Now it's with some exercise, I think, of a closing message to you. And I confess to you, I've been trying to get away from the message, but I believe the Lord has given me. But he won't let me run away from it. It's the message that has meant a good deal to me, exert my own heart and challenge me. And it's a message which... Frankly, I know is needed for the days in which we live. In fact, Dr. Bram House of Philadelphia wrote to me about a year ago, and he said, I want you to write an article, and he said, I want you to put into that article the deepest concern of your own ministry and your own soul. He said, I want you to bear your own soul and your own heart and feel that you are giving a message that is the greatest need for the day in which you live. And I remember shutting the door and talking to the Lord about it, and the portion of Scripture I'm going to ask you to consider tonight was the portion of Scripture that I sent. A written message. As far as I know, in Eternity Magazine, it hasn't come out yet. I don't know if it will. I don't know whether it's been accepted or rejected as far as publication, but still this message, which is the message that I need, this poor little fellow here needs it. And it's done me some good, is the message that I've been asked to give to you tonight. Now... I want to say this to you. I believe that Luke fifteen is one of the best known chapters in the Bible. Story of the prodigal stuff. To any young preacher here, may I say this, if you want a message that will meet the need of any person in any land, in any culture, in any religious group, in any racial setting that will go right home, The Lord gave us in the story of the prodigal son a message. There's two pictures in the message, two great things, panel pictures that the Lord drew. The first one is a very cocky young fellow with his chin up here, you know the sort. Bruh. Coming to his father with these two words on his lips. Give me! And the next picture by its side is a fellow with his chin down on his chest and his shoulders a bit grouped. He's coming to the same father and he says, Father, Father make me. Two pictures of the prodigal. One, when he was taking all the father's gifts and going out selfishly to a far country to spend them. Father, give me. The other when he was coming home in tatters, in true repentance with confession, Father, make me, make me. You can write under those two pictures some words from that story. They're very interesting words. Under the first picture you can write, and he began to be in what? And under the second picture you can write, And he began to be married. And it's the two pictures of a soul's attitude toward the living God. Now, if you want to peek into the heart of the living God, you can see it in the three stories that Jesus told. He told about a shepherd that lost a sheep. and a woman who lost a coin, and a father who lost a boy. And you can see in those three pictures a picture of one God, a triune God the Son, who went after a lost sheep, and God the Holy Spirit, who swept for a lost coin, and God the Father who ran to welcome a lost boy. And I suppose in the three pictures the Lord told, he gives us a picture of a lost man or a lost woman. In the sheep it's a lost body, and in the coin it's a lost soul lying dead in the darkness. And in, I'm sorry, it's not your lost soul, the lost spirit lying in the darkness, dead. And in the prodigal boy it's the lost. So we are a Kiparthite being, and all heaven moves to find the lost. And when they are found, there's joy, and it's such a picture of heaven. Heaven filled with joy, gladness, and music, and song. Rejoice with me. Found the sheep. Rejoice! The coin is found, rejoice and be merry. That music and sadness fill the home of the Father God. It's a tremendous picture, a real peep into the heart of God. But you know, the Lord did not finish Luke fifteen with the story of the prodigal boy coming home. Now when you read from Luke fifteen, from verse twenty-five. Now the elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. He said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father had killed the patted calf, because he had received him safe and sound. He was angry, and would not go in. Therefore came his father out and entreated him. He answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed thy at any time thy commandment, and yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the tragic calf. He said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make Mary and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost, and is found. Now with this portion in front of us, could we have a moment of prayer together? Gracious God, we ask thee that Thy word may come to us with grace and power, bringing tremendous encouragement. Leading us to the place where, in these Laodicean days of self-satisfied lukewarmness, we shall be a people who, hearing the voice of the Spirit, will respond to the claims of the risen Christ. and the overcomers of the failure of the Laodicean Church that's so rampant around us. Lord Jesus, give us, we pray, thee, the courage of Christian people to hear the voice of Christ when he says, if you will open the door and let me come in and sup with you, you can be an overcomer. He that hear it, the voice of the Spirit, and gives heed to it, can overcome this drift, this failure that is so rampant amongst my professing people. Loving, Lord, we pray that thou would produce tonight those at the close of the age in the Laodicean Church history who will actually taste of the experience. of being overcomers and victors in case after drift and failure that's rampant around us. Do this work in our hearts. Challenge thy servant who speaks and blesses. And, O Lord, grant, from the oldest to the youngest, there may grow in our hearts as we listen to the message, a feeling of, that's what I want, or that's what I don't want. We pray that we may do business with thee by faith and become victors as never before in the conflict of the closing days. We ask it for thy glory, for our good, for thy dear namesake. Amen. Now I want to forget you, and I want to forget largely your faces as I bring you this message. I want to ask you to see the Lord sketching at the end of the prodigal story a picture of an elder brother. It's a picture of a rather surly, ill-tempered, selfish, cold elder brother. Somehow I don't like it. As the picture grows in front of me, I don't like it. And I want to face the fact that this is a picture of the spirit of a Laodicean church. I can see in the elder brother the same characteristics, the same spirit that I can see in the church of Laodicea. And Jesus, the risen Lord, who's knocking at the church door, says, I'm sick of you. I will pull you out of my mouth. You make me sick. He detests the spirit of the mayor of the interior. Now this is the spirit that so easily can creep into my life and capture my spirit. And if I can learn from this picture that the Lord actually painted and took the trouble with his words to picture of the clothes of chapter fifteen, if I can gaze at it and feel a growing dislike. a feeling, oh, I don't like that man. I don't like his way, his attitude, his spirit. And I can apply it to my own life and say, Lord, I don't like the spirit of the Laodicean Church. I don't want it to capture my heart. I want another spirit to fill my life. I want the spirit of the good shepherd to fill my life. the spirit that left the ninety and nine and went after the lost sheep, the spirit that went through the racing flood waters and through the tangled tickets, the spirit that went after that lost sheep until he found it and said, rejoice, I want the spirit of the woman who searched diligently, laying aside her work, looking for that lost coin in all the dark corners. I want that spirit. I want the spirit of the Father who saw the Polly O boy and ran to meet him to welcome the kids. I would love the spirit of the living God to possess this life, life not the spirit of the elder brother. Now be brave about this. I talk to you bearing my own heart. It's so easy for the spirit of the elder brother to creep in and to come and take his place and sit down in our lives. It's so easy, even though we are not aware of it, for us to slip in a Laodicean church into the attitude. We've got it all. We are all right. We are rich. Increased and good. Have need of nothing. And Jesus Christ says, Thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Laodicea, I am sick of your self-satisfaction. I am sick of that spirit. Won't you open the door and let me come in with all my pleasure? If any man hears that voice, and if any man hears what the spirit says unto the church is, he can be an overcomer. And you can look around Christendom today and see the Spirit of Laodicea, but everywhere you find overcomers, in every church, in every denomination, in every country, in every assembly, men and women who, owning the Lordship of Christ, graciously filled with the Spirit of God, have damaged the elder brother spirit, damaged the Laodicean spirit, and they are overcome. Now I've lived long enough and served long enough to know that the message I bring to you is hated by the carnal... The carnal Christian will shrug his shoulders and say, I don't like that stuff. Too emotional for me. No, it's going a bit too far. It's extreme. And he'll go on in his own carnal way. Yes, the Christian who will let it slide over their shoulder, they hit someone else. It's not for me. They won't trace it. They won't do business with the written Christ. They're in every assembly. But I've lived long enough to see that in every church and assembly where there's a local gathering who profess the name of Christ, there are a hundred people in it. There are those who are saying, that's what I need. Oh, God, I'm tired of the trip. I'm tired of the self-satisfied calls me. There are some faces who won't have this message. They won't have you back again. They say, don't ask that preacher to come back. But it doesn't matter to who, whether I come back to the day or not. I don't care whether I never see you again. I'd like to, don't forget. But if you don't ask me back, it won't worry me. The Lord will look after my pocketbook and my reputation as a preacher. The world is my parish. The whole church is my sphere to feed the frog of God. It won't worry me if I never come back. But I know already in the Bay Area there are hungry hearts for what I'm going to tell you from this old simple story of the Elder. You won't like it. But listen, the man who's telling you didn't like it. He hated it. He fought it. He resisted it. But one day he broke and said, God's right. I'm wrong. Lord, I don't wonder you will hear. I don't wonder you said I'd like to chew mouth at my mouth. And I honestly believe I know there will be hearts that will bow in what God says. Now here he is. Listen carefully. Hear the transverse speech. coming over the father. It's the elder brother. He's coming to order the palm door and he throws it open and he steps in. Hi dad! Hi mom! Adopt him along! There's a lovely smell in the palm house and there's the table spread and he sits down to enjoy a meal. What a meal it is. Why I almost feel like making your mouth lovely roast turkey on the table with all the ascent. And he sits down and he feasts and feasts and feasts and feasts and feasts and feasts. And he's doing this three times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, at night. The abundance of his father's table. The way there in the far country there's a younger brother. And he's taking pig food, taking pig food out of the trough, cutting it into his mouth, and he was paying until this belly with the huck that the swine did eat, and no man gave to him. And he said, Oh, God. My father's servants haven't read enough of this prayer. Then the whole family has eaten at the family table. There's plenty of food left, and the servants come, and they eat the joyous food, and I am nourishing with hunger. And a boy in the distant land is thinking about the abundance of that table. but the abundance of that table does not speak to the elder brother about the need of a hungry man in the far country. Well, my brothers and my sisters, you must judge whether I am right in this, in all the movements of God that I have seen throughout the world, and God has many gracious movements of his spirit in setting to heart. then it's one movement, and I was born and bred in it, and have never left it, and I appreciate it tremendously, one movement that loves to gather together around a table, which is the Father's table, and to keep a supper, which is the Lord's Supper. I dare to say it, if you take that out of our movement, you take the heart out of our movement. It is the gathering together in the Lord's name and presence to break the bread and drink the wine that holds together. These little companies are Christians that are found in their thousands all over the world in every land. And you and I rightly say, I wouldn't miss it for anything. No, if there's one engagement, an appointment I have, I must be at the Lord's Supper, at the Lord's table, for the breaking of bread. But is it possible that you sit every Sunday at the Lord's table and feast upon an abundant supply, and somehow it never speaks to you of the hunger of those that are in the far country? It never really speaks to you as you feast so lavishly of the things that in the far country they're trying to fill up their stomachs with to find satisfaction. Tonight they're drinking to find satisfaction. They're gambling to find satisfaction. They'll fly out of your bay to the great gambling den over the border of the state. They're rushing hither and thither to find satisfaction everywhere on this labor day. And they're trying to satisfy with the hearts that the swine did eat, pig food. And there's always some knowing hunger. I must get some more and get some more. We come to the Lord's table and we feast. And we say Jesus died for me. And from that table I have found forgiveness of sins. I have found peace to pass understanding. I have found grace sufficient for every time of need. I have found joy unspeakable. I have found strength sufficient. I have found blood to take away all my sin. Yes, but Jesus did not die for us only. He died for the whole world. He died for those men on the dance hall and in the gambling den tonight. And can you sit Sunday after Sunday at the Lord's table, and the abundance of that table, and all that Calvary has brought to you, never set you up to try and reach the perishing souls around you? I never thought of it. Is it possible that the spirit of the Elder's brother has crept in to settle down and to capture the Christian heart and life And you didn't realize that that self-satisfied, I'm all right. I've got it all. I'm rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. It's something that Jesus is sicker. The abundance of the table never spoke to the elder brotherhood about the perishing hunger. in the market. Here he comes, came all feet over the farm yard, and he comes to the door and opens it up. And he comes in now, it's to breakfast. He's been out to melt the cows, or to see that everything's going around the farm, and it's breakfast. And there's the loaded table. My word. horridge and bacon and eggs and all the effect that I'll make him out of water. The abundance of the table is there. And he sits down. And he's looking across the table at something. Do you know what? An empty chair. Say, how do you know it was there? I know, because when Jesus told this story, when the prodigal came home, and the father excited said, Hi, kill the patted calf and get the oven to roast it up, stop the music up, get the dance on. He never ran out of the farm and said, Hi, village carpenter, knock up another chair, my boys come home. There was no need for the finished carpenter to put a new chair at the table. It was there empty three times a day the older brother had, but an empty chair never spoke of a boy in the far country far from the father's presence. Now I'm turning to something that's very dear to the movement that I treasure and love. I'm turning from the Lord's Supper to the Gospel Meeting, that which I've known from the boyhood days as the Gospel Meeting, when the glorious Gospel in all its wonder is preached. When you drop into that chapel for the gospel service that you look round and see, as Trump shall always empty and the saints that sliding, when you see patches of empty seats here and gaps over there and great big areas in the chapel with no seats because there was not enough sufficient people to fill them up does the empty chair seat you and you listen to brother so and so and you say oh he gave us such a lovely gospel address it was very heartwarming in assurance yes a very good speaker he points things up use this nice little illustration i know how you talk about the preachers we preachers know you know when you get home and somehow the empty chair never challenged you never spoke to you and if i ask you how many sinners you brought on sunday afternoon to the theater the saints were all there i would be rather surprised if many hands went up here and say it's so hard I know it is oh I'm not unsympathetic but you know the weeks are passing by and the gospel is being preached largely through saints and sinners and saints and sinners hear it and saints rejoice and seek never get converted they can't and the sinners are not there why is it you haven't filled the empty chair As you look back to January the first in nineteen sixty, why is it you can't say I brought twenty, thirty, forty people? I telephoned them. I prepared a supper for them. I called for them with my car. I dated them. I brought them under the sound of the gospel and filled the empty chairs up. Why haven't you done it? I didn't quite realize that that elder brother had crept into my heart as he had. It is possible that the Laodicean spirit of self-satisfaction that Jesus had crept into my heart, it could be true. It could be true. You know, I was in Manchester City mission years ago in England, sitting on a platform waiting to speak. I love city missions. I've always loved to go down to those missions in behalf of a city where the drums and the half-hit ones are gathered together. And as I sat on the platform waiting, the superintendent of the mission was sitting next to me, and he said, Brother Wiley, you see that couple coming in the door? And I looked and I saw an old van and an old woman crying old couple. And they came in and took their seats and bowed in prayer. And he said, What about it? He said, there are the finest workers in our mission and have been for the last seventy years. Oh, I said, yes, sir. The finest workers in our mission? Yes. And is he a good preacher? No, he had never preached in his life. Is he a good Sunday school worker? No. He never came to Sunday school in her life. Now, let's tell me about it. told me a story I shall never forget. He said, Brother Wildish, I can look around this congregation tonight, and he said, I can point to two there, one there, two back there, fifteen now, three there, one there, two there, one here, who was first brought into this mission by that time. He said, who brought them here, seventeen or eighteen years ago? I don't know. He said, they came in, they heard the gospel, they were saved. And he said, when they were saved, they were so thrilled with their salvation that they said, no, he's done everything. Bluff, what can we do for him, the dear Lord? And the couple looked at each other and she said, well, I don't think you'll ever make a preacher. And he said, no, I don't think you'll ever make a Sunday school teacher. And the fast began to fly. They do with the best husbands and wives of times. They love each other, you know, till friction. And then they got some common sense in here and said, no, it isn't what we can't do or can do. Now listen, what do you think we could do for the Lord now? Oh, George, you know they stuck on a bed. They said on Sunday afternoons when we've had our heavy meal in the middle of the day and we've had a nice little potty winks rest on a Sunday, good time to have a rest off, we will... we will go out and we'll invite some of our friends and neighbors around to come in and have tea. Now, you don't know much about tea in America, but they bother with these silly things called tea over there on the other side. And this is what they did. They got out their best crockery, you know, that English China with those pretty cups. and they got out a nice teapot with a lovely cozy all over it and they knew how to warm the pot before you put the tea in and put the boiling water on top really knew how to make tea and they got everything nice with plum cake on the table and these friends around you know in these tenement cottages and houses around the night invited out the tea with our neighbors they came and they sat and talked and then they had tea together The old clock pressed on to about quarter past six, and it's all planned. He would turn to his wife and say, now, my dear, it's about time you went to get your hat on. And she would say, oh, yes, it's getting on, isn't it? Yes, yes, Tom. And then he would turn to these neighbors and say, you know, my wife and I always go down to the mission on Sunday night for the hour's service. You would like to come along with us tonight. We'll introduce them for an hour, a night in to let each speak a lovely singing. And you know, after taking plum cake and tea and thin bread and butter, it couldn't very well say no. And as the weeks and the months went by, and the years went by, that superintendent said, that couple has brought hundreds of fresh pages within these doors. Well, listen, look up. And he said, God is safe. And he said, I can point all over this congregation, he said, the people who've been saved are that grand old couple. Honestly, if you have to pray for them, I tell you this, if you will fill the seats, your overseers will see to it that they'll get good gospel preachers on the platform. And if you will fill the seats, the preachers who come will on bend his knees, keep messages, burning messages from God to preach to sinners with the hope of seeing God working in his good. The bishop's circle, don't blame the pulpit, don't blame the pew. If only the Laodicean spirit could be vanished from our hearts and the elves of other spirit could be put out, then another spirit, it's the spirit of the living God that can fill seats even in these days with all their power. Isn't it? You know, one of the things that has cheered me when I go to the big windy city of Chicago is to go through the old hurry of mood. to browse amongst the photographs and the books and the Bibles and the gifts and all the things that that bundle of love use. No one story stands with me. They tell me that when Moody came up to the big city to put shoes on people's feet and earn a living as a shoe-vitter, He went to a church, I don't know what denomination it was, and he said to the minister of the church, he said, I hear you rent out your pews. It was the old-fashioned idea in those days to rent pews with so many seats. He said, now I want to rent a pews with so many seats. And the minister rented young Moody, a young business fellow, a pews. And the minister tells how he said, whether I had a big congregation or a small congregation, whether it was a windy, bustly day, or whether it was a lovely day, whether people came or not. I could always count on young Moody's queue to be little, with young ragamuppins that he got off the streets of downtown Chicago. When his uncle gave him a raise, I believe he got a raise in his pay, he went to the minister for the second year and said, could I have two seats for next year and fill them up? God said, there's a man with nothing of the spirit of the elder brother in him. There's a boy who's filled with the spirit of the searching shepherd, of the searching woman, of the running father, filled with the spirit of God. The boy I can use to send down the world to preach my gospel. And Rudy never went to a few of our people. Never had any training for God to give up. Here he comes. Across the farm yard and opens the door. There's the groaning table, it's lunchtime now, and there's the empty seat. And he draws himself up to the table, and you can hear him opening his mouth to talk. I said, Dad, you'll be glad to know that a fine calf was born in the night. Yes, the pedigree stopped, too. I tell you, that's a fine-bodied little animal. I tell you, she'll be worth. I just said you made the twelve thousand dollars when she was grown in the market. It's a fine strain. And I say, Dad, do you ever hear it? Wheat's going up. I'm glad we held our wheat. It's gone up. There's a scarcity in the world's markets. It's fine. We're going to make a fortune off our wheat crop. Talking to his dad about the farm and about the business. But you can listen and listen and listen and listen. And you never hear him sitting there and saying, Dad, I'm concerned. I'm concerned about the boy who's in the far country. My younger brother who went away. And I think he had spoken a word like that. His dad would have jumped up and come round and said, My big boy, saddle the horse, go look for it. But he never spoke to his father about his dad's brother. And I am turning now from the Lord's supper and from the gospel meeting to a very important meeting in your assembly life. It's called the prayer meeting, where you do business with the father about a perishing world. And aren't we ashamed of our prayer meetings? How weary do you hear a storm and see a tear, a heart-high, oh God, the world is perishing, and men around us are on a broad road that leads to a lost eternity? How often do you see a deep concern, oh, Father, Father, entrust us with souls? How often do you hear Rachel's cry, Give me children, or I die? There's no need for me to live unless there are souls born. When do you hear it in our own way? Well, we move along self-satisfied. The spirit of the elder brother, the spirit of the Meridian Church, has come and captured our lives and we've settled down. Oh, may God forgive us. He's coming. The door opens and he comes and he looks at the loaded table and he speaks to him. He looks at the empty chair and speaks to him. He never talks with his father about the absence, brother. And as I look at him sitting there, I can see the big bulging muscle. I can see the fine-shaped head. I can see the strong, determined chin and the fine lips and mouth. I look at me, and I think of all the possibilities of that life. But, but, but, number four, he did nothing to bring the prodigal back. The prodigal came in strata, not because of. Yes. If any souls have been saved the last two or three weeks around the bay, was it because of you or in height of you, the army? Did you have something to do with it? Your muscle, your smile, your personality, your it? Or was it in spite of that God opened his hands and gave a view? Oh, I don't like the elder brother. The more I picture him and look into his character and his ways and his attitude, the more I feel, sir, I don't like this surly, ill-tempered, self-satisfied man. And if that's a picture of a laodicean spirit, if that's a picture of something that could capture my heart in nineteen sixty, and the Lord is sick of a church like that and stands outside her doors calling upon the individual Lord. Lord, please banish that spirit from my heart and put the spirit of a living God in his place. written. As he comes into the courtyard, he hears a noise. He sees, I will go right. What's on? What's happened? I say silly there. What's happened? Number five. The cardigal was not there when it happened. The Father saw with longing heart. The Father ran. The Father welcomed. The Father commanded, kill, light, dance, music, new clothes, ring. What a prayer went past. Is it possible when God does it work you are left out for some reason? you're not there when the miracle happens and you say what is our faith and soul did come and get converted you weren't there you wanted the sick and i wonder why oh may god give up increasingly a desire not to be left out to I heard of a radiant gentleman who invited some guests to an evening meal, and they decided to put their children to stay safely out of the way, and they were going to entertain this guest. When the time came, and they sat down for their quiet, lovely, entertaining evening meal, all of a sudden there was a voice from upstairs. Mommy! Mommy! Mother looked down at the table in the snow. Will you excuse me for the moment? I'm going down to see what my little daughter was. He went up and after the other minute she came down and took her seat with a smile and her husband said, anything wrong? And the mother said, no. You know, Helen just wanted to know who was here and what we were talking about and what we were having and how far we've got to the meal. You know, Helen can't be left out of anything. Oh, God, the Christians! Christians that can't and won't be left out of anything. Oh, for Christmas, I've met people. I've seen some of them in the West Indies. In nineteen thirty-six when a touch of the Bible came to our island of Jamaica and moved through the island, I've seen our young creatures going off after a hard week's work. getting together, filling up their cars, going out into the remote villages for a weekend of evangelizing. When they came back, picking up the preachers at different villages, and they came back to Maranatha or to one of the assembly halls, they would come back at twelve o'clock or one o'clock or two in the morning, and there was a group of believers waiting to meet them. And as they came back to the assembly, arms out toward them, did you have a good time? How many souls were saved? All thanks are we at a great time. Six responded in that village of Henrietta. Six responded here. Six there. Two there. One there. Sorry to say, we didn't see any fruit in our village. And there was holy excitement amongst the Christians. They refused to be left out of the joy of the homecoming of us. We don't see it in England today. It makes my heart sad. don't see much of it in love and pain in the merit why is it possible that the spirit of the elder brother somehow leaves us out and we are not there when God opens his hands and grits and does we are not in the spirit the next one verse six let me Here is footsteps coming. I say, what's up? I say, your daddy has received your younger brother back again. He's come back to probably your boy. He wouldn't go in. The old father comes out and has a big deal, it's leaving on his shoulders. The holy life of joy in his face. comes out with his arms out and gets to his older brother. He's ever found, yes, my son, my son, my son, my boy, he's come back to the story. He wouldn't go ahead. The little chap, he didn't care, number six, he didn't care whether his father was sad or glad about the perishing, lost boy coming home. didn't care about his father, Steve. You know, there's a boy called Jimmy. He'd long have a puppy. And his mom and dad thought he'd be a puppy. He was a discontent. He was going to go out with Jimmy. He called this precious little dog Scooball. It's a true story, yes, I got it, in Ontario, Canada. And this little cat lived to Scooball, his little puppy. But one morning, Scooball got lost. He was here. Jimmy was set in his concern. Hunter all around the house, all around the garden, from the next garden, and we go. Bell rang for dinner. Jimmy came. Long thing. He wouldn't eat his food. That's coming alive. He didn't go for it. Not for some more pudding. Come on, Mom. Let's have some more. Eat. Come on, Jimmy, eat up your food. My tears become a jealousy. My crown on you. Scrooge! Scrooge! Scrooge! Scrooge! Without it, come dick! Or hedge! Or sage, darling, Scrooge! Granted, Matherland put his head right down in her lap. Mommy, are you concerned about Scrooge? They found Scooball that evening, wagging his tail, as happy as the sand-boys, come to Sousyard, where he'd gone off, who master deeply concerned about Scooball. God's deeply concerned about the dying souls of men. The great loving heart of God yearns, and the heart of Jesus waits with long patience, and the Spirit of God grieves and quenches, strives and longs to produce the harvest of Calvary. But somehow a Laodicean church doesn't seem to care whether the eternal heart is glad or sad, whether heaven is winning with joy or not. We rise in the morning and think of their dollars and eat their food and come to its table, listen to gospel and taste sermons, go to the prayer meeting perhaps, and so on. But there's no real entering into the great heart of the eternal, of carelessness, whether he's sad or glad. Don't you hate that elder brother? Somehow the more I think about him, the more I shrink from him, the more I detest him, the more I say I don't want that spirit to capture this heart. Oh God, banish him, get rid of him, crucify him, get him out of the way and get the spirit of the living God, the spirit of the searching shepherd, the spirit of the seeking woman, the spirit of the running father capture this heart. lastly number seven this elder brother found no joy when it happened no no no you could see him out in the yard and his father is talking to him he hears the music the dancing sees the light He sees the love and the excitement on his father's face with no reaction in his heart. Listen to this. Listen. The old father is talking. Try and see the gouts between them. Son, thy bummer, thy bummer, come home! My bummer! Listen. thy son that devours thy living with heart. What a doubt. Listen, the Father speaking. It would make that we should make Mary and be glad. Listen. He would end praise and would ask. What a doubt. The Father speaking. All that I have is thine. Thou never gave it to me a kid, that I might make merry with my friend. Or the gout between the father and the son. He found no joy when so were being saved. Oh, God forgive me. God forgive Harold Wildish, when he finds no joy in the salvation of the Lord. But God forgive me. I don't care whether they're saved in a brethren chapel. I wish they were. If they're saved in a salvation army, if they're saved in the Baptist chapel, if they're saved in the person of hearing church, I should rejoice. And if you don't find joy in hearing souls saved outside your little circles, ask yourself, has the spirit of the elder brother captured your heart? Is there a distance between you and the great eternal sobbing heart of God? I need hardly do it. But if I turned one page in my Bible, the same lovely Lord who's told the story of heaven glad with joy because lost ones have been saved, the same lovely person who tells the story of the elder brother, moved into chapter sixteen to the stewardship which we started our conference with this morning. The teaching of stewardship. Then after his stewardship parable he says, I'm going to take the curtain and show you what a lost world is. He said, I'm going to take you with a man who died lost in its sin. Never found by the seeking Savior, by the searching woman, by the running father, and he died and in hell. He lifted up his eyes being in torment. And he asked for a beggar to minister to his need with water. And when he couldn't get anything to minister to his need, he was concerned about five brothers that lived back in the old home and pleaded for an earnest preacher to go. And Jesus shows us what am I so means in that little Jesus. Dear Christians, I shall lead you tomorrow. I shall have such happy memories. but listen to this I believe and make us we are dispensationally and as far as we have got in the great apostasy and in the coldness of a professing church all around us that wherever groups of believers will deal with God and yield to its lordship and net and ungrieved spirit possessed and filled with the spirit of God they can become instruments to live lives that they could never manufacture on their own, never produced by any human effort. I believe that in these days the waiting Christ is waiting for victorious and overcoming Christians who will overcome the thrift and failure of their sin. And you could be that one. Oh, I believe a joy and a happiness could come to you that could be unspeakable, if the night in the presence of God, you say, Oh, God, I don't like that sternly, morose, stout sense of elder brother, and I want him to be wrenched out and dealt with in my life, and a... take its place I want the spirit of a living God all that I see in that shepherd and woman and running father is the death my life and I want that spirit of faith the future that I might be a man or a woman and young person in God's hand now we've asked sinners to do business with God but would you Oh, I wish I could paint a picture and listen carefully to this. An English gentleman with a bowler hat, a black coat, an umbrella over here, and his hat on, let his office in the west end of London. And as he out on the mushy old streets of London to catch his tube train out of the city, he was hurrying towards the station thinking of a loving wife who would greet him in a lovely warm, well-liked home, and there would be a lovely cooked meal on the table and a cold fire burning in the grate, and an easy, nice evening rang ahead of him. And as he walked through the foggy drizzle of London, all of a sudden standing in front of him with a little urchin, if you know what an urchin is, and you can still see them in London. A little boy with a pinched cold face, with rather a ragged suit on, from some broken or drunken home. Little shoes that were worn out underneath and getting the wet in, and even little cold toes peeping through where he had kicked them out. And the little urchins stood there looking up at this wealthy businessman and said, Say, Governor, could you get me something to eat? Could you spare me a few pennies?" And looking down at the little chap and drinking up about the meal he was going to, and he said, Do you need some food, my boy? And the little chap said, Yes, sir, I haven't had anything to eat today. He said, Haven't you had anything to eat? No, sir, I've come to tea this morning. That's all. You're really hungry. Yes, sir. Please. putting his hand in his pocket, threw out six pennies to give to the boy. He looked. He remembered, you're just down the corner. There was one of those shops. I don't think you've got them in America. You may have. You still see them in London. One of those shops with a big glass front and open for everybody to look in, and there was a fleeting house there, and right there in the shop window are the hot sausages and mashed potatoes and various things flying, for everyone to see as they pass by. They thought, I'll give them a good seat. Come down, come with me. Down the corner there, they went, and there was the big, I think, Italian man who ran the shop. He said, now look, he said, I want a big plate of sausages and mashed potatoes for this little fellow. So very quickly it was spooned out. He put down the money and they carried the plate over to his table and he sat the little fellow down with his knife and chalk and he was just going to stay long enough to see him beginning to really get into it. And then he was going to have him done a good turn go away. But the little fellow looked at the scheming plate of food. And he didn't pick up his knife and fork and begin to go ahead. So you go on, son. Get along with it. Boy, didn't he? And all of a sudden, the pathetic little face looked up and said, Governor, Governor, Bill's outside. He ain't had anything to eat all day, too. Oh, Bill, is that your friend? Yes, sir. Let's go and get it. Feeling great at food, gentlemen sitting here. And all of a sudden, into the door came a boy holding another boy's hand. A boy just as pinched and just as ragged. Tried it. Got a plate of food, please. Soon two boys were sitting down at their steaming plate. going downstairs the redway and said my last glimpse of the first boy was a happy day and joy is through because bill in in his greater need sat by his side you are not going to know that joy unpeakable and that peace that prompted all understanding. You are not going to know that grace that overflows, and you are not going to know those things that the risen Christ in the power of an ungrieved spirit can pour into your life until you have that joy. Spirit of the elder brother, that spirit of the living God, and still through the Spirit of Christ we are in Jesus. Let me pray.