056. How would you deal with a backslider? Is there hope for him, and how?
How would you deal with a backslider? Is there hope for him, and how?
Everywhere I go I find many persons who tell me that they were once Christians, but confess that they have gone back into the world. I am persuaded that many of these were never truly saved. They have gone forward in revival meetings, or united with the church, or done something of that sort, but they have never really fully accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Having made a failure of their first attempt, they hesitate to make another. This hesitation is unreasonable. The fact that one has attempted to do a thing and done it in the wrong way is no reason for not doing it in the right way. If people would begin the Christian life right, they would not be so likely to go back, and if they have begun it wrong, they had better begin it over again in the better way. The right way to begin, as shown us by God’s own Word, is:
First, to accept Jesus Christ as Savior, that is, to believe God’s testimony concerning Him, that He bore all your sins in His own body on the cross; and to trust God to forgive you, not because of anything that you have done but because of what Christ did when He made full atonement for your sins in His own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24; Galatians 3:13).
Second, to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and King (Acts 2:36). This involves the utter surrender of your thoughts to Him to teach, and of your life to Him to govern. You must put yourself completely at His disposal. You must not only sing with your lips but make it a fact in your life—"I surrender all.” This lack of absolute surrender at the time of starting the Christian life is the cause of a large measure of backsliding.
Third, to accept Christ as the risen Son of God who has all power in heaven and on earth, and to trust Him to keep you day by day from falling, and from all the power of sin and temptation (Matthew 28:18; Hebrews 7:25; Jude 24).
Having begun right most of the battle is won, but you must go right on in obedience to Christ. Continuance in the Christian life is not at all a question of your strength, but of Christ’s.
If you have begun the Christian life once and failed, begin it again and succeed. Many of the strongest Christians today are those who were once backsliders. The apostle Peter himself was once a backslider, but after Pentecost he was one of the mightiest servants of Christ that the world ever saw. Pentecost is possible for you. No one can be more miserable than the backslider. Jeremiah was certainly right when he said to backsliding Israel: “It is an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.” The one who forsakes Christ forsakes the fountain of living waters, and hews himself out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:13). Let him leave the broken cisterns of the world and come back to Christ, the Fountain of living water.