11. Its Recovery (part 2)
11. Its Recovery
III
Its difficulty. Though reviving and restoration is needful, desirable, and possible, yet it is by no means easy. We do not mean that any problem is presented to God in connection with the recovery of one who has suffered a spiritual relapse, but that it is far from being a simple matter for a backslider to comply with His requirements in order thereto. That difficulty is at least threefold: there is a difficulty in realizing the sadness of his case, a difficulty in putting forth a real desire for recovery, and a difficulty in meeting God’s stipulations. Sin has a blinding effect, and the more one falls under its power the less discernment will he possess. It is only in God’s light that we can see light, and the further we depart from Him the more we engulf ourselves in darkness. It is only as the bitter effects of sin began to be tasted that the erring one becomes conscious of his sorry condition. Others may perceive it, and in loving faithfulness tell him about it, but in most instances he is quite unaware of his decline and such warnings have no weight with him. Of course, the degree of the decay of his grace will determine the measure in which the “and know not” of Revelation 3:17 applies to him.
But even where there be some realization that all is not well with himself it by no means follows that there is also a real anxiety to return to his first love. To some extent the conscience of such an one is comatosed and, therefore, there is little sensibility of his condition and still less horror of it. Here, too, the natural adumbrates the spiritual. Have we not met with or read of those suffering from certain forms of sickness who lacked a desire to be healed? Certainly there are not a few such in the religious world. If the reader dissents from such a statement we ask him, why then did the great Physician of souls address Himself as He did to the one by the pool of Bethesda? We are told that that man had suffered from an infirmity no less than thirty-eight years, yet the Savior asked him “Will you be made whole?” (John 5:6)—are you really desirous to be? That question was neither meaningless nor strange. The wretched are not always willing to be relieved. Some prefer to He on a couch and be ministered to by friends than bestir themselves and perform their duties. Others become lethargic and indifferent and are, as Scripture designates them, “at ease in Zion”!
It is all too little realized among Christians that backsliding is a departing from God and a returning to the conditions they were in before conversion, and the further that departure is, the closer will become their approximation to the old manner of life. Observe the particular language used by David in his confession to God. First he said, “Before I was afflicted, I went astray” (119:67); but later, as spiritual discernment increased following upon his recovery, and as he then more clearly perceived what had been involved in his sad lapse, he declared “I have gone astray like a lost sheep” (v. 176)—the state of God’s elect in the days of their unregeneracy (Isaiah 53:6). True, the case of David was a more extreme form of backsliding than many, nevertheless it is a solemn warning to all of us of what may befall if we have left our first love, and return not promptly to it. And how clearly his experiences serve to illustrate the point we are here seeking to set before the reader. Ponder carefully what follows the account of David’s grievous fall in 2 Samuel 11 and behold the spirit of blindness and insensibility which deliberate sinning casts upon a backslidden saint.
In view of 2 Samuel 12:15 it is clear that almost a whole year, possibly more, had elapsed between the time of David’s fall and the Lord’s sending of Nathan unto him. There is not a hint that David was broken-hearted before God during those months. The prophet addressed him in the form of a parable—intimation of his moral distance from God (Matthew 13:10-13) yet, if David’s conscience had been active before God, he would have easily understood the purpose of that parable. But sin had darkened his judgment, and he recognized not the application of it unto himself. In such a state of spiritual deadness was David then in, that Nathan had to interpret his parable and say “You are the man.” Truly, he had “gone astray like a lost sheep,” and at that time the state of his heart differed little from the unconverted. Later, when his eyes were again opened and he was deeply convicted of his sins, He perceived that he had lapsed into a condition perilously close to and scarcely distinguishable from that of the unregenerate, for He cried “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
Does the reader now grasp more easily our meaning when we speak of the difficulty of being recovered from a spiritual relapse: the difficulty of one in that case becoming sensible of his woeful plight and the realization that he needs delivering from it? Sin darkens the understanding and renders the heart hard or insensible. As it is with the unregenerate sinner, so it is become—to a greater or less extent, and in extreme cases almost entirely—with the backslider. What is it that is the distinguishing mark of all who have never been born again? Not falling into gross and flagrant outward sin, for many of them are never guilty of that, but “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness [margin, “hardness” or “insensibility”] of their heart.” That is the Divine diagnosis of all who are “dead in trespasses and sins,” and we have but to change “alienated from the life of God” to “severed from communion with God” and that solemn description accurately depicts the inward state of the backslider, though until God begins to recover him he will no more recognize his picture than David did when Nathan drew his.
It is much to be thankful for when a child of God becomes aware that he is in a spiritual decline, especially if he mourns over it. Such is rarely the case with an unregenerate professor, and never so on account of inward decay. A person who has always been weak and sickly knows not what it is to lack health and strength, for he never had experience of it; still less does one in the cemetery realize that he is totally devoid of life. But let one of robust constitution be laid upon a bed of sickness, and he is very definitely aware of the great change that has come over him. The reason why so many professing Christians are not troubled over any spiritual decline is because they never had any spiritual health, and therefore it would be a waste of time to treat with such about a recovery. If you should speak of their departure from God and loss of communion with Him, you would seem to them as Lot did to his sons-in-law when he expostulated with them—as one that “mocked” or made sport with them (Genesis 19:14), and would be laughed at for your pains. Never having experienced any love for Christ, it would be useless to urge them to return to the same.
It is much to be feared that is why these chapters on spiritual decline and recovery—so much needed today by many of the saints—will be almost meaningless, and certainly wearisome, to some of our readers. The real Christian will not dismiss them lightly, but rather will seek to faithfully measure himself by them, searching himself before God and being at some pains to ascertain the condition of his soul. But those who are content with a mere outward profession, will see little in them either of importance or interest. Such as perceive neither evil nor danger in their present condition, supposing that all is well with them because it is as good as it ever was, are the ones who most need to examine themselves as to whether the “root of the matter” was ever in them. And even those who have experienced something of “the power of godliness” but through carelessness are no longer making conscience of seeking to please the Lord in all things as they once did, are asleep in carnal security (which is hardly distinguishable from being dead in sin) if they be not exercised over their decline and anxious to be recovered from it.
The vast majority in Christendom today will acknowledge nothing as a decay in themselves. Rather are they like Ephraim: “Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not,” and hence it is added “they do not return unto the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this” (Hos. 7:9, 10). How is it with you, dear friend? Have you been able to maintain spiritual peace and joy in your soul?—for those are the inseparable fruits of a life of faith and an humble and daily walking with God. We mean not the fancies and imaginations of them, but the substance and reality: that peace which passes all understanding and which “keeps” or “garrisons” the heart and mind; that joy which delights itself in the Lord and is “full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Does that peace stay your mind on God under trials and tribulations, or is it found wanting in the hour of testing? Is “the joy of the Lord your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), so that it moves you to perform the duties of obedience with alacrity and pleasure, or is it merely a fickle emotion which exerts no steady power for good on your life? If you once enjoyed such peace and joy, but do so no longer, then you have suffered a spiritual decline.
Spirituality of mind and the exercise of a tender conscience in the performance of spiritual duties is another mark of health, for it is in those things grace is most requisite and operative. They are the very life of the new man and the animating principle of all spiritual actions, and without which all our performances are but “dead works.” Our worship of God is but an empty show a horrible mockery, if we draw near to Him with our lips while our hearts are far from Him. But to keep the mind in a spiritual frame in our approaches to the Lord, to bless Him with “all that is within us,” to keep our grace in vigorous exercise in all holy duties, is only possible while the health of the soul be maintained. Slothfulness, formality, weariness of the flesh, the business and cares of this life, the seductions and opposition of Satan, all contend against the Christian to frustrate him at that point; yet the grace of God is sufficient if it be duly sought. If you constantly “stir up yourself to take hold of God” (Isaiah 64:7), if you habitually “set your face unto the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplication” (Daniel 9:3), that is evidence of spiritual health, but if the contrary be now your experience, then you have suffered a spiritual decline.
If you realize that things are not as flourishing with you now, either inwardly or outwardly, as they were formerly, that is a hopeful sign; yet it must not be rested in. Suffer not your heart one moment to be content with your present frame, for if you do there will follow a more marked deterioration. Satan will tell you there is nothing yet for you to be worried about, that there will be time enough for that when you fall into some outward sin. But he lies, Scripture says, “to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). You know it is good that you should return unto God and confess to Him your failures—even though those failures be more of omission than commission—but if you refuse to, that in itself is “sin.” To be conscious of decline is the first step toward recovery, yet not sufficient in itself. There must also be a laying of it to heart, a sensibility of the evil of it, a mourning over it, for “godly sorrow works repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Yet neither is that sufficient: godly sorrow is not repentance itself, but only a means thereto. Moaning and groaning over our complaints, spiritual or natural, may relieve our feelings, but they will effect no cure.
Sensible of our decays, exercised at heart over them, we must now comply with God’s requirements for recovery if healing is to be obtained. And here too we shall experience difficulty. There are those who persuade themselves that it would be no hard matter to recover themselves from a state of backsliding, that they could easily do so if occasion required. But that is an entirely false notion.
There are many who think getting saved is one of the simplest things imaginable, but they are woefully mistaken. If nothing more were required from the sinner than an intellectual assent to the gospel no miracle of grace would be required in order to induce that. But before a stout-hearted rebel against God will throw down the weapons of his warfare, before one who is in love with sin can hate it, before one who lived only to please self will deny self, the exceeding greatness of God’s power must work upon him (Ephesians 1:19). And so it is in restoration. If nothing more were required from the backslider than a lip acknowledgment of his offenses and a return to external duties, no great difficulty would be experienced; but to meet the requirements of God for recovery is a very different matter.
Rightly did John Owen affirm “Recovery from backsliding is the hardest task in the Christian religion: one which few make either comfortable or honorable work of.” Yes, it is a task entirely beyond capabilities of any Christian. We cannot recover ourselves, and none but the great Physician can heal our backslidings. It is the operations of the Spirit of Christ which is the effectual cause of the revival under decays of grace. It is not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God that any wanderer is brought back. It is God who makes sensible of our deadness, and who causes us to make application to Him “will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you” (Psalm 85:6). And when that request has been granted, each of them will own with David “He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:3). Nevertheless, in this, too, our responsibility has to be discharged, for at no point does God treat with us as though we were mere automatons. There are certain duties He sets before us in this connection, specific requirements which He makes upon us, and until we definitely and earnestly set ourselves to the performance of the same, we have no warrant to look for deliverance.
Though the Holy Spirit alone can effect the much-to-be-desired change in the withered and barren believer, yet God has appointed certain means which are subservient to that end, and if we neglect those means then no wonder we have reason to complain and cry out “My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yes, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously” (Isaiah 24:16), and therefore an alteration for the better cannot reasonably be expected. If we entertain hope of an improvement in our condition while we neglect the appointed means, our expectations will certainly issue in a sorrowful disappointment. Unless we be thoroughly persuaded of that, we shall remain inert. While we cherish the idea that we can do nothing, and must fatalistically wait a sovereign reviving from God, we shall go on waiting. But if we realize what God requires of us, it will serve to deepen our desires after a reviving and stimulate us unto a compliance with those things which we must do if He is to grant us showers of refreshment and a strengthening of those things in us which are ready to die. There has to be an asking, a seeking, a knocking, if the door of deliverance is to be opened to us.
It was not an Arminian, but a high Calvinist (John Brine, whose works received a most favorable review in the Gospel Standard of Oct. 1852) who wrote to God’s people two centuries ago: “Much labor and diligence are required unto this. It is not complaining of the sickly condition of our souls which will effect this cure: confession of our follies, that have brought diseases upon us, though repeated ever so often, will avail nothing towards the removal of them. If we intend the recovery of our former health and vigor, we must act as well as complain and groan. We must keep at a distance from those persons and those snares which have drawn us into instances of folly, which have occasioned that disorder which is the matter of our complaint. Without this we may multiply Acknowledgments and expressions of concern for our past miscarriages to no purpose at all. It is very great folly to think of regaining our former strength so long as we embrace and daily with those objects through whose evil influence we are fallen into a spiritual decline. It is not our bewailing the pernicious effects of sin that will prevent its baneful influence upon us for time to come, except we are determined to forsake that to which is owing our melancholy disorder.”
It is not nearly so simple to act on that counsel as many may imagine. Habits are not easily broken, nor objects relinquished which have obtained a powerful hold upon our affections. The natural man is wholly regulated and dominated by “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and the only way in which their prevalence over a Christian is broken is by an unsparing mortification of those lusts. Just so soon as we become slack in denying self or in governing our affections and passions, alluring objects draw us to a dalliance with them, to the blighting of our spirituality, and recovery is impossible until we abandon such evil charmers. But just so far as they have obtained a hold upon us will be the difficulty of breaking from them. Difficult because it will be contrary to all our natural inclinations and pre-regenerate lives. “If your right eye offend you, pluck it out and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish and not your whole body should be cast into Hell” (Matthew 5:29). Christ did not teach that the mortifying of a favorite lust was a simple and painless matter.
As though His followers would be slow to take to heart that unpalatable injunction, the Lord Jesus went on to say, “And if your right hand offend you, cut it off and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish and not your whole body should he east into Hell.” As the “eye” is our most precious member, so (especially to a laboring man) the “right hand” is the most useful and valuable one. By that figurative language Christ taught us that dearest idol must be renounced, our bosom lust mortified. No matter how pleasing be the object which would beguile us, it must be denied. Such a task would prove as hard and painful as the cutting off of an hand—they had no anesthetics in those days! But if men are willing to have a gangrened limb amputated to save their lives, why should we shrink from painful sacrifices unto the saving of our souls. Heaven and Hell are involved by whether grace or our senses rule our souls: “You must not expect to enjoy the pleasures of earth and Heaven too, and think to pass from Delilah’s lap into Abraham’s bosom” (T. Manton). That which is demanded of the Christian is far from being child’s play.
Again, “we must do the first works if we design a revival of our graces. This calls for humility and diligence, to both which our proud and slothful hearts are too much disinclined. We must be content to begin afresh, both to learn and practice, since through carelessness and sloth we are gone backward in knowledge and practice too. It sometimes is with the saints as with school boys, who by their negligence are so far from improvement, that they have almost forgotten the rudiments of a language or an are they have begun to learn; in which case it is necessary that they must make a new beginning: this suits not with pride, but unto it they must submit. So the Christian sometimes has need of being taught again what are the first principles of the oracles of God, when for the time he has been in the school of Christ his improvement ought to be such as would fit him for giving instruction to others in these plain and easy principles. But through negligence he has let them slip, and he must content to pass through the very same lessons of conviction, sorrow, humiliation and repentance he learned long since of the Holy Spirit: whatever we think of the matter, a revival cannot be without it” (Brine). It is that humbling of our pride which makes recovery so difficult to a backslider.
11. Its Recovery
IV
Now we shall consider its conditionality, or those things on which it is suspended (a term which will hardly please some of our readers, yet it is the correct one to use in this connection; but since various writers have used the term in different ways, it is requisite that we explain the sense in which we have employed it). When we say there are certain conditions which an erring saint must fulfill before he can be restored to fellowship with God, we do not use the term in a legalistic sense or mean that there is anything meritorious in his performances. It is not that God strikes a bargain, offering to bestow certain blessings in return for things done by us, but rather that He has appointed a certain order, a connection between one thing and another, and that, for the maintaining of His honor, the holiness of His government, and the enforcing of our responsibility. In all His dealings with us God acts in grace, but His grace ever reigns “through righteousness,” and never at the expense of it.
“He who covers his sins shall not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Now there is nothing meritorious in confessing and forsaking sins, nothing which gives title to mercy, but God requires them from us, and we have no warrant to expect mercy without them. That verse expresses the order of things which God has established, a holy order, so that Divine mercy is exercised without any connivance at sin, exercised in a way wherein we take sides with Him in the hatred of our sins. As health of body is conditioned or suspended upon the eating of suitable food or the healing of it upon partaking of certain remedies, so it is with the soul: there is a definite connection between the two things—food and strength: the one must be received in order to the other. In like manner forgiveness of sins is promised only to those who repent and believe. Whether you term repenting and believing “conditions,” “means,” “instruments,” or “the way of” amounts to the same thing, for they simply signify they are what God requires from us before He bestows forgiveness—requires not as a price at our hands, but by way of congruity.
Some may ask, But has not God promised, “I will heal their backslidings” (Hos. 14:4)? To which we reply, Yes, yet that promise is not an absolute or unconditional one as the context plainly shows. In the verses preceding God calls upon them to “return” unto Him because they had fallen by their iniquity. He bids them “Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away all iniquity.” Moreover, they pledge themselves to reformation of conduct: “neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods” (verses 1-3). Thus it is unto penitent and confessing souls, who abandon their idols, that promise is made. God does indeed “heal our backslidings” yet not without our concurrence, not without the humbling of ourselves before Him, not without our complying with his holy requirements. God does indispensably demand certain things of us in order to the enjoyment of certain blessings. “If we confess our Sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). That “if” expresses the condition, or reveals the connection which God has appointed between our defilement and His removal of it.
We are therefore going to point out what are the “conditions” of recovery from a spiritual decline, or what are the “means” of restoration for a backslider, or what is the “way of” deliverance for one who is departed from God. Before turning to specific cases recorded in Scripture, let us again call attention to Proverbs 28:13. First, “he who covers his sins shall not prosper.” To “cover” our sins is a refusing to bring them out into the light by an honest confessing of them unto God; or to hide them from our fellows or refuse to acknowledge offenses to those we have wronged. While such be the case, there can be no prosperity of soul, no communion with God or his people. Second, “but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.” To confess means to freely, frankly, and penitently own them unto God, and to our fellows if our sins have been against them. To “forsake” our sins is a voluntary and deliberate act: it signifies to loathe and abandon them in our affections, to repudiate them by our wills, to refuse to dwell upon them in our minds and imaginations with any pleasure or satisfaction.
But suppose the believer does not promptly thus confess and forsake his sins? In such case not only will he “not prosper,” not only can there now be no further spiritual growth, but peace of conscience and joy of heart will depart from him. The Holy Spirit is “grieved” and He will withhold His comforts. And suppose that does not bring him to his senses, then what? Let the ease of David furnish answer: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Psalm 32:3, 4). The “bones” are the strength and upholders of the bodily frame, and when used figuratively the “waxing of them old” signifies that vigor and support of the soul is gone, so that it sinks into anguish and despair. Sin is a pestilential thing which saps our vitality. Though David was silent as to confession, he was not so as to sorrow. God’s hand smote his conscience and afflicted his spirit so that he was made to groan under His rod. He had no rest by day or night: sin haunted him in his dreams and he awoke unrefreshed. Like one in a drought he was barren and fruitless. Not until he turned to the Lord in contrite confession was there any relief for him.
Let us turn now to an experience suffered by Abraham that illustrates our present subject, though few perhaps have considered it as a case of spiritual relapse. Following upon his full response to the Lord’s call to enter the land of Canaan, we are told that “the Lord appeared unto Abram” (Genesis 12:7). So it is now: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he who it is that loves me: and he who loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). It is not to the self-willed and self-pleasing, but to the obedient one that the Lord draws near in the intimacies of His love and makes Himself a reality and satisfying portion. The “manifestation” of Christ to the soul should be a daily experience, and if it is not, then our hearts ought to be deeply exercised before him. If there is not the regular “appearing of the Lord,” it must be because we have wandered from the path of obedience,
Next we are told of the patriarch’s response to the Lord’s “appearing and the precious promise He then made him: “and there He built an altar unto the Lord.” The altar speaks of worship—the heart’s pouring of itself forth in adoration and praise. That order is unchanging: occupation of the soul with Christ, beholding (with the eyes of faith) the King in his beauty, is what alone will bow us before Him in true worship. Next, “and he removed from thence unto a mountain” (Genesis 12:8). Spiritually speaking the “mountain” is a figure of elevation of spirit, soaring above the level in which the world lies, the affections being set upon things above. It tells of a heart detached from this scene attracted to and absorbed by Him who has passed within the veil. Is it not written “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31)? And how may this “mountain” experience be maintained? Is such a thing possible? We believe it is, and at it we should constantly aim, not being content with anything that falls short of it. The answer is revealed in what immediately follows.
“And pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Has on the east. The “tent” is the symbol of the stranger, of one who has no home or abiding-place in the scene which cast out of it the Lord of glory. We never read that Abram built him any “house” in Canaan (as Lot occupied one in Sodom!); no, he was but a “sojourner” and his tent was the sign and demonstration of this character. “And there he built all altar unto the Lord”: from this point onwards two things characterized him, his “tent” and his “altar”—12:8; 13:3, 4; 13:18. In each of those passages the “tent” is mentioned first, for we cannot truly and acceptably worship God on high unless we maintain our character as sojourners here below. That is why the exhortation is made, “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11) and so quench the spirit of worship. Are we conducting ourselves as those who are “partakers of the heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1)—do our manners, our dress, our speech evidence the same to others?
Ah, dear reader, do we not find right there the explanation of why it is that a “mountain” experience is so little enjoyed and still less maintained by us! Is it not because we descended to the plains, came down to the level of empty professors and white-washed worldlings, set our affection upon things below, and in consequence became “conformed to this world”? If we really be Christ’s, He has “delivered us [judicially] from this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4) and therefore our hearts and lives should be separated from it in a practical way. Our Home is on high and that fact ought to mold every detail of our lives. Of Abram and his fellow saints it is recorded they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13)—”confessed’ it by their lives as well as lips, and it is added “wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God” (v. 16). But alas, too many now are afraid to be considered “peculiar,” and to escape criticism and ostracism compromise, hide their light under a bushel, come down to the level of the world.
The young Christian might well suppose that one who was in the path of obedience, who was going on whole-heartedly with God, who was a man of the “tent” and the “altar” would be quite immune from any fall. So he will be while he maintains that relationship and attitude: but it is, alas, very easy for him to relax a little and gradually depart from it. Not that such a departure is to be expected, or excused on the ground that since the flesh remains in the believer it is only to be looked for that it will not be long before it unmistakably manifests itself. Not so: “He who says he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Full provision has been made by God for him to do so. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:12). But Abram did suffer a relapse, a serious one, and as it is profitable for us to observe and take to heart the various steps which preceded Peter’s open denial of Christ, so is it to ponder and turn into earnest supplication that which befell the patriarch before he “went down into Egypt.”
First, we are told “and Abram journeyed” (v. 9), nor is it said that he had received any order from God to move his tent from the place where he was in, communion with Him. That by itself would not be conclusive, but in the light of what follows it seems to indicate plainly that a spirit of restlessness had now seized him, and restlessness, my reader, indicates we are no longer content with our lot. The solemn thing to observe is that the starting point in the path of Abram’s decline was that he left Bethel, and Bethel means “the house of God”—the place of fellowship with Him. All that follows is recorded as a warning of what we may expect if we leave “Bethel.” Abram’s leaving Bethel was the root of his failures, and in the sequel we are shown the bitter fruit which sprang from it. That was the place which Peter left, for he followed Christ “afar off.” That was the place which the Ephesian backslider forsook: “you have left your first love.” The day we become lax in maintaining communion with God, the door is opened for many evils to enter the soul.
“And Abram journeyed.” The Hebrew is more expressive and emphatic. Literally it reads “And Abram journeyed, in going and journeying.” A restless spirit possessed him, which was a sure sign that communion with God was broken. I am bidden to “rest in the Lord” (Psalm 37:6), but I can only do so as long as I “delight myself also in the Lord” (v. 4). But, second, it is recorded of Abram: “going on still toward the south” (Genesis 12:9), and southward was Egypt-ward! Most suggestive and solemnly accurate is that line in the picture. Turning Egypt-ward is ever the logical outcome of leaving Bethel and becoming possessed of a restless spirit, for in the Old Testament Egypt is the outstanding symbol of the world. If the believer’s heart be right with his Redeemer he can say “You O Christ are all I want, more than all in you I find.” But if Christ no longer fully absorbs him, then some other object will be sought. No Christian gets right back into the world at a single step. Nor did Abram: he “journeyed toward the south” before he entered Egypt!
Third, “and there was a famine in the land” (v. 10). Highly significant was that! A trial of his faith, says someone, Not at all: rather a showing of the red light—God’s danger-signal of what lay ahead. It was a searching call for the patriarch to pause and “consider his ways.” Faith needs no trials when it is in normal and healthy exercise: it is when it has become encrusted with dross that the fire is necessary to purge it. There was no famine at Bethel. Of course not: there is always fullness of provision there. The analogy of Scripture is quite against a “famine” being sent for the testing of faith: see Genesis 26:1; Ruth 11; 2 Samuel 22:1, etc.—in each case the famine was a Divine judgment. Christ is the Bread of Life, and to wander from Him necessarily brings famine to the soul. It was when the restless son went into the “far country” that he “began to be in want” (Luke 15). This famine, then, was a message of providence that God was displeased with Abram. So we should regard unfavorable providences: they are a call from God to examine ourselves and try our ways.
“And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there” (v. 10), and thus it is with many of his children. Instead of being “exercised” by God’s chastenings (Hebrews 12:11), as they should be, they treat them as a matter of course, as part of the inevitable troubles which man is born unto; and thus “despise” them (Hebrews 12:5) and derive no good from them. Alas, the average Christian instead of being “exercised” (in conscience and mind) under God’s rod, rather does he ask, How may I most easily and quickly get from under it? If illness comes upon me, instead of turning to the Lord and asking “Show me wherefore you contend with me” (Job 10:4), they send for the doctor, which is seeking relief from Egypt. Abram had left Bethel and one who is out of communion with God cannot trust Him with his temporal affairs, but turns instead to all arm of flesh. Observe well the “Woe” which God has denounced upon those who go down into Egypt—turn to the world—for help (Isaiah 30:1, 2).
We cannot now dwell upon what is recorded in Genesis 12:11-13, though it is unspeakably tragic. As soon as Abram drew near to Egypt, he began to be afraid. The dark shadows of that land fell across his soul before he actually entered it. He was sadly occupied with self. Said he to his wife, “They will kill me . . . say, I pray you, that you are my sister, that it may be well with me. How true it is that “the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways” (Proverbs 14:14)! Fearful of his own safety, Abram asked his wife to repudiate her marriage to him. Abram was afraid to avow his true relationship. This is always what follows when a saint goes down into Egypt: he at once begins to equivocate. When he fellowships with the world he dare not fly his true colors, but compromises. So far from Abram being made a blessing to the Egyptians, he became a “great plague” to them (v. 17); and in the end they “sent him away.” What a humiliation!
“And Abram went up out of Egypt: he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.” Did he remain in that dangerous district? No, for “he went on in his journeys from the south.” Observe that he received no directions so to act. They were not necessary: his conscience told him what to do! “He went on in his journeys from the south, even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning . . . unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord” (13:1-4). He again turned his back upon the world: he retraced his steps; he returned to his pilgrim character and his altar. And note well, dear reader, it was “there Abram called on the name of the Lord.” It had been a waste of time, a horrible mockery for him to have done so while he was “down in Egypt.” The Holy One will not hearken to us while we are sullying His name by our carnal walk. It is “holy hands” (1 Timothy 2:8), or at least penitent ones, which must be “lifted up if we are to receive spiritual things from Him.
The case of Abram then sets before us in clear and simple language the way of recovery for a backslider. Those words “unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning” inculcate the same requirement as “teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12), and “Remember therefore from whence you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works” (Rev. 2:5). Our sinful failure must be judged by us: we must condemn ourselves unsparingly for the same: we must contritely confess it to God: we must “forsake” it, resolving to have nothing further to do with those persons or things which occasioned our lapse. Yet something more than that is included in the “do the first works”: there must be renewed actings of faith on Christ—typified by Abram’s return to “the altar.” We must come to the Savior as we first came to Him—as sinners, as believing sinners, trusting in the merits of His sacrifice and the cleansing efficacy of His blood, We must doubt not His willingness to receive and pardon us.
It is one of the devices of Satan that, after he has succeeded in drawing a soul away from God and entangled him in the net of his corruptions, to persuade him that the prayer of faith, in his circumstances, would be highly presumptuous, and that it is much more modest for him to stand aloof from God and His people. Now if by “faith” were meant—as some would seem to understand—a persuading of ourselves that having trusted in the finished work of Christ all is well with us forever, that would indeed be presumptuous. But sorrow for sin and betaking ourselves unto that Fountain which has been opened for sin and for impurity (Zechariah 13:1) is never out of season: coming to Christ in our wretchedness and acting faith upon Him to heal our loathsome diseases, both becomes us and honors Him. The greater our sin has been, the greater reason is there that we should confess it to God and seek forgiveness in the name of the Mediator. If our case be such that we feel we cannot do so as saints, we certainly ought to do so as sinners, as David did in Psalm 51—a Psalm which has been recorded to furnish believers with instruction when they get into such a plight.
This is the only way in which it is possible to find rest unto our souls. As there is none other Name given under Heaven among men by which we can be saved, so neither is there any other by which a backsliding saint can be restored. Whatever be the nature or the extent of our departure from God, there is he other way of return to Him but by the Mediator. Whatever be the wounds sin has inflicted upon our souls, there is no other remedy for them but the precious blood of the Lamb. If we have no heart to repent and return to God by Jesus Christ, then we are yet in our sins, and may expect to reap the fruits of them. Scripture has no counsel short of that. We have many encouragements to do so. God is of exceeding great and tender mercy, and willing to forgive all who return to Him in the name of His Son: though our sins he as scarlet, the atoning blood of Christ is able to cleanse them. There is “plenteous redemption” with Him. As Abram, David, Jonah, and Peter were restored, so may I, so may you be restored.
