They are worth something, and Christ will not let them be wasted; he
will send clergymen, teachers, missionaries, schools, reformatories,
penitentiaries, hospitals--ay, and other messengers of his, of whom
we never dream, for his ways are as high above our ways as the heaven
is above the earth: with all these he sweeps his house, and his
blessing is on them all, for by them he finds the valuable coin which
was lost.

But there is a third sort of sinner, spoken of in Christ's next
parable in this chapter, from which my text is taken, of whom it is
not said that God the Father sends out to seek and to save him. That
is the prodigal son, who left his father's house, and strayed away of
his own wantonness and free will. Christ does not go out after him.
He has gone away of his own will; and of his own will he must come
back: and he has to pay a heavy price for his folly--to taste
hunger, shame, misery, all but despair. For understand--if any of
you fancy that you can sin without being punished--that the prodigal
son is punished, and most severely. He does not get off freely, the
moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you: even
after he does repent, and resolves to go back to his father's house,
he has a long journey home, in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry,
and all but despairing. But when he does get home; when he shows
that he has learnt the bitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is,
'Make me as one of thy hired servants,' he is received as freely as
the rest. And it is worth while to remark, that our Lord spends on
him tenderer words than on those who are lost by mere foolishness or
ignorance. Of him it is not said, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found
him,'--but, Bring out the best robe, for this my son--not my sheep,
not my piece of money, but my son--was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found.