The Symptoms, Danger, and the Cure for Backsliding (3)

Hebrews 10:38; Psalm 119:176

Summary: Symptoms of Backsliding
#1: Doubt – Matthew 14:22-31
#2: Disinterest in The Things of God – Mark 14:37-38
#3: Defensiveness about Your Disinterest – Luke 22:56-60
#4: Distancing Yourself from Other Believers and Even Christ – Luke 22:54
#5: Departing from Christ and Joining the Wrong Crowd – Luke 22:55
#6: Denial That You Even Know The Lord – Luke 22:56-57

Q1. What is Backsliding according to the following passages:

1. Luke 9:62
2. Ezekiel 18:24; 33:18
3. Rev 2:4

DANGERS IN BACKSLIDING
Backsliding is no light matter. You can take other people lightly, still, you cannot take God lightly. The most dangerous spiritual position that a Christian can find him or herself in is to know you’re not progressing in your Christian walk and to tell yourself, “It’s just a phase. I’ll get over it.”
If you don’t actively renew your commitment to spiritual growth, your name may become just another name on the church membership roll whom most don’t know and won’t remember, and only a few will lament your abandonment of Christ and his family. The reality is that if you’re not sliding forward in your Christian walk, you are in great danger and you also pose a danger to others.

Q2. What are the dangers of backsliding?

When a Christian backslides, certain risks are inevitable.

1. The ability to discern the right things will get skewed – Galatians 5:7
2. He loses what he gained in all his years as a Christian – Galatians 3:4
3. He dishonors God and slanders Him as though there were some fault in Him – Jeremiah 2:5; Micah 6:3
4. He becomes a Stumbling Blocks Before Others
5. He stores up Sorrows and chastisements for himself

Q3. According to Rev 2:5, how can we be restored from Backsliding?

CURE FOR BACKSLIDING
So, how can we retrace our steps back to the Father? How do we shake off apathy? Nothing surprising here:

1. Genuine repentance
As soon as we get a whiff of indifference or laziness, we should take time to confess it to God and repent over it. For example, If you found an unusual growth on your face, how long would it take you to go to the doctor? It could be nothing, but it could also be cancer. You have to catch it early. It’s the same with backsliding.

2. Study the Bible
This prescribed practice will strengthen and sustain faith. When we actively read through the Bible, we have all kinds of blind spots exposed. God talks to us through His Word for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness – 2 Tim. 3:16

3. Join other believers for worship
This is not complicated; God tunes our hearts by His grace when we gather together. Worship strengthens our faith while shaking us of apathy. (Our encounter with God, the preached Word the Lord’s Table speak into and through our indifference.)

4. Discipleship
Spending time with other Christians for spiritual growth will shake off apathy. When you read the Bible, pray, and talk through implications for life, then you encourage one another unto faithfulness by hating sin and loving Christ – Heb. 3:13; Col. 3:16

5. Get involved in soul-winning
Nothing will shake you out of your apathy, like looking into a lost person’s eyes and hearing them talk about how they don’t know or love Christ. It makes you remember the grace that Christ lavished upon you and the beauty of Christ, your King

Heart-rending story
Robert Robinson, a Baptist minister and scholar in 18th-century London, wrote one of the great hymns of faith, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The third verse is so convicting. It implores God:

           O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!
           Let Thy goodness like a fetter bind my wand’ ring heart to Thee:
           Prone to wander—Lord, I feel it—prone to leave the God I love;
           Here’s my heart—O take and seal it; Seal it for Thy courts above

Unfortunately, Robert Robinson’s heart wand’ rd. He wandered in his theology, and in his later years, he wandered into the by-ways of sin. As a result, he became deeply troubled in spirit. Hoping to relieve his mind, he decided to travel.

While riding in a stagecoach, he became acquainted with a young woman who engaged him in a spiritual conversation. She asked him what he thought of a hymn she had just been reading. To his astonishment, he found it to be none other than “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” He tried to evade her question, but she continued to press him for a response.
Suddenly he began to weep. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said, “I am the man who wrote that hymn many years ago. I’d give anything to experience again the joy I knew then.” Although greatly surprised, she reassured him that the “streams of mercy” mentioned in his song still flowed. Mr. Robinson was deeply touched. Turning his “wandering heart” to the Lord, he was restored to full fellowship.