? There is no promise in the fact of being called. Many are called. But few ARE chosen. Perhaps you will be one of the last to come - even yet you might be one of the first to be welcomed, one of the first to be acknowledged on that last great day.