Chapter 57, verses 15 through 19 has been our text. Turn there please, follow along as I read Isaiah 57, 15 through 19. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place. with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry, for the spirit would fail before me and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness, I was angry and struck him. I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will also lead him and restore comforts to him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near, says the Lord, and I will heal him. The title of today's message is Standing on the Promises, the Joy of the Backslider. This is the seventh and last message in a series of messages titled Hope for the Backslider. Now when we talk about standing on the promises and when we talk about the joy of the backslider, we're describing, of course, the return of a backslider from a period of wandering in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land, to a land of fellowship with God. This is the last message, and probably the most joyful, because it's based on the promises of God, which I want to share with you. When we return to God from a place of spiritual dryness, it's a place of joy. When a Christian returns from a period of backsliding, it's indeed a heartwarming and joyful experience. It should be, at least. There are few experiences in the Christian life more liberating than rediscovering what we had temporarily lost in fellowship with God. And among the many aspects of returning to fellowship with God, And there's many we could talk about today in relationship to the title and subject of this message regarding the promises of God and the joy that we experience as backsliders returning to God. I think there are three distinct aspects of returning to God that I'd like to bring out. First is exhilaration, second, rediscovery, and third, epiphany. You'll see these in your notes, your sermon notes. But before we get to that point, let's first look at several of the most encouraging scriptures, promises to the backslider in the Bible. Some of these you will already know. Some of them you will already have memorized and will cling to them as your life preserver in keeping you from spiritual drowning. The first is our text in Isaiah 57. The Lord who is high and lofty, we read in verse 15, depicts himself immediately as one who is very, very far away from sin and from the sinner. He's high, he's lofty. In the language of Isaiah 6, his train fills the temple. His train, his presence of holiness. separates himself from all sin and sinners. He inhabits eternity. His name is holy. So God immediately in our text presents himself as so separate from sin. But then in one second, We see infinite condescension in verse 15, where he says, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit. As high and holy as he is, in separation from sin, The trembling believer who comes to him broken and humbled and contrite, God dwells with him in the fullness of his holiness and compassion and love. But there's a purpose. in his dwelling with the returning backslider. He says in verse 15 again, look at it, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Two things are identified as most impacted in the life of a backslider, our spirit and our heart. When we backslide, when we wander from fellowship, our hearts and our spirits are sifted from that liveliness, from that intimate sensitivity to oneness with God and the knowledge of God. And so his purpose in raising the backslider back up is to revive the spirit. Because we commune with God in spirit, do we not? He desires us, and he says we must worship him in spirit and in truth. If the spirit is not engaged in union and communion with Christ, then all we have is the outer shell of religiosity, which God spews out of his mouth and rejects. So he revives the spirit. He revives the heart, which is the center of Our being, the heart, is the core of where we worship. It's the center of our affections. And the first thing to be diminished when we backslide is our affection for God, our heart for the things of God, and our zeal and our inspiration and our desire follows after that if the heart is not there. I have a little plaque on my desk, I think I told you this before. Right in front of my eyes, I can't get away from it. Every day I see that and I read it, I don't know how many times. Keep your heart in the work. If you end up with a pastor or elders whose heart is not in the work, whose heart is not daily revived for the things of God, for the goals and objectives of God, for a minister of the gospel, which is the salvation of souls and the holiness of his people, then you will not have a pastor that has the supreme spiritual interests and the glory of God first in the work. You want elders who are moved by these things of eternity that relate to the eternal destiny of the lost and the ongoing holiness and spiritual faithfulness of the church. And so the goal of God in a dead ministry led by mediocre, backslidden pastors, or in the lives of individual believers who have wandered temporarily away from the truth, is to revive our spirits and our hearts. Because without those two engaged in our Christianity, all we have left is churchianity. which will increase our accountability before God. He continues in verse 16, for I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry. Our lives devoid of our spiritual and heart engagement with God in daily fellowship provoke God to anger. Yes, we're saved. Yes, we're forgiven. Yes, our sins are washed in the blood of Christ. But a holy father becomes angry with his stubborn, disobedient children if they are insistent and relentless in not returning from the wilderness. into a lively fellowship with the Lord. But he doesn't stay angry. God realizes that often these straitjackets, this paralysis of sin is so great we cannot pull ourselves out of it. And we just groan before the Lord with desire that He would come and that He would initiate the return because often we don't have even the smallest morsel of grace and strength. And so God overcomes His righteous indignation. Judgment gives way to mercy. Judgment gives way to love. And though he be angry, he realizes the spirit would fail before him. Our spirits are so weak as backsliders. We would fall into irreparable despair. They would fail. He knows this. And so again, he takes the initiative. In filial love, he says, for the iniquity of his covetousness, I was angry and struck him. And yes, chastisement characterized our lives inwardly and outwardly. He struck us. It was a good striking. Strike a righteous man, and he will kiss you. For the iniquity of his covetousness, I was angry and struck him. I hid and was angry. Oh, my backslidden brother and sister, whoever you may be, the hiding face of God is one of the worst forms of chastisement, whereby when we seek God to return, even with the faintest longings, He hides himself and doesn't answer immediately. And that adds to our grief, and he knows that. But he says in verse 18, I have seen his ways. Never listen to the lie of the enemy that God doesn't care. God doesn't see the struggle, the agonizing struggle of our hearts when we're in the wilderness of sin. God says, I have seen his ways down to the smallest detail that characterizes and defines our weak condition and our struggle to return. And he promises, look at it, I will heal him. Can you rejoice with me even with the memory of how many times God has healed you, unilaterally, without any help from you, even when our hearts are the coldest possible condition before God. He's still, as a physician, looking upon his patient on a sickbed who's paralyzed with an illness and cannot move, The physician comes to him with compassion and heals him. And he says, he went on backsliding in the way of his heart. God foresees that the backslider will continue in this way if God doesn't initiate the return. I have seen his ways and will heal them now. The first important adjective here is the word heal. He does the healing. We don't deserve it. We deserve continuous punishment. And the worst possible thing to occur in the life of a nominal professing Christian is a sin that leads to death, a kind of punishment that results in the termination of our lives in this world. Thank God He has looked at us with eyes of compassion when we were at our worst, when the situation required absolutely God initiating our return and healing us. The first thing God does is heal us. And if you're a backslider watching this message, listening to this message today, You ought to be shaking and trembling before God, that your condition would not continue. He ought to be crying out to God, even with the smallest faith, clinging to the smallest shred of his promises. Even the promise found here in Isaiah 57, 15 through 19, that God will come and heal you as he peels back layers of pride within your heart, resisting his very healing process as a physician. Secondly, he says, I will also lead him. One would think God is so offended and slighted by our perpetual and persistent resistance against his good and gracious work to bring about our return that we would see the compassion of God. We would see God bending over backwards using every means at his disposable disposal to melt our rebellious hearts and Cooperate with God to bring about our restoration to divine fellowship with him Let alone what he suggests here not just a passive reluctant healing a but one who goes out front, one who leads from the front, like a good shepherd, like a compassionate shepherd, and grants me that leading I need, that sense of God's presence in my life returning once again, giving me an awareness that moment by moment, He leadeth me, as the song goes. He leadeth me. Oh, blessed thought. What a blessed thought that is. He leads me. He not only heals me, but he comes back into my life with that gentle, assertive control that I need for him to do in my life. Can you praise him today? For these two ministries of Christ for his people, his healing ministry, and his leading ministry, though we don't deserve that leading. But then thirdly, he says in verse 18, and restore comforts. Oh, that word, restore. Oh, that word, restore. Not one out of 10 comforts does he bring back. but he restores comforts, plural in the Hebrew. Comforts. What comforts? All of them, whatever they may be. All of them. God is not grudgingly holding back with resentment. Well, let's just wait a year or two to restore the fullness of the fruits of the Spirit in your life, the fullness of his blessings and comforts spiritually in your inner man, Let's just wait the amount of time that you backslid in the wilderness to equalize all the frustrations that I went through and having to wait for your return. No, no, no. He restores the comforts without halting, without hesitation, without vengeful grudging on his part. Though he could do all of that and much more in holding back. and continuing to hide himself. No, we have a God who is so gracious and so compassionate and so lopsided in the amount of love and compassion and grace he dispenses upon us compared to the little that we do towards him. He restores comforts and to his mourners, not just to us, the person who's the object of those comforts. but the comforts will be so precious and powerful. They will become renowned among his acquaintances, his family members, and those people who know him. The peace will flow, the joy will come out. The testimonies of God's restoring grace will be known among the immediate circle of that believer somehow, someway. The mourners who observe this miserable, pitiable believer will indeed be comforted by the believer's return to the Lord. Who would do such a thing among the sons of men in our various relationships with one another? We would need a lot of supernatural grace to treat each other this way. But who is a God, the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who saved us, the God who revealed Himself to us, the God who gave us the knowledge of God in our hearts, would treat us in such an amazing, sublime way with love. It should extract and deepen the loyalty of His people to Him. And he says in verse 19, I create the fruit of the lips. The natural result of this restorative process is praise and thanksgiving. That is, in the language of scripture, the fruit of the lips, in praise and thanksgiving to him. He creates it. Not only does He restore us, and comfort us, and heal us, but He gives us a level of praise that is due His name for all of those things that He does in our lives in bringing us out of the wilderness. He creates it. He creates praise in the hearts of His people. Like He did today in this worship service. So that we can pray as we ought to pray. So we can bring the petitions He desires of us to Him in thanksgiving and adoration. And there are infinitely more gifts of praise and thanksgiving and the intensity of worship that awaits us if we would but live with Him in the land of the living instead of some backslidden condition. that we have yet to discover. I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near. The call of peace to his people constantly goes out. Peace. God is not angry perpetually. God does not chastise forever. He knows how much we can take. He knows that our spirits cannot bear our beloved, as we heard in Song of Solomon 3, being away from us so long that we, like the Shulamite, have to leave the bedroom and look for him. He doesn't make us look for him and seek him until we come to a place of exasperation. No. He makes it easy for us to find him. But faith, faith must endure. Faith must be exercised until the return is accomplished. This is our text that I've been waiting for seven sermons to expound upon a little bit more than I have been. The other verses, this is the first promise, but the other ones, the other promises I'm not going to go as deep into, but I have several others for you. by way of introduction before we get to the three points, and I want to hurry on. Take Isaiah 57 with you to the throne of grace. When you're struggling on the backside of the desert, eating dust, instead of partaking of treasures, the treasures of Christ, take this promise, claim it before the throne of grace. Lord, you said, you would not be angry forever. The spirit would fail, which you have made. Bring it to him and say to him, Lord, have you not seen my ways? Have you not seen how I am struggling? Heal me. Restore comforts to me. Recreate the fruit of praise and thanksgiving in my life. Let me be like the psalmist in Psalm 51. Return unto me the joy of my salvation. Then I will turn sinners back to you. The second promise is in Hosea 14. Please turn with me to Hosea chapter 14. I have the entire chapter of Hosea 14 highlighted in yellow in my Bible. The whole chapter. Usually it's one verse, two verses max that stand out to me. I'll highlight it. But the whole chapter in Hosea 14 is highlighted because Hosea The book of Hosea that is, is all about returning backsliding Israel to the Lord. It's about a backslidden nation whom God pleads with through Hosea to return to him. And the capstone of the book is the last chapter where God says in verse four, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely for my anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel. Let's stop there. God promises Israel, backsliding Israel, I will love them freely. That's a choice phrase, deliberately inspired with exact syntax to be presented to us in a way, to the doubting backslider who worries, God, Will your love for me ever return to your mind and heart for me like you did on our wedding day when we were first married, when you first saved me? Will you hold a grudge against me because I've been backslidden for this whole month or this whole year and I haven't spent one hour with you in prayer, cumulatively, let alone five minutes? I haven't spent one hour over the last month pouring forth my heart to you in praise and adoration just because of who you are, not because I need to do my daily duty? in doing my devotions, will you ever love me again and look upon me with those virgin eyes like you did on our wedding day? And he uses this phrase, don't worry, I will love you freely. Now he's talking about Israel at this point who has been backslidden for half a century. Idol worshipers. And through Hosea, he sent Hosea to the northern 10 tribes of Israel for 50 years, calling them to return to him. And he would return to them. And he says to them this one phrase, I will love them freely. I won't hold back. that love will be renewed, and I will send my spirit forth, which he does in the life of every believer, to testify with our spirit of his love, and that we are his children, for my anger has turned away from him. And then he uses choice analogies. He says, I will be like the dew to Israel. The dew comes up from the ground and waters the plants. It's a picture of fruitfulness returning to the Israelites in their relationship with God. He will water his garden again. The flowers that have dried up, the fruit that has withered away, he will be like the dew to his people again. He will water them. And he does the same with every backslider. In spite of all our doubts, he will be like the dew to us. He shall grow like the lily and lengthen his roots like a Lebanon." The end of verse five. He uses agricultural language to describe more fully the blessedness and the fruitfulness of our fellowship with God. It will be like it was before. The flowers will come back into bloom. the lily, and he will lengthen our roots. You know, the roots dry up when you stop walking with God every day. You have no nourishment in those roots, no spiritual strength. You cease witnessing. You cease praying. You cease reading the Bible. And those roots dry up. They shrink. They constrict, both in their width and in their length. But when he becomes due to us, when he waters us with his presence, through his word, through his spirit, those roots lengthen and they fill out and widen. He says that he will lengthen his roots like Lebanon. Lebanon was famous for its greenery, its trees, its shrubbery. his branches shall spread well when the roots are renourished the branches grow they spread his beauty shall be like an olive tree and his fragrance like Lebanon again that's describing fruit those who dwell under his shadow shall return he's referring to the backslider when God puts us under his wing, the shadow of his wing. That is, he depicts little chickadees coming under the mother hen. And the hen spreads the wings in a sign of protection. And when she does that, there's this shadow that falls over the chicks. And it brings comfort to those little chickadees, knowing that shadow is there because the mother hen is protecting them. They shall be revived like grain and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon. We will be the fragrance of Christ once again. The scent, the smell, not just the appearance of the flowers and the fruit on their branches, but the fragrance. And when we return as a backslider, The Spirit of God pours forth a fresh admiration, appreciation, and the subjective, tangible partaking of the attributes of Christ in our hearts. We know afresh the love of Christ, the goodness of Christ, the mercy of Christ, who not only died to purge and to justify his people from their sin, but also to sanctify them and to cause his spirit to come and return to us, renew us in the faith. and to declare Christ to our hearts in the fullness of spiritual reminder of his attributes of mercy, love, and goodness. All the abundance of the treasure of Christ that awaits for us to explore and to experience if we would just stay out of the wilderness of our backslidings and make it a priority day by day. to walk with Christ, to read of Christ in His Word, to seek the Spirit's fresh revelation and presentation of Christ through meditation on the Word of God, which He promises to do in John 16, when He says, a Spirit of God will declare Christ to you. The third promise. This is a promise of God. Hosea 14, 4-7. Make note of it. Memorize it. Refer to it often. Quote it before the throne of grace daily. Own it as your own. Remind the Lord of His promise, not that He has forgotten. He wants us to bring words to Him. He says in that very chapter of Hosea 14, to inspire the Israelites and ultimately all backslidden believers, to return to Him to a place of fellowship. He says, take with you words. Reason with the Lord. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Take with you words and say to him, forgive us graciously. And what better words can we take to God than his own promises that he's given to us to plead before the throne of his grace. Don't forget this. Don't approach such a gesture of kindness in God with a spirit of deadness and stoicism. These promises are intended to move our hearts with great admiration of the grace of God. that He is still so patient with us and desirous to restore all those treasures in Christ that have diminished over time and neglect and foolish rebellion and disobedience. or because we've been distracted by the cares of this life. Remember, you are bought with a price. You are not your own. He commands us to glorify God in His body, in our bodies and in our spirits, which are God's. Whatever you possess, Whatever resources you have, whatever good health he has given you, whatever coherent mind you may have, he's given it to you for the primary purpose of using your body and your mind, your intellect, to know Christ and to make him known. That is the supreme purpose of my life and your life as a Christian. Are you a Christian? Then you are the Lord's. You are not your own. Say with conviction to your own heart, like I say to God many times a day, I am a Christian! Go away, devil! Leave me alone! I am God's! This body is God's! This mind is God's! I am a Christian! I cannot do that! I cannot think that! I cannot say that! I cannot go there! I am a Christian! I am God's! He commands me to be holy, as He is holy. Let us not tempt the Lord, because our hearts are indifferent to the weightiest, most precious promises and expressions of tender love and loyalty on God's part towards us. Let us not tempt the Lord and provoke Him to anger. by waiting one week or one day or one second in responding to Him. As he, as God himself, humbles himself and condescends to our level of ignorance. He condescends to our lack of discernment. He condescends to a place of our spiritual blindness. And he patiently endures through all of these frailties and spiritual foibles and deception. until He has to take the initiative and create repentance. He has to give us sight so that we can see our lack of appreciation for the mercy of God. The next promise is Psalm 85. Psalm 85. Follow verse 4 with me, Psalm 85, 4. Restore us, O God, of our salvation, and cause your anger toward us to cease. Will you be angry with us forever? He's giving us words to pray. Lord, I haven't heard from you as I've been repenting for days. I've been seeking to get back to that place of fellowship with you that I left a week ago, a month ago, and still no answer. And my faith is hanging on by a thread. Lord, will you be angry with me forever? Say that to the Lord. And let that phrase, that rhetorical question grow louder and louder and louder as you say it to him with faith mingled that he will eventually return. Though your faith is hanging on by a thread, yet he will return to you in power and in love and in a sense of peace. He will bring closure to your doubts and questions about his love for you. Take it all away. In one moment, your fears will be assuaged. They will be extinguished by one second of His peace being poured out upon your heart. And you will turn red with shame that you could have doubted Him and His promise for a second. Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Verse five, verse six. Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your mercy, Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly. He warns the backslider, you better be serious when you approach God for restoration and repentance and returning to Him. You cannot have one-eyed Oda. of regret in returning to God. You cannot have one speck of folly in your heart, not even one-tenth of one percent, for former sin. When you repent, it must be a thorough and complete repentance. The level of repentance must reach a high state. The level of loathing for sin must be complete so that there is no clinging to any sin in your heart. Don't have even a seed of sin ready to start growing again after your proposed and professed repentance so that you can return quickly to that sin. Take these rhetorical questions, which are part of his promise. Will you be angry forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again? that your people may rejoice in you. There's question marks after each one of these phrases in verses 5 and 6. They're not doubts, but they're promises. They're part of the overall promise of Psalm 85, 4-8. To restore us, which are the first two words of verse 4. Restore us, O God of our salvation. That's the goal here. Restoration. And that's our joy, is restoration. Let's move on quickly to the next verse, to the next promise. Isaiah 40. Turn with me in your Bible to Isaiah 40. Verses 29 through 31. Write these down in your notes. Isaiah 40, 29 through 31. Most of these I plead before God over and over and over again. And I'll tell you, in 48 years as a Christian, I've never worn these promises out. Not once. He's returned to me over and over and over again. 48 years worth. of claiming and receiving the benefits of these promises. You can't wear them out. If you approach God with sincerity and honesty in your heart, and with strong desire for Him, more than anything in this world, and you're relentless in your prayers and in your faith, however small your faith may be, you will be the recipient of these promises. Verse 29 of Isaiah 40, he gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might, he increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall what? Renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Again, the metaphors are stark. On the one hand, we have the metaphor of young men. Young men are known to be the strongest among human beings. Men are physically stronger than women. But within and among men, the young men are stronger than the old guys like me. I was at Walmart the other day getting some water, and I realized my age and my growing weakness when I had to call a clerk over to ask for a young man to come and lift certain things I purchased and put them on a cart and bring them out to my car. Because I couldn't lift them. Thus my sons have warned me, Dad, don't lift anything heavy. The doctor said. Anyway, among men, young men are the strongest. But those young men are depicted as being sifted of all strength. He says, They're weak. He says they have no might. He says the youths are fainting. They're weary. They're even at their worst place, strength-wise, they have utterly fallen. They utterly fall. Even when the young men shall utterly fall, they're utterly emptied of every shred and ounce of physical strength. That's the one metaphor. But it's contrasted with that of the eagle. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. The eagle, what symbol is greater? As an emblem of strength and might. Rome used the eagle. The United States uses the eagle as symbols of their national strength, their domination over all nations. So what is God saying? He's giving a promise to backsliders saying, the weakest of the weak will become the strongest of the strong. When you put your trust in God to revive your spirit, to rejuvenate your heart, which has been emptied of desire for God and love for God and the knowledge of God. But there's another promise I must hurry on. Isaiah 44. The same book, but four chapters forward. Chapter 44 of Isaiah, verses one through four. He says in Isaiah 44, one, yet hear me now, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. By the way, Israel in these passages represent both the individual believer as well as a local church, corporately. These are timeless promises, okay, applied to the individual believer and to the corporate people of God. Verse two, thus says the Lord who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant. and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen, for I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring. They will spring up among the grass like willows by the water courses." Again, what a precious promise God has given the backslider, who is seen as thirsty, Again, he introduces, after that phrase, the agricultural metaphor again, related to dry ground. One of the worst things for a farmer is dry ground, because it means he's got to work the hardest. to plow up that dry ground. He's got to work hard to get the stones out. The stones are hindering. There's no water. The soil is hard. It's not soft. So he's got to work harder. And the backslider gets to a place where his heart is hardened against God. It's the hardest ground to get through in terms of our inner man. Even The Word of God that should pierce the most hardened heart bounces off, doesn't penetrate in the slightest. I think of the Lord Jesus Christ preaching to the Pharisees. I think of John the Baptist in the wilderness preaching to the Pharisees. Their hearts were so hardened. The Word of God coming from the lips of our precious Savior himself. didn't penetrate in the slightest. And when you rear back aghast after reading Matthew chapter 23, where you have a long list of woes of the Lord Jesus Christ against the Pharisees, they didn't take heed at all. Their hearts were hardened. But we have a picture in Isaiah 44. of the backslider, who still has that very microscopic seed of life planted deeply within her or his heart. He or she is saved, truly saved, but everything else about his or her life in the inner man is seen as hard. resistant to God. They are deaf. Their spiritual ears are closed. And no amount of colorful and beautiful descriptions of the Lord and all the loveliness and preciousness of His character, His nature, His kindness, His patience could melt that stony heart of the backslidden believer. The only difference between life and death and his or her life is that microscopic seed that God Himself has preserved. If it wasn't for that, they would fall away, go right back where they started from, as a lost, unconverted slave of sin. But God says, to those who are thirsty, he will pour floods on the dry ground. The hearts would be melted. They would be absorbed. They will absorb, I should say. this water, this water of life. And he says he will pour his spirit. It will be such a great blessing. That pouring will overflow to affect the lives of their descendants. What a promise. Take this to him, especially verse three. Lord, you said that you would pour water on him who is thirsty. Lord, I'm thirsty. You would pour floods on the dry ground. I can't help myself. I cannot break up this heart. The same verse that I read a month ago in scripture, that melted me in your presence when I read it. I couldn't go two words before stopping and repenting or before stopping and worshiping, stopping and praising. Now I can read that verse a hundred times and it goes in one ear and out the other. Oh Lord, Pour that spiritual water into my heart because I'm thirsty. Pour the floods upon the dry ground of my heart. This depicts our fellowship time and relationship with the Lord as a battle. To maintain the life, light, and love of our relationship with God lest we become backslidden. And so daily you must not give in to these tendencies. You must resist them. To wander from the Lord. The proneness to leave the God you love. Fight against it! Cry out in your heart against it! Rebuke these things that come to your mind that you know are not related to the principle of righteousness that God implanted within you upon your conversion. Identify the great contrast between the thoughts of the world, the thoughts of the flesh, and the principle of righteousness that preserves your spiritual life. Notice the contracts and cry out against everything that is against the Lord. So that God will be in all your thoughts again. So that God does dominate your thinking, casting down the strongholds and the imaginations. If it need be, moment by moment throughout the day and everything, throw out everything that compares itself to the knowledge of God in your life. Okay, let's move on. Jeremiah chapter three, probably all we'll be able to get to today are these promises. But I didn't want to gloss over them. I did not want to gloss over them because they are so precious. Jeremiah 3, verse 6. So there are three sections. I'll not read the whole chapter, but there are three important sections to Jeremiah 3. Jeremiah chapter 3 is the weeping prophet Jeremiah calling backslidden Israel back to their intimate union with Jehovah Jireh. Jeremiah chapter three, first let's read verses six through eight. The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king, have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up to every high mountain and under every green tree and there played the harlot. And I said, after she has done all these things, return to me. But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also. Judah did not take warning. Drop down to verse 11. Then the Lord said to me, backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words towards the north and say, return backsliding Israel says the Lord. I will not cause my anger to fall on you. For I am merciful, says the Lord. I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord, your God, and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree. And you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Return, oh backsliding Israel, or backsliding children, says the Lord. For I am married to you, I will take you one from a city and two from a family. I will bring you to Zion. And I will give you shepherds according to my heart who will feed you with knowledge and with understanding. Oh, may our pastors today of our churches have the heart of this shepherd. and would plead with the people of God in their churches to purge themselves from all wickedness and evil and worldliness and the cares of this life and covetousness and sensuality and immorality that our pastors would have the heart of God for the purity and holiness of the church that they would constantly call the people of God back to a place of spiritual faithfulness to the Lord. I was reading several times this last week, Revelation chapters 2 and 3. And when you read the letter to the church of Thyatira, and I exhort you to do that this week, what stood out to me is at least five times The Lord Jesus Christ, who was walking in their candlestick, He was walking in their midst and performing a ministry of examination and searching this church out to see where they stood in terms of their relationship with the head, Jesus Christ. Five times, unlike all the other six churches, He said to them, your works are not perfect. Your works are not good. What is he referring to there? Their spiritual works, the first works. But theirs were dead works. And so we, as a church, must maintain our first works, our spiritual life, our relationship with the Lord, the moment You break from that place of heart faithfulness with God and depart from the narrow path of holiness. You begin the backsliding process and you begin diminishing the spiritual works in your life. And one, the most important barometer and thermometer of testing that God looks for to determine our faithfulness are the spiritual works of our relationship with God. He knows our works. He knows our works. We need pastors who will major on the majors and stop majoring on the minors. We need pastors who will almost in every message at least have an application as it relates to holy living that would elevate the standards of Christ for his church to the place where they need to be. the highest among the life and activities of the people of God. Away with bingo! Away with barrage bazaars! Away with church garage sales! Away with all the programs and the mechanisms of fundraising that have usurped the spiritual priorities and activities of the church! Now I'm not saying there's no place for social outreach. There is. We're to do good works. Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. But what good are our good works if all the spirituality and the life and power and love of the church is stripped away and all we have left are social programs? Read Isaiah chapter 1 if you don't understand what I'm saying. That's all the Jews had left in going through the motions of their ceremonies and their religious services and observances in the temple. They were backslidden as backslidden as a person or a nation or a church could be. And God reinterpreted in their backslidden state, God revised all of their religious exercises to be but sin. Religious ceremonies and rituals that do not have a spiritual base and core and reality to them, are revised by God to be sin. He says, your prayers to the Jews, he says, have become sin. Your offerings and your sacrifices, he says, they're too much! Too much for me! Because God sees through our outward works. Our outward profession to see if there's any reality to those words and to those symbols Christianity if nothing else in its core is life life deposited life created and life renewed And without that, all we have is religion, dead religion, unadorned, lifeless, that causes our demise and our accountability to be deeper and greater. Pastors should understand this. And their hearts, their affections, and their convictions need to be engaged on these issues mightily as God's is. Aren't pastors supposed to reflect the mind of God, the word of God, the priorities of God for his people? And so the call goes out to pastors And the call says, look at the masses of backslidden, nominal, professing Christians in the churches who are not being called out, who are not being held accountable to the highest standards of God's Word. The highest standards. to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves, the greatest commandments. And we cannot, we do not have the ability to fulfill these commandments without maintaining clean hands and a pure heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. in communion with Christ. We must maintain that channel and conduit of love and life from Christ to us, from the vine to the branches, if we are to stay far away from that line of backsliding. and maintain fellowship with the Lord. But then in the last section of Jeremiah three, verse 21, he says, a voice was heard on the desolate heights, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel. Ah, they're coming to repentance. For they have perverted their way. They have forgotten the Lord, their God. And here it is, verse 22. so tender, return you backsliding Israel and I will heal your backslidings. He said through Isaiah in chapter 57 and chapter 40 and chapter 44, I will heal their backslidings. He said through Hosea, I will heal their backsliding. And now in Jeremiah, I will heal their backsliding. Every single prophet is saying the same thing as they reflect God's heart and God's burden for his people. Come out of the wilderness. Come out of your backslidings, Christ Bible Church. Do you know how many or how few churches have the standard of God's Word in this pulpit? It's not my standard. It has nothing to do with me. The regulative principle, the Word of God, that means the Word of God, its truth, and its highest spiritual calling should regulate, should be the principle that regulates our worship, our lifestyle, our works, and our service to God. Do you understand how few churches take the regulative principle, make it a priority in everything, and then in the teaching and preaching and application of it, reach down as low and deep as it can get, the Word of God can get in your life as members of Christ Church to keep you faithful, to keep you reminded, of what God's priorities are. What a blessing. This way, through God's Word, the preaching and teaching of God's Word, you can be reminded regularly to return from our backslidings. A week should not go by, not one week should go by, when there's not proclamation of God's love and forgiveness and mercy to restore and renew His grace in us, so we can do the impossible, so that we can continue to do the impossible. And what is that? In our flesh we can do nothing, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can return to God every day. from this daily tendency to go astray, to get caught up in the things of the world and to occupy our thoughts, our dreams and desires with temporal stuff. That's all gonna perish. The world is gonna melt with fervent heat and be burned up. But we can have confidence before him at his coming and not be ashamed. Not be ashamed if daily right up until the end, right up until the second coming or until our last breath, we can have the affirming ministry of the Holy Spirit as a testimony that God is with me and he will never leave me nor forsake me. Oh, I pray as the Apostle Paul went from house to house weeping and pleading with the saints on this very issue more than most, I plead with you. I plead with you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, based on the pure doctrine of his word, on the doctrine of holiness. God has promised to forgive you and restore you. He has promised, I've given you seven promises, or six promises. Take those promises to him daily. Spend time with him. Engage and exercise faith, however small it may be in your life. Faith in these promises. Engage them before the throne of grace. Talk to God about it and say, God, you've given me this word. He's told you, take with you words. Satan even tells us what to say to him. receive us graciously. As long as the heart is sincere, the words are accepted. Daily, make it your priority to pray many things, but to especially say, God, don't let me go astray from you, from that singular, unique, delicate place that is so easy to be upset, and to be overturned from that delicate place of maintaining a clear conscience, clean hands, and a pure heart before you in daily union and communion. Don't depart from that place. Don't depart from that place. He's forgiven us and he's given us precious promises to restore all of those fruits of the Spirit Let's pray. Father, we thank you and praise you for your promises, for your amazing, indescribable forgiveness and patience and love towards us. How many times have you been so forbearing with each of us? How much have you dealt with us as children? You have not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is your love towards them that fear you. For you know our frame, you remember that we are dust. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. Lord, anyone listening to this message today here in this place or on social media that is backslidden or do what you must in their inward person to shake them up and wake them up. Help them to understand that they are abusing presumptuously the grace of God. And the longer they wait to return to you from that wilderness wandering, the more they provoke you to anger and to chastisement. So Lord have mercy, have mercy and grant that form of grace that will melt away all resistance, all stubbornness, all hardness of the heart, and take away the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh and the love of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.