THE WORD!
-- How Not to Backslide!
By Father David
Ephesians 4:17,18 says,
"Walk not as other Gentiles [unbelievers] walk, in
the vanity of their mind, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God."
How can
someone become alienated from the life of God? How can
you become alienated from the life of God? What's the
analysis of that Scripture? What's the meaning? How can
you become separated from the Lord?
It's when you
become separated from the Word, because He is the Word.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of
grace and truth" (John 1:1,14). When you become
separated from the Word, you become separated from the
Lord. When you neglect the Word, you neglect the Lord!
In the case of backsliders, they become darkened in their
understanding because they have rejected the Word. Then
the Devil sends them lies in its place and they believe
the lies instead of the Word. Then finally they just get
so terribly hardened, till they're just absolutely past
feeling.
So really it is the Word that determines whether you're
close to the Lord or alienated from the Lord. It has to
do with the Word, whether you live in the Word or not.
This is what's wrong with many mainstream Christians.
They rarely read their Bibles or delve into the Word.
They might have a little tiny daily devotions or
something, but most of them hardly even have that. They
depend altogether on Sunday church services to give them
all the Word they need for the week.
Well, it's Word for the weak, all right, and usually
pretty weak Word! It certainly isn't enough to last'm all
week--it's like expecting one meal to last you all week!
They don't treat their bodies like that, they feed them
well three times a day. So it's when people get separated
from the Word that they really go back on the Lord; when
they lose faith in the Word or are separated from it,
that's when they become "alienated from the life of
God".
What is the life of God? Jesus said, "The Words that
I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are
life!" (John 6:63). That's the life of God--His
Word. That's what gives us life and food and nourishment
and strength and spiritual health. When someone gets cut
off from the Word it's like cutting off their food, and
stopping the flow of nourishment. A lot of weak
Christians never mature, they are still spiritual babes,
they never get very deep spiritually, and they backslide.
I had been trying to think, "Now what's the formula
that backsliders follow that finally completely estranges
them and makes them go into a complete, hard, unfeeling
backslidden state?" And that verse came to me right
away, "darkened in their understanding, alienated
from the life of God, past feeling" (Ephesians
4:18,19). But what does that mean and how do they start
to get that way? How do they get out of fellowship with
the Lord? How do they become separated from His life?
It doesn't mean they're not saved, but they have become
separated from fellowship with the Lord. How?--The Word!
They neglect the Word, they get away from the Word.
I'm convinced the answer is the Word! "In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was God" (John
1:1)--the life of God! Thank You Lord! Hallelujah! So
what does it mean by "alienated from the life of
God"? What is the life of God? I wonder how many
more Scriptures we can think of which relate the Word to
life? Jesus also said, "I am come that they might
have life" (John 10:10).
That's a good
one. The Word came that we might have life. How do we get
the life? Through the Word--Jesus!--And His Word, both
the Word of the past and the Word of the present, is
life!
Another one is, "As newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby"
(1 Peter 2:2). There's a picture of a babe who must have
the mother's milk to live. Without the Word we will die
spiritually. What is the life-giving flow that gives life
from God?--It's the Word!
When anyone neglects the Word, they neglect the life of
God, because that is the life. He is the Word and the
Word is life! Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth,
and the life!" (John 14:6). "The Words that I
speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life!"
(John 6:63).
It's the seed which brings forth the fruit of a newborn
babe in Christ. When we sow the Word, what do we reap? We
reap souls, new children in the Lord. That's life for
sure, just like when we bear physical babies. The father
sows the seed, the mother nourishes it and brings it to
life. What does the seed do? It brings forth life. The
seed is likened to the Word, the Word is likened to the
seed. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:23).
The Word is the seed and the seed is the Word!
"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit" (John 12:24). In other words, it brings
forth life.
The seed, the
Word, brings forth life. So if Christians become
alienated from the Word, they become alienated from life,
spiritual life, from the Lord, because He is the Word.
They become alienated from His life and His spiritual
spark, you might say, which gives life. The Word is life.
That Scripture always impressed me: "The Words that
I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are
life!" (John 6:63). Think of that! They are Spirit
and they are life! His Words are real things! They're
really something. They are Spirit and they are life.
These are things you can't see, you can't touch, but
without them everything would be dead, totally dead
spiritually. And without the Word, backsliders become
completely dead, without life.
Science still doesn't understand life. Five minutes after
you're dead you're still all there physically,
materially, everything's there--but something's gone that
they can't see or feel and which has no weight. They've
weighed bodies right after they died and there was no
difference in weight. There's just some spark there,
there's some electricity there, there's some life there,
the spirit is gone which gave that body life.--"The
Spirit and the life."
And without the Word, which is the Spirit and the life of
Jesus, they're without Him, without His fellowship,
without the Word, and they are spiritually dead as well.
I'm convinced they backslide because they get away from
the Word. If they were living in the Word, I don't think
they'd ever fall away; they couldn't fall away, because
they'd be so full of the life of God, the Word. That's
why you should memorise and study the Word, and just get
so full of the Word that you can't get away from it.
Remember Jesus said, "The Words that I speak unto
you, they are Spirit and they are life" (John 6:63).
Jesus is the Word, He is the Spirit and the life, and you
have to have a dose of Him every day, and have a good
feeding and feasting and drinking. Just like you have to
eat food in order to have physical strength, you have to
eat and drink of the Word to have spiritual strength. And
I think that's how some Christians get so alienated from
the life of God; they neglect the Word, they get away
from the Word. Jesus said, "Without Me ye can do
nothing" (John 15:5). Backsliders get away from the
Lord. They don't lose their Salvation but they
"follow afar off" like Peter did, to the point
where they could even deny Him--like Peter! (See John
18:25; Matthew 26:58.)
I think that's the secret. I'd been trying to think, what
starts people on the road back? What is it that causes
them to cool off? The Bible predicts in the Endtime that
"the love of many shall wax cold" (Matthew
24:12), the fire dies, the flame dies down, they cool
off, they turn cold.
What feeds
the fire? What feeds the flame? It's the fuel. And what's
the fuel? It's the Word, right? It's the Word that feeds
our candle, that feeds our fire. It's the fuel that's the
life in that fire, whether it be candle wax or gasoline
or oil or whatever it is; it's the fuel that fires the
flame.
And when they run out of fuel, like the five foolish
virgins ran out of oil (see Matthew 25:1-13), the fire
goes out, the light goes out, and they wind up in
darkness, alienated from the life of God, from the fuel,
the Word, the Spirit. --"Alienated from the life of
God." Separated from the life of God! Alienated from
it, they become darkened in their understanding. The fire
dies because they haven't fed it with the fuel, the Word,
which is Jesus, Spirit, life.
The Word is all of these things: The Word is Jesus, the
Word is God, the Word is Spirit, the Word is life! And
without Jesus you're without God, you're without Spirit,
you're without life, you're dead! The flame goes out,
just like when it runs out of oil or fuel. The fire goes
out, and there's no heat. It grows cold, past feeling.
It's an invariable pattern. That verse sort of sums the
whole thing up in one little formula: Having the
understanding darkened, alienated. "Alienated from
the life of God."
What does alienated mean?--Separated. They become like an
alien to the Kingdom of God, they're a foreigner, they're
a stranger. If saved, they're still a member of the
Kingdom, they're still a child of God, they're still a
son of God, but they're a prodigal son in a very far
country, a stranger to their own family, their own home,
their own country, the Kingdom of God.
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