Jeremiah 8:4-7

Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding.

A great evil and an urgent question

I. A great evil. “Backsliding.”

1. It is an evil in its nature; it is a great sin against God, involving the basest ingratitude, the abuse of the greatest mercies, and the violation of the most solemn vows.

2. It is an evil in its influence.

(1) Upon self. It arrests the progress of the soul, darkens its prospects, curtails its liberty, and destroys its usefulness.

(2) Upon others. It encourages the religious sceptic, it staggers the anxious inquirer, it embarrasses the friends of truth.

II. An urgent question. “Why?”

1. Not by the force of circumstances over which they have no control. No power in the universe drives them back against their will.

2. Not by the withdrawal of heaven’s helping agency.

3. The causes are in themselves. Neglect of the means of spiritual improvement, the study of the Scriptures, and the ministry of the Word; the cherishing of some secret sin; engrossment in worldly pursuits; fellowship with sceptical and ungodly men. (Homilist.)

Backsliding tendencies

The tendency to the lukewarmness of spiritual life is in us all. Take a bar of iron out of the furnace on a winter day, and lay it down in the air, and there is nothing more wanted. Leave it there, and very soon the white heat will change into livid dulness, and then there will come a scale over it, and in a short time it will be as cold as the frosty atmosphere around it. And so there is always a refrigerating process acting upon us which needs to be counteracted by continual contact with the fiery furnace of spiritual warmth, or else we are cooled down to the degree of cold around us. (A. Maclaren.)

To the backslider

I. The causes of backsliding.

1. The fear of man.

2. Inter course with worldly society.

3. Presumption.

4. Secret sin.

5. Neglect of prayer.

II. The symptoms of backsliding.

1. The absence of pleasure in attending to the secret exercises of religion.

2. Irregular and unprofitable attendance on public ordinances.

3. Unwillingness to act or suffer for the honour of Christ.

4. Uncharitable feelings toward fellow Christians.

5. Indulgence in sins once abandoned.

III. The forms of backsliding.

1. Declension into error.

2. Declension into unbelief.

3. Declension into lukewarmness, or want of love.

4. Declension into prayerlessness.

5. Declension into immorality.

6. Declension into open rejection of a Christian profession.

IV. The evils of backsliding.

V. The cure of backsliding.

1. Let the backslider remember from whence he has fallen.

2. Let the backslider reflect on his guilt and danger.

3. Let the backslider return to God, from whom he has wandered.

4. Let the backslider live near to Christ.

5. Let the backslider forsake the sin into which he has fallen.

6. Let the backslider learn to depend on the promised aid of the Holy Spirit. (G. Brooks.)

National degeneracy

I. What denominates a religious people. The Jews were a religious people in distinction from all other nations who were given to superstition and idolatry. They professed to believe the existence of the only living and true God. All the nations at this day, who profess to believe the truth of Christianity, and who observe the public worship of God and the ordinances of the Gospel, are called religious nations, though the great majority may be totally destitute of vital piety. It is the explicit profession and external conduct of a people that give them their religious character.

II. When a religious people may be said to be a backsliding clue. Grace, in the present state, does not entirely destroy nature. Large measures of moral corruption remain in the hearts of the best of men in the most religious nations. So, every people, who profess to believe the Gospel and live under its influence, have something in them that dislikes the character, the laws, and the government of God. On this account they are bent to backsliding from Him. Among every religious people there is a great, if not the greatest part of them, who are under only the restraining, and not the sanctifying, influence of the Gospel. It is when they break over such restraints as ought to keep them from backsliding from Him; and they are perpetually backsliding, while they are constantly breaking over one restraint after another.

1. They break over the restraints of His goodness. He promised to make them the most numerous, the most wealthy, and the most respectable nation on earth.

2. A religious people who are perpetually backsliding grow worse and worse under the restraint of Divine authority. He gave His peculiar people His judgments, His statutes, and His laws, which were far superior to those of any other nation. There was another way by which God often laid a restraint upon His backsliding people, and that was by His rod of correction; but they often broke over this restraint, and persisted in their wicked ways.

3. A perpetually backsliding people will hold fast deceit, and refuse to return to God from whom they have revolted, even under the severest tokens of His wrath.

III. Why a backsliding people will persist in backsliding. This is owing to some great delusion.

1. They delude themselves by backsliding very gradually. They first forget the goodness of God in one smaller favour, and then in another; and this leads them to forget God in greater and greater favours, until Divine goodness loses all its restraining influence over them. In the same imperceptible manner they break over all the restraints of Divine authority and of Divine corrections. Such a gradual backsliding becomes more and more habitual, and, of course, more and more insensible. Every backslider always feels self-condemned for the first instances of his deviation from the path of duty. But one deviation naturally leads to another, and serves to palliate it, till self-regret and self-reproach cease to operate, and men feel as easy and innocent in their gradual declensions as they did before they began to backslide; and, like Ephraim, while they have grey hairs here and there upon them, they know it not.

2. All backsliding consists in men’s walking in the ways of their hearts, instead of walking in the ways of God’s commandments. They backslide because they love to backslide; and what they love, they endeavour to persuade themselves is right. If they are reproved, they will justify rather than condemn their backsliding.

3. Backsliders are more or less under the blinding and deluding influence of the great adversary of souls. He is now deluding all the heathen world, and insensibly involving them in fatal darkness, and leading them blindly to destruction. And he is more or less concerned in spreading errors and delusions in all the Christian world, who love and hold fast deceit.

Improvement--

1. It appears from the description of a religious people which has been given in this discourse, that we in this country deserve that character.

2. If we have given a just description of a perpetually backsliding people, that character justly belongs to us.

3. It appears from what has been said, that our national sins are very great and aggravated. They are of the nature of backsliding, which greatly enhances their criminality. Backsliding is not a sin of ignorance, but a sin of knowledge. Our national vices, immoralities, and errors, have been commited against greater light and stronger restraints than those of any other nation.

4. It appears from what has been said, that no external means nor motives will reform a backsliding people. They backslide so gradually and insensibly, and are so fond of their backslidings, and are under such a powerful influence of the great deceiver, that they will hold fast deceit, and refuse to repent, return, and reform. Their perpetual backsliding is perpetually stupefying their hearts and consciences; for they feel no guilt and fear no danger. They are certainly out of the reach of men and means to save them from ruin. Hence,

5. This people have abundant occasion for fasting, humiliation, and prayer. Their situation is extremely critical and dangerous, and every way adapted to affect every benevolent heart. It is the imperious duty of all the Noahs, Jobs, and Daniels to arise and plead with God to take His own work into His own hands, and bow the hearts of this people to Himself. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

They refused to return.--

Man’s backwardness to repent

1. God reasons with us from what we do in other cases. “Shall they fall,” etc. (Jeremiah 8:4). He makes us judges in our own cause. If a man slips and gets a fall, does he lie where he fell, without making any attempt to get up again? “Why, then,” God saith, doth this people what no others do? Why do they fall, and rise not? stray, and return not? “Despair of pardon leads many to continue in sin. But is there cause for this despair? Is it God that is unwilling? No; “they refused to return.” The Lord, as it were, saith, How often would I have gathered them together, and they would not! My outward calling you by the Word, My inward moving by me Spirit, My many benefits, My gentle chastisements, My long-suffering--all show, that I was willing for your return.

2. God reasons with us from His own anxious desire. He represents Himself to us as hearkening with patient, attentive ear, if He may catch from us the words of repentance. And what does God expect to hear from us? “What have I done?” These words, said not with the lips only, but from the deep feelings of the heart, may lead to better things. How vile was the act of sin in itself! how full is it of shame and remorse! What have I done, as in the sight of God, so fearful in power, so glorious in majesty? What have I done as for any profit derived, any passing, empty pleasure? How have I injured my body and my soul!

3. God sends us to the birds of the sky; to creatures without reason, that we, reasonable beings, may learn our duty from them. “Yea, the stork,” etc. These birds have an appointed time for coming back; they know and observe it. There is an “accepted time,” if we would know it; if, like the birds, we would observe, and take it; and the Scripture tells us, that that time is “now.” (E. Blencowe, M. A.)