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being Faithful.Over thirty years ago, I learnt that God does not make the demands, or set conditions for people to be saved/or remain Christians that other Christians often do. I have learnt that includes doctrine, and imperfections in a believers life
God still loves the backslider. In my own life, speaking from experiance, I have found that if I have backslid, God allows situations to become impossible so I come to my senses and come before him, ever more willing to bow the knee. He loves us far too much to let us get away with our folly
God still loves the backslider. In my own life, speaking from experiance, I have found that if I have backslid, God allows situations to become impossible so I come to my senses and come before him, ever more willing to bow the knee. He loves us far too much to let us get away with our folly
The Backslider
By Dr. John R. Rice
By Dr. John R. Rice
Chapter 4 - Backsliders; Saved or Lost?
Well, the answer to this question is that the backslider does not deserve to be saved but deserves to go to Hell; that other people will often think that he is not saved; that he himself is likely to doubt his salvation or to believe that God has forsaken him utterly; but, thank God, the backslider still is a child of God. He is a disobedient child of God and he will be punished for it, yet every born-again child of God who falls into sin is still God's child.
It is true that the backslider does not deserve salvation. What a tragedy when a child of God brings reproach on the cause of Christ! It may be an outrageous sin such as drunkenness or adultery. Or it may be sins like the sins of those other backsliders - Noah, Lot, David. Or it may be a backsliding in the heart that does not seem so bad to outsiders but really results in damning souls that might have been won.
Who knows whether in God' s sight a cold heart, that does not win souls and never has the anointing for power, may be more wicked than the man who is tempted and falls into drink or blasphemy or adultery! What could be worse than letting a soul go to Hell for millions of years because of our carelessness, our love for the things of this life? But in either case, the backslider deserves nothing good from God. That means that I ought to have gone to Hell long ago! How many times I have failed God! How many vows I have broken! How many duties I have neglected!
But then the same thing could be said about every Christian in the world. We deserve nothing good from God. No one does. It would have served us right for Him to let us all go to Hell.
But, thanks be to God, my salvation is not depending upon my works. I did not deserve salvation when I got it, and I have never deserved it any thirty seconds since that time! Salvation is all of grace. How sweet to all of us poor sinners is Ephesians 2:8,9, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." And when we get to Heaven there will not be one living soul who can say, "I deserved this. I earned my way to Heaven." No, how our hearts will run over with gratitude and rejoicing when we say there that
Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.
And that is true of my life today as it was the first day I trusted Jesus as my Saviour. Oh, thank God for His mercy that never fails! He saves every sinner who trusts in Him, and He keeps every one of His erring children. He chastises them but He does not lose them. Not only does the backslider not deserve his salvation, but others will often judge him and think he is not saved. Had I seen Noah lying drunk and naked in his tent, I might have said, "You old hypocrite! God ought to have let you die in the flood with the rest of the drunkards!" I would have thought, perhaps, that there was no difference in Noah's lying there drunk and another man whom I saw two days ago lying drunk outside a saloon in Philadelphia.
I think my indignation would have mounted high against David had I been there and had I known how he seduced Bathsheba and had her husband killed. I might well have thought, "You hypocrite, you psalm-singing sinner! You pious adulterer and murderer! You ought to be in Hell!" Had I been the judge, I probably would have sent David on to Hell.
So with Lot down in Sodom, calling those wicked, licentious wretches "brethren." So with Peter when he cursed and denied that he even knew Christ. Doubtless I would have thought he was unconverted. If God had left it to me, I might have sent these backsliders on to Hell. Certainly I would have doubted their sincerity when they told me that they loved God.
Oh, but I would not have known the agony in David's heart which later found expression in the pleading confession of the fifty-first Psalm! And I could not have known the distress of soul in Peter as, weeping bitterly, he went out into the cool morning of that spring day after he had denied the Saviour! And I could not have known that Lot "vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds" down in Sodom, as II Peter 2:8 says happened.
The backslider in heart still has in him the voice of God, still has dwelling in him the Spirit of God, and is still God's child. Others will criticize and judge him and think him unsaved.
Even the backslider himself may feel that he is unsaved. In the first chapter of II Peter we are urged to add certain graces so that we will not be as backsliders - barren and unfruitful. Verse 9 says: "but he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." How many Christians have forgotten that they were purged from their old sins! There are many, no doubt, who give up their hope.
I remember when I gave mine up. When I asked to join the church after my profession of faith, my father thought I was too young to be saved, so he discouraged me. Then I threw all my hope away. For three years I had no joy and no assurance of salvation.
Many a man tells me, "Well, I thought I was saved once, but l guess I was not." A letter came this week from a good woman who told me of her temper, her harsh words to her husband and children, of grudges that arose in her heart. She said: "Could I be a Christian and be like this?"
So backsliders lose the joy of salvation and lose the assurance of salvation, too. How many decide that God has forsaken them! They know that they were once saved, but now that they have fallen into sin, they do not have any joy. They feel that God does not love them any more. Only day before yesterday a sad-faced woman came to tell me how she had been so preoccupied and had so neglected prayer and the Lord's Word that she felt perhaps she had committed the unpardonable sin! In fact, of the scores of people who come to me wondering if they have committed the unpardonable sin, perhaps not one of them has, but all are backslidden Christians. If one had really committed the unpardonable sin, he would not be worried about it. He would not hear God's Spirit calling. Besides, the unpardonable sin is committed only by lost people. But backsliders often feel that God has forsaken them forever.
Thanks be to God, that is not true! God never forsakes one of His own, even though we sin grievously and even though He may punish us severely. The backslider is still God's child and is still saved.
I have six daughters. Though they are precious children whom I love dearly, they are not little angels who can do no wrong. Sometimes they have been so bad that I felt I must punish them severely. I have had to lay on the whip or a heavy leather belt while they cried and begged for another chance. It was not easy at all. But you may be sure that when the whipping was over, they were still my children. They never lost their place at the table, nor their bed in the home, nor the love of a father's heart when they did wrong. I punished my children when they needed it, but they are still my children.
And is God a poorer Father than I? Do you think God's love for His children is weaker than a father's love for his children? Would God forsake one of His own quicker than a human parent would? How strange to ask such a question! It answers itself! God punishes His backslidden children and grieves over them but He never forsakes a one of them.
In Hosea, the book about backsliding Israel, is a precious word. Chapter11, verse 7, says:
"And my people are bent to backsliding from me."
But now let us read the next two verses, Hosea 11:8,9:
"How shall give thee up, Ephraim? how shall deliver thee, Israel? how shall make thee as Admah? how shall set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city."
Do you see the yearning heart of God after Ephraim and Israel? How would He be content to deal with them as with the wicked in Admah and Zeboim, the towns destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah? In the midst of His chastising, God's heart was turned back toward Israel and He was repenting from even the punishment. And so God says: "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man."
God's love does not fail, as a man's love fails. A mother may forsake her sucking child, but God will not forsake one of His own! A father might drive his wayward son from the door, but never will God drive one of His own away, for He is God and not man. Men may criticize the backslider and judge him and say he is not saved, but God is not a man. His mercy is beyond human mercy, His love is greater than any human love.
How sweet is the promise of the Lord to David and his seed in Psalm 89:30-34:
"If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments: Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips."
If David and his descendants. the kings of Judah, should break God's statutes and keep not His commandments, then God promised to visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes; but God would never utterly take His loving kindness from these, and God's faithfulness would not fail, and God would never break His covenant nor change the thing He promised! That is the way God deals with men.
In my boyhood I remember hearing a cowboy preacher on that great text, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11:29). And that saintly but unlettered preacher went on to recount that in all his dealings with God, he ( the preacher) had never needed to repent of anything God had done for him. He had never been sorry of any gift God had given him. I thought it was a great sermon, and it was. But when I commented on it to my father, he showed me that that man of God had missed the meaning entirely!
God does not mean that we shall never repent of His gifts and His callings. Rather, He promises that He will never repent, will never change, will never turn from one of His gifts and one of His callings. Oh, we who have been called of God to he saints, we who are His born-again children, we who have the promise of everlasting life and a home in Heaven, may be sure that God will never repent in this matter. He will not change His calling nor take back His gift, for "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
The sins of the backslider are all laid on Jesus, are already blotted out, are already forgiven. When Jesus died, He died for all my sins. When I trusted Him, I trusted Him for forgiveness for all of them - the sins of the future as well as those of the past. And so David cries exultantly, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Rom. 4:7,8). The backslider is a blessed man "unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works" (Rom. 4:6).
Jesus promised, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The backslider deserves to be cast out, but he does not get what he deserves, God is faithful even when we are unfaithful. God keeps His covenant and fulfills all His guarantees.
God promised to all who believe in Christ "everlasting life" and "eternal life." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36). Notice the "hath" which means "has." One who trusted Christ already has everlasting life. And Jesus said in John 6:47. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." And John 5:24 says that one who has trusted in Him has everlasting life and shall not ever come into condemnation but is already passed out of death into life. Everlasting life is for the backslider, and all of us who have put our trust in Christ are at times backsliders, but we still have what God Himself gave us out of His own abundance, everlasting life.
The Holy Spirit lives in the body of every Christian. When the Christian sins, that unease, that unrest, that conviction which he has, is wrought in him by the blessed Holy Spirit who still goes with the backslider and never leaves him. The backslider is one of God's sheep, and Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice. and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:27,28).
Bless God for that promise! The word man in this verse is in italics in your Bible which means it was not in the original. Actually that verse says: "Neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." No man nor devil, not even self, can pluck a child of God, one of God's sheep, from His hand, for He has already given him eternal life and such shall never perish, He says!
O backslider, remember that you have a place still in the Father's house! Arise from the hog pen of sin! Come back home for the Father's kiss of forgiveness and the ring of assurance of sonship and the fatted calf of rejoicing! God loves you still! You are His own, dear to His heart, bought with the blood of His Son. He will not let you go!
Years ago I read in a Chicago paper in the personals column a classified ad that stirred my heart, and I have never forgotten it. It ran about like this:
"Emma, please come home. Mother is sick and is calling for you. All if forgiven. Dad."
I do not know what poor girl had broken the hearts of her father and mother, had gone down in sin with her wild companions so that she felt a stranger at home and thought that they no longer loved her. But whoever she was and wherever she was, they loved her still. The sick mother's heart could not be comforted without her daughter. So the father paid for the ad in a million copies of a newspaper, longing for Emma to see it and to know that she was still loved and was forgiven, and that they wanted her to come home.
O backslider, I broadcast this plea from the Father's house, that you are to come on Home! God loves you still. His heart yearns over you, and He will never let you go! Oh, come on back from your wandering and make God's heart glad today!
You're very welcome! I loved this so much when I read it for the first time that I bookmarked it. I hope it helps you to turn from some sin that has a stranglehold on you and turn back to God. I know you smoke, but just go one day and no matter the urges just don't do it. Then make it two days. Then three. If you tell God that you are going to rely on His strength and not your own, then you can do it WITH Him. It's too hard on your own! Let God crush those cravings!! Just imagine the smile on His face to have you come back to Him!
"I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." -- Did you hear that?! "MORE joy!"
I'll pray for you sister =)
Good luck! Make tomorrow the first day you quit=)
"I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." -- Did you hear that?! "MORE joy!"
I'll pray for you sister =)
Good luck! Make tomorrow the first day you quit=)
Have you ever had a profound love for something as a physical creation?
Fathers and mothers will instinctively know what I am talking about, when a child is conceived out of real love.
The minute a child is being grown inside a woman, she feels a connection to it. A connection unlike anything else that can ever exist for her.
And when a father sees his child born , he immediately falls in love with it. To him, and to her, it is the most beautiful creation that they have ever seen. Nomatter how it looks, or how it behaves, or how it moves, speaks, walks or breathes, they will love that child endlessly and boundlessly for the rest of it's life. Of course there are exceptions, when people aren't really 'in love', but I have seen this happen. It changes people.
What if marriage could be like that?
I remember once falling in love, and it wasn't because of how she treated me. It wasn't because we had magnificent chemistry, although we did. We laughed and smiled constantly. It was more than that.
The minute I laid eyes on her I could not imagine ever seeing anything so beautiful ever in my life. From the moment I saw her, I felt as though a parent feels; that I, no matter what she did, no matter how she changed, I would always see her in that moment. I would always give to her without any thought for myself.
And I sacrificed my 'sons' for her. The thoughts that came from me, the actions that came from me, ie; the 'sons' that I bore, that came from me, all were directed towards her saving. Her security. Her happiness.
It's really true when women say that a man's biggest weakness is a beautiful woman.
By today's society's standards, she is not inherently 'beautiful', but to me, there couldn't be anything more so.
Even when she left, it was like the story of the prodigal son. I felt an intense pain but never did I take it out on her. Never did I become angry at her.
I became patient. I thought to myself 'what can I do except be here if she needs me to be?'. And whenever she asks me for something, I oblige. And whenever she is hurt, I feel that too.
And some years later she came to me and she apologized in the most beautiful way for the way she had treated me.
And my response was 'I never, ever held it against you. You did what you thought was right. It wasn't malice, and it wasn't spite, it was because you just didn't know any better.'
I know that her guilt and the standards of society mean that her and I, specifically, will never be together in this life, but I also never wish for anything less than her to find the same joy that she made me feel.
Her life, and her choices, are hers to make, and completely out of my control, because she has the will and the means to do whatever she fancies doing.
But I will never stop loving her, in the true unconditional sense of the word. Even when it hurts.
And maybe that's how God feels about us?
Fathers and mothers will instinctively know what I am talking about, when a child is conceived out of real love.
The minute a child is being grown inside a woman, she feels a connection to it. A connection unlike anything else that can ever exist for her.
And when a father sees his child born , he immediately falls in love with it. To him, and to her, it is the most beautiful creation that they have ever seen. Nomatter how it looks, or how it behaves, or how it moves, speaks, walks or breathes, they will love that child endlessly and boundlessly for the rest of it's life. Of course there are exceptions, when people aren't really 'in love', but I have seen this happen. It changes people.
What if marriage could be like that?
I remember once falling in love, and it wasn't because of how she treated me. It wasn't because we had magnificent chemistry, although we did. We laughed and smiled constantly. It was more than that.
The minute I laid eyes on her I could not imagine ever seeing anything so beautiful ever in my life. From the moment I saw her, I felt as though a parent feels; that I, no matter what she did, no matter how she changed, I would always see her in that moment. I would always give to her without any thought for myself.
And I sacrificed my 'sons' for her. The thoughts that came from me, the actions that came from me, ie; the 'sons' that I bore, that came from me, all were directed towards her saving. Her security. Her happiness.
It's really true when women say that a man's biggest weakness is a beautiful woman.
By today's society's standards, she is not inherently 'beautiful', but to me, there couldn't be anything more so.
Even when she left, it was like the story of the prodigal son. I felt an intense pain but never did I take it out on her. Never did I become angry at her.
I became patient. I thought to myself 'what can I do except be here if she needs me to be?'. And whenever she asks me for something, I oblige. And whenever she is hurt, I feel that too.
And some years later she came to me and she apologized in the most beautiful way for the way she had treated me.
And my response was 'I never, ever held it against you. You did what you thought was right. It wasn't malice, and it wasn't spite, it was because you just didn't know any better.'
I know that her guilt and the standards of society mean that her and I, specifically, will never be together in this life, but I also never wish for anything less than her to find the same joy that she made me feel.
Her life, and her choices, are hers to make, and completely out of my control, because she has the will and the means to do whatever she fancies doing.
But I will never stop loving her, in the true unconditional sense of the word. Even when it hurts.
And maybe that's how God feels about us?
I often feel as though if people could just understand that kind of love, there would be such a shift in the priorities of the world.
Most people 'take' and 'search' for love, and 'desire to be given love', because people feel it is 'exceptional', 'beyond our imagination' and other such things.
They hold every scrap and squeeze every drop of juice out of it. We can blame media, we can blame society, we can blame anything, but truthfully, the cause of the world's lovelessness and the cause of the world's suffering doesn't, at the basic level, come from anywhere else except the mind itself.
sure, we can be deceived. But that's out of ignorance.
If I believe that I am wholly accountable for my actions, what power can a deceiver have over me that I am not willing to annul?
We hear people say 'he made me feel that way', but in truth, only I can allow myself to feel a certain way because I hold it close and I desire it or want it or have an attachment to it, or my perception is flawed.
I realized that when I let go of being attached (in the, 'I want for myself' kind of way) that all love becomes something totally different.
This is touching on a philosophy, but no less it has been proved to me as a truth; that we perceive in our thoughts, we make a judgement, we then have an 'outlook' on something, we then focus on that outlook and it becomes a perspective, then we attach an emotion or a desire to it, then we form solutions or 'outlets' to that desire and there becomes a motive, and the motive causes us to act, and after we act we attach a future expectation to our actions, and the cycle continues.
When a person hits me, I perceive their hostility, I make a judgement that that hostility isn't warranted (often without thinking about their views), then my outlook is that they are in the wrong, when I focus on it, my perspective becomes 'they are wrong, I am right' (there is no true understanding in that), then I attach an emotion to it which is usually disgust, fear, outrage or anger, my solution to get rid of that anger, fear or outrage (because they are unpleasant emotions that humans have trouble experiencing) is to hit back, to run away, or to scream 'look what he just did', then I expect some sort of outcome to what I have done, though we can never know what will happen.
But if a person hits me and I perceive nothing, just that this is something that happens, that this person is acting upon me out of emotion, out of their own perspectives and outlooks, and that I am not part of their perspectives, or their emotions, I can act differently. I don't form an outlook because there is not truly anything solid to form an outlook about. My perspective is simply 'they hit me'. I will usually wonder 'why'? So I can ask 'why have you hit me?' Then I can hear their view, why they have decided to hit me out of their anger. What perspective or judgement it is that causes this. When they get the emotion out, I know that the outcome is simply that 'they have got their emotion out'. And I can say 'Do you feel better now?' That is compassion.
Particularly in the metaphorical sense of hitting (outcrys, outbursts, blame, arguments) and particularly in relationships, I would like to adopt this kind of thinking.
So that instead of being offended by someone, be it a friend, a stranger, or a partner, I can simply allow them to have their emotions and make up their own minds as to what they think they need to do, and allow them to do it, without reaction, without hostility.
This way, I don't burden myself with anger, but I am actually 'compassionate' to people who are my 'adversarys'. Or, 'I love my enemies'.
Most people 'take' and 'search' for love, and 'desire to be given love', because people feel it is 'exceptional', 'beyond our imagination' and other such things.
They hold every scrap and squeeze every drop of juice out of it. We can blame media, we can blame society, we can blame anything, but truthfully, the cause of the world's lovelessness and the cause of the world's suffering doesn't, at the basic level, come from anywhere else except the mind itself.
sure, we can be deceived. But that's out of ignorance.
If I believe that I am wholly accountable for my actions, what power can a deceiver have over me that I am not willing to annul?
We hear people say 'he made me feel that way', but in truth, only I can allow myself to feel a certain way because I hold it close and I desire it or want it or have an attachment to it, or my perception is flawed.
I realized that when I let go of being attached (in the, 'I want for myself' kind of way) that all love becomes something totally different.
This is touching on a philosophy, but no less it has been proved to me as a truth; that we perceive in our thoughts, we make a judgement, we then have an 'outlook' on something, we then focus on that outlook and it becomes a perspective, then we attach an emotion or a desire to it, then we form solutions or 'outlets' to that desire and there becomes a motive, and the motive causes us to act, and after we act we attach a future expectation to our actions, and the cycle continues.
When a person hits me, I perceive their hostility, I make a judgement that that hostility isn't warranted (often without thinking about their views), then my outlook is that they are in the wrong, when I focus on it, my perspective becomes 'they are wrong, I am right' (there is no true understanding in that), then I attach an emotion to it which is usually disgust, fear, outrage or anger, my solution to get rid of that anger, fear or outrage (because they are unpleasant emotions that humans have trouble experiencing) is to hit back, to run away, or to scream 'look what he just did', then I expect some sort of outcome to what I have done, though we can never know what will happen.
But if a person hits me and I perceive nothing, just that this is something that happens, that this person is acting upon me out of emotion, out of their own perspectives and outlooks, and that I am not part of their perspectives, or their emotions, I can act differently. I don't form an outlook because there is not truly anything solid to form an outlook about. My perspective is simply 'they hit me'. I will usually wonder 'why'? So I can ask 'why have you hit me?' Then I can hear their view, why they have decided to hit me out of their anger. What perspective or judgement it is that causes this. When they get the emotion out, I know that the outcome is simply that 'they have got their emotion out'. And I can say 'Do you feel better now?' That is compassion.
Particularly in the metaphorical sense of hitting (outcrys, outbursts, blame, arguments) and particularly in relationships, I would like to adopt this kind of thinking.
So that instead of being offended by someone, be it a friend, a stranger, or a partner, I can simply allow them to have their emotions and make up their own minds as to what they think they need to do, and allow them to do it, without reaction, without hostility.
This way, I don't burden myself with anger, but I am actually 'compassionate' to people who are my 'adversarys'. Or, 'I love my enemies'.
Thinka bout it. Every time i have ever felt 'offended', that is MY feeling. and it is there because I expect people to speak by MY standards.
Every time I have felt 'unloved', that is MY feeling. And I expect to be 'shown love', or I 'desire' a certain type of treatment.
And it makes my worldview flawed. Because I expect and almost demand things in my mind, that I have absolutely no control over. I am always setting myself up for disappointment.
Every time I have felt 'unloved', that is MY feeling. And I expect to be 'shown love', or I 'desire' a certain type of treatment.
And it makes my worldview flawed. Because I expect and almost demand things in my mind, that I have absolutely no control over. I am always setting myself up for disappointment.
A
does she know you still love her in that way? .........I don't know why guilt or the standards of society should keep you two apart if she loves you with the same depth that you love her. ..........You know for a time my husband and I broke up and I thought the same things. I just wanted him to be happy even if it wasn't with me, but in the end. I had to give it one last try and tell him and let him decide if he truly wanted to end it. which he didn't he just didn't feel worthy of me. which made me mad. ..I told him it was my choice and not his and the only reason I would take for him leaving is if he stopped loving me and was not happy. .... she just might not feel worthy of you....I know it sounds ridicules but sometimes people don't see themselves as we see them: wonderful lovely people who we would do just about anything to see smile.