Skip to main content

Getting Back on Tract with God: A note to the Blacksliders

If you are a backslider, then I have good news for you. The simplest and shortest part of this sermon is how to get back to God. Simply turn to God in your heart, confess your sin and backsliding, and He will receive you with open arms and forgive you of all your sins, failures and mistakes.
In I John 1:9 is this sweet verse for Christians, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Isn't that simple? We simply confess our sins honestly, then God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us.
Notice the terms "faithful" and "just." What a strange saying about God! Why, that would seem as if God owed it to us to forgive us and cleanse us when we, His wayward children, confess our sin! A man is faithful when he keeps his promises, when he does his duty. Yes, and that is what God is. God is faithful and just to forgive us, when we confess our sin, our backsliding, because that is within God's bargain! The keeping. the forgiving, the cleansing day by day is all a part of God's covenant with us when we were saved. All that was purchased for us on Calvary and is promised to every child of God, and so God simply keeps His promise faithfully. Every time we confess our sins, our backslidings, He quickly forgives them and cleanses us from them.
As a young preacher, I preached on the prodigal son. I pictured the long, hard way home. How tired the poor fellow was! How his feet hurt as he stumbled along the rocky road without any shoes! Would he ever get home? And would the father receive him or send him away with scorn? I had that poor, prodigal boy plodding a long, painful way back to the father's house.
Then one day I discovered that I had made that up out of whole cloth. It was not even hinted in that wonderful story as Jesus told it in Luke 15:11-32. In one moment the boy is saying, "I will arise and go to my father." And the very same verse that tells us that the boy "arose, and came to his father," we are told that "when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him."
What a lesson for anybody who wants to come to God! Whether for a lost sinner who wants salvation, or a backslider who wants his blessing renewed and his joy restored, it is only one step to the Father's house! Oh, believe me, if you honestly in your heart confess your sin to God, He will forgive you and cleanse you in a moment!
Be sure that you do not excuse your sin. Be sure that you do not make an alibi for it and cover it over. Any honest confession will mean you have a penitent heart that turns from your sin with shame.
And if you feel like weeping, you may weep. I suppose the prodigal boy wept when he came home. I know that when I was a backslider and seemed a long way from God, I wept as I came back to confess my failures and my sins. But remember this: whether there is weeping or no weeping, God wants honest heart-confession of your sin. And when you have confessed your backsliding, your coldness, your lack of joy, then you ought to believe that God has forgiven it as He promised, and that He has cleansed it.
I think it would help you if you would get on your knees and read the fifty-first Psalm and let that divinely inspired prayer be the heart-cry of your own soul. It is the prayer of David, a backslider, and you might let it be your own, too. But remember this: All you need do is to make an honest heart-confession of your sin to the Father and believe that He forgives you as He promised, and that He cleanses you from all your sins. And then you will have sweet fellowship with the Father.
My six daughters are all different. Each one has her own peculiar temptations. One is better about one thing, another is better about another thing. But one of these girls I have never been able to whip very much. For just as certain as she was caught in some sin, some disobedience, she would run and throw her arms around me, and weeping, say, "O Daddy, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Forgive me, Daddy!"
And so, if the prodigal son has already returned, why should the father send the sheriff and bloodhounds after him? And if the poor backslider is sorry for his sins and is willing to confess them to God, should God lay on the lash of chastisement?
So, backslider, come back today to God with your hungry heart and find peace and forgiveness.
There is a life of victory and joy for every Christian, and you may have it. Since you are still a sinner, you will find that you will need daily to commit your sins to God. First John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." You may walk in the light every day. When a sin appears, confess it quickly to God, ask Him to forgive it, and He does then and there. And so every day you may live in the smile of God's presence, in a conscious communion of His blessed Spirit. You need not wait to fall into outbroken sin and shame but can have rich blessing and victory every day.

Perhaps some backslider who reads this today is ready to come back to God. It would comfort my heart, and I believe would make the matter more definite and clear and joyful in your own, if you would write it down and say so. Suppose you write me the following letter, or one similar to it, and send it to me, if you today, dear backslidden Christian, will come back to the Father's house. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aspects of Information as Found in the Bible

by Dr. Werner Gitt on May 28, 2009 God is shown as the source or sender of biblical information. 14.1 God as Sender—Man as Recipient The five aspects of information—statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics—were discussed in chapter 4 , and it was stated that all five are indispensable for both the sender and the recipient. It is highly instructive to view the Bible in this way. Figure 27: God as sender; man as recipient. When God speaks in the Bible, He is the Sender of information. The message of the Bible, transmitted to us as recipients, can be analyzed according to the aspects of information, namely syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics. Only when we cover all the levels, will we achieve the purpose intended by God. Sender: In Figure 27, God is shown as the source or sender of biblical information. His Word is available to us today in completed ( Revelation 22: ) and written form (e.g., Exodus 17:14 ;...
Post a Comment
Read more

Five Powerful Communication skills to Effectively Manage and Nurture Relationships

Every relationship, even with someone we've just met, begins with how we communicate.   Communication is the foundation of any relationship, reflecting the depth of our concern, joy, or other inner feelings toward the other person. Clear, affectionate, understanding, and honest communication strengthens bonds, potentially lasting a lifetime. In some friendships, there's a unique way of expressing wishes that deeply resonates with us, affirming the connection.   Others may communicate in a straightforward manner, signifying a relationship of convenience rather than depth. The way we communicate reveals how much we value the relationship—if we truly care, it will be evident in our words; if not, our communication will be limited to what is necessary.   Your relationship begins with your intent and your words. The right words can heal like a balm or cut like a knife. Your words matter.   Here are five powerful communication skills to effectively man...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hudson Taylor's Testimony

Hudson Taylor’s Testimony There is nothing like reading salvation stories. Hudson Taylor’s (a British missionary to China who lived from 1832-1905) testimony is one of the greatest and most exciting salvation stories that I have read. Below you will see an excerpt from his autobiography where he tells the details of how God rescued him by His grace through the prayers of his mother. What a glorious Savior is Jesus! Here is the account: Let me tell you how God answered the prayers of my dear mother and of my beloved sister, now Mrs. Broomhall, for my conversion. On a day which I shall never forget, when I was about fifteen years of age, my dear mother being absent from home, I had a holiday, and in the afternoon looked through my father’s library to find some book with which to while away the unoccupied hours. Nothing attracting me, I turned over a little basket of pamphlets, and selected from amongst them a Gospel tract which looked interes...
Post a Comment
Read more