CHAPTER IX.01

There are two kinds of backsliders. Some have never been converted: they have gone through the form of joining a Christian community and claim to be backsliders; but they never have, if I may use the expression, “slid forward.” They may talk of backsliding; but they have never really been born again. They need to be treated differently from real back-sliders—those who have been born of the incorruptible seed, but who have turned aside. We want to bring the latter back the same road by which they left their first love.

Turn to Psalm lxxxv. 5. There you read: “Wilt Thou be angry with us for ever? wilt Thou draw out Thine anger to all generations? wilt Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee? Show us Thy mercy, O Lord; and grant us Thy salvation.” Now look again: “I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for He will speak peace unto His people, and to His saints; but let them not turn again to folly”  (verse 8).

There is nothing that will do back-sliders so much good as to come in contact with the Word of God; and for them the Old Testament is as full of help as the New. The book of Jeremiah has some wonderful passages for wanderers. What we want to do is to get back-sliders to hear what God the Lord will say.

Look for a moment at Jeremiah vi. 10. “To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” That is the condition of back-sliders. They have no delight whatever in the word of God. But we want to bring them back, and let God get their ear. Read from the 14th verse: “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein; and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.”

That was the condition of the Jews when they had backslidden. They had turned away from the old paths. And that is the condition of backsliders. They have got away from the good old book. Adam and Eve fell by not hearkening to the word of God. They did not believe God’s word; but they believed the tempter. That is the way backsliders fall—by turning away from the word of God.

In Jeremiah ii. we find God pleading with them as a father would plead with a son. “Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? . . . Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord; and with your children’s children will I plead . . . For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

Now there is one thing to which we wish to call the attention of backsliders; and that is, that the Lord never forsook them; but that they forsook Him! The Lord never left them; but they left Him! And this, too, without any cause! He says, “What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me?” Is not God the same to-day as when you came to Him first? Has God changed? Men are apt to think that God has changed; but the fault is with them. Backslider, I would ask you, “What iniquity is there in God, that you have left Him and gone far from Him?” You have, He says, hewed out to yourselves broken cisterns that hold no water. The world cannot satisfy the new nature. No earthly well can satisfy the soul that has become a partaker of the heavenly nature. Honor, wealth and the pleasures of this world will not satisfy those who, having tasted the water of life, have gone astray, seeking refreshment at the world’s fountains. Earthly wells will get dry. They cannot quench spiritual thirst.

Again in the 32d verse: “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet My people have forgotten Me, days without number.” That is the charge which God brings against the backslider. They “have forgotten Me, days without number.”

I have often startled young ladies when I have said to them, “My friend, you think more of your ear-rings than of the Lord.” The reply has been, “No, I do not.” But when I have asked, “Would you not be troubled if you lost one; and would you not set about seeking for it?” the answer has been, “Well, yes, I think I should.” But though they had turned from the Lord, it did not give them any trouble; nor did they seek after Him that they might find Him.

How many once in fellowship and in daily communion with the Lord now think more of their dresses and ornaments than of their precious souls! Love does not like to be forgotten. Mothers would have broken hearts if their children left them and never wrote a word or sent any memento of their affection; and God pleads over backsliders as a parent over loved ones who have gone astray. He tries to woo them back. He asks: “What have I done that you should have forsaken Me?”

The most tender and loving words to be found in the whole of the Bible are from Jehovah to those who have left Him without a cause. Jer. ii. 19.

Hear how He argues with such:  (Jer. xi. 19.) “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.”

I do not exaggerate when I say that I have seen hundreds of backsliders come back; and I have asked them if they have not found it an evil and a bitter thing to leave the Lord. You cannot find a real backslider, who has known the Lord, but will admit that it is an evil and a bitter thing to turn away from Him; and I do not know of any one verse more used to bring back wanderers than that very one. May it bring you back if you have wandered into the far country.

Look at Lot. Did not he find it an evil and a bitter thing? He was twenty years in Sodom, and never made a convert. He got on well in the sight of the world. Men would have told you that he was one of the most influential and worthy men in all Sodom. But alas! alas! he ruined his family. And it is a pitiful sight to see that old backslider going through the streets of Sodom at midnight, after he has warned his children, and they have turned a deaf ear.

I have never known a man and his wife backslide, without its proving utter ruin to their children. They will make a mockery of religion and will deride their parents: “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee; and thy backsliding shall reprove thee!” Did not David find it so? Mark him, crying, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee; O Absalom, my son, my son!” I think it was the ruin, rather than the death of his son that caused this anguish.