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Backsliding
And Fainting
"Backsliding" is sometimes used in the sense
of spiritual retrogression, but in this chapter I shall
use the word in its fuller sense, applying it to the
result of that retrogression – the severance of the soul
from God. The backslider, in this sense, is one who has
lost his spiritual life. Jeremiah defines backsliding as
sinning against God. "For our backslidings are many;
we have sinned against thee" (Jeremiah 14:7). It
means that the heart has turned away from God. "And
the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was
turned from the Lord God of Israel" (I Kings 11:9).
It is rejecting God. "Thou has forsaken me, saith the
Lord, thou art gone backward…" (Jeremiah 15:6). It
is forsaking God. "Thine own wickedness shall correct
thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know
therefore and see that it is an evil thing and a bitter,
that thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God, and that my fear
is not in thee" (Jeremiah 2:19). It is a turning away
from one’s righteousness. "When a righteous man
doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and
I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die"
(Ezekiel 3:20). These scriptures and many others show that
it is possible for a soul that has once known God to turn
away from him, to sin against him, and to be cut off from
him, to lose what spiritual life he had once had, and to
become an outcast from the holy God. There are multitudes
of piously religious professors in that condition today.
They had once been saved; the glory of God had once been
in their hearts; his sweet peace at one time abode with
them. But now, alas! their stony hearts are cold and
lifeless; the Spirit of God has gone from them; they have
a name to live, but are in fact dead. How sad their
estate!
There is another state of the soul, called
"fainting" in the Bible, that should be
carefully distinguished from backsliding. To draw this
distinction is my present purpose. In appearance fainting
is very much like death. I remember that in my school days
a girl fainted on the playground. The other children came
running around, and some said, "She is dead; she is
dead." We older ones knew better, but the children
did not know better. I have known many instances when
people who had merely fainted spiritually, were supposed
to be dead and were treated as though they were dead. I
have known of hundreds of people who came to the altar,
supposing that they were backsliders, but who were not
backsliders at all, as a little inquiry into their cases
revealed. They were not cut off from God. They had simply
let down in their faith, had given up their confidence,
and had begun to suppose that they were cut off from God.
Many times these fainting souls are treated as
backsliders. They are taught to seek God again, to repent,
to "begin at the bottom," as it is said. This
treatment has resulted in many a soul’s losing
confidence in God and getting into a place where it can
never be certain as to its standing before God, except
where it is under the influence of joyful emotion. The
only thing that will cut a soul off from God is actual
sin, a willful departure from the commands of God.
Some people are harassed much of the time by a feeling
that they have done something that is not right. Their
various troubles bring them into condemnation, and they
question their standing before God. If God chastises them
a little or permits them to pass through a trial for a
time, or they do not feel just as they think they ought,
they do not know whether they are saved or not. There is
nothing else that can so torture a soul as this fear and
uncertainty.
Perhaps a little of my own personal experience will
help some soul. When I was first saved I formed in my mind
an ideal standard of life. When forgiven, I had very
strong emotions of joy. My cup ran over with praises. I
had never known that one could be so unspeakable happy.
For weeks I seemed to walk on air. I supposed that this
was the normal state of a Christian and expected it to
continue permanently. But presently these emotions
subsided. I began to question myself, "What have I
done to grieve or offend the Lord?" I could think of
nothing, but I reasoned that there must be something wrong
or I should still have those joyful feelings. I began to
let doubts come in, and they, of course, helped to depress
my emotions. Thus, I was still further alarmed. I took
refuge in prayer and prayed until my former feelings were
restored. Faith mounted up, and I went along rejoicing. A
little later my joy subsided again, and I began
questioning myself: "I must have done something, or
the joy would not have departed." My conscience
seemed to trouble me and say, "That must be it."
Then I tried to repent, and prayed until at last my joy
returned.
My conscience became very sensitive. It would condemn
me for things which I now know did not affect my standing
with God, but which at that time threw me into doubting
and distress and sometimes nearly into despair. I would
feel so discouraged that I felt it was of no use to try
any longer. It was only a great determination not to give
up trying that kept me going on. Sometimes I was tortured
almost to distraction by the doubts and fears that my
sensitive conscience brought upon me. Sometimes I would go
to meeting and have joyous seasons, and my confidence
would be strong; but more than once I was hardly out of
sight of the place of worship until I felt miserable
again. This alternation of joy and distress was repeated
again and again. While joy lasted, faith seemed strong;
but when joy subsided, my faith was gone, and my
conscience would begin to lash me. Years passed before I
learned the lesson of true faith and brought my conscience
to the place where it would allow me to be judged by the
Word of God and to hold fast my confidence through every
test of emotion. I did not give up, but many times I
should not have had faith to testify that I was saved if I
had been pressed to declare myself.
Under the influence of discouragement resulting from
the lashings of a morbid conscience or bad feelings or
something of the sort, many persons surrender their faith
and give up counting themselves the Lord’s. They have
not sinned, so far as they know; but their faith fails.
They reason that they must be wrong, and so they give up
the fight and count themselves backsliders. They have a
tender conscience toward God; they would not do anything
wrong for the world. They desire to be right and to please
the Lord; their hearts have not turned away from him at
all. They have simply surrendered their faith. They are
not backsliders at all. They belong to the Lord just as
much as they ever did. All they need to do is to let their
faith take hold anew, and when they again count themselves
as God’s, they will find that the ties that bound them
to him have never really been severed. Just to give up to
discouragement this way is not backsliding. It is what the
Bible means by the word "fainting." Some give up
their sanctification in the same way. But that does not
bring impurity into their hearts. All that is needful to
restore their confidence is that they believe as they did
before.
You may say that you have no evidence. If you are
doubting, of course, you will not have any assurance. The
Bible says, "He that believeth … hath the
witness" (I John 5:10). It does not say that he that
doubteth shall have the witness. You can have the witness
in your soul only so long as you are believing. Doubts
silence the voice of God’s testimony in the heart. They
"ground" the wire, so that no message reaches
us. He may be speaking to us, but our doubts prevent our
hearing. To give up under the influence of doubts is not
sin, nor does it make us sinners. To count ourselves
sinners when God does not, does not cut us off from him.
It only excites his pity. It is always dangerous to give
up our confidence; for the discouragement that comes
weakens us so that we cannot so well resist temptation and
may easily fall into sin. But unless we do thus go into
sin, we have only to go to believing, just to take hold
where we let go, to be victorious again.
I remember a preacher who, when he found persons in
this state or condition, or bothered until they hardly
knew where they were, would say, "Well, if you were
out in the woods and did not know where you were, would
you not conclude that you were lost?" So he would
call upon them to repent, counting them sinners. That
preacher was sincere; he thought he was doing just what he
ought to do. His unwise dealing with such souls was due to
a lack of understanding. In his mental picture of men, one
was either victorious or backslidden. He knew nothing
about what the Bible means by fainting. He is not alone in
this. There are many who cannot distinguish a soul who has
merely fainted from one who has backslidden. A backslider,
as already shown, is one who has turned away from his
righteousness and from God and gone into sin. One who has
fainted is one who has just given up and has not sinned.
The former must forsake sin, repent, and believe God for
pardon. The latter should count himself the Lord’s as
before, and all will be well.
An experience I once had with a woman illustrates this
point very well. Hearing that she was having some
spiritual trouble, I visited her and saw very clearly that
her only trouble arose from her doubts. I encouraged her
to believe that God still accepted her, and she seemed to
grasp the idea and act upon it so far as she could at the
time. A few days later in a meeting where there was
considerable manifestation of joyful emotion and where a
number of sinners were seeking the Lord, I found her among
the seekers. She was weeping and praying the Lord to have
mercy upon her. When I recognized her, I went to her and
said, "Sister, what are you doing here? Get right up
and go away and being resisting the devil as you ought to
do." She arose to her feet and turned around to go,
whereupon the glory of the Lord fell upon her, and she
began to shout for joy. If this course were followed in a
wise way with many souls, they would regain their
confidence without having to look back upon themselves as
having backslidden. We must learn to diagnose cases as
accurately as a good physician, or we may give the wrong
remedy, to the lasting hurt of the patient.
Why People Faint
When Jacob’s sons returned from Egypt and told
him of Joseph and his position there, "Jacob’s
heart fainted, for he believed them not" (Genesis
45:26). Unbelief produces the same effect spiritually.
Anything that causes us to let go our faith will bring
fainting. Sorrow is also a cause for fainting. "When
I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint
in me" (Jeremiah 8:18). Anything that causes
discouragement reacts on faith and causes us to faint if
we yield to its influence. When people faint spiritually,
they feel just as Jonah did when he fainted literally. He
"wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for
me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:8). Many persons
have felt exactly this way because of their spiritual
troubles.
There is an unfailing remedy for fainting. It never
fails to prevent when used in time, and it is a cure when
we have fainted. David said, "I had fainted, unless I
had believed to see the goodness of the Lord" (Psalms
27:13). When people do not hold fast their faith, they
cannot see the manifestation of the goodness of the Lord
in coming to their help. If they will hold fast their
trust, he will bring them safely through. But instead of
holding fast, many people heed the suggestion of the
enemy, "You might as well give up." They listen,
are convinced, and act upon his advice. Thus, they take
the worst possible way out of their trouble, and then,
instead of getting out, only find themselves in deeper. O
soul, do not faint at your tribulations, but trust in God,
and he will not fail you. He is watching over you. He will
let the fire become just hot enough to take out the dross.
It will refine you, but not destroy you. You will only be
the better for those tests of life. God may have to
reprove and chasten you, but that will not be for your
destruction, but for you profit. Believe in God; believe
in your own integrity. Hold fast your confidence, and you
will never faint. If you have fainted, begin to believe
again, and your spirit will revive as did the heart of
Jacob when he believed (Read Genesis 45:27, 28).
Even if we should turn away from our righteousness and
commit sin, our case is not hopeless yet. We have an
advocate with the Father, even Christ Jesus, our Lord. God
is still merciful. His mercy will not fail us if we shall
truly repent. Sometimes people get to thinking that they
have sinned against the Holy Spirit, and that consequently
there is no salvation for them. There is one infallible
test. It will settle every case. When a soul has any
disposition to repent, or any desire to get back in favor
with God, and a disposition to confess to him and serve
him, he has not sinned against the Holy Spirit. It is said
of those who have backslidden and sinned against the Holy
Spirit and counted the blood of Christ as an unholy thing
that "it is impossible … to renew them again unto
repentance" (Hebrews 6:6). This is the key of the
whole matter. The trouble is that they have gone so far in
their sins that they no longer have nay disposition to
repent. There is no penitence in their hearts. They are
not sorry that they have done what they have done. Never
let yourself be troubled about having sinned against the
Holy Ghost when you know that there is a disposition in
your heart to please the Lord. In fact, the very feeling
that you experience, that perhaps you have sinned against
the Holy Ghost, is sure proof that you have not done so. I
have seen persons who were almost in despair because of
the feeling that they had sinned against the Holy Spirit
and could not be forgiven. They would go on from day to
day grieving and grieving over it, when if they had
understood their own hearts, they would have known that
the very grief which they felt over their supposed sin
against the Holy Ghost was absolute proof that they had
not sinned against him. A man who has really sinned
against the Holy Ghost is not concerned about getting back
to God.
All other sin is forgivable. And if we do sin, we may
find mercy and restoration to the joys of God’s
salvation if we will repent and believe. All sins do not
have the same effect upon the soul, though every sin
brings guilt. Some sin because of being by an unexpected
temptation. They are taken unawares and yield before they
hardly realize it. Their conscience at once feels the
sting of guilt. They feel immediately penitent. They are
conscience-stricken and full of remorse. They immediately
regret the step that they have taken, and would undo it
instantly if it were in their power. Under such
conditions, restoration to the favor of God is very easily
obtained. There has been no hardening of the heart against
God. There has been no thinking over the question, and so
there has been no real turning away of their hearts from
God. They yielded under such pressure as Peter did in the
palace of the high priest. His courage failed him in a
critical moment, and he weakly yielded. His repentance
followed with equal rapidity.
Sometimes the will consents to do evil through
persuasion or through yielding to a powerful and
long-continued force. Under such conditions the will may
gradually yield, but finally gives up its resistance and
does the things asked of it, or the things which it is
influenced to do. When it yields, it is involved in guilt,
and that guilt is more serious than the guilt previously
mentioned. This time the will has not been taken unawares.
It has had opportunity to summon its reserve forces and
keep on saying no, and so to overcome. In such a case
repentance may be immediate or not, depending somewhat on
the circumstances. But whether the person repents at once
or procrastinates, this case is more serious than the
other, because the will is involved in a more vital way.
In other instances people just go into sin deliberately
through their own volition. The desire to do the thing
arises in their hearts, and they do it, despising God’s
law. They do it with their eyes wide open to all the
consequences. This kind of sin is terrible in its nature.
Oftentimes the sinner has no feeling of penitence, and
oftentimes he will have trouble to bring himself to submit
to God. But the greatest sin of all is the neglect or
refusal to repent when sin is done, to let sin go on for
months not repented of. Such a sin is utterly inexcusable.
If you have sinned, repent at once. Seek God’s mercy at
once, and you shall find it. Harden not your heart by
delay. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. Impenitence or
persistence in refusal to repent hardens the heart as
nothing else can and multiplies the guilt enormously.
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