What should a Christian parents do if they have a prodigal son (or daughter)?

If we speak rashly to our brother, or walk abroad carelessly through the streets, and see some vanity; we shall find the effect of it in our own souls at the end of the day with God. If any angry word escapes me, I feel the effect at the end of the day with God; but grace will restore us; He will follow us and bring us back. If we have a child that is unruly we will not give it up, but wait upon it in love, and correct it in hope of reclaiming it. I may see a child go wrong and leave it; but because it is my own child I must go after it and bring it back. This is the patience of His grace. At the same time God can never give up His holiness; no, He could not pass by or suffer unholiness in His child, therefore it was needful Christ should die. Thus God was debtor to Christ, on account of His work for the glory of His character. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." "I have glorified thee on the earth."

To write such words is more painful than I can say: but may this sad example bring us who have wayward children, more earnestly on our faces before God on their behalf. And should the eye of such a child fall on this page, remember the mercy of God still pleads with you, and there still is a way "Home". Is it so very hard to say: "Father, I have sinned"?

We are willing to believe that, in such a case, we see the happy fruits of the early instruction of the child, and of the parent's prayer to God for his blessing. For a long time both the instruction given and the prayers offered seemed fruitless and forgotten. But God can never forget. The child may, and alas, often does, but our God, blessed be His name, never can. The prayer that has been laid in faith on His table can never be overlaid. It may often seem so, and our evil hearts of unbelief are too prone to fear that it is so; but faith affirms that it can never be overlooked, or unanswered. The prayer that has been thus spread out before Him, is ever beneath His eye. He has a Father's heart, He knows what it is to bring up children; as we read in Isaiah 1:2: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." He knows every feeling that exercises a parent's heart. And the good seed of the word, too, may often seem to have been banished from the mind, and the heart and conscience become so encrusted by the world and sin, that to pierce through it is impossible. But God is faithful, and faith will never yield its hold of Him. It can ever fall back on that broad and blessed word, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up, for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" And, again, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." (Rom. 8:32; Acts 16:31)

Surprise is not infrequently expressed by onlookers at the spectacle of young people becoming notorious in ungodliness, and yet springing from eminently godly homes; and it is sometimes suggested — in agreement with the arguments and insinuations of Job's three friends — that the explanation must be that there has been grave sin, or at least grave defect in training, on the part of the parents. If, however, what we have just stated be remembered, as also that it is frequently just those who left unconverted would have been the greatest of sinners, that converted become the most devoted of saints, no surprise need be felt. The children have inherited from their parents the Adamic nature with, probably, an emphasis laid on some particular ugly feature or features which, but for the grace of God, would have been to the fore in the case of their parents; and so they will continue until grace intervenes also with them.

But have Christian parents any ground for really expecting such intervention? May they, in the midst of their exercises and even anguish of heart, repose in the confident anticipation of a work of God which in His own time shall effect a great and saving deliverance for their beloved children?

How many a Mother and Father can echo those words, "For this boy I prayed!" How often the boys (and the girls, too) bring us to our knees! Be not discouraged, Father and Mother, the Lord does hear as you ask for that boy. Go on praying for him, and "Go in peace, and may God grant thee thy petition which thou hast asked of Him."

With all this there must be constant dependence on God, and unceasing prayer for His blessing. Who shall say what He will not do for those believing parents who in real faith cast their children, the greatest of all their cares, upon Him?

Ans.—First of all, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God... casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you” (1 Pet.5:6-7). It is discipline upon yourselves from Him; and this needs to be first of all acknowledged and bowed to. Ask Him also to show you why this is needed. Then show your son that they who refuse to submit to God, He finally casts into the outer darkness; those who refuse to submit to the government of any business [...] must go out of their employment; and, in the same way, those who desire to live with their parents must of necessity submit to the government of their parents; for a house without government is a house without salt; and a house without salt means corruption.

But what, in the case of a stubborn and rebellious son in a Christian family; rare, I trust, as such a terrible case may be? Is grace to prevail, and he to remain in the house, because the law of Moses is no longer applicable? Is the stubborn and rebellious son to stay, until he has infected all the children with the leaven of his wickedness, and turned the whole into a mutinous camp? Fearful, indeed, in its consequences, would be the sinful folly, and awfully solemn the responsibility of the over-indulgent parent in such a case! If the word of love and grace, and the rod of chastisement have proved ineffectual, the family ought, without further delay, to be purged from the defiling presence of the rebellious child, and the door shut upon him. God's blessing cannot rest upon a household where He is dishonoured by the sufferance of such an abomination in His sight. Let the obstinate one learn, under the iron rule and the heavy yoke of the stranger, to appreciate and bow to the sacred claims of a loving father's or mother's authority, and in the icy atmosphere of a selfish world, to yearn and long for the genial flame of the homely hearth, and the peaceful haven of his family, the privileges and affections of which he had spurned. If, in such an extreme, deplorable case, outraged parental authority has firmly and graciously asserted its inalienable claims, and thus the sanctuary of the family been purged from that which is an abomination in the sight of God, their prayers for the wanderer will ascend to the throne of grace, and result, in God's own time, in the sigh for the "father's house," and the tearful cry of repentance: "Father, I have sinned against thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."

How often do we see Christian parents, for instance, in keen anguish of soul about the wildness, unsubduedness, and worldliness of their children; and, all the while, they have mainly to blame themselves for not walking faithfully before God in reference to their family. Thus was it with Jacob. He was on low moral ground at Shechem; and, inasmuch as he lacked that refined sensibility which would have led him to detect the low ground, God, in very faithfulness, used his circumstances to chastise him. "God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap." This is a principle flowing out of God's moral government, a principle, from the application of which none can possibly escape; and it is a positive mercy to the children of God that they are obliged to reap the fruits of their errors. It is a mercy to be taught, in any way, the bitterness of departing from, or stopping short of, the living God. We must learn that this is not our rest; for, blessed be God, He would not give us a polluted rest. He would ever have us resting in, and with Himself. Such is His perfect grace; and when our hearts founder, or fall short, His word is, "If thou wilt return, return to Me." False humility, which is simply the fruit of unbelief, would lead the wanderer or backslider to take lower ground, not knowing the principle or measure of God's restoration. The prodigal would seek to be made a servant, not knowing that, so far as he was concerned, he had no more title to take the place of a servant than to that of a son; and, moreover, that it would be utterly unworthy of the father's character to put him in such a position. We must come to God on a principle and in a manner worthy of Himself, or not at all.

Nor do people always take a correct view of this matter, and trace the failure up to its legitimate source. Many are too ready to look upon it as a natural and necessary thing that their children are to grow up wilful and worldly. They say, It is all very well while your children are young, but wait till they grow older, and you will see that you must let them go into the world. Now, I want to know, is it the mind of God that the children of His servants must necessarily grow up wilful and worldly? I never could believe any such thing. Well, then, if it be not His mind that they should so grow up — if He has graciously opened the same path to my house as He has opened to myself — if He has permitted me to select the same portion for my children as I have, through His grace, selected for myself — if, after all this, my children grow up wilful and worldly, what am I to infer? Why, that I have grievously sinned and failed in my parental relationship and responsibilities — that I have wronged my children and dishonoured the Lord. Shall I go and make a general principle of this, and set it down that all the children of Christians must grow up as mine have? Shall I go and discourage young parents from taking God's ground in reference to their dear children, by setting before them my abominable failure, instead of encouraging them by setting before them God's infallible faithfulness to all who seek Him in the way of His appointment? To act thus would be to follow in the steps of the old prophet of Bethel, who, because he was in the midst of evil himself, sought to drag his brother in also, and had him slain by a lion for disobeying the word of the Lord.