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Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.
Well, I'm going to have you turn in your Bibles today to the book of Nehemiah. We're in that series currently, Nehemiah chapter 13. And uh I have a sort of an odd title for this message. It's called How to Backslide.
So if you want to backslide, this is your ticket on how to do it. And of course. I know you don't. And I want to show you how not to. as well.
William Booth, who was the founder of the Salvation Army, Had a Group of young men that he was training, new officers for the Salvation Army. And he said to them this little quote: He said, I want you young men. to always bear in mind that it is the nature of a fire to go out. You must keep it stirred up. and fed And the ashes Removed.
This is a message today to those whose fires of devotion. have gone out. or are going out. And you realize you are at critical mass, you need to do something, or you're tending in the wrong direction. There is in science in what is called the second law of thermodynamics.
A little law called entropy. And entropy basically says that, in simple terms, over time, in a closed system. Energy is lost. The things move from order to disorder. And that things will tend toward decay.
So, for example, you put ice. on the sidewalk and what's it going to do? It's going to melt. Energy will be lost. The only way to overcome, and they say you really can't overcome entropy, it's a law, but the only way you could alter it or slow it down or deal with it.
It is to add more energy into the system.
So if ice is melting, you want to apply. Cooling to the environment. You expend energy to cool the environment around it down. to slow down the melting of the ice or To decrease entropy in a messy room, for an example, that's a closed system. And when you walk by the door, you're glad sometimes it's closed.
But in a closed system, the only way to mitigate against a messy room is to clean it up. expend a little energy add a little energy to the closed system and clean it up.
So Have you noticed during this entire series? I've been waiting for this message for a long time because in the background, there's a motorcycle that I wanna talk to you about.
Now, I noticed this. When we first put this out, and this is just all for backdrop. But I know about this bike because this is a bike I had when I was in high school, not this particular one. But this is a Honda 450 CB450 double overhead cam. Awesome bike.
And I thought it was the mid-70s until I ran the MIN number. This is a 1968. Black Bomber CB450 Honda.
So it's sort of a cool collector's edition, very, very vintage. But I can tell you, this motorcycle does not look the same as it did when it was new. There's a lot of parts missing. You know what happened to it? Entropy happened to it.
Pretty rapidly. Not only did things deteriorate and rust. and fall off, but I'm guessing it's been salvaged and Parts have been taken from it. Obviously, it needs a lot of energy. are put into the system for that to ever be viable once again.
Now All of that example brings me to this point. There is something. I'm going to call spiritual entropy. Just like in the second law of thermodynamics, you have the law of entropy. I think you have the law of spiritual entropy.
It is the nature of a Christian. To tend toward disorder. If you just leave a Christian alone and no energy gets expended into the system. Naturally, things will tend toward disorder unless spiritual energy is applied. That's not to say that you are not saved.
But it is to say that if you don't do anything To the system You will stagnate. You will stagnate. That's why Peter says in Second Peter chapter one, therefore add. to your faith. Virtue and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and perseverance, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love.
add to your faith. In the same book, Peter says, grow in the grace and in the knowledge. Of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus put it this way in John 15: Abide in me and I in you. In the words of Paul the Apostle, Philippians chapter 2: work out your own salvation.
For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. In the same book, in the next chapter, I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling in Jesus. Every one of those verses. is about putting energy back into the system to fight against Spiritual Entropy.
Now, there's a Bible term for this. It's not entropy, and it's not spiritual entropy. The Bible term for this is backsliding. Backsliding is a word that shows up in the Old Testament. thirteen times.
Chiefly in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Hosea. Backsliding. The New Testament calls it falling away. James refers to it as wandering from the truth. What basically happens is a person comes to Jesus, says, I believe in Christ.
I give my life to Christ. I'm so excited, I'm so on fire. And then Over time. The fire never gets tended. Energy doesn't get Put back into the system.
Paul wrote to the Galatians and said, Do you remember this verse? I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you. Or how about when Jesus wrote to the church of Ephesus? And said, I've got something against you. You have left your.
First love. You have left your first love.
So Backsliding Is Almost never a blowout, almost always a slow leak. It's gradual over time. And I'm going to show you in chapter 13. Of four areas where God's people. We're backsliding.
Now, let me catch you up to speed here. Let me give you the flow of this book up till this point. The wall of Jerusalem has just been dedicated. We looked at that last week. After the wall of Jerusalem was dedicated, it was twelve years.
Since Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, And dedicated the wall. Took 12 years. He was governor of Jerusalem for 12 years. And then something happened. What happened is he left Jerusalem and went back to Persia.
Remember, he was the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes.
So there must have been some kind of Notion of when you're done, you come back.
So the wall is dedicated. He goes all the way back to Persia. We don't know for how long. I'm guessing at least a year some scholars say up to two years. And then he comes back to Jerusalem to find it a very different place.
Than the Jerusalem that he left.
Something has happened. Over time. And it wasn't good. I'm going to just take you down to verse 6 without reading all these verses. Verse 6, but during all this, I was not in Jerusalem.
For in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I returned to the king, and then after certain days. Probably at least a year. After certain days I had returned to the king, Or I after certain days I obtained leave. From the king.
So When the cat is away, The mice will play. And that happens in this city. Old evils have returned. Old habits have revived. and a sense of permissiveness in the City among God's people is prevailing.
Okay. This shouldn't really surprise you because this is human nature. Moses Went up to the mountain to receive God's law when he was gone. You remember what happened? Exodus 32, what did they build?
A golden calf didn't take long. for that to happen. Moses is gone, comes back, finds it a very different congregation. Um Paul would establish a church, build up that church, then leave that church, turn it over to other people. Things would go wrong.
He would have to write a letter to that church or visit it a second time.
So all of that speaks to this issue of backsliding.
Now here's the thing about backsliding. When we discover it. It surprises us. It's like, how did I get here? Because it's subtle, it's gradual.
It's incremental. But it ends up where we are thinking things that a person close to God would not think. We are saying things that a person close to God would never say. We are doing things that a person close to God would never do. Peter swore he would never do what Jesus predicted they would do.
He said, Though all forsake you, I never will. And then Cockadoodle doo, right? Uh And he ends up doing what he said he would never do. You're listening to Connect the Skip Heitzig. Every day, friends like you help bring clear verse-by-verse Bible teaching to people searching for truth in a world that often feels confused, divided, and uncertain.
And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful resource designed for times like these. When you give, you'll receive City in Shambles, Pastor Skiff's complete 18-message study through Nehemiah on CD plus digital download. In these messages, you'll discover how God works in seasons of spiritual and cultural collapse, how prayer and obedience become the starting point for renewal, and how ordinary believers can respond with faith instead of fear. We'll send this resource as our thanks when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skiff Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskiff.com/slash offer.
Now, let's return to today's teaching.
So this is how to backslide. And number one, misplace your Bible. You want to backslide? Do that. Chuck your Bible out the door.
Don't read the text of Scripture. Just let it. Rot. For weeks or months, never pick it up, maybe except on Sunday. Misplace your Bible.
I'm going to take you back to verse 1. On that day they read. From the Book of Moses. In the hearing of the people, And it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever come into the congregation of God. Because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and water.
but hired Balaam against them to curse them.
However, Our God turned the curse into a blessing. And so it was. When they had heard the law, That they separated and all the mixed mul uh all the mixed multitude from Ezra.
Now they had read the Bible before back in chapter 8. There was a huge revival that happened. And when Ezra read the law, they were cut to the heart. They were convicted. It's like, yeah, we need to get right with God because now we realize that all of our pain as a nation is because we've turned from God.
So we're never doing that again. That's why the captivity happened.
So they had read and they were convicted, but then When Nehemiah left, evidently, They hadn't read the scriptures for a long time. At least a year, if not more. But On one day, on that day, somebody opened the Bible, read from the book of the law. And once again, the Word of God. did the work of God.
in the hearts of the people of God. One time the word of God was front and center. That was then, this is now. Time has elapsed. Their Bibles have been misplaced.
They've either forgotten or simply neglected the scripture, and because of that, A permissiveness has set in. Until now. Listen, when Christians neglect the scriptures They are neglecting the only Source of pure undiluted truth. It's one thing to hear a sermon like this. But when you read the scriptures for yourself, it's the only source of pure.
undiluted truth. And when you neglect it. It leads to confusion, apathy, emptiness, dryness, joylessness, indifference. It makes you vulnerable to temptation. It makes you lukewarm.
And it makes you fruitless. Who wants to sign up for that? I don't. When the Bible is sidelined, You become gullible. When the Bible is sidelined, you become easily swayed.
by false ideologies. Because you're no longer mainlining the truth. The truth has been sidelined. And now you're just open. to everything and everyone's ideas.
Remember what Jesus said in the New Testament to the leaders? He said, neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to your tradition. I'm going to put this up on the screen. This is the admission of one author who said. When I look back on the periods of my life when I neglected the Bible, I can see a clear pattern: a growing disconnect from God.
In those moments, it was as if I had put up a wall between God and myself. Psalm 119.105 reminds us, Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. Without that light I stumbled in the darkness of worldly concerns, gradually drifting away from the source of all wisdom and guidance, one of the most striking consequences of not reading the Bible was the gradual erosion of my moral compass. The Bible provides clear guidance on right and wrong, but without regular exposure to its teachings, I found myself susceptible to the moral relativism of the world.
So Um If you want to backslide. Just get rid of your Bible. Just neglect it, sideline it. But if the first step To backsliding is to neglect scripture, then the first line of defense. is to tell me Not neglect it.
Read it. Get back to it. When I was first saved, I remember quite clearly, I was drawn to the person of Jesus. Jesus was described in a way that was fresh and very winsome and compelling to me. But the Bible was a different issue.
I knew I needed to have one, so I got one. But it was difficult. It was hard to figure out. And I had like the easiest version of the Bible you can get. It was called Good News for Modern Man.
I don't know if any of you have ever seen that, but Good News for Modern Man makes the New Living Translation seem difficult. I mean, it was just like my dog could understand this. But I'm reading through it, and though it's easy language, I'm asking questions like: why are they telling the same story four times? Right, I'm beginning in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's the same stuff.
And so I had a little difficult time reading it, but I kept reading it. And then I decided I needed to buy a real Bible because this was just a paperback New Testament with a funky drawing on the front. I thought, I got to get serious.
So I wanted a leather Bible. And I remember going to the Bible bookstore and I bought an old King James leatherbound Bible.
So things went from bad to worse at that point in terms of my understanding. But it happens to be a Bible I still cherish to this day. A version I still read, by the way. Um But as I kept reading it, I noticed a change. I noticed a change in me.
I noticed a change in. Appetites, desires, Values Activities Not only did I notice it, my parents noticed it. They weren't too excited about it, but they noticed it. My friends really noticed it.
So let me give you three words when it comes to not neglecting the Bible and getting back to it and placing it front and center. Three words that I think might help discipline. desire Delight. At first, it's a discipline. It's like, I don't understand.
I don't get it. I have so many questions when I go through it. That's the discipline part. At first, it's a discipline. It'll never become your desire until it is first your discipline.
But once you stick with the discipline, you will discover it becomes a desire. You have a voracious appetite for truth. And then eventually It becomes a delight. But you can't live without it. Like David, who said, Oh, how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day.
So that's number one. If you're going to backslide, get rid of your Bible. Number two. Misalign your companions. Or to put it another way, That's not alliterated.
Get really bad friends around you. If you want to backslide, get a crowd of people around you that will hold you back spiritually. And you will be sure to backslide. I'll go down to verse 4. Watch this.
Now before this, Eliashib the priest. Having authority over the storerooms of the house of our God. was allied with Tobiah. And he had prepared for him A large room Where previously they had stored the grain offerings. The frankincense The articles, the tithes of grain, the new wine, oil.
which were commanded to be given to the Levites, and singers and gatekeepers, and the offerings for the priests. But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, For in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, I had returned to the king, then, after certain days, I obtained leave from the king. And I came to Jerusalem, and I discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah. In preparing a room for him in the courts of the house. of God.
and it grieved me bitterly. Therefore, I threw all the household goods of Tobiah. Out of the room. Don't you love Nehemiah? It's like, I'm going to solve this problem.
It just starts chucking it out the door.
Now there's two main characters in these verses that we just read. There's Eliashib the priest and Tobiah the Ammonite. You remember Tobiah from chapter two? He was one of the two enemies of the Jews. There was Sanbalat the Hornonite, talked about him.
Then there was Tobiah. The Ammonite, we talked about him. And those guys were buddies with each other. and they hated the Jews, and they did not want the city to be rebuilt. And now he's living in the temple.
One of the enemies of God is living in a storeroom in the temple. Imagine. Letting him set up headquarters in the house of God. And it's being promoted by. The high priest.
Eliashib is the high priest. Eliashib, you may remember, he has been mentioned several times in this book. In the list of workers Who built the wall in chapter three, he was number one on the list. Guys who stepped up to the plate To build. But now.
He's hanging out. With the enemy. You know, it would be like if you came to church, or I came to church and discovered that one of the pastors on staff. Let The Ayatollah from Iran. Have a room in the church.
This guy, what, what, he's living here? I mean, he's the guy who said death to Israel and death to America. He's living here. That's what Nehemiah discovered.
Now the question is, why would the high priest do this?
Well go down to verse 28. It says, and one of the sons of Joadah, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanbalat the Horonite. Therefore, I drove him. From me. One of Eliashib.
The high priest's relatives Is married to Sandballot's daughter. Sandball and Tobiah are buddies. Tobiah figures this is a way to hang out with The high priest that we can get into the city. to destroy it and to overturn it. Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Before we go, remember, your generosity helps share God's word with people around the world, offering biblical truth and hope in a time when many feel discouraged or overwhelmed. And this month we'd love to thank you for your gift of fifty dollars or more by sending you City in Shambles, Pastor Skiff's complete eighteen message study through Nehemiah on C D plus Digital Download. These messages will encourage you to respond to brokenness with prayer, repentance, and courageous faith, and remind you that God still rebuilds what's been torn down. Give today at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.
I make a connection. Shouldn't know. At the foot of the crossing. Castle bird. Insomnia.
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