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‘I will heal their backsliding.’
Hos_14:4
There are many sensitive souls who readily accuse themselves of this sin, and whose peace is marred, and their prayers hindered by false notions of the marks of backsliding. We shall try to help these.
I. Backsliding is not that almost inevitable alteration in feeling which comes to many Christian people who have been for a good many years following the Divine Master, and who find now less warmth in their emotions of fear, hope, love, and joy.—There is something in the laws of our nature which forbids repeated impressions to be felt as strongly as they were at first. We need not enter largely into the subject, but may perhaps be allowed to refer to a chapter on Feeling and Will, in ‘Spiritual Life in its Advancing Stages.’ When any believer in the Lord Jesus laments the change from an ardent to an unimpassioned state of soul, and longs for his old feelings, he will do well to hesitate before he pronounces this change to be due to backsliding. It is by other signs that the sin is to be known. Habit strengthens principle, but seems to blunt feeling. The seat of backsliding (see Hos_4:16) is not in the feelings, but in the will.
II. Backsliding is not that depression about spiritual matters, that so-called ‘hiding of God’s Face” which often accompanies ill-health, or physical and mental weariness.—A preacher of a mission whose whole powers of body, mind, and spirit have been strained for several weeks, frequently suffers afterwards from a torpidity of soul, in which he seems little able to realize the comfort of the truths he has been so earnestly setting forth to others. This, however, must be set down to bodily exhaustion, and the want of nerve-rest. A couple of days in bed, with all trying subjects and letters kept from him, may do him much good.
III. Backsliding has its causes and its signs.—The causes are generally the gradual yielding to temptation to relax watchfulness, shorten prayer, indulge the body, read misleading books, or cultivate unspiritual friendships. And it is easy to see how these things which are causes, may also be used as marks of backsliding. A very common mark is an increasing dislike to spiritual conversation, and still more to spiritual effort for the reclaiming of sinners.
The pleasures of life lie many of them just on the border line between good and evil. Some pleasures are so wholly pure, some so decidedly sinful that they need not enter into discussion; but the majority of our pleasures are just of the kind that you cannot decisively say that you may or may not innocently follow them without restraint. Now it is here that Satan finds his cruel advantage. The bringing us into contact with the ungodly in ‘innocent’ pleasures—all tend to draw the cloud of unspirituality over the heart, and so these ‘harmless things’ shut out the light of the sun; a little hesitation is felt in going straight from them to prayer; a day or two without prayer passes, and backsliding, perhaps for weeks, or months, is the result.
But sometimes Satan is bolder. Counting on his ally in our own breasts, ‘for the infection of nature doth remain even in them that are regenerate,’ he is able to blind those who are not very watchful indeed, as to the danger of some course of action. In matters of the affections this often happens. Many young Christians, become backsliders for years, or for life, from allowing their affections to fix on one who has no share with them in the Divine Love.
Money matters often spoil promising careers. Either the passion for getting, the lust of hoarding, the dislike of giving, the reluctance to pay debts quickly, or worse still, some untrustworthiness about the money of others, has crept in little by little on once spiritual persons; and when this is the case, farewell to all religious life!
Self-dependence, the removing of the soul’s full trust from Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit’s power, is a fruitful spiritual source of backsliding. Was not this the cause of St. Peter’s fall? The marks of this may not be visible in any wrong acts, but they will be soon seen in the lowered spiritual tone, and the growth of pride and self-satisfaction; or in some cases, by a general dissatisfaction and discontent. For who can be happy who has removed his confidence from Jesus, and fixed it on himself?
Archdeacon G. R. Wynne.
Illustration‘Only God can heal backsliding. Nature knows nothing about forgiveness. Nature is red in tooth and claw. She never gives a fresh start to a life that has maimed and marred itself. She never forgets old mistakes. Her inexorable rule is, Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap. Other religions know nothing about the gracious healing. “I have devoted as much time as any living man, to the sacred books of the world,” a famous scholar testifies, “and I have found their keynote. Whether it be the Vedas of the Brahmin, or the Koran of the Mohammedan, or the Zend-Avesta of the Parsee, the one keynote of all of them is salvation by works. They all say that salvation must be bought with a price, and that the purchase-money must be our own deservings.” There is no word there of free and loving pardon. Men cannot entirely restore the wrongdoer. For their knowledge of sin in all its circumstances is a partial and defective knowledge.’