Peter Barnes | Psalm 77:10-12
SERMON NOTES
BACKSLIDING: THE WAY BACK
(Ps.77:10-12; 1 John 2:1)
– we all fall short of God’s glory
1. Be humbly aware of your own condition.
– Charles Simeon: ‘I would have a conscious unworthiness to pervade every act and habit of my soul’. He was not backsliding.
– Gen.32:10; Isa.6:5; Luke 5:8 compared to Matt.26:33-35
– backsliding is not being in a dreadful situation as in Gen.39:19-21
– be aware (1 Cor.10:12; 2 Cor.13:5). Can you pray Psalm 139:23-24?
2. Compare past and present.
– this is the method in Ps77:4-15; Rev.2:5
3. Deal with backsliding in three ways.
(a) Return to Christ the righteous one. 1 John 2:1; the foundation is always grace. See Heb.4:14-16 – Christ is both sympathetic and sinless.
(b) Be serious about putting off what has dragged you down. Go back to the fork in the road where you went wrong e.g. 1 Cor.15:33..
(c) Put on what is right and godly. For example, the solution to anxiety is prayer, thanksgiving, and meditation on what is good (Phil.4:6-8)
– Charles Wesley: And freely my backslidings heal,
And love the faithless sinner still.