Backslider
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? Jeremiah 8:5 (KJV)
With Spirit anointed, penetrating analysis Richard Owen Roberts puts forth the necessity of revival. Jeremiah was raised up by Yahweh to preach repentance to the nation of Judah, calling them repeatedly to turn from their idols to the true and living God, their covenant Lord. They continued to turn away from Him in their apostasy. The King James Version calls this apostasy "backsliding". They refused to repent. They said that they did not even know what they had done wrong. Every one had chosen his own course, like a horse charging into battle. What folly! Even the stork knows her seasons. The turtledove and thrush know when to migrate, but God's people did not know His commandments and ordinances.
Are you a backslider? Roberts lists and briefly defines twenty-five characteristics of the backslidden condition. See how you fare. Be honest in your self-evaluation.
You are backslidden:
- If prayer no longer is a vital part of your daily life.
- If the quest for Biblical truth ceases and you are content with what you already have learned.
- If your Biblical knowledge stops short of personal application, no longer challenging you to "mend your ways."
- If thoughts of heaven and hell cease to be regular and gripping to your soul.
- If worship services have become perfunctory and have lost their delights.
- If you are embarrassed by pointed, public discussions of Christ and the Scriptures.
- If sports, recreation, and entertainment are a large and necessary part of your lifestyle.
- If sins of the body and mind can be indulged in with little or no guilty conscience.
- If aspirations of Christlike holiness cease to be dominant in your life and thinking.
- If the acquisition of money and possessions dominates your mind and heart.
- If you can mouth hymns and spiritual songs without heart.
- If you hear the Lord's name taken in vain, spiritual concerns mocked, and eternal issues flippantly treated without your becoming indignant.
- If you watch degrading television programs, movies, and read debilitating literature.
- If division between brothers and sisters in a church does not grieve you.
- If the slightest excuse keeps you from spiritual duty or opportunity.
- If you are content with lack of spiritual power and no longer seek it from on high.
- If you pardon your own sin and laziness by saying that God understands and remembers that you are but dust.
- If there is no music in your soul and no song in your heart.
- If you adjust happily to the world's lifestyle.
- If you see injustice and misery and do little or nothing to relieve the suffering.
- If your church has strayed from spiritual power, when the word of God is no longer preached, and you have no problem with these things.
- If the world's continued decline into the abyss does not concern you.
- If you are willing to cheat your employer or your government.
- If you marvel at how well you are doing in godlikeness.
- If your tears have dried up and the hard, cold spiritual facts of your condition cannot unleash them.
From Rev. Al Baker’s weekly devotional, "Forget None of His Benefits". Rev. Baker is the director of The Alabama Church Planting Network, an Evangelistic Revival Preacher with Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, and was the guest speaker at the 2012 Crossroads All-Church Retreat.
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