RETURN ~ TURN BACK UNTO THE LORD

"Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." -Jeremiah 3:22 [KJV]

Backsliding is a species of apostacy from the faith. Apostacy is the high road to destruction. Total apostacy will certainly end in eternal damnation: for there can neither be repentance, or hope, for such a soul. The Son of God is the only sacrifice for sin: this, the backslider once professed to believe. But now he tramples on His precious blood, wilfully despises and rejects the Saviour; so that now, he has only “a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour every adversary of Christ” (Hebrews 10:26, 27.) 

Most striking is the picture of such, drawn by Mr. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim’s Progress, as a man in an iron cage, who thus confesses: “I was once a fair and flourishing professor, both in mine own eyes, and the eyes of others; I was, as I thought, fair for the celestial city, and had even joy at the thoughts that I should get thither: but I left off to watch and be sober—laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the word, and the goodness of my God; I grieved the Spirit, and He is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I provoked God to anger, and He has left me; I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent. O, eternity! eternity! How shall I grapple with the misery I must meet with in eternity?” Lord, enable me to take warning by others and obey Thy gracious words, which prevent Thy children’s total apostacy from Thee. 

Observe, the conduct of the Lord to such. He arraigns them in the former verses, (1st.) Of treacherously departing from Him, like a wife from her husband. O, what perfidious, faithless conduct! 

For, (2d.) it brings on perverting our way before God. 

And, (3d.) this ends in forgetting the Lord our God. This is the cause of every evil. If the objects of time and sense drive the memory of the Lord from our minds, though but an hour, how foolish do we act! Our hearts imperceptibly backslide from the sense of His presence. But O! the love of our Lord! He reminds us, 

(1st.) though backslidden, yet He owns us as children. O, Father! Thy love ever lives, though folly is in our ways. 

(2d.) He calls in love, Return. May love cause us to take shame, fall down in sorrow, and cry for mercy. 

For, (3.) He promises, “I will heal your backslidings.” I will freely and fully pardon them ALL, though ever so numerous, heinous, or aggravating, as though they had never been committed. Backsliding sinner! believe and rejoice. See the effects of this love in the next meditation. “O LORD my God, lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death!” Psalm 13:3. 

I’ve nought to plead by Thy free grace, 

Which does in Christ abound: 

Grant me to see Thy smiling face, 

With mercy circled round.

 

-preacher William Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)