The backslider in heart will be filled with the fruit of his ways, and a good man will be filled with the fruit of his ways.” Proverbs 14:14

Last week, we learnt about “Four Vital Elements to Spiritual Growth”. Today, we shall focus on a Backslider. May the Holy Spirit minister to you in Jesus Name.

Are you a backslider or Frontslider? Can you compare your spiritual state now with that when you were first saved? Have the services of the church lost their delights in you? Examine your life if backslidden condition probably exists.

What is Backsliding?

Backsliding is when a person who follows Christ turns away from Him. To the backslider, God is no longer the main focus of his life. Without God’s leading, the person suffers a lapse morally and reverts back to sin. He “backslides” into his old way of life. The backslider is one who has forgotten the grace of repentance.  To say it simply, a backslidden Christian is one whose communion with Christ is waning and whose faith is weakening. The Christian life is not always an easy road. Sometimes we get off track. The Bible says to encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ daily so that no one turns away from the living God. If you have found yourself backsliding, or drifting away from the Lord, these practical steps mentioned below will help get you back on course today.

A backslider is a saved person who falls into sin. A lost sinner cannot be a backslider. You have to go somewhere before you can slide back. But someone who is truly born again, a child of God who falls into sin, is a backslider. It may be outrageous and gross sin known to everyone or it may be merely coldness of heart, a lukewarmness of heart instead of the burning fire of love for God. But when a Christian loses any of his joy, or loses part of his sweet fellowship with God, or falls into sin, then he is a backslider. Remember that only Christians can backslide.

We have many examples of this in the Bible. What an honest Book the Bible is to tell us of the failures and sins of God’s people through the ages! God wanted us to know that the men of the greatest faith, saints who had truly been born again, were frail people such as we are and subject to the same temptations and surrendering sometimes to the same sins.

God tells how Noah got drunk and lay naked in his tent. He tells how Lot sought the fellowship of the wicked Sodomites, lost all his influence, got drunk and ruined his own daughters. The Bible tells how Abraham deceived, calling Sarah his sister. Even saintly Moses lost his temper. When God commanded him to speak to the rock that Israel might be watered from it a second time, in a temper he beat upon it with his rod and so dishonored God that he lost his chance to enter the Promised Land.

David, a man after God’s own heart, a man used to write the Psalms, that blessed book of devotions for the saints through all these centuries, committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband Uriah slain to hide his sin. The Bible tells how Samson, a judge of Israel who had been filled with the Holy Ghost and was a Nazarite from his birth, kept company with harlots until God left him powerless, a slave of the Philistines with his eyes burned out.

The Bible tells how Peter denied Christ and cursed and swore, how all the disciples forsook Jesus and fled; how later Peter, fearing the Jewish Christians, played the coward again, and led even good Barnabas away with his dissimulations. The Bible tells how Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus, was a coward, a secret disciple. Even Paul the apostle went up to Jerusalem against the plain leading of the Holy Spirit.

So the saints of the Bible fell into sin. They were backsliders.

These examples should humble us and teach us that even the mightiest of God’s saints sometimes backslide, fall into sin, and so lose the sweet joy that every Christian ought to have.

A Christian who backslides is like a child who disobeys his parents. It does not affect his sonship but it affects his fellowship, his joy, and the approval of the Father.

To be continued next week

God bless you real good.

Deacon Mike Ben