Cracking Nut of Backslidding — E.A. Johnston

The Old Testament Sin Cycle and the Misery of Backsliding

The Jews, in the Old Testament, often fell into a sin cycle that went something like this. They would first depart from God. They would serve their idols in sin. God would bring a remedial judgment upon them, often in the form of their enemies, who would attack and ransack them.

Then they would cry out to God under their burdens, and they would repent and return to God, only to repeat the process all over again. We look at the Jews in the Old Testament, and we shake our heads at them in disbelief as to their stubborn rebellion and hard hearts, like we are so far above them.

But for the most part, friends, we're often too much like them, because when the people of God are in a backslidden condition, they can be a bunch of Jews in the Old Testament, or a bunch of Baptists in a church today.

If you don't believe me, friends, go reread Revelation 3 .17, where the risen Christ says, Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

That's how God really feels about a backslider who looks good in his own eyes, but who in God's eyes looks pretty pathetic, and wretched, and miserable. Because the most miserable person in the world isn't the sinner in love with his sin.

No, friend, he's enjoying sin for a season. He's as happy as a clam. The most miserable person on God's green earth is the believer out of fellowship with God and sin. The backslider. You may be here today with a smile on your face, but inside you're completely miserable.

Your family members can barely tolerate all your griping and complaining. You are usually in such a bad mood you darken a room's atmosphere just by entering it. You're unhappy because you're not happy in Jesus.

You are in a backslidden state, and once you finally get out of it, it won't be too long until you're back in your mud puddle of sin once more. It's a vicious cycle, like the sin cycle of the Jews of old.

Recognizing Backsliding as a Descending Staircase

Well, today, friends, we're going to dissect and study the backslider. We want to get a handle on backsliding to understand it better so we can avoid it in the future. Picture in your mind, friend, a descending staircase, where each step goes down lower, that leads you down lower into a basement.

Backsliding is like that descending staircase, where sin takes you lower and lower until you end up down in the basement of despair. There is always a first step to backsliding, and then another step and another step, taking you further away from God and sin.

To fix a problem, you first have to recognize it, then understand it. Today, friends, in this message, I'm going to share with you how to fix some problems. Now, you may say, Well, what do you know about it, preacher?

Oh, I know plenty about backsliding from personal experience, and I'm going to share with you today, friends, what I've learned through the years of being on the battlefront for God. Although the first step in backsliding may differ somewhat from person to person, I believe I know that I know how I can crack the nut of backsliding today, and hopefully it will be helpful to you when understanding your own backslidden condition in the sin that so easily besets you.

Disappointment in God

All right, friends, let's get started on cracking this nut of backsliding. The first step down that descending staircase is number one. Disappointment in God. You may be surprised at that, but it sure is true.

You had high hopes in God doing a thing for you, but he didn't come through. When you were in a crisis and you were on a deadline and you desperately needed a deliverance and God didn't show up and deliver you, God didn't answer your prayer in the way you hoped he would, and you're let down.

You feel God let you down, and the devil has come alongside you, and he's whispered in your ear the lie that God doesn't care about you, and you're beginning to believe it, that God doesn't really love you, because if he did, he would have come through for you and delivered you, but he didn't.

So you fail to study your Bible and see how God has dealt with his children in former times in regard to the doctrine of waiting upon God, like Joseph in prison, where God's word declares. Yet, did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgot him?

And it came to pass at the end of two full years that Pharaoh dreamed. Joseph was forgotten by man, and he had to spend two more long years in prison. But Joseph was God's man, and he knew he wasn't forgotten by God.

But somehow you feel that in your crisis you have been forgotten by God, and this has led you to disappointment in God. And like a teenager mad at his parent for not getting his way, who goes out and rebels against his parents' wishes and desires, you go out and do the same.

You're downright mad at God. At least, if you were honest with yourself, you'd admit it. So the sin pattern in the backslider is, first, disappointment in God. Next, number two, a departure from God. The second step down the staircase is a departure from God through unbelief.

Departure from God Through Unbelief

You begin to doubt his promises to you, like the Jews in the wilderness who doubted God and complained, can God provide a table in the wilderness? So you start to doubt his promises to you. Once you were sure that God's word was sure, but now you have second thoughts.

The devil has planted some seeds of doubt in your mind, like he did with Eve in getting her to doubt God's word about the tree in the garden. When a person's faith is shaken, then that person is capable of the grossest evil.

You can surprise yourself on how bad you can be and how low you can go in a hogwalla of sin and rebellion. Like Peter, who witnessed his hopes of his Messiah and saw them dashed when he saw the arrest of Jesus, and he watched the seemingly helplessness of Christ to deliver himself from the soldiers as he was bound and dragged away in chains.

Well, the wind went right out of Peter's sail, if I may so speak, to such an alarming degree that Peter did the unthinkable and denied his Lord publicly, not just one time, but three consecutive times.

Oh, friends, the horrible acts that can be committed by a person who has departed from God through unbelief. There's a great danger here. Hear me now. There's a great danger here of falling into complete apostasy, like King Saul, who ended up consorting with a witch and going to the devil until he took his own life.

Spiritual Declension and Denominational Drift

So first, there is a disappointment in God. Then a departure from God. And then thirdly, number three, a declension away from God. Spiritual declension is deadly, but common among the people of God. That's why there's always been the need for revivals.

Spiritual declension is when a believer or church becomes so backslidden that they are unaware of it. They are completely out of fellowship with God because they are out of step with God. This can happen to entire denominations that fall into spiritual declension and rewrite their policies to fit modern man.

The Jews in the days of Hosea were in a downgrade of spiritual declension, which in essence is just plain old spiritual horlitary. God describes the wayward Jews as a cake not turned. We read in Hosea 7, 8, Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people.

Ephraim is a cake not turned, meaning in their religious worship they may manage to look good on the outside, but the reality was on the inside they were useless to God, like a half-baked cake is useless to the baker.

It's no good in the middle. And a backslider is no good to God. God can't use them. So spiritual declension leads you down, down the stairs to eventually down into the basement of despair. And when you get there, friend, you get pretty desperate.

That's a pretty terrible, rotten place to be. So completely out of fellowship with God, you just plumb miserable all the time. And this leads us to our last point, which is number four. Dependence upon God.

Dependence on God for Restorative Grace

When God places us in a trial or adverse circumstances, he's either doing so to build our faith or chastising us for disobedience to bring us back into a right relationship with him. We see God's love for his people who have strayed away from him.

In Hosea 14 .4 we read, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him. So the last stage in this pattern of the backslider is dependence upon God for the grace of repentance.

Now, that's the end of my message, friend. And I hope we've cracked the nut of backsliding so we can avoid its pitfalls in the future. I hope this little message has been helpful to you, as it has been to me.

Listen, friend, God is good, and Jesus is wonderful.