Lecture XXI. Backslider in Heart (3)

31. A sticklishness about forms, ceremonies, and non-essentials, is evidence of a backslidden heart. A loving heart, is 422particular only about the substance and power of religion, and will not stickle about its forms.

32. A captiousness about measures in promoting revivals of religion, is a sure evidence of a backslidden heart. Where the heart is fully set upon the conversion of sinners, and the sanctification of believers, it will naturally approach the subject in the most direct manner, and by means in the highest degree calculated to accomplish the end. It will not object to, and stumble at, measures that are evidently blessed of God, but will exert its utmost sagacity in devising the most suitable means to accomplish the great end on which the heart is set.

IV. Show what are consequences of backsliding in heart. The text says, that the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.

1. He shall be filled with his own works. But these are dead works, they are not works of faith and love, which are acceptable to God, but are the filthy rags of his own righteousness. If they are performed as religious services, they are but loathsome hypocrisy, and an abomination to God, there is no heart in them, and to such a one, God says, “Who hath required this at our hands?” “Ye are they that justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men, is an abomination in the sight of God.” “I know you, that you have not the love of God in you.”

2. He shall be filled with his own feelings. Instead of that sweet peace and rest, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that he once experienced, he will find himself in a state of unrest, dissatisfied with himself and everybody else, his feelings often painful, humiliating, and as unpleasant and unlovely, as can be well conceived. It is often very trying to live with a backslider. They are often peevish, censorious, and irritating, in all their ways. They have forsaken God, and in their feelings is more of hell than heaven.

3. They will be filled with their own prejudices. Their willingness to know and do the truth has gone. They will very naturally commit themselves against any truth that bears hard upon their self-indulgent spirit. They will endeavor to justify themselves, will neither read nor hear that which will rebuke their backslidden state, and they will become deeply prejudiced against everyone that shall cross their path. If anyone reproves them, they account him as an enemy. They hedge themselves in, and shut their eyes against the light, stand on the defensive, and criticise everything that would search them out.

4. A backslider in heart will be filled with his own enmities. Such an one will almost surely lay up things against those with whom he has any business or other relations. He will chafe in almost every relation of life, will allow him. self to be vexed and angry, and get into such relations with some, and perhaps many persons, that he cannot pray for them honestly, and can hardly treat them with common civility. This is an almost certain result of a backslidden heart.

5. The backslider in heart will be fall of his own mistakes. He is not walking with God. He has fallen out of the Divine order. He is not led by the Spirit, but is walking in spiritual darkness. In this state he is sure to fall into many and grievous mistakes, and may get entangled in such a way as to mar his happiness, and, perhaps, destroy his usefulness for life. Mistakes in business, mistakes in forming new relations in life, mistakes in using his time, his tongue, his money, his influence—all will go wrong with him as long as he remains in a backslidden state.

6. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own lustings. His appetites and passions, which had been kept under, have now resumed their control, and having been so long suppressed, they will seem to avenge themselves by becoming more clamorous and despotic than ever. The animal appetites and passions will burst forth, to the astonishment of the backslider, and ten to one, if he does not find himself more under their influence, and more enslaved by them than ever before.

7. The backslider in heart will he filled with his own words. While in that state, he will not, and cannot, control his tongue. It will prove itself to be an unruly member, full of deadly poison, will set on fire the course of nature, and is itself set on fire of hell. By his words he will involve himself in many difficulties and perplexities, from which he can never extricate himself, until he comes back to God.

8. He will be full of his own trials. Instead of keeping out of temptation, he will run right into temptation. He will bring upon himself multitudes of trials that he never would have had, had he not departed from God. He will complain of his trials, and yet constantly multiply them. A backslider feels his trials keenly, and, while he complains of being so tried by everything around him, he is constantly aggravating them, and being the author of them, he seems industrious to bring them upon himself like an avalanche.

9. The backslider in heart shall be full of his own follies. Having rejected the Divine guidance, he will evidently fall 424into the depths of his own foolishness. He will inevitably say and do multitudes of foolish and ridiculous things. Being a professor of religion, these things will be all the more noticed, and of course bring him all the more into ridicule and contempt. A backslider is, indeed, the greatest fool in the world. Having experimental knowledge of the true way of life, he has the infinite folly to abandon it. Knowing the fountain of living water, he has forsaken it, and hewed out to himself cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water. Having been guilty of this infinite folly, the whole course of his backslidden life must be that of a fool, in the Bible sense of the term.

10. The backslider in heart will be fall of his own troubles. God is against him, and he is against himself. He is not at peace with God, with himself, with the church, or with the world. He has no inward rest. Conscience condemns him. God condemns him. All that know his state condemn him. “There is no peace to the wicked, saith my God.” There is no position in time or space in which he can be at rest.

11. The backslider in heart will be full of his own cares. He has turned back to selfishness. He counts himself and his possessions as his own. He has everything to care for. He will not hold himself and his possessions as belonging to God, and lay aside the responsibility of taking care of himself and all that he possesses. He does not, will not, cast his care upon the Lord, but undertakes to manage everything for himself, and in his own wisdom, and for his own ends. Consequently, his cares will be multiplied, and come upon him like a deluge.

12. The backslider in heart will be full of his own perplexities. Having forsaken God, having fallen out of his order, and into the darkness of his own folly, he will be filled with perplexities and doubts in regard to what course he shall pursue to accomplish his selfish ends. He is not walking with, but contrary to God. Hence, the providence of God will constantly cross his path, and baffle all his schemes. God will frown darkness upon his path, and take pains to confound his projects, and blow his schemes to the winds.

13. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own anxieties. He will be anxious about himself, about his business, about his reputation, about everything. He has taken all these things out of the hands of God, and claims them and treats them as his own, and having faith in God no longer, and being unable to control events, he must of necessity be filled with anxiety with regard to the future. These anxieties 425are the inevitable result of his madness and folly in forsaking God.

14. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own disappointments. Having forsaken God, and taken the attitude of self-will before him, God will inevitably disappoint him in pursuing his selfish ends. He will frame his ways to please himself, without consulting God. Of course God will frame his ways so as to disappoint him. Determined to have his own way, he will be greatly disappointed if his plans are frustrated, and the certain course of events under the government of God must of course bring a series of disappointments upon subjects that have rebelled against him.

15. The backslider in heart must be full of his own losses. He regards his possessions as his own, his time as his own, his influence as his own, his reputation as his own. The loss of any of these he accounts as his own loss. Having forsaken God, and being unable to control the events upon which the continuance of those things is conditioned, he will find himself suffering losses on every side. He loses his peace. He loses his property. He loses much of his time. He loses his Christian reputation. He loses his Christian influence, and if he persists he loses his soul.

16. The backslider in heart shall be full of his own crosses. All religious duty will be irksome, and, therefore, a cross to him. His state of mind will make multitudes of things crosses that in a Christian state of mind would have been pleasant in a high degree. Having lost all heart in religion, the performance of all religious duties are crossing to his feelings. There in no help for him, unless he returns to God. The whole course of Divine providence will run across his path, and his whole life will be a series of crosses and trials. He cannot have his own way. He cannot gratify himself by accomplishing his own wishes and desires. He may beat and dash himself against the everlasting rocks of God’s will and God’s way, but break through and carry all before him he cannot. He must be crossed and recrossed, and crossed again, until he will fall into the Divine order, and sink into the will of God.

17. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own tempers. Having forsaken God, he will be sure to have much to irritate him. In a backslidden state, he cannot possess his soul in patience. The vexations of his backslidden life will make him nervous and irritable; his temper will become explosive and uncontrollable.

18. The backslider in heart shall be full of his own disgraces. He is a professor of religion. The eyes of the world 426are upon him, and all his inconsistencies, worldly-mindedness, follies, bad tempers, and hateful words and deeds, disgrace him in the estimation of all men who know him.

19. The backslider in heart will be full of his own delusions. Having an evil eye, his whole body will be full of darkness. He will almost certainly fall into delusions in regard to doctrines, and in regard to practices. Wandering on in darkness, as he does, he will, very likely, swallow the grossest delusions. Spiritism, Mormonism, Universalism, and every other ism that is wide from the truth, will be very likely to gain possession of him. Who has not observed this of backsliders in heart.

20. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own bondage. His profession of religion brings him into bondage to the church. He has no heart to consult the interests of the church, or to labor for its up-building, and yet he is under covenant obligation to do so, and his reputation is at stake. He must do something to sustain religious institutions, but to do so, is a bondage. If he does it, it is because he must and not because he may. Again, he is in bondage to God. If he performs any, that he calls religious duty, it is rather as a slave than as a freeman. He serves from fear or hope, just like a slave, and not from love. Again, he is in bondage to his own conscience. To avoid conviction and remorse, he will do or omit many things, but it is all with reluctance, and not at all of his own cordial good will.

21. The backslider in heart is full of his own self-condemnation. Having enjoyed the love of God, and forsaken him, he feels condemned for everything. If he attempts religious duty, he knows there is no heart in it, and hence condemns himself. If he neglects religious duty, he of course condemns himself. If he reads his Bible, it condemns him. If he does not read it, he feels condemned. If he goes to meeting, the services condemn him, and if he stays away, he is condemned. If he prays in secret, in his family, or in public, he knows he is not sincere, and feels condemned. If he neglects or refuses to pray, he feels condemned. Everything condemns him. His conscience is up in arms against him, and the thunders and lightnings of condemnation follow him, whithersoever he goes.