Jeremiah 3:22 Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come to you; for you are the LORD our God. Backsliding was the characteristic vice of the Jewish people throughout the whole course of their history. Their career was one of perpetual sinning and repenting, until the great apostasy, the final "falling away." And in this we see what is too often a truthful reflection of the individual life of men. The Jews were emphatically a representative people. Not merely does their recorded history represent the method of God's ways, but it illustrates the folly and treachery, the moral weakness and waywardness of our human nature. Dwell on the individual application of this passage. Consider - I. THE EVIL INDICATED. "Backsliding" is suggestive of a turning away from God, a departure from the path of truth and righteousness, a fall from some higher state of spiritual consciousness or moral life. This evil may assume different forms. It may consist: 1. In the loss of the simplicity and integrity of religious faith. In an age of mental restlessness like the present, men too easily lose their hold of truth, which is the very hope and life of their souls. We may look with perfect composure upon the conflict between truth and error as regards its general and ultimate issues, but dare not forget how disastrous its bearings upon the individual life may be. There are revolutions in the history of religious thought, as in the history of nations, which it is as vain to think of arresting as it would be to attempt to turn back the ocean tide; but it is a mournful thing when, under such conditions, the mind that once had a firm grasp of the vital elements of Christian truth has slipped from its moorings and drifted out into the wild sea of doubt and uncertainty. To a really earnest spirit the recovery of a lost faith is generally a painful process. How many have traveled back, as with wounded, bleeding feet, to positions of clearer vision and firmer standing which they once occupied, but in an evil hour had forsaken! As sometimes after a bright morning, which has been followed by a day of cloud and storm, there is again at sunset a glorious outbursting gleam of the radiance that had been obscured; so is it with their souls. They return to rest calmly in the truth that they had for a while lost sight of, and "at eventide," as in the morning, "it is light." 2. In the decline of religious feeling, the decay of those affections in which religious life consists. This is that secret spiritual "backsliding" that directly affects the soul's personal relation to God, and the consciousness of which sometimes extorts the bitter cry, "Oh that I were as in months past!" etc. (Job 29:2-4). It may arise from no change in religious belief. While a departure from the simplicity of the faith is generally connected with a lowering of the tone of religious feeling, the converse of this is not always true. But the faith has lost its life-giving force. The light it sheds has no warm, kindling glow. It is the light of the moon rather than the sun - clear and cold, having no power to quicken the frame of nature, to develop its beauty and fruitfulness, to awaken its music, and fill it with exulting joy. The carnalizing influences of the world, the wear and tear of daily life, inevitably lead to this internal spiritual decay, unless there is a perpetual renewal of the life "whose springs are hidden and Divine." 3. In practical departure from the standard of religious duty. The backsliding of the heart cannot long be concealed. It betrays itself in many ways - in a forsaking of the paths of Christian service, in some manifest lack of moral integrity, in a relapse into some form of vicious habit, perhaps in a complete loosening of the bonds of religious restraint, and utter abandonment to the pursuits of an ungodly life. It is of such a case that our Lord says, "If the salt have lost his savor," etc. (Matthew 5:13); and again, "No man, having put his hand to the plough," etc. (Luke 9:62); and St. Peter afterwards affirms, "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness," etc. (2 Peter 2:21). II. GOD'S METHOD OF HEALING. "I will heal your backslidings." This is the gracious persuasion by which he seeks to reclaim his children from their guilty wanderings. How may we expect him to fulfill the promise? 1. By awakening in us a vivid sense and penitent acknowledgment of the wrong. We can scarcely be delivered from it till we have seen all the sin and shame of it - its real meaning, the source from whence it springs, the end to which it leads. Until all this is deeply felt and freely confessed before God, the first step in the process of recovery has not been taken (see Psalm 51:3, 4; Psalm 32:5; 2 Corinthians 7:10, 11). 2. By moving us to trust simply in his forgiving and renewing mercy. Our only refuge is in the Divine mercy, and there is no other way of mercy than that which the gospel reveals. The guilt of our backslidings can alone be cancelled by the blood of Christ, and the secret cause of them removed by the grace of his Spirit (1 John 2:1, 2; 1 John 3:5-9). "There is no prescription for the sickness of the heart but that which is written in the Redeemer's blood," for in this alone have we both the pledge and the channel of the saving love of God. 3. By creating in us the energy of a nobler life: "Return," etc. It is a question, after all, of moral resolution and serf-determining spiritual power. "Full seldom does a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, And make all clean, and plant himself afresh." But God gives this gracious energy to those who seek it, and such "repentance unto life" is the true "healing." - W. Parallel Verses KJV: Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God. |
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