Return from Backsliding

[Blueridge Believer]

C. H. Spurgeon

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February 7
Return from Backsliding

If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up. (Job 22:23)
Eliphaz, in this utterance, spoke a great truth, which is the summary of many an inspired Scripture. Reader, has sin pulled you down? Have you become like a ruin? Has the hand of the Lord gone out against you so that in estate you are impoverished and in spirit you are broken down? Was it your own folly which brought upon you all this dilapidation? Then the first thing to be done is to return to the Lord. With deep repentance and sincere faith find your way back from your backsliding. It is your duty, for you have turned away from Him whom you professed to serve. It is your wisdom, for you cannot strive against Him and prosper. It is your immediate necessity, for what He has done is nothing compared to what He may do in the way of chastisement, since He is Almighty to punish.

See what a promise invites you! You shall be "built up." None but the Almighty can set up the fallen pillars and restore the tottering walls of your condition; but He can and He will do it if you return to Him. Do not delay. Your crushed mind may quite fail you if you go on to rebel; but hearty confession will ease you, and humble faith will console you. Do this, and all will be well.

 

[MrMerlin777]

Thanks for that post brother James.

 

[alwaysreforming]

Yeah, that was awesome!

I'm gonna have to read over that a few times!

 

[Ivan]

(Returning to the LORD)...It is your wisdom, for you cannot strive against Him and prosper. It is your immediate necessity, for what He has done is nothing compared to what He may do in the way of chastisement, since He is Almighty to punish.
QUOTE]

To all who read this from Spurgeon, and particular what I have quoted above, this is so true! Believe me, I have personally experienced what Spurgeon is talking about. I'm telling you, you don't want to get into this position with the LORD. I suppose all of us have been there one way or another. It is not pretty.

 

[Blueridge Believer]

(Returning to the LORD)...It is your wisdom, for you cannot strive against Him and prosper. It is your immediate necessity, for what He has done is nothing compared to what He may do in the way of chastisement, since He is Almighty to punish.
QUOTE]

To all who read this from Spurgeon, and particular what I have quoted above, this is so true! Believe me, I have personally experienced what Spurgeon is talking about. I'm telling you, you don't want to get into this position with the LORD. I suppose all of us have been there one way or another. It is not pretty.

And I have painfully and experimentally learned that as well dear brother. May this piece by brother Philpot be a blessing:



"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Romans 5:20

In order to know what grace is in its reign over sin, and in its super-aboundings over the aboundings of iniquity, we must be led experimentally into the depths of the fall. We must be led by God himself into the secrets of our own heart; we must be brought down into distress of mind on account of our sin and the idolatry of our fallen nature. And when, do what we will, sin will still work, reign, and abound, and we are brought to soul poverty, helplessness, destitution, and misery, and cast ourselves down at the footstool of his mercy--then we begin to see and feel the reign of grace, in quickening our souls, in delivering us from the wrath to come, and in preserving us from the dominion of evil. We begin to see then that grace superabounds over all the aboundings of sin in our evil hearts, and as it flows through the channel of the Savior's sufferings, that it will never leave its favored objects until it brings them into the enjoyment of eternal life! And if this does not melt and move the soul, and make a man praise and bless God, nothing will, nothing can!

But until we have entered into the depths of our own iniquities, until we are led into the chambers of imagery, and brought to sigh, groan, grieve, and cry under the burden of guilt on the conscience and the workings of secret sin in the heart--it cannot be really known. And to learn it thus, is a very different thing from learning it from books, or ministers. To learn it in the depths of a troubled heart, by God's own teaching, is a very different thing from learning it from the words of a minister or even from the word of God itself. We can never know these things savingly and effectually, until God himself is pleased to apply them with his own blessed power, and communicate an unctuous savor of them to our hearts, that we may know the truth, and find to our soul's consolation, that the truth makes us free!

J.C. PHILPOT

 

[Ivan]

Truly convicting!

James, I appreciate your offerings from the works of J.C. Philpot.

Thank you, Brother!