Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2931
“Return, you backsliding Israel. Turn, O backsliding children. Return, you backsliding children.” Jeremiah 3:12,14,22.
IT is, indeed, a horrible thing that a saved soul should ever wander from its Savior. After having had so much of past sin fully and freely forgiven and, after having then made to rejoice in perfect pardon, can it ever turn away from those dear pierced hands which lifted its heavy burden from its shoulders? Can it ever wander from the Fountain in which it was washed whiter than snow? If so, it will, indeed, have committed a shameful sin! After so many spiritual benefits have been enjoyed and the soul has not only been washed, but also robed, fed, adopted into the family of God and been taught many wonderful lessons—can such a child as that leave such a home and such a Father—and go back to “the beggarly elements” from which it has been delivered? Ah, if it even thinks of doing so, it has, by that very thought, committed treason against the Sovereign Love of God!
No, Beloved, with so much sin forgiven and so much favor bestowed, we ought to feel ourselves bound with cords to the horns of the altar! And with such bright prospects before us, such a Heaven prepared by such a Savior—with the assurance that we shall forever be with Him where He is, beholding His Glory—and with such exceedingly great and precious promises as He has made to him that overcomes, why, Brothers and Sisters, if we think of turning our backs in the day of battle, or of forsaking the King’s Highway for a meadow path, the very thought must be most grievous to God as well as most shameful on our part! It ought to be intolerable to us to even thinkof such a thing! For any Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to actually go astray; to actually sin against the Light of God and knowledge; to sin against Infinite Love and mercy; to sin against Your wounds, Emmanuel, and against Your crown of thorns—to offend against Your matchless love—oh, this is dreadful, indeed!
Well did the Lord say, concerning Israel’s backsliding, “Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid.” Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let me remind you that there is nothing for us to gain and everything for us to lose by forsaking the ways of God, even for a moment! We are not like those who have never known His ways, for we know them to be to paths of pleasantness and peace. We are not like those who are still deceived by the world, for we have proven how false she is. Her painted charms once bewitched our hearts and we were enamored of her, but we have been undeceived, and now we cry with Solomon, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” This empty world does but mock and deceive all who seek for true treasure in it—are we going back to it after all that we have received from Christ, forsaking the real for the imaginary, the substantial for the shadowy?
Can it be that we are going to commit these two evils—to forsake the fountain of Living Waters and to hew out for ourselves broken cisterns which can hold no water? If any of us have done so in the past, let us be ashamed of ourselves! And if some of us have done so almost without knowing what we were doing, let us prostrate ourselves in the very dust before the Most High, for this is no common sin. It is a sin that has a high degree of heinousness and aggravation, when any of us who have known the way of righteousness—and who have enjoyed sweet and hallowed fellowship with God and the liberty with which Christ has made us free—go back to wear, again, the chains of sin’s slavery and even, for a while, or in part, have a guilty complicity with that vain world which we professed to have forsaken once and for all.
Every man, however great his experience may be, is in danger! I have heard that more horses fall at the bottom of the hill than anywhere else because the drivers fancy they have no need to hold them back when they have reached the bottom of the hill. And I have noticed that some of the saddest falls I have ever witnessed among Christian men and women have been among elderly Christians—among they who said of the young people, “Ah, they ought to be very watchful, for they have strong passions, and they may very easily be led astray. But as for us, we have had such a long experience that we
have passed out of the range of temptation.” The most dangerous place in the world is that which is supposed to be beyond the reach of temptation! The power of the devil is most often to be feared when he has left you alone for a while, for he has then probably left you to something or someone who will be more dangerous to you than he, himself, would be. That is to, say, when a man says, “I shall never be tempted again,” he has already fallen into one of the devil’s most dangerous snares, for the pride of his heart has deceived him and made him an easy prey to the great adversary.