The pastor receives this note: “What is a backslider to do? I desperately want to return, but how? I have failed so often, and the desire to try is getting less and less. Please touch on this, Pastor, and please pray for me.“

This note represents thousands. Some of us are a sort of soft touch for this kind of plea because backsliders are some of our favorite people. Many people who might consider themselves among the backsliders would really be the most genuine and dedicated Christians if they only understood the gospel. God must be very patient with those who never understood what they were “backsliding“ from.

When a church begins to hear from the preacher the good news of Jesus and His righteousness, this always shakes the people up. Uplifting Jesus’ goodness instead of our own never leaves people the same. They either go one way or the other.

The mystery is that the first people who get shaken up appear to be the standard-bearers—the faithful church members, while the ones who are most often interested are the apparent liberals—those with the outward adornment, those who have gone soft on some of the traditions of the elders. This could keep the preacher lying awake at night unless he remembers that Jesus was charged with being a friend of publicans, winebibbers, and sinners. Apparently these were some of His favorite people!

Herein is a painful thought. It is possible for a person to be a member of a church and to remain a church member for many years, specifically for the purpose of running away from a relationship with Jesus. And, of course, the type of church where people are offered the most to do to earn their way and at the same time dwell the least upon Jesus is the most comfortable church for that type of person. That’s why a religion of externals has always been attractive to the unconverted. “Give me something to do, so I don’t have to admit that I can do nothing toward my salvation.“ That’s what attracts the person who is running away from God yet wants to maintain a semblance of religion.

We can but hope that one by one, those who are in the church to escape from God can come to see something better, fall on the Rock, and be broken; and that one by one, the liberals, when they hear the gospel, mil begin to get excited and also begin to change their lifestyle. Because Jesus never comes in without writing His law on peoples’ hearts. That’s the way it is. People will go one way or the other, whenever the righteousness of Jesus is upheld.

At the very end, just before Jesus comes, one of the last things to happen will be that many backsliders return, and many of the old guard go out and become the backsliders.

Our main scripture for the backsliders is found in Jeremiah 3. The Bible uses the word backslide in several instances, but this is probably the place where it is used most in a given chapter. We will notice especially verses 12 to 15 and 22 and 23:

Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family [that is, of a family of cities], and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

Verse 22 says, “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.“ Do you like Bible promises? There’s a good one: “I will heal your backslidings.“

Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains [referring to the idolatry that went on in the hills and the groves in the days of Israel]: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel (verses 22, 23).

Kinds of backsliders

Now we need a definition. What is a backslider? Sometimes we call people backsliders who may not be, and sometimes we think we are not backsliders when we may be.

The legalistic backslider. We could say that a backslider is one who has grown up in a legalistic, behavior-centered religious home and has backslidden from that. You can expect, on the basis of logic and reason and what we know of the character of God, that He would be very patient with that kind of backslider. There are those who backslide because they were involved in a legalistic school system, and they left the faith because of that. God undoubtedly treats them with great understanding. And it’s possible for people to backslide from a legalistic congregation. If all they ever know of religion is dos and don’ts and rules and regulations—if it tastes good, don’t eat it; if it looks good, don’t look at it; if it feels good, don’t touch it; and if it’s fan, by all means don’t do it—then you can understand why we have so many so-called backsliders.

Some people say they are backsliders from the church, but they haven’t backslidden from God. This raises a practical question, because according to the Bible the two go together. First Corinthians 12 tells us that it is impossible for one member of the body to live apart from the rest of the body. Cut the tail off a lizard, and he can grow a new tail, but the tail cannot grow a new lizard. Disguise it as he may, the person who backslides because of discouragement with an inadequate church or home or school invariably becomes cold and indifferent toward God as well. You cannot live long separated from the body. Some people find help in the mystical body of believers outside the organized church, but the Bible speaks of both the mystical and the organic body. First Corinthians 12 includes both.

So you find people who have backslidden from the church who never intended to backslide from God. But it’s cold out there, and they get cold out there. Perhaps that’s not all bad if it causes them to long for warmth again. I’ve had people tell me that if they thought it was cold in the church, they found it much colder out there.

The “open sin“ backslider. Another type of “backslider“ is one like David, who backslid from purity to open sin—and he was in the church the whole time. In fact, he was king all through that time! So it’s possible to backslide in terms of deportment, behavior, and performance, which could simply be a symptom that we have backslidden at heart. Fortunately, there is hope for this kind too, just as there was for David. And the hope is realized when he sees his need, as evidenced in Psalm 51.

The prodigal backslider. Then there is the backslider who has been close to the Father, who has tasted His love and knows that He is good. The prodigal son is the classic example of this. If you were going to look for backsliders in the Bible, you’d have to include the prodigal, wouldn’t you? In this stoxy it’s hard to find fault with the Father. Jesus told this story to let us know what God is really like. The Father in the story is God Himself. So we can’t say that the son grew up in a legalistic home and had good reason to backslide. He grew up in the right kind of home, but he chose not to go for it. So you see him walking down the road one day—along with one-third of the angels of heaven.

But the prodigal was received home one day when he came to himself and remembered his Father’s love. Contrary to his idea of going back as a servant, he was received back as a son, because he was still a son. A son gone wrong is a son still. The prodigal was welcomed back before he even got his confession out. The kiss of forgiveness and the arms of love abounded before he ever made his speech, which proves that God does accept a person who comes in his rags, just as he is.

Anatomy of a backslider

Now let’s take a look at the anatomy of a backslider. How does it happen? Why do backsliders backslide?

Backsliding begins in the heart. According to Proverbs 14:14, backsliding really begins in the heart: “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.“ Notice that it doesn’t say the backslider is satisfied in himself but from himself. The ways of a good man are satisfying because his goodness comes from God, but the ways of the backslider in heart will cause him to be filled “up to the ears“ in the end, as we say—filled with his own ways.

The main point here is that backsliding starts in the heart. And because backsliding happens in the heart, it happens where it counts. A person can be wounded almost anywhere else, and it is only a single wound. But a wound in the heart is the same as a thousand wounds anywhere else.

Suppose I go to the doctor and ask him to tell me what the problem is. And he says, “You don’t have any trouble in your extremities. Even your head is OK. Your only problem is your heart.“

And I say, “My heart? That’s the biggie!“

It’s the same with your spiritual life. A wounded heart is the “biggie.“ Of course, when the Bible talks about the heart, it is talking about the mind, the springs of emotion and of action. And that’s something only you know about, at least to start with. You could be on the backsliding track, and nobody around you would suspect it—not even the people in your family, church, or community. But you know that your heart is growing colder, that by your own choice you are finding less excitement in prayer, less in the things of God’s Word. You even find it hard to “say your prayers“ at night. Of course, you can always find a good excuse for throwing that out. Sick routine, they call it. “Why not just pray on the wing?“ or ‘Til just keep in touch with God all through the day.“ In fact, most backsliders find good, justifiable reasons for most of what they do as they pursue the downward track.

You find that it’s easy to neglect personal spiritual things in the church and home and family. You find, little by little, that many small things, ever so small, one by one fade away from your life. These things once held a prominent place, but they all slip away so gradually, step by step.

The slide is always downward. No one ever slides up. Have you ever done that? It’s always downward. Whether it starts on the playground when we are kids or whether it’s coming down off the Matterhorn, it’s always downward.

Backsliding happens easily and effortlessly, unsuspected often by self or others. How easily it happens! For instance, no one ever plans an accident. An accident is an accident. Have you ever driven along the road and thought about other people and their accidents? And you say, “I’ll never have one of those because I compensate for this and I do this and I drive defensively.“ No, an accident happens so fast that when you have one, you have to admit that an accident is an accident.

I was walking on an unfinished deck around my house, and was saying to myself, “It’s important to finish this, because one of these days these loose boards lying here are going to… .“ And just then it happened. When you fall between two 2 x 10s that are sixteen inches on center, and you are more than sixteen inches on center, you realize that sliding and slipping are always downward. And sliding and slipping downward can really hurt! It doesn’t take any effort, either!

Sometimes we get confused trying to understand effort in the Christian life. I like to think of the Christian life as a mountain of ice. It’s like going up and chiseling out those steps with an ice ax. It also demands that you be tied to your guide, or you’re going to fall into a crevasse. That’s the way it is. And all you have to do to backslide, or slide back, is to stop going upward, and you are going to go downward.

It happens a little at a time. Now the downward path has been engineered by Satan himself. And he is smart enough to know that no wise engineer ever builds a highway down a cliff. No one who has any calm about him at all maps out a road from the top of the Rockies straight down. He knows that even if he could build such a road, nobody would drive on it. So the downward path in the Christian life always winds and twists. Now you see it to the right, and you hardly notice the downward incline. Then you see it to the left, and the incline is a bit more severe. And then you follow around the hairpin turns—and so it goes. Let’s remember that the devil never takes a person from the heights to the depths in one big jump. It is always in little tiny steps, so small that you can hardly recognize them at first. But they become more precipitous as you descend.

I’ve never heard of someone waking up in the morning and saying, “Well, I’ve had it. Today I’m going to become a backslider.“ No, it comes on like a long, lingering illness. And exactly how it happens in every person’s case could be debated. The anatomy of a backslider in terms of the slide downward probably cannot always be delineated. But you know, sooner or later, that something has gone wrong, that you are cold.

A person can go from purity to careless living. He can go from careless living to indulgence of the flesh. He can go from indulgence in little things to known sin, and he can move from one sin to another until finally he plunges into uncleanness. If you find yourself today following Jesus afar off, I would like to remind you that erelong, like Peter, you are going to deny Him. That’s the way it happens.

There’s hope for backsliders.

Let’s get to the hope part. Please, the Bible has hope for the backslider! To begin with, here is a favorite text of mine— Micah 7:18: “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.“

Where in the Bible does it tell us that God delights in justice? Even though God is a God of justice, and we can be thankful for that, I don’t know of any place where it says He delights in justice. Where in the Bible does it say that God delights in wisdom or in power? But here it says that He is a God who delights in mercy! Isn’t that good news? He is longsuffering. He is patient. If He were a God of justice only, there would be no hope for any of us. But a lonely cross on a public hill proved that God still delights in mercy. He delights in mercy for the worst of us. And again, the prodigal son is a good example. His brother delighted in justice, but his father delighted in mercy.

God also delights in mercy for corporate backsliding. Here Israel is an example. If you ever have any question about how God deals with backsliders and backsliding, all you have to do is look at Israel. It wasn’t a case of being up today and down tomorrow. It was a case of sliding back and sacrificing to idols and going through this same sick routine year after year for hundreds of years and up into the thousands. Finally you see the Man, who is God, convulsed with sorrow as He rides a donkey. And He says, through tears, ‘Tour house is left unto you desolate“ (Matthew 23:38). But still He sent the message of love to individuals in that same nation, year after year, and still today. If you want to know how God feels and how He treats backsliders, don’t forget Israel.

Jeremiah gives us a clue about something that God can use in helping the backslider return: “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee“ (Jeremiah 2:19). Have you discovered that a backslider whom you know, or one that you might have been, can come to the place in his life where he meets himself coming back? He has thought to pursue life as one grand carnival, but instead it all goes sour. Haven’t you seen people who were sick and tired of the life of sliding back because it had turned to bitterness in their mouth and in their stomachs, and they were full up to the ears with sin and transgression and dissipation? Yes, it happens. And the beautiful thing is that when the backslider comes to that time of bitterness and remorse, God is often there in that very realization.

Then there is Jeremiah 3:3, where you have another way that God helps us to understand. “The showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain.“ Perhaps we could see how this applies to the church today, and obviously to the individual. Dryness has come. The sun scorches. There is no joy, no more babbling brook. The birds don’t sing for the one whose head is down and who walks in guilt and remorse. God Himself will chastise them by withholding the rain or other blessings. It happened in the days of Elijah.

And so there are factors that help bring the backslider to his senses. His own foolishness catches up with him, and God Himself will chastise. But for what purpose? Only for the purpose of helping. Only for the purpose of healing. “He who sins must smart and especially if he be a child of God. For the Lord has said of His people ‘you only have I known of all the peoples of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.’ Whoever may go unchastised, a child of God never shall. The Lord will let His adversaries do a thousand things and not punish them now, since they can only look forward to a judgment to come. But as for His own children, they cannot sin without being visited with stripes“ (Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 42, pp. 73-81).

God’s enemies can go on blaspheming His name and never be chastened, and we say, “Why do good people suffer and bad people go free?“ But it is God’s own children, for whom there is hope, that He chastises. It makes sense. “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth“ (Hebrews 12:6). The chastening goes on before the return, and sometimes the pain goes on after the return.

David is a case in point. David fell into gross sin, and soon Amnon his son rivaled him in iniquity. But it wasn’t God’s fault. It was simply the law of the harvest, and God could do nothing but allow it. David murdered Uriah, the Hittite, and Absalom, his son, murdered his own brother, Amnon. David rebelled against God, and Absalom rebelled against him. David disturbed the relationship of another man’s family, and his own family was rent in pieces and never restored to peace again. He was filled with his own ways.

Just a bit of warning. If we think that backsliding goes unpaid and unreaped, it is not so. For the person who says, “I guess I will backslide or sin so that grace may abound,“ backsliding is never cheap. There has never been a free sin. Never! The law of the harvest says that whatsoever a person sows, he’s going to reap. And he reaps what he has sown. The law of the harvest also says that you reap more than you sow. But isn’t it wonderful that God walks by our side, even while we reap.

There is hope eternal for the one who listens to God’s friendly words today. “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings“ (Jeremiah 3:22).

Now let’s notice Jeremiah 3:12 and 22 together, because there we find treatment of the term backslider that is very significant. “Return, thou backsliding Israel.“ “Return, ye backsliding children.“ The word is to backsliders. It doesn’t say, Return, ye penitent. It doesn’t say, Return, those of you who have managed to change your life and your ways. It doesn’t say, Return, those who have found that it is easy to try harder now. It doesn’t say, Return, those who have suddenly become professionals at the right kind of behavior and performance. It says, “Return, ye backsliders!“ And that’s the only way a backslider can return—as a backslider. Isn’t that true?

It is clear in the call from God that we are invited to come back just as we are. Notice, He does not say, Now you are in good shape and I will accept you. Quite the opposite. God paints you in your worst colors. Notice also that He does not say, Heal your wounds and then come back to Me. But He says, “Return, ye backsliding children, with all your backslidings unhealed, and I will heal your backslidings.“ You see, if there’s any hope for the backslider, it’s going to have to be in God doing the work and the healing. Many sinners seem to suppose that they must make themselves better and then come to Christ. This is an entirely unfounded idea. We are invited to come just as we are, with no goodness or virtue or any hope. We are invited to come to Christ for it all.

But someone objects that all who would be saved must believe in Jesus and repent of their sins. Exactly. But Christ does not want you to begin the work of salvation and let Him finish it. Come to Him with nothing. Come with filthy rags, just as you are, and believe in God, who justifies the ungodly. Cast yourself on Him who said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance“ (Mark 2:17). Bow in humility before Him who flashes the lightning of Sinai in the face of every self-righteous one, but who kindles the mild, genial rays of Calvary to guide every truly humble sinner into the port of peace and everlasting love.

God does the healing. We don’t heal ourselves, even in the physical realm; nor do the physicians. And so it is in the spiritual kingdom. That’s why the promise in Jeremiah is so beautiful: “I will heal your backslidings.“ All we can do is return.

How do we return? Obviously, it isn’t by trying to change our ways. It is by coming to Him just as we are. If you realize that your hope is fading, take courage again because He says, “I will heal your backslidings.“ If you are reading these words, then you are coming to Him. If you are hearing His Word, then you are coming to Him. If you are reaching out to Him in prayer, then you are coming to Him. You might not be able to change your lifestyle, but you have been able to choose to put yourself in the environment to hear the Word of God. And He says to you today, “I will heal your backslidings.“

Do you think there’s hope for backsliders? Yes, there is! He makes them penitent. He only asks that we acknowledge our condition and be done with our self-righteousness and our own efforts. These are the two conditions that we must reach before we can turn around. And God Himself is there to help us reach them. Stop leaning on your own goodness and stop leaning on your own strength.

There’s one other phrase in this chapter: “I am married unto you“ (Jeremiah 3:14). That’s rather interesting for God to say this to Israel. Evidently it takes a long time to get unmarried from God—longer than it takes for us to get unmarried from each other. When God says, I am married to you, He’s talking through people like Hosea. Theologians are still debating whether Hosea was an allegory or a real person. Hosea married a harlot who turned away from him again and again, but he was still married to her. He bought her back from the slave market. He forgave her and accepted her. You can read the whole story in the book of Hosea. And Jeremiah said the same thing: “I am married unto you.“ Obviously, Israel hadn’t had much fellowship with God. All they knew was Baal and rock altars on Mount Carmel and idol worship among the green trees and groves. But God said, I’m still married to you, and I still love and accept you.

I was reading about a wife who, shortly after she married, was deserted by her husband. He went to a distant city to make his fortune and told her he would call for her. Forty years went by, and he made his fortune. But he spent it. She only got one letter from him. But he heard, at the end, when he was filled with disease and was penniless, that she was still waiting for him. So he went back. She was overjoyed. She tended him in his last days and gave him all the kindness and healing and comfort that she knew. In my opinion, the man deserved to hang! In fact, hanging would have been too good for him. And I say, She must have been sick. But no! You probably won’t hear about very many people like that in this vale of sin, but that’s Hosea and Gomer—and God and His people, His church, and you. He still wants us. And He will do the healing.

“But I’ve committed the unpardonable sin,“ someone says. “I’ve gone too far.“ Don’t forget that the very passage from which the unpardonable-sin text comes, Matthew 12, also says, “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven“ (verse 31). The only sin God can’t forgive is the one we don’t admit and confess. That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in to lead us there.

One day, Jesus, with His arms outstretched, said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do“ (Luke 23:34). Even the prodigal son, who planned what he did, was forgiven. God has made provision for all kinds of backsliders. Don’t let the devil make hay out of you. Don’t let him drive you to despair. There is hope, there is comfort, and there is courage for everyone—yes, even you!