We’ve been looking at the parables of Luke 15, and we noticed one difference in the parable of the Two Lost Sons: no one goes to look for the younger son as the shepherd looked for the sheep, and the woman looked for the coin. I observed that perhaps the father hoped/expected that the older brother would do that. 

More about the older brother tomorrow, but I was struck by an essay by Andrée Seu Peterson who writes in World Magazine. In “Talks we never had” (well worth the read in its entirety), she talks about people she knew that died before she shared the gospel with them. Here’s a poignant section:

Mary B. was not a Christian when I knew her. And if I can read obituaries well, she wasn’t one in the end either…

An unusual number of people die of cancer on my street. My first husband started the fashion in 1999. Since then, Marie across the way succumbed, then Catherine three doors to my right, then Steve two doors to my left, then Kathy to my immediate left. And now the lady down the street is battling it. Some say it’s the power lines running like a spine along the railroad tracks behind our houses. I looked it up:

“There is no known mechanism by which magnetic fields of the type generated by high voltage power lines can play a role in cancer development. Nevertheless, epidemiologic research has rather consistently found association between residential magnetic field exposure and cancer” (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1995).

So knowing he had cancer, I invited 50-year-old Steve to dinner, shared the gospel with him, saw him come to faith in Christ, and was present as he passed into the arms of the Lord.

Except no, that didn’t happen. I never invited him to dinner. I kept dithering till it was too late…

What would have happened if last summer, or the summer before, or 10 summers before, I had thrown fear to the wind and cast my bread upon the waters and tracked down my old friend Mary B. and told her about Jesus?

Ours is not to know the endings of the roads we never ventured on. – Andrée Seu Peterson, Talks We Never Had, August 12, 2021

God through Ezekiel speaks to the matter, and the Apostle Paul took it to heart. (I’m writing to myself – I’m very much like Andrée Seu Peterson in this respect.)

If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. (Ezekiel 3.18, ESV)

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. (Acts 20.26, 27, ESV)