My people are bent to backsliding from Me.
Religious declension
How singular is the moral condition of a believer bent on backsliding. It is not a mere vacillation between God and mammon, holiness and sin, but a steady leaning, an earnest leaning toward the latter.
I. Who are they who are bent on backsliding?
1. The first mark is a neglect of secret and family prayer. The neglect of one kind of prayer usually follows neglect of the other kind.
2. Habitual neglect of the Bible. Whoever walks closely with God takes delight in His Word. It is a bad sign when the Scriptures are read only from a conviction of duty.
3. Backwardness or reluctance in efforts to do good. Does a civil, political, or pecuniary enterprise awaken an energy and zeal which you never evince for the Saviour’s cause? If so, what does it indicate?
4. The undervaluing of religious ordinances. Lightly to esteem the house of God, its praises, prayers, instructions, hallowed associations, indicates a backsliding heart. Other marks of a backsliding believer are,--censoriousness; high regard for gaiety and fashion; preference for vain amusements and frivolous company.
II. The guilt which this moral condition involves.
1. Every such professor is acting the part of a hypocrite. We may not charge him with wilful hypocrisy, we may with practical hypocrisy.
2. Their influence goes to depress the standard of piety which the Saviour has fixed, to adulterate that system of truth and duty which He has given as the hope of the Word. Christianity is a holy religion. What we charge upon every Christian professor whose heart is bent on backsliding, is the guilt of adulterating this holy religion, and depressing, so far as his influence goes, its Divine standard of duty. What is it we are doing when we put a base alloy into the gold of heaven? Inter mingling principles of selfishness with those of a heaven-born beneficence. Of course, no Christian could intend to perpetrate so audacious a crime. The inten tion to work such mischief is not charged upon any one. Yet all this mischief is involved in the course pursued by every backslider.
3. The backslider retards the progress of Christianity in the world. He cuts the sinews of its strength; he takes off its chariot wheels.
4. While bent to backsliding you cannot be depended on in religion. You are not reliable persons. You prove recreant to duty. Christianity may well exclaim in reference to many of its professed votaries, “Deliver me from my friends.”
III. The consequences of continuing in this guilty course. There are two rods in the hand of God for offenders, the rod of discipline and the rod of retribution. The former is to correct, with a view to reclaim the offender. The latter is to punish the incorrigible, with a view to vindicate and maintain His outraged authority. With the rod of discipline come oftentimes desolation, rebuke, discomfort, darkness and barren ness in spiritual experience.
1. The first appliances which God will use are disciplinary. The first consequence to be apprehended by a backslider--whether an individual or a Church, is outward rebuke.
2. Another consequence is the discomfort of the forsaken soul: its restless condition, the possibly deep gloom which may settle like night upon it. It must be unhappy when comforts are with drawn, with a grieved departing Saviour, the sweet influences of His grace, as well as the joyful assurance of blessedness hereafter.
3. The last consequence relates to the future world. It takes hold of retribution. Unless you repent and do your first works, you must perish. There is no talismanic charm about the name of Christian, or about a profession of religion which can rescue the hopeless back slider. He must lie down, like other sinners, under the wrath of God. And connected with this consequence to yourselves are melancholy consequences to the unconverted in your families, and in the community. How seldom a sinner repenteth while the Church is far from God! (E. Strong.)
In suspense
Two explanations of this sentence are given.
1. The word teluaim signifies “perplexed.” The people would suffer a just punishment through being anxious and looking around them, and yet finding no comfort; for this would be the reward of their defection or apostasy.
2. God here complains of the wickedness of the people, as of those who deliberated whether they ought to repent. They then take suspense for doubt. “My people are in suspense.” They debate on the subject as on a doubtful matter, when I exhort them to repent, and they cannot at once decide what to do, but alternate between divers opinions, and now incline to one thing and then to another; as if the subject itself made it necessary for them to deliberate. (John Calvin.)
Backsliding Israel
I. A certain course described. “My people are bent to backsliding from Me.”
1. What this fact proves. The doctrine of human depravity.
2. What it involves.
(1) Folly the most extreme.
(2) Ingratitude the most base.
(3) Treachery the most enormous.
II. A certain feeling indicated. “How shall I give thee up?”
1. Its nature. It was a feeling of perplexity.
2. Its causes. His back sliding children deserved to be punished; hut He waiteth to be gracious, and is ready to forgive.
III. A certain resolution formed. “I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger.” This should--
1. Excite our astonishment.
2. Kindle our gratitude.
3. Subdue our opposition.
4. Dissipate our fears. (Author of “Foosteps of Jesus.”)
Backslider
In the west of Scotland when you travel, sometimes when the furnaces are all in full blast, furnace after furnace flings its reflection on the sky. You see the molten metal flowing into the mould. As you look from the carriage windows you see dusky figures flitting about, all activity; but when the furnaces are damped down for a strike or for dull trade, what a misery it is to go through these manufacturing districts and behold idleness. The flames have been damped out, the men are not working, but lounging about at street corners; women and bairns, sad at heart; wheels still; hammers ceased hammering. It is the same way, maybe, with your soul. You have damped out the furnace of Christian activity. God knows it. Why, when you were a young man, you had dozens of furnaces in full blast for God. You gave tracts, you spoke to your fellows, you took a class in the Sabbath school, you gave of your money, you prayed and agonised; and all is shut up, and you know it. You’re asleep; you do nothing for God now. (John Robertson.)