Featured Backslidden or Lost?

What if the answer is “yes”?
What if the answer is “no”?
How does the answer change your actions?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

in the bible a backslider is an apostate.
The term is used loosely in our day,but it appears 17times in the ot,for an apostate.
It spoke of an animal that threw off the yoke.
Many today make a false profession in the flesh, are religious for awhile
but the flesh grows weary and they cast off their false profession and slip.back to the world system.

 

I'm not sure why you're starting a thread you don't want to talk about.

To me, the big thing is whether you repent and believe in Jesus Christ. This means that
1. you accept His death/burial/resurrection not just as fact but as the only means to your salvation, and
2. that He is Lord of your life.

If "backslidden" means you're in perpetual sin (meaning that He isn't really Lord of your life), then what is the answer? You need to repent and believe: See 1 and 2.
If "backslidden" means you were never saved, what is the answer? You need to repent and believe: See 1 and 2.

 

Yes

No. 'Born from above' and 'saved' is not the same thing. The first we are passive in, the latter we are active.

Think Solomon.

 

The key to understanding this is Faith. Faith includes trusting Jesus not only for your salvation, but it also includes trusting in Jesus's Word (The Bible) and leading (through the Holy Spirit) to have a fulfilled life. Faith, trust, belief is not simply a one way belief. There are two sides to faith. Faith IN Jesus, and abandoning Faith In Something Else.

As a young child I had Faith in Jesus for Salvation. I fully trusted him for my way to Heaven. But I did not fully trust, have faith in, that is believe that living my life for him would yield me happiness and satisfaction in life. I trusted in men, that is certain men, to make me happy and satisfied in my life.

But the casual observer would have believed that I was a Christian. I was mostly surrendered to God in my life. I loved Church and cried plenty of tears at the alter. But, I knew the condition of my soul. I was welling to accept Jesus as my Savior without holding back, but I trusted in someone else, someone who I made up if the truth be known, for finding a fulfilled life.

Other apostates in the Church did the same thing. They accepted Jesus as "l"ord and Savior. . . except they held back their pet sin. Today in many lives that sin is pornography, fornication, homosexuality, trusting in wealth, and any number of other sins. The question we can't answer concerning others is, did they fully place their faith in Jesus as Lord when they confessed and believed Him to be their Savior? That is a question, we can't fully ever know.

 

Do any of us really place our faith "fully" in the Lord? Wouldn't that be a perfect faith? And if that's the standard, we fall as woefully short as our works do for guaranteeing salvation. It seems like a fully placed faith would never worry, never sin, never doubt, never change our mind about anything. In short we would never not be taking advantage of the perfection availed us in Jesus Christ. If that's apostate, I'm confessing to it.

 

Impossible. Hebrews 10:39. John 6:39.

 

The bible is clear, it is not up to us to determine who is saved and who is lost. But we are to witness before both those professing Christ, and those who acknowledge unbelief. We know our local assemblies may have tares. So we need to be loving and kind, even when we see little fruit. God's job for us is not to be fruit inspectors.

 

When the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin (Jan 1961) I started down the road of spiritual maturity. Between the influence of Satan and the desire of the flesh, it was a rocky road. The Holy Spirit NEVER abandoned me!! The same sins that convicted me, Satan used to temporarily convince me that those sins proved that God did not love me or He would not have allowed those things in my life.

I lived under the domination of sin, as a Christian, for approximately 2.5 years while stationed in Japan. When the transport plane landed in Japan, I reviewed the list with God and told Him I did not want Him in my life.

As time went by, tears would run down my cheeks while shaving. I was under conviction for the sins I committed the night before.

Finally, near the end of my tour, while walking across the parking lot to my office, I cried out to God saying: "If you are there, I need you." He heard my cry and responded. What an amazing Savior Jesus is.

[Eph 1:13-14 KJV] 13 In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

[1Co 6:20 KJV] 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
If you in fact have been bought with a price, you belong to God. He does not have a "return policy" on His purchases.

The longer I live, the more amazed I am at what God has done in my life.

 

Yeah, they can backslide for many many years.

 

A short time,
Heb12;
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
1cor10:
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

 

Yet scripture never says we can loose our salvation. Eternal life is what is given when we believe. There are no pauses or ending in eternal life, if there is then there is no eternal life. Eternal life last through out eternity.
MB

 

Yes they can and do every time we sin and we all sin. Like Paul I die to sin daily. some times more than once. I'm speaking spiritually about this. Physically is another matter. Our flesh has not been redeemed yet but will be in the future when Christ comes to get us or when we die. When we are saved, our sins are covered past, present, and future. All our sins are forgiven.
MB

 

I could not disagree more. The Bible clearly states that no man (that includes us) can snatch us out of the Lords hand. Eternal life is for eternity. The only requirement is belief in Jesus Christ and His gospel. Acts !6:31
MB

 

MB, nowhere in my comment did I say or even imply that Eternal life can be snatched away. You are responding to what you thought I was saying not to what I actually said.

Sent from my SM-G930R7 using Tapatalk

 

Maybe I wasn't clear. I did not mean to imply anything other than what I said. It was not meant to be critcal. None of us are able to bear the Law and it's a good thing we are no longer under the Law. Being perfect is for when our flesh is redeemed. Right now our spirit continually wrestles with the flesh. No man has ever been able to keep the Law. This is why Christ died for our sins so that we might have Salvation. Paul wrote;
Rom 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

This verse proved to me that works have nothing to do with Salvation. No where are we told we have to work to keep saved. Your post talked about works. Staying sinless is a work. Especially when we are already sinless in God's eyes because we wear the righteousness of Christ.Our sins are covered.
1Jn 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
1Jn 3:9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
When I first understood these verses it was because I had understood wearing the righteousness of Christ.

If you believe in Christ then you are born of God and are not under the Law. You are a wearer of the righteousness of Christ.

MB