BACKSLIDINGS

My Dear Brother,

I cannot refrain from addressing you in this endearing relation, though your state and conduct may have been such as to induce many of the brethren to disown you. Ephraim was like a backsliding heifer, but the Lord called him “a dear son and a pleasant child,” and healed his backslidings, and resorted comfort to him. As, therefore, the Lord condescends to own such as children, I feel compelled to own them as brethren, especially while I find my own heart so bent to backsliding, that if left of God for one moment, that moment witnesses some departure from him; and it betrays great Pharisaical ignorance and pride, not to know, or not to own, that it is wholly to be attributed to preserving grace, that the best of men do not fall into the worst of crimes.

Far be it from me to speak or think lightly of sin, or to countenance the false professor in the indulgence of it; but as it is the solemn fact that the Lord’s dear children are sometimes so foiled by the enemy, as to be thrown down, and left with broken bones, and as this has been your sad experience, I must attempt a word of expostulation with you, trusting that the Holy Ghost will render it profitable to you.

I stay not to ask, by what fatal steps you reached your present awful distance from God, or what dire corruption constituted the snare of the fowler, into which you have fallen, the facts as they appear in your spirit and conduct, are sufficient to awaken my anxious solicitude to be instrumental in restoring you, remembering that I also am in the body, and am not yet out of the enemy’s gun-shot. If I considered you an hardened apostate, delighting to revel in licentiousness, I should have nothing to say to you but solemn warning; but, as like Ephraim, you are seen bemoaning yourself, or like Job, loathing yourself, I cannot help saying, “There is hope in Israel concerning this thing.”

Do I not hear you saying, “O, that it were with me as in months that are past,” when gospel sermons were the food of my soul — when gospel ordinances were banquets of love — when secret prayer was kept up with delight — and the word of God was sweeter than honey to my taste, but now, a guilty conscience, a hard heart, and a prayerless life have taken the place of all that I once thought I enjoyed, and render me a disgrace to the church — an object of scorn in the world, and a constant burden to myself, incapable of enjoying either carnal or spiritual things?

Are these the genuine breathings of thy soul? And dost thou really hate the sins which have separated between thy God and thy soul? Then, my Brother, (for so I must call you) hear the encouraging declaration of the Lord God of Israel, “I have surely seen Ephraim bemoaning himself.” This marks the difference between a hardened apostate and a prodigal son, and fully authorizes the ministering of comfort to all that thus mourn. Open sins are indeed worse in their consequences than heart backslidings, but the latter are as hateful in their nature as the former; and where is the Christian to be found, who is not deeply conscious of daily departures from God, in the affections of his heart? It only requires a little knowledge of the workings of corruption to check that unfeeling censoriousness towards a fallen brother, which is too common among Christians, and which betrays very gross ignorance, and often Pharisaical pride.

It is said, Prov. 14:14, “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and if you have learned experimentally, what it is to be filled with your own ways, I am sure you need not be subjected to the sneers of the self righteous, for your distress is great enough.

Your own ways have been carnal, and you are filled with death — your own ways have been fleshly, and you are filled with corruption — your own ways have been dark, and you are filled with darkness — yea, your own ways have been rebellious, and you are filled with shame. Ashamed to go to God — ashamed to be seen among the saints — and ashamed of companions in sin. Keen distress — self reproach — and bitter remorse have filled your cup, nor would I add one ingredient more; but rather point you to that tender parent, who says, “Return ye backsliding children, and I will heal your baekslidings,” and pray that you may have grace to reply, “Behold, I come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord my God.” Jer. 3:22.

Let me entreat you, my poor fallen Brother, not to yield to despondency, nor forsake gospel proclamations, but let the language of your heart be, I will wait at the posts of His doors, and hear what God the Lord shall say unto me, for He will speak peace to His people, and if I am one of His, He will speak peace to me, and not let me turn again to folly: I will look again toward His holy temple, though my soul’s distress may be compared with the belly of hell. Though bitten and stung, like Israel, with fiery flying serpents, one believing look at a bleeding Christ will fetch the pledge of life from the fountain opened in His side, and His precious name shall be glorified, in sealing forgiveness to thy conscience.

David’s backsliding was awfully aggravated, but he cried, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgression,” and the Lord put away his sin. Peter sinned against light and knowledge, but that very look from Jesus, which sent him out to weep bitterly, conveyed pardoning love to his heart, and cured him of self-confidence. What a mercy that you are not left in a state of carelessness and impudence in sin, but can smart under a wounded conscience — hate the garment spotted with the flesh, and be more offended at the nature of sin, than alarmed at its consequences! These are proofs of life divine, features of genuine repentance, yea, the dawnings of hope in the soul.

I know the licentious professor will call this legality, and boast of his liberty from such a sweet morsel under his tongue, and by a wicked perversion of gospel truths, extenuates, if not justifies, the basest conduct, saying, “Let us sin that grace may abound;” but let such an one know, that “his damnation is just,” while he is heaping up wrath against the day of wrath, casting a stumbling-block in the way of the children of God, and bringing reproach upon the doctrines of grace. These are called by the apostle Jude, “Ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness,” “walking after their ungodly lusts,” “sensual, having not the Spirit,” “to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.”

But you, beloved, have not so learned Christ: you have indeed no hope, but in His finished work, precious blood, and unchanging love; yet, if this hope is at all reviving in your breast, it does not induce you to crucify the Son of God afresh, nor to think lightly of the monster that made Him bleed. No! every ray of light reflected from Calvary into your guilty conscience, increases the discovery, and the abhorrence of your own depravity; and when He shall be pleased to say unto you, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” the very joy of pardoned sin will invigorate your hatred of its nature, and induce you to cry earnestly for grace to crucify it, and mortify it in your members.

To you, therefore, I may safely deliver a message of consolation from the most High God, whose language is, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” If the conditions of your pardon and peace were the merit of repentance — the merit of faith — or the merit of obedience, you might indeed lie down in despair; but hearken, O broken hearted backslider, the merit of Jesus speaks louder for you than ten thousand sins can speak against you; go cast yourself at His feet, “Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God,” Jer. 3:13. He is waiting to be gracious, and ready to pardon, nor was it ever known that a sinner was spurned from His presence, (however vile) whose only plea was precious blood.

The very suspicion that your sins are too great, or too many to be forgiven, goes to undervalue the atonement of Christ, and limit the extent of divine mercy. The peculiarities of your case were not unknown to the divine mind, when the antidote was provided; to suppose, therefore, that some aggravating circumstances in your history puts you in a hopeless condition, is to impeach the divine wisdom, so, my dear Brother, you are adding sin to sin, by undervaluing and rejecting the one only remedy for such a case as yours. Is not the loss you have sustained enough, in the forfeiture of your peace, and in the suspension of your communion, and in the darkness of your soul, without riveting your own chain, and barring the door of your own dungeon with unbelief? Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then art thou not healed? Take with you words, my wounded Brother, even the Lord’s own words, and say unto Him, “Take away all iniquity, and receive me graciously;” and wait at His footstool until you obtain His gracious answer, “I will heal thy backslidings, I will love thee freely.” Hosea 14: 3, 4. This will abundantly recompence thy waiting, and cause the bones that are broken to rejoice.

Such is the care and faithfulness of the Shepherd and Bishop of souls, that He never loses a sheep because it strays, but goes after it in the wilderness; and, I trust, He is now going after you in the affliction with which you are visited — the trials to which you are subjected, and the upbraidings of conscience with which you are followed: all this, and much more may be needful to stop your wanderings, and bring you back to His fold, that like the Psalmist you may sing, “He restoreth my soul,” and in restoring your soul, He will restore unto you the joys of His salvation.

The apostle’s caution will then, I trust, become the motto of your life, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God;” having found out by bitter experience, that heart departures soon produce departures in life and conduct, “Hold Thou me up,” will be your constant cry, being fully convinced that you have no power to stand alone. The notion of perfection in the flesh, you will leave for idiots and infidels, while you will have gained too much knowledge of your own heart to be such a fool as to trust it. Then shall your experience correspond with Paul’s description of a true Israelite, “We are the circumcision, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Phil. 3:3.

What have I to do any more with idols? shall then be the language of your heart, and the testimony of your conduct against the wiles of the enemy, the allurements of the world, and the fair promises of corrupt nature. The very remembrance of broken bones will induce you to walk circumspectly, and, being painfully convinced of your own weakness, the Psalmist’s request will be made your own, “Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.”

That the Lord God of Israel may shortly lift up the light of His countenance upon you, and give you peace, revive His work in your heart, and establish your goings in His ways, yea, that He may cause you to run in the way of His commands with an enlarged heart, is the prayer of your fellow sinner,

Trusting in atoning blood,

Joseph Irons

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