Topic: Bitter Fruit Of Backsliding [DCLM Daily Manna Tuesday January 23rd, 2018]
Text: Jeremiah 2:1-19
Key Verse: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13).
The nineteenth century English preacher, J. C. Ryle, had this to say about backsliding: “It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins – all these are sad sights, but a backslider is a sadder sight still.” Israel was no stranger to such ugly sight.
They were divinely favoured like no other nation. But their journey with God was punctuated by a series of backsliding. At some point in the life and ministry of Prophet Jeremiah, Israel descended into an almost irrecoverable backsliding. The Lord, through Prophet Jeremiah, enumerated His special loving favour for the Israelites, which they returned with an amazing ingratitude by their backsliding. Their piety was spoken of in the past tense.
They progressively went far from God, walked after vanity, became vain and went into alliance with idolatrous nations and reaped self-destruction. Backsliding does not necessarily have to cross the apostasy line before it is considered destructive. If your love for God, commitment and consecration to Him are in the past tense, yours is a case of backsliding. Backsliding, like drifting, is most subtle but progressive and at the end, yields bitter fruits of misery, disappointment and destruction. Thus, it is appropriate to take a moment to reflect on your relationship with the Lord ‘then’ and ‘now’ and see how you measure up.
If you repent and consecrate yourself to the Lord again and live a holy and watchful life until the coming of Christ, He will heal your backsliding and bring blessings. For “let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
Thought for the day: The worst backslider is the one who knows not from whence he has fallen.
Bible Reading in one Year: Genesis 32-34
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
