Now the part of this chapter that I wanted to focus on is in verse number 16 where the
Bible reads, For Israel slided back as a backsliding heifer. Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb
in a large place. I want to preach this morning about backsliding. Now that term is actually
used in the Bible 17 different times. The term backsliding or backslidden or some kind
of a variation of that term. It's used right here. And it uses the illustration of a backsliding
heifer, which is a heifer is obviously a cow. And basically he's referring to something
that's going up a hill, that's walking up a hill, and the feet begin to slip, it can't
get traction, and so it begins to slide down backwards. Well, the Christian life is an
uphill battle. I mean living for God, serving God, being a soul winner, being a righteous
and Godly Christian is definitely going to be an uphill battle. The Bible says ye and
all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. There are going to be
all kinds of people who are pushing against you in the other direction. The whole world
is pushing against you in the opposite direction of doing what's right and serving God with
your life. And so if you're going to serve God, it's going to be an uphill battle. And
if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. And the reason there are so few who serve
God faithfully is that it's difficult and that it's an uphill battle. But the thing
about this uphill battle is that if you're not moving forward, you're going to begin
to slide backwards. If you don't keep moving forward, it's like swimming upstream. We went
to the river, Ryan and I, and we went to the river, we took the teenagers over there, and
remember when we were swimming up against the river? We were trying to do battle with
the forces of nature, and needless to say we lost. We went out into the river, the Salt
River, and we were swimming just as hard as we could upstream, and you move backwards.
As soon as you stop swimming, you just go flying down the river. And if you're swimming
as hard as you can, the best you can do is just try to maintain it. Well, look, we're
swimming upstream here when we're serving God and soul winning and reading our Bibles
and standing up for what's right in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom
we shine as lights in the world. And as soon as we stop making the effort and as soon as
we stop moving, we're going to begin to drift and go back. Let me give you some scriptures
on backsliding. The Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 2, thy known wickedness, verse 19,
you don't have to turn there, thy known wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backsliding shall
reprove thee. Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast
forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.
Jeremiah 3.22, return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding. Behold,
we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. Jeremiah 14.7, O Lord, that thou art
iniquities, testify against us. Do thou let for thy name's sake, for our backslidings
are many. We have sinned against thee. Proverbs 14.14, the backslider and heart shall be filled
with his own ways, and a good man shall be satisfied from himself. Hosea 11.7, my people
are bent to backsliding from me, though they called them to the most high, none at all
would exalt. Now a lot of people say this, well Christians will never, if they're a real
Christian, they'll never backslide. You know, this is the Calvinist doctrine that's out
there that says, you know, perseverance of the saints, and they say, they'll say, well
perseverance of the saints, you know, anyone who's a true believer is never going to backslide,
they're just going to keep on moving forward and keep on persevering it. That's not true,
the Bible said in the verse that I just read, Hosea 11.7, my people are bent to backsliding
from me. He said people have a tendency to backslide. He said my people are bent to backsliding
from me, and he said, though they called them to the most high, none at all would exalt.
Now the Bible's filled with people who were saved who backslid. Think of John Mark. You
know, Paul and Barnabas are out on a missionary trip serving God solely, and what happened?
John Mark quit. It got a little too hard for him, and he decided to quit and go back home.
Paul became very angry. Barnabas was a little more forgiving because Barnabas was his uncle.
So Barnabas was forgiving of John Mark, his nephew, and he wanted him to come on the second
missionary trip. Paul said, no, I don't want to bring him, because last time we brought
him, he quit partway through. And then if you remember, Paul and Barnabas go their separate
ways. Barnabas takes John Mark, and Paul takes Silas, and they split off and go their
separate ways. Well later on in 2 Timothy 4, Paul says, for Demas had forsaken me, having
loved this present world. And that was a guy that he brought up in a lot of his other epistles
was being one of his faithful friends in ministry, one of the faithful men that was working with
him. But later on he said, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is
departed unto Thessalonica, Crescents to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. These guys were saved.
These guys were believers, but they went through a period of backsliding in their life, where
they quit serving God. They quit doing the work that they were supposed to do. And then
at that time, Paul said, take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable for being
in the ministry. So at that time, John Mark, although he had backslidden previously, got
back right with God, got back on track, and was with Paul once again. Look, people are
going to go through phases of backsliding. When you're going up a hill, when you're climbing
a mountain, there are going to be times when you slide backwards. When you're swimming
upstream, you're going to go backwards a little bit. And I don't think there's probably anyone
who has never backslid, who's just always moving forward 100% of the time. And let me
define for you what backsliding is. Well turn, if you would, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.
What does it mean to be backslidden? Because that's a word that we hear a lot, oh so-and-so
he backslidden. Or so-and-so the Christian that used to go to our church, now he's backslidden.
What does it mean to be backslidden? Well let me give you my definition of being backslidden.
I say this from what I read in the scripture. Backslidden is just any time you're moving
backwards in your Christian life. Any time you go backwards, you're backslidden. Now
let me ask you this. Does it take muscle and effort on your part to slide backwards? No.
You see, when you're climbing, when you're going uphill, right, you know you're climbing,
you put your leg up on the next rock and you have to exert a lot of force and muscle to
get up to the next level, get up to the next stage. If you ever go to a park where they
have slides, right, you climb up the ladder. That takes a lot of energy, right? You're
climbing up the ladder, you're climbing up the stairs. And when you get to the top of
the slide, you just sit down and just go, whee! That doesn't take any energy. Or sometimes
you'll be at the park and they'll have one of those giant slides set up and they have
the burlap sack that you can ride on, you know what I'm talking about, where you sit
on the potato sack and go down a slide? There's no effort required to slide down. Zero. Zero.
It takes a lot of effort to get up there. You've got to go up the stairs or climb up.
Going up takes effort. Backsliding takes zero effort. It's not something that people try
to do or set out to do. It's just something that happens to them passively. As they're
climbing up, their footing is not sheer and secure and they begin to slip. Now, does it
take longer to go up to get to the top of the slide? Or does it take longer to go down
the slide? Going up takes a lot. I mean, it might take a long time to go up each step,
after step, after step. But you're down in a moment. Just whee! Done. And that's how
it is. People fall pretty fast in their Christian life when they backslide. It might take years
of growth to grow as a believer and to become a better Christian. But then, for it to go
backwards, it's just sometimes almost overnight. You could just fall. You could just free fall
and drop and begin to slide backward and lose all your progress that you've made. But let
me define backsliding as this. Anytime you move backwards in your Christian life, let
me give you some examples. If there was ever a time, and don't think about other people.
It's easy to guess. Yeah, so-and-so needs this. Think about yourself as after issue.
You know, if only so-and-so were here, they're the one who need this the most. Think about
it for yourself. If there was a time in your life when you were reading your Bible more
than you're reading it now, you're backslidden. I mean, if there was a time when you spent
more time reading your Bible, memorizing your Bible, loving and delighting in God's Word,
and right now you're spending way less, that means that you're sliding backwards. You're
moving backwards. You see, we should always be moving forward. We should always be growing
to a new level. If there was a time when you were doing a lot more soul winning than what
you're doing right now, and you're doing less soul winning than you used to, you're backslidden.
You know, if there was a time when you used to pray more and now you don't pray so much,
you're backslidden. There was a time when you were being more faithful to church and
coming to church more frequently and you made church a priority more in your life than what
you make it right now. These are signs that you're backslidden. You say, well, I'm not
backslidden. I mean, I'm still doing good. But hold on a second. Are you moving forward?
Are you growing? I mean, if there was a time when there were things, I mean, there are
things that you're participating in in your life right now, and at an earlier time you
would have said, I'm not going to do that. That's sin. You know, I'm not going to watch
that movie. I'm not going to listen to that music. I'm not going to go to such and such
a place. Now you're indulging in that activity. You are sliding backwards because you ought
to be moving forward and constantly growing and getting more and more sin out of your
life and reading your Bible more, memorizing the Bible more, going soul winning more, going
to church more, serving God more, living a cleaner and more righteous and more godly
life, always moving forward. And if you're moving backwards, you're backslidden. Now
look, everyone here today is at different levels of spiritual growth. Some people that
are in this room right now have been saved for decades, myself included. I've been saved
for about 24 years. Okay, so I've been saved for decades. A lot of people in this room
have been saved for decades. Others in this room have only been saved for a few years.
Some in this room have been saved for less than a year. And so we have all different
levels of spiritual growth. And there's nothing wrong with being a spiritual babe in Christ.
There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I don't think that my child, Anna, is ashamed
to be a baby. Or that she ought to be ashamed to be a baby. Because why? She's seven, eight
months old. So it's normal for her to be a baby. We all started out as a baby. We've
all been there, Anna. Don't worry about it, okay? We've all been a two year old. We've
all been a four year old. But the problem is, when you see someone who's a thirty year
old, like myself, okay? And then we see that person begin to revert back to the mentality
of a fifteen year old. Nothing wrong with being fifteen. But should a thirty year old
revert back to the fifteen year old mentality? Or should the thirty year old revert back
even further to the ten year old mentality? Nothing wrong with being ten. Don't be offended,
ten year old. Should I revert back to the mentality of a six year old? Nothing wrong
with being six. When you're six, but when you're thirty, you ought not be acting like
you're six, okay? And it says in 1 Peter chapter number two, verse one, you don't have to turn
there. It says, wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and enbies
and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye
may grow thereby. So the Bible says that as babes in Christ, we should desire the sincere
milk of the word that we may remain a baby? No, that we may grow thereby. And if you talk
to a three year old, or if you talk to a six year old, they always want to grow, don't
they? I mean you'll never run into a six year old that just says, I think I'll just stay
six for the rest of my life. Or I just like the stage that I'm at. No, six year olds wish
that they were older. I remember when I was a kid just wishing that I could reach the
top of the fridge, you know, because there was all kinds of stuff up there that I wanted.
And I remember just thinking, it'd be so great, and I would look at my brother who was six
years old, he'd just walk up and just reach up, take whatever off the top of the fridge,
and I thought to myself, man, oh, to be that tall. And I'm still not as tall as he is.
He's like six one and a half or something. But you look at people that are older and
you wish, man, I wish I was driving. I guarantee that my children wish they had their own house,
that they're driving, that they could go to work every day. You know, that's how we ought
to be as Christians. Maybe you're a baby Christian, that's okay. Desire to grow. He said, desire
the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. You ought to have a desire to
grow in your Christian life. And not a desire to just remain the same and just say, well,
I'm pretty happy with where I'm at. I'm just going to cope. You know, you're a spiritual
baby. You need to grow. You need to advance more. You need the milk of the word. You need
to read your Bible and study it and grow up into Him in all things that the Bible says.
Look at 1 Thessalonians, did I have to turn to chapter 3? 1 Thessalonians 3 verse 12 says
this, and the Lord make you to what? Increase and abound in love one toward another and
toward all men, even as we do toward you. Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 9,
next chapter. 1 Thessalonians 4, 9. But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that
I write unto you. For ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another, and indeed ye
do it. So are these people being obedient to God's commandment, to love one another?
Absolutely. He said, indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia.
Not, we beseech you brethren that ye increase more and more. It's not enough to just be
doing what God tells you to do. It's not enough to just say, well I'm an obedient believer,
I go to church, I read my Bible, I pray. He says, that's great. Indeed you do it, but
do it more. Increase it more. Kick it up a notch. Increase more and more and more and
more. And if you don't increase, I'm here to tell you, you're going to begin to move
forward. If you're not going forward, if you're not pushing it, if you're not struggling forward
and fighting a good fight, as soon as you just relax, you're going to start to slip
and you're going to start to slide downward and slide backward in your personal life.
Go to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, a little bit to the left in your Bible
there. Ephesians chapter 4. You see the Bible's filled with people who are backslidden. Look
at King David. King David, there was a time in his life when he was just straight down
the line. I mean, he was just a man after God's own heart. He was serving God, he loved
God, he was meditating on God's word day and night. Seven times a day he was praising him
for his righteous judgments, but there came a time in David's life when he got relaxed
and he started to backslide. There was a time when the kings were supposed to go to war
and it says David remained at home. He's just too comfortable. He doesn't want to
go out there in the battlefield and all the work and all the toil associated with that.
So he just said everybody else should go do the work while he kicks back at home. Well,
pretty soon he's just bored, he's backslidden, he's walking around on the roof of his house,
he looks down to another house that's nearby and sees a woman bathing through the window.
So she's not clothed. And he begins to lust after her, he ends up committing adultery
with that woman, and then of course he sets into motion this whole chain of events that
pretty much ruined his life and ruined the lives of those around him. Now don't tell
me David wasn't saved. David was saved. And there were other times when he backslidden
his life. There was a time when David was trusting in the Lord to protect him, and then
there was a time when he gave up on God's protection and said well someday Saul's going
to get me and kill me, I'm just going to go to the Philistines and live with them.
And then he got into a bunch of lies, he went over there and he's lying to everybody, he's
living a double life in the land of the Philistines. You know, greater men than you and greater
men than I have backslidden. King Solomon, King Saul, David, the first three kings of
Israel, they all got backslidden. They all started out great, got backslidden. And so
let him think that he stand to take heed, lest he fall. It's possible for any of us
to backslide if we don't take heed to it. Look at Ephesians 4. It says in verse 11,
And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and
teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. Now, this is a critical passage here because the Bible is telling us here
that the purpose of a pastor, a prophet, a teacher, an evangelist, an apostle, these
men who speak the word of God behind the pulpit in a local church, he said the purpose of
that is for the edifying of the body of Christ, for the perfecting of the saints. Now, part
of the problem that we have today is that our churches have become geared toward unbelievers.
Now, the Bible tells us that the preaching and teaching that goes on in the local church
is to build up the believers, to help the believers grow. He said in verse 14 that we,
not them, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait
to deceive. The goal of church is that we will grow up and not be children, not be babes
in Christ, that the saints could be edified and built up and reach a higher level and
move forward in their life. But today churches have become geared toward unbelievers. And
you'll show up at a lot of churches on Sunday morning and it's a gospel sermon every Sunday
morning. Every Sunday morning you show up and they preach the plan of salvation. And
I like, I think it was your wife, Brother David, you went to a church and they kept
giving the gospel every Sunday morning. And I think that the quote was, dude, we're saved.
You know, was that, am I getting that right? Dude, we're saved. You know, and it's like
you're sitting there, you're giving the plan of salvation over and over and over again
to a group of people that are 99% or maybe even 100% already saved. And then they just
keep hearing the same thing every week, the same thing, and they're not growing. They're
not learning anything new. They're not moving forward because they just keep hearing the
same message that's really not even geared toward them. It's geared toward one visitor
or two visitors instead of the bulk of the people who've come for the purpose of hearing
something that's geared toward them and going to help them grow. And that's what we see
in Ephesians 4 here. He explains that the purpose of church and the purpose of teaching
and preaching the Bible is that those that are saved might grow and not be any more children,
tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine and the slight of men and the cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive. There are people that are out there to deceive and
to lie to you. And if you're a spiritual babe in Christ that's not rooted and grounded
in the faith, it's going to be easy for you to just be tossed to and fro with every wind
of doctrine. And so the Bible's clear here that the purpose of being in church is to
help us as believers grow, not geared toward unsaved people. Now, the problem with gearing
it toward unsaved people is that, number one, most of the people, if you're in the right
church, most of the people there are already saved. I mean, they're already believers because
that's the whole point of what church is. It's a bunch of believers getting together
and hearing God's word preached. Well, pretty soon if you start gearing it toward unbelievers
then you're going to have the music that they want, you're going to have the kind of message
that they want, you're going to have everything geared toward them, and then it's going to
not even resemble a church anymore. And that's basically the movement that we see happening
today. But let's keep reading here in Ephesians chapter 4. It says in verse 15, But speaking
the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
Verse 16, From which the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which
every joint suppliant, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, make
an increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. So the whole purpose, according
to this, of joining together in the church and banding together as the body of Christ
and having pastors and teachers and prophets and evangelists, the whole purpose is that
we may grow together and to reach a higher level and to reach a new level of growth as
believers. And let me tell you something, the number one way to backslide, because that's
what we're preaching about right now is backsliding, going backward, is when people get out of
church or they get into the wrong church. That's going to make you backslide more than
anything else. Because the purpose of church, according to the Bible, is to be continually
challenging you and teaching you and edifying you and pushing you to a higher level of growth.
When you get away from that influence and away from that atmosphere, you're going to
begin to slide backwards and go backwards. I've seen it so many times in my entire life
and especially in the last five and a half years that I've pastored this church, I've
seen people get backslid and I've seen people leave the church and they go to a church that's
a watered down church where they're really comfortable. Because everything that's being
preached, they can pretty much just check it off. Yup, I'm good on that. There's no
challenge there. And a lot of people, they don't want to go to a church that challenges
them. They want to go to a church that tells them everything that they already knew and
they can just smile and just nod their head and say, yup, I believe that. I already knew
that. And it just makes them feel good. Or everything that the Bible tells them to do,
it's something they're already doing. And they can just basically feel really righteous
and prideful that, yes, another pat on the back sermon telling me what I'm already doing.
But we ought to go to a church that actually tells us things that we're not doing that
we ought to be doing. And we ought to go to a church that actually points out things
that we're doing that we shouldn't be doing. Because let's face it, none of us is perfect.
None of us has fully arrived. None of us is at the top. None of us has fully grown. We're
all at different stages of growth. We're all at different stages of development. And we
all need to be challenged to move forward and to grow and not to go back with that.
We all need to be pushed to another level because none of us is already there. None
of us has arrived. We're not just trying to maintain. As the song says, I'm pressing
on the upward way. New heights I'm gaining every day. Still praying as I'm onward bound.
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. I would go to the church that challenges you to move
forward. That challenges you to do something different and to grow and to be more. And
I've seen it over and over again. People will go to the church where they're comfortable
and you can just watch them slide backwards. You watch their life begin to slide. Why?
Because we all need the preaching of God's word to help refresh. Go to Hebrews 2 verse
1 for the end of the New Testament there. Hebrews 2 verse 1. Hebrews 2 verse 1. And
the Bible says this in Hebrews 2, 1. Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to
the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. So the Bible
says that we need to give more earnest heed to the things that we've heard, lest at any
time we should let them slip. Any of us can begin to let things slip. Now if there's a
skill that you have, of course if you don't practice it or use it, that skill is going
to begin to slip, right? Let's say you memorized some of the chapters that we memorized as
a church where we memorized chapters of the Bible and the bulletin. I guarantee you, if
you don't quote that scripture, you might know it like the back of your hands. But if
you don't quote that scripture for a few months, you won't be able to quote it anymore. You'll
completely forget it. Even something as basic as John 3 16. If you went 10 years without
thinking about it, 10 years without quoting it, you wouldn't be able to do that. You know,
it's okay that you never forget how to ride a bicycle. You know, but most things are not
like that, are they? You know, you might do something and you might be really good at
something, and then you don't do it for years, you're not going to be good at it anymore.
You might think that you are, but you're not. And it's going to begin to slip. People have
even gone to other countries and learned other languages. For example, my wife, she spoke
nothing but Hungarian until she was 8 years old. And now she can hardly speak Hungarian.
I mean, she can speak it okay, she can understand it pretty much, but she can't really speak
it. That was the only language that she spoke in the first 8 years of her life, and she
can no longer speak that language. Why? Because if you don't use it, you lose it. If you don't
practice it, if you don't take the earnest heed of maintaining it, it's going to begin
to slip. And it's the same thing with anything in life. If you get out of the right church
and you're not constantly hearing, preaching, and if you're not reading your Bible every
day and constantly reading it yourself and growing, if you're not growing, you're going
to begin to slide backwards and slip. Now turn if you would to Psalm 17 in the Old Testament,
right in the very center of your Bible there. Psalm 17. Right in the very center of the
Bible is the book of Psalms, go to chapter 17. Look at Psalm 17 verse 4, the Bible reads,
concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of
the destroyer. Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip. Now, and so here we
see it's God's word that's going to be that rock of our salvation, that foundation that
we can stand on that will keep our feet from slipping. He says concerning the works of
men, by the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. Hold up
my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip. So how are you going to stop from backsliding
and going backwards and moving backward in your Christian life? Well the main thing is
to be in God's word every single day. People have said this, this book will keep you from
sin or sin will keep you from this book. People who are living in sin, they don't want to
read the Bible because it's just constantly pointing out their sin and making them feel
bad. People who read the Bible, it caused them to get the sin out of their life because
it shines the light on their sin and exposes what they need to change. And so being in
your Bible every day is a way to stop from backsliding. If you're not reading it every
day, you're going to begin to slip and the longer you go without reading it, the more
your life is going to begin to slip. The other thing is hearing God's word preached in the
local church, coming to church and hearing God's word constantly preached is going to
help keep you sharp and keep you on track in your Christian life. Look, if you're not
moving forward, you're moving backwards. There's no such thing as just maintaining. There's
no such thing as just, you know, I'm just at this level, I'm just going to plateau right
here and I'm satisfied and I'm not going to... No, because as soon as you get comfortable
like that, you'll begin to slide, you'll begin to slip. And I've seen it happen over and
over again. No one's above this. If David could fall into sin and backslide, if Elijah
could backslide, if King Solomon and King Saul and all the great men in the Bible, if
all of Paul's missionary buddies and Demas and Crescents and Titus, if they could all
slip and backslide, none of us is above this. And you need to decide right now, are you
going to be the one who's growing, who's pushing yourself and reading more Bible than what
you read last year, praying more than what you prayed last year, going so many more than
what you did last year, you know, being more faithful to church, or are you going to be
the one that's just slowly atrophying and slowly slipping away? Those are pretty much
the two choices. Are you on fire, moving forward, full speed ahead, or are you sliding backward?
Those are pretty much the two choices in your life. That's the decision that you're faced
with this morning. Let the barons have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for
your word, dear God, and that your word is able to hold us up and to strengthen us and
to help us to move forward. I just pray to you, please just help every person here to
take heed to the warnings in your word about backsliding, dear God, and help us all to
understand that we've got to be moving forward or else we're just going to be slipping backwards
and it's so easy for the devil to get to us and slow us down and to attempt us. God, just
help every single person here to realize that we need to be either increasing or we're
going to be decreasing. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.