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It is related in the life of Colonel Gardiner, that, after his remarkable conversion from a course of irreligion and debauchery to the fear and love of God, and a conduct agreeable to the gospel, it was reported among his gay companions that he was stark mad, a report at which none who know the wisdom of the world in these matters will be surprised. He therefore took the first opportunity of meeting a number of them together; and after having defended a righteous, sober, and godly life, and challenged them to prove that a life of irreligion and sensuality was preferable to it, one of the company cut short the debate, and said, "Come, let us call another cause: we thought this man mad, and he is in goad earnest proving that we are so." Perhaps there are few among the irreligious and licentious part of mankind who would make so flank a confession; yet if we take our notions of things from the dictates of unprejudiced reason and the Word of God, we shall be sensible that this sentiment is true, that religious men are the only persons in their right minds, and that all the rest are in a state of miserable distraction.

I. EVERY UNCONVERTED SINNER IS A MADMAN, OR BESIDE HIMSELF.

1. He does not use his understanding as he ought.

2. Further, he acts contrary to the nature of things, his own professed judgment and true interest (Ecclesiastes 9:3). "Madness in general," as one observes, "means such an extravagant deviation from the common apprehensions and actions of men, as discovers either the want or total disorder of some of the principal faculties which men daily exercise in common life. Now vice is the same deviation from the established constitution of nature, and the same violation of its laws, as madness is of the ordinary practice of mankind." As in a natural lunacy, there are oftentimes intervals in which the unhappy creature is himself, and seems for a time well, so it is in this moral disorder. Sinners are sometimes under strong convictions of the misery of their state; are sensible of the necessity and excellency of true religion, and accuse and condemn themselves for neglecting it; and for a while they act rationally, but soon return to folly. The distraction appears again; they grow worse than before, and forget their wise acknowledgments and good resolutions.

3. He is averse to the proper methods of cure. In many cases of lunacy persons will speak and act rationally except upon one particular subject. So it is here. Though with regard to the concerns of this world and his temporal interest he may act wisely and rationally, yet to that which is "the one thing needful," "the whole of man," and the main concern of an immortal being, he pays little attention. But there is this difference, and it shows the prodigious folly and madness of sinners, that their distraction is voluntary; they bring it upon themselves; they choose it, and love to have it so. Such is the deceitfulness of sin, that when once a man hath devoted himself to it, he generally persists in it against the clearest dictates of conscience, and will call it happiness, though he feels it to be misery, whereas a natural madness is a calamity, not a crime, and the unhappy persons who are affected with it deserve our tenderest sympathy. I observe —

II. WHEN A SINNER REPENTS AND RETURNS UNTO GOD HE COMES TO HIMSELF. So the prodigal in the text. His necessities brought him to himself. He thought and considered, received and returned to his father. And his father received him "safe and sound," as it is expressed (ver. 27).

(J. Orton.)

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KJV: And he said, A certain man had two sons:

WEB: He said, "A certain man had two sons.