Ezekiel 16. And it's really the whole passage that we want to look at tonight. Our theme is that of backsliding, because that is the situation in Jerusalem at this time. Backsliding. Let's all bow together for a word of prayer. Our whole aim and heavenly Father. We rejoice in the beautiful text of Scripture there in Jeremiah, where you have said that you are married to the backslider. We rejoice in the words that we have been singing together tonight from the paraphrase at the very beginning. Though we are wretched and filthy and hell-deserving, yet, Lord, you are merciful, and by your grace we are saved. We thank the Lord for this wonderful hymn that we have a firm foundation. We rejoice in Christ. And many times we will fall. The prayer is gone. There is a great and mighty God to lift us up, to set us on our way again. A forgiving, a long-suffering and a merciful Saviour. The Lord tonight, we pray, that we would be enabled just to see Your grace and Your goodness and Your kindness even toward the bachelor. The Lord, if they are in this meeting, who for long and many a year have been cold of heart and have outwardly continued with their show of religion, that, O God, tonight they would return to their first love. The Lord, for the backslider who will be miserable in soul and has been miserable perhaps for years, maybe decades now, the Lord will be pleased to restore on to them that wonderful joy of salvation they would again lift up their voices and praise their God, whom they know and are walking with day by day. As we enter into a new year, what a way it would be to enter in restored and gleaning from thy word again and praying again, O God, heal the backslidings of our country and of our land. For, Lord, we are a desperately, desperately backslidden country. And how much Is this passage relevant to Ulster today? That, Lord, we would return to your God and trust in Him again. Be with us here tonight. Commence, Lord, thy blessing upon this land from this passage of thy Word, even tonight. Encourage our souls. Give us help, now. Preach through and hear our life, trusting in this, that you have promised your presence. Whereto, if ye are gathered in my name, Be with us now in Jesus' name we pray, Amen and Amen. In Ezekiel chapter 16, we have the people of God here who dwell at Jerusalem. They were God's people. People whom the Lord had raised up and loved. Israel in their early days were a very insignificant people. You go right back to Abraham, just an ordinary man, just one man. You think even as the years went past, still they remained a very small people. They were weak. They had few allies. They lived in tents. They walked from one place to another during those 40 years of wilderness. They had no cities. Nowhere to call their own. A very weak and significant people. But of course, God got a hold of Abraham. And he got a hold of the people of Israel. And he caused them to flourish. He caused them to be blessed. They became a kingdom. They built themselves houses. They planted vineyards. They were greatly blessed of God indeed. And so, in Ezekiel 16 we find a people, as I've said, blessed of God. And you would expect such a group of people to be rejoicing in the Lord. You would expect them to be continually worshipping Him and thankful for every single mercy that has come to them from God. But instead, what do you have? You have a people who are in the depths of sin. and wickedness and iniquity. It's a sad passage to read here. It's a solemn passage. Because in these verses, if you were following me at all, you will find that on several occasions, they are described as being like a harlot. Read verse 15. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playest the harlot. A harlot is a woman who has entered into a relationship with a man, marriage, but she's been a fool. Because although her husband has been very good to her and blessed her and lavished upon her many goods and many gifts and many blessings, yet what she does, she leaves, as it were, in secret or behind her husband. She goes out and she follows her lusts and her sins and she takes the very items or the things that her husband has blessed her with and she uses them to commit adultery. That is exactly what you have of the people of God. The Lord has loved them. The Lord has taken them to be His own. Yet they have taken the blessings that God lavished them with and used them for their sin, their iniquity. They have played the harlot, for they have loved other gods. This, then, is the testimony of Israel. They were a harlot. Strong language. If you're here tonight and you can recall the day where God saved you, where you bowed the knee, you trusted in Christ, your life was transformed, there was a going on with God, but today you're far from the Lord, you've taken the breath that God has given you, the clothes upon your back, the finance He has permitted you to have, and you've used all of those things to commit your sins of idolatry, and you've loved everything else except God. Backsliding. The subject of backsliding is a good subject for all of us here tonight, regardless to what your circumstances are. Perhaps you are seeing that you are walking with God. Well, such a study will equip you to be on the alert that you don't backslide, you don't fall into the world. Maybe you're here tonight, you don't even see it. You've never trusted in Christ in the first place. Well, listen very attentively, because the very sins that will drag a Christian down are the very things that imprison you. The things that pull a Christian back into the world are the very things that hold you in the world. the very things that hindered you trusting in Christ. Or tonight, you may be the backslider whom the Lord wants to put His finger upon tonight. You know what it is to endure nights of waking up and wondering, was I ever saved? Why am I not enjoying God now? Maybe you know what it is to remember how you once enjoyed the Lord. How the Word of God was interesting to you, and you enjoyed prayer, for you knew you were taught as a friend with his friend. That once vibrant flame that you had for Christ, to be in God's house, to do the will of God, is nothing more than coldness and emptiness. All you feel between yourself and God is a great distance. It feels like God is away out there somewhere. And you walk alone. The joy of salvation is gone. and you've begun to slip into the ways of sinfulness again. That's backsliding. Backsliding, I should say this as well, backsliding isn't only someone who goes into the world and maybe the things they once left, be it their drinking, their bad language, their entertainment or whatever, That's not what a backslider has to mean. You think in the word, if you're to backslide, it means you go back a little. You may only go back one or two steps. You're still a backslider. You may not have went the whole way back into your sinful condition, but you went back anyway. God has progressed you in your walk of sanctification in Greece, but you're not as near the Lord today as you were last year or ten years ago. That is backsliding. It can happen to different degrees, but it's losing out in your walk with God. But, in our passage, we have Jerusalem. We have the people of God, and they have desperately backslidden. and that they have done sins far worse than the heathens of the land in which they now live." Here we have this backstabbing people of Israel, and the Lord speaks to them. And in a very real way, this is how we know they were the people of God. For if they weren't the people of God, the Lord would have let them go. But the Lord still speaks, and the Lord calls them again to Himself. And there's four things the Lord says to them here. The first one is that He reminds them. He reminds them of their former state. He reveals to them their sin. He shows them the remedy for their condition. And then He gives them this great assurance of a return, which God will accept. Reminds them, reveals to them the remedy for them and the return. Let's take first of all the fact here of God reminding them. The Lord caused them to remember. where they came from. That's good for you and me tonight, to remember where we came from, to remember that we were born in sin, sheep in iniquity, but God, dear backslider, has saved your soul. The people of Israel, the problem is they have forgotten their God, and now a word comes to them to remind them of what their Lord has done for them. Read verses, it's the first five verses, but we'll break in here at verse 3. What you have here, the Lord demonstrates to them the deprecious state in which He found them. They're in an awful, awful way. Verse 3, here's their state when God found them. And said, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, Thy birth. So here's their beginning. Here's when the Lord began to work in the Lord's saving soul. That's three of us as individuals. Thy birth. and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan thy father was an Amorite and thy mother a Hittite what that means is nothing special pretty ordinary nothing great about you nothing that would attract God to you verse 4 and as for thy nativity in the day thou was born thy navel was not cut Neither was thy washed in water to supple thee, thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all, none I pitied thee. You can follow the language here. He's describing them like a newborn baby. The navel not cut, not washed in water, still in their own blood, not swaddled and clothed. Verse 5, None to pity them, none I pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born. Do you see the awful condition? That's the way we all are men and women. The Lord describes us as a little babe which is born into the world, it's cast out, it's left to lie in its own filth. And there's no one there to pity it, no one there to care for it, and it is absolutely helpless to do anything for itself. A newborn can do nothing for itself. It will surely die. Then you read verse 6. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, When thou wast in thy blood lived, Yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in my blood, live." And what that means is, he sees the little babe where death is absolutely imminent, and he says to the babe, live. Live. And that's what God has done for you tonight. If you're a backslider, there has been a time where He has saved your soul. He has given to you life. He picked you out of your filthiness. endure a sinful way. This picture was given to help us understand, men and women, where we came from, how our walk with God began, and how we are debtors to God's grace and goodness. This is a description of the condition which every man, every woman who is saved has found themselves in, but delivered from it, born of the prey of nature. the world, the flesh and the devil out simply to destroy us and to see us lost and damned. Here's a pitiful picture of a helpless being. And this backslidden people are taken back to days when there was nothing desirable about We've read in these chapters about how beautiful Jerusalem had become, how wonderful they were. They were the renowned of the land. They got caught up with their pride. They forgot about their God. And God reminds them, you remember the filth from which I found you. Remember the psalm, what said that I have brought thee up out of a horrible pit. As we often pray, Lord, you dragged me out of a gutter. Dear believer, that's 100% right tonight. God could have left you and yourself in your dirt, but he didn't. He saved your soul. How foolish and how unappreciative then for you to forget your God and walk on without her. Verses 6-11 lists, as I mentioned as he read down there, the things that God did for this babe, for these people that he found. Verse 6, it says He passed by and said unto the babe to live. Verse 7, I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field. Verse 9, now when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, the time was the time of love. When he takes what he means as he brings, he doesn't just provide for the material, materialistically, he enters into relationship with them. There's the affection, there's the love that God lavishes upon The unbeliever saves them, brings them into the family. Verse 9, Then washed I thee with water, he cleansed. Indeed it says, I thoroughly washed away thy blood, thy dirt from thee. Verse 10, I clothed thee. also with broidered work. Do you see that? He's taken this babe which was dirty, which was naked and bare, about to die. He lavishes his love upon it. He brings it in. Indeed, he dresses the babe and he clothes it with broidered clothing, the best of clothing. And dear man, dear woman, that is exactly what Christ does for you when he steers you. Brings you out of the dung heap and he dresses you in the righteousness of Christ. Christ died that you might be saved. He lived that you might be saved. Christ, as we said this morning, lived a perfect life. What he was doing was weaving together for you every day with another stitch and a wonderful embroidered coat that he would clothe his people with. And when God sees us, he sees the clothing which Christ has dressed us in. Indeed, we are the children of the King. Decked with embroidered clothing, Verse 11, with ornaments and bracelets. Verse 12, jewels. Verse 13, decked with gold and silver and linen. And verse 14, thy renown went forth among the heathen. The people have looked and seen that there is a change, that there is a difference, that there is a transformation. How good has God been to you, dear Dachsleiter, and how have you repaid Him? Like a pig, you went back to your dirt. Back to your sin. The Lord is speaking to His own people here. To the people He has done so much, blessed so much. But read verse 22 with me here. Here was their problem. They forgot what Christ, what God had done for them. 22, And in all thine abominations and thy hoardings thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and barren, wast polluted in thy blood." You forgot what God has done. Backslider, does this not entirely sum up your whole life? You've forgotten what God has taken you from and what He's made you into today. So, the first lesson here is to remember Remember what you were. Remember where you came from. Remember what the Lord found when he found an old sinner like you. Furthermore, the Lord doesn't just remind them. He also reveals to this people their sin. Verses 15, right on through here, is a list of all their iniquities and their filth and their uncleanness. It's a dreadful, dreadful list. Let's look at them here. I'll scan down through them again. Verse 15, "...but thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and pledged the harlot." They were made beautiful, and they were filled with pride, and they forgot God. Verse 16, "...of thy garments thou didst take, and decked thy high places with diverse colours, and pledged the harlot." They took the clothes that God gave them, and they used them to enter into the harlot life. and their sin and their wickedness. Verse 17, Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and made to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredoms with them. What they have done is they have taken the precious things that God gave to them and they made them into idols and began to worship them. And their worship would have included whoredoms and awful vile acts. Verse 18. and tookest thy broidered garments, here's the best of garments, and coverest them, and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them." And what it means is, again, they take what God has given to the oil and the incense, and they've used them as fragrances to worship these false gods with, and all the idolatry and violence that goes with it, even their very food. Verse 19, my meat, my meat! also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, what thy fed thee, thou hast even said it before them for a sweet savour. You've taken my things, that out of my goodness and my love I gave to you, and you have used them to mock, you have used them in the most hideous and sinful ways, fear of people, you have grieved me. That is what God says to the backslider. Like the hornet, Israel gladly took all the blessings that God gave them and they used everything for their own vile lusts and affections. And that's what the backstabber does. You take what God has given you. Indeed, that's what the sinner does. You take what God has given you and you use it to satisfy your own lusts and your own sins. I didn't mention Verse 20-22. It's probably the most astounding one. Because God has just told them, I made you a people. I gave you children. What do they do with their children? Remember, this is the people of Israel. This is the seed of Abraham. Verse 20 says, you know, Moreover, thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto Me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them. What does that mean? They sacrificed their children unto these false gods. Read verse 21. That thou hast slain my children, my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them. They were delivering their children to go through the fires of their God. That's one of the rituals for the God of Monach. You take your children and you cause them to walk through a fiery furnace. Of course, through Inferno. If they survived at all, they would be ruined. Kind of reminds me of abortion. Reminds me of the sins and the iniquities of our land. So, we might not be so surprised when we see of Israel doing these things. We're doing things every bit as wicked and evil. Oh, dear backslider tonight, you learned this very well that your sin will take you far further than you ever thought you would go. The effects of their sin. The effects of their backsliding. Ruined themselves. It ruined their land. It ruined their families. It's a sad passage. Perhaps you can turn with me to chapter 20. Ezekiel chapter 20. And the verse 26. It's a striking verse. And it helps us to see this whole situation from a Godward perspective. Verse 26, "...and I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that opened up the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord." I'll tell you what that verse means. That verse means that the Lord allowed them to carry on with their sin. God had blessed Israel. But Israel, these people, they hankered after their iniquity and their sin. And God, as He still does today, He will say to such an individual, such a people, you have your sin. You'll want it. Here it is. And they wanted their false gods. And so the Lord said, well, then you have your false gods. And see what happened. and they worshipped them, and they lost so much, they ruined their own nation, indeed they destroyed their own children. And what should be the lesson from this? Verse 26 tells us that the very end, to the end, but they might know that I am the Lord. There is only one God. And you hanker, and you lust, and you love the things of the world, those things will destroy you. That's a fact. The world will allure you, the devil will tempt you, the flesh will cry out after you, and all they want is to destroy your soul. Perhaps you can turn with me again in the scripture to the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 5. It also deals much with backslidden Israel. Jeremiah 5. And the verse 6. Now read this very carefully. Wherefore, a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them. This is Jeremiah 5, 6, halfway down now. A leopard shall watch over their cities. Everyone that goeth out fenced shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backslidings are increased. Here's a backsliding people. And they're continuing in their backslidings. And their backslidings are increasing. But note what this verse says. It doesn't say that God will slay them. It doesn't say that God will spoil them. Read the verse. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and the wolf of the evening shall spoil them, and the leopards shall watch over their cities. Those are pictures of sin. Sin is waiting at the door, ready to pounce. It will destroy. That's its nature. That's its purpose. But understand this. You have a God in heaven, as I said some weeks ago. A God who is out to hunt you down because He's angry with sinners. And God will damn the souls of those who live in disobedience to Him. But here you have this description of sin destroying you. And sin will. We'll put it really practically. Instead of using the term of a lion or a wolf or a leopard, now you can use the words drugs, alcohol, smoking and gambling. There's four of probably the most well-known vices which destroy body and certainly soul. Drugs will have their massive impact upon you. Alcohol will harm your body in more ways than you can imagine and end up you lose your soul. You'll drink your life away, drink your sorrows away, drink your conviction away. If you come under conviction of the Holy Ghost, don't run to the pub. Run to Christ. Run to God. Smoking too. I can hardly give you a better illustration than when you lift up a packet of cigarettes. What's the warning in the front? Smoking kills. What a demonstration of all sin. You partake of sin, it will kill you physically. The Bible tells us it will ruin you eternally. Sin destroys. What about gambling? Gambling is a sin. You begin to gamble, you're playing with fire, you're disobeying God. It's something which will grip your soul and take you to hell as well. Gambling is wrong. Let me tell you why. How does someone win gambling? How do you win when you gamble? You only win when other people lose. It's a pretty ordinary and simple system. You win when others lose. Now remind me, what is the law of the harvest? You reap what you sow. That's how God's rules work. You earn or you receive what you earn. And gambling is the complete opposite. Maybe define gambling as potently and as simply as I possibly can. You win. You're taking advantage of someone else's misfortune. Best way I can put it. You are stealing from someone else. They may be willing to enter into it. That does not make it okay. Because you are taking advantage of someone else's misfortune. Do not think that's of God. Do not think that's of Christ. And those are just four things, probably the most common things, which will ruin you and take you to hell. They're like the lion, like the leopard, like the fox, like the wolf rather, ready to pounce and see you ruined. God gives these people this Revelation, this teaching of what their sin was. And today you have the media designed to catch you. Music out to entice you. I don't care what age you are. It's completely irrelevant. All things are geared to ensnare you. And the devil's pleased to use everything to take you away from Christ. Maybe tonight. Maybe you're thinking, you're not saved. And maybe you're thinking, maybe you are saved. And if you're thinking this, I think it's time to question your salvation. But if you're not seen, and if you're thinking to yourself, well, the worst that sin can do is kill me. The worst that drink, drugs, whatever. The worst that sin can do to me, the worst that living without Christ can do to me is kill me. And to be honest, some will say that life is better short and sweet. You're better enjoying the sweetness of sin, even if it means your life is very short. That's nonsense. Utter, utter folly. And the light of hell. Because sin will not just kill you. It will damn you eternally. It is the devil's toy to take you to hell and torture you for a timescale that we can't even understand. Never, ever ending. So let me tell you, dear converted, Those of you who are saved, saved years ago, and what have you done? You have looked at the un-saved people around you, and you have listened to their boasting about their sin, and it's whetted your appetite anew once again to taste of the sins and the iniquities that God has saved you from. What a fool! Because listen to me, Those men, women, whoever, who indulge in their sin are not to be followed. They are to be desperately pitied, for their sin will destroy them. We ought to pity their ways, not desire their ways. How does the Christian keep on going? How do you keep on going on with the Lord? I'll just read the verse to you, Luke 9, 62. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. If you put your hand to the plough of salvation, if you're a child of God, you plough, you keep your eyes on Christ. If someone is ploughing and they're looking behind them, they're looking to either side, their ploughing will be a mess. Their life will be a hash. If you're looking back continually at the sins that you left, and you're looking at the side, and you're thinking, I wonder could I indulge in that wee sin or that wee iniquity, and just forget about maybe reading the Bible or praying and going to God's house, what are you doing? You're holding the plough, you're looking back, and you're making a mess of the life that God has given to you. No man, having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. That's a strong language. A deep warning. Perhaps you're on stage tonight and you look, maybe at Christians, people that maybe you respect well, and you see them backsliding and it puts you off. You're thinking to yourself, if that man, that woman can't keep your salvation, how will I? Don't let the backslider discourage you. Don't let your inability discourage you. Because there is no child of God without sin. There is no child of God who doesn't mess up. We all have a chronic inability to go on with God. That's why we don't look to ourselves, we look to Christ. Because the moment you're saved, what do you do? You trust in Christ. And what do you do every day? You keep on trusting in Christ. Christ will hold you, because you cannot hold yourself. And if Christ can't hold you, you have no hope of salvation. But Christ can hold you. That's the promise we find even in Romans 8. Height nor depth, nor principalities, nor power, nor angels, nor things present nor things to come, cannot, nothing in creation, can separate us from the love of God. When God takes a hold of you, you're His. You call upon God, you get saved, and you let the Lord worry about taking care of you and holding you. Trust in Christ. How does backsliding come about? I think the very earliest stages are pretty easy to see. Lack of prayer. Lack of reading. Lack of attending God's house. Lack of interest in the things of God. That's where it begins. So then when you see those little concerns or those lack of interest increasing, you get on your hands and knees and you pray, God keep me. I find that fact a great help in my own walk. When I begin to feel lack of interest, that's when you pray all the more. When you can't be bothered praying, that's when you need to pray. But you're falling away. It's beyond regard. the remedy for the backslider. Really quickly, the remedy for the backslider. Perhaps you have spent many a sleepless night and many a discouraging day, wanting again to return to the Lord and all you can feel is your distance from Him and the loneliness of what it is to be without God. You long again for love of the Word and Christ and you're so far away. Maybe you're here And you feel you have gone so far, so far that even God can do nothing for you. And even if you prayed, the Lord would not hear you. Let me just completely dash to pieces such a daft and foolish notion. Turn with me to Jeremiah, please. Jeremiah chapter 3 and verse 12. Go and proclaim these words toward the North and say, return thou backsliding Israel, who is committing whoredoms and harlotries and burning your children and doing awful iniquities. Return thou backsliding Israel, halfway through verse 12, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord. and I will not keep the anger forever. Do you know what fascinates me sometimes? When someone backslides, they're so focused on the anger and the wrath of God, and they fear they cannot return, yet you'll have someone who is completely unsaved, and all they can see is the love of God. Have you ever noticed that? Someone who's living in sin, and loving their sin, and no time for God, all they can understand is God's a God of love. But it's the backslider who understands that their heart is opened, and they understand that we have a God who is angry with sin, and must be reminded that God is also loving and merciful. And we'll hear the backslider's call. Verse 13, only, here's what the Lord says, only acknowledge thy iniquity, humble yourself, turn from your sin. Isn't that just what 2 Chronicles chapter 7 and the verse 14 says if my people are called by my name humble themselves they pray and they seek his face and turn from their sin God will heal their land that's true of a nation true of an individual verse 13 only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou has transgressed against the Lord thy God and has scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree and ye have not obeyed my voice saith the Lord confess it Acknowledge it. Don't bury your head in the sand and try to bluff over it. Acknowledge you're a sinner. Verse 14. Turn from your sin. Turn, O backsliding children. Sayeth the Lord, for I am married unto you. And when God says married, He means indissolubly attached. Unattachable. And I will take you, one of a city, two of a family and I will bring you to Zion. God hears the backsliders cry. Don't be so foolish to believe the devil's lie that you can't come and return to the Lord tonight because you can. Maybe you are in despair, in utter despair tonight. Because you're wanting hope. You think it's impossible to go on having fallen maybe so many times. You're saved. You're backslidden. You've returned. You've went back again. It's just a harsher life. You keep on falling. You keep on tripping. You keep on messing up. Now you have no expectation of God restoring you and keeping you on the way. All you know is grief and sorrow when you're discouraged. Again, let me read to you a couple of verses. Don't turn to it for times. I'm on Thessalonians 3.17. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity. This is the soul of someone greatly discouraged, feeling cast off, like the backslider. Thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forgot prosperity. My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Remembering my affliction and my misery. Is that not the case of so many baptism people? They cannot forget their affliction. They cannot forget their sin. They feel broken and lost. Verse 20. My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind. He's now going to grab scripture. This I recall to my mind. Therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions feel not." You see, listen back, Senator. God could have cut you off by now. He could have cast you into hell. But He hasn't. He spared you to this day. You're still alive. You're still well. So call upon the Lord. Be restored. And go on with God again. Isaiah 55-7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God who will abundantly pardon. Abundantly pardon. It's a great word. Abundantly. More than you can imagine. God will change you. If you're a backslider You don't know what to do. If you're back sledding tonight, and if you're on sea, the same applies. And you don't know what to do. Let me give you an illustration. If you were falling off the side of a cliff, what would you do? Would you cover your eyes, hope for the best? That'd be daft. For all your worth, you would try and grab onto something solid. You would try and get a foothold. You would try and get somebody to hold on to. You would get something which is sure and definite and sturdy. You'd hold on to it for all you're worth. Well, here's what you do spiritually. If you're on scene, if you're backslidden, you get a hold of truth. And what does the Word of God say? I am married to the backslider. was the word of God say to all who are unsafe or backslidden, whose service shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Those are the facts. Those are the footholds. Those are the things you grab on to. There are many questions, many things falling around you, many difficulties. Things you don't understand the word of God. You don't worry about them right now. You get a foothold. God sees. God hears your cry. God reminds these people of their sin. God reveals to them their sin. God shows them the remedy for their sin. And just in closing, God calls them to return. Get away from your sin and return. One verse. Well, give me two verses. Jeremiah 3. We're there anyway. And verse 22. Return. Ye backslidden children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. Truly in thee is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. Backslider, Unconverted, you look to Christ tonight. He'll save your soul. He'll mend what's wrong. He is the only one who can help you in the midst of your need. I command you, Christ, return and go to Him. He will save. Return tonight. Please take your hymn books. 569, here's our closing hymn, 569.