Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina.
So I like this passage though and what it says and it means a lot to me. And I just want to share, we're going to focus on two verses. I really don't know how long this, I would say it's going to be a short sermon, but you know what happens every time a pastor says that.
So I don't even like to say that anymore because it just makes me a liar. But I want to look at these two verses with you. And again, I know that you're here on a Sunday night and you're like, Brother John, you're preaching to the choir. Uh but I'm gonna show you, I think. Um If we don't set up some boundaries, we were talking about guardrails and boundaries this morning.
If you don't set up some guardrails and boundaries in your life, it's easy for us to get off track. And and a little bit for a long time goes a long way. And we gotta be careful.
So I want you to see a couple things, but if you have your Bibles, the verses will be up on the screen, but just verses number six and seven, chapter 55 of Isaiah. Verses number six and seven says, Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. And I'm going to stop there for just now, but I want to talk to you about this idea tonight about returning to the Lord and just what it means to me and some things that jumped out.
I just want to share again a couple thoughts. But let's pray quickly and then we'll jump in and go. Father, again, we love you. Thank you for tonight. Lord, I pray that you give.
Clarity of thought, the right words tonight. Lord, just remove me from the equation altogether. I just pray that you'd open up our hearts for what you have for us. Help us to see it, the importance of it. Lord, help us to apply tonight what you give us, and we'll appreciate so much and love you for it.
In your name we pray. Amen. Years ago, my wife and I, when we were serving in a church out west, we had started a Reformers Unanimous chapter. If you're not familiar with that, Reformers Unanimous is a faith-based addictions program. And basically, they have one step.
Get right with God. And there's 12 tools to help you in that, 10 tools, 10 tools to help you in that one step. And we were involved in that, and we helped in that for years. And my job. you all meet together.
So in RU you have three talks. And the first talk, everyone meets together. And then you split up into your groups and you have a talk. And then you come back in for the third talk, which is usually the message. That's how the evening looks.
Well, for first-time visitors, they don't have a group and you don't want to put them in a group.
So they have a special group class for first-time visitors. It stayed in the auditorium. And that was my group, my class.
So every week I would have new people who come for the first time. Usually every week, and you would come in that class, and you could graduate out of that class very quickly. But the first night we would go through a curriculum to introduce the program, introduce what we do. And in that, Isaiah 55, verse number 6 and 7 was used. And so every week, I would repeat Isaiah 55, verse number 7.
And I always did it the same way. And I always said, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, and he will squash him like a bug. And I said that every week. And I wanted people to, A, I wanted to see if they're listening.
And B, I wanted them to think about the fact that God has the authority, ability, and every right to squash us like a bug. But it doesn't. And when we return to him, the Bible tells us that he loves us and he wants to have this fellowship with us so we can get away from God. God says, I have this path back for you, and I will love you when you return. But sometimes that step's a big step.
And I always said that. And one night I said, he'll squash you like a bug, and sitting over in this section. About halfway back was a gentleman who did not want to be there. He was a family member of someone of a family from our church, and he, it was obvious by the look on his face, he was not there because of his free will. I don't know if it was guilt or what had built up throughout his family, but he was there that night.
And when I said he will squash you like a bug, I didn't know it, but he got angry at me. for saying that. And it bothered him, but he never said a word. And this young man was married, family, he got right with God. still serving today.
And years later, We were talking, and he said, Did you know that I got so angry at you that night? And I'm like, No, like, tell me. He said, When you said that, I just got so angry that you would say that, that God would squash us like a bug. And it just triggered him that night, but it made a lasting impact with him. And so I realized that God doesn't squash us like a bug.
He could, but that's not what he does. But look at what that verse says. It says, Let him return. unto the Lord. And here's what caught my attention so early when I started studying that passage.
You cannot return where you have not been. If you think about that, If I asked you if you were going to return. To the beach tonight. You would say, No, I can't return to the beach. I didn't come from the beach, I came from my house.
So you can return to your house. Right? You with me so far?
Okay. You can return where you came from. But you can't return someplace you've never been. And this passage says, let him return to the Lord.
So when the verse is talking about the wicked forsaking his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, your first thought is, oh, this is written to unsaved people. This is talking about people who don't know God because they're the wicked and they're the unrighteous. But we're that person. We have the ability. to be wicked and unrighteous in our life.
We have the choice we can make. And the Bible says, Let him return to the Lord. And so, this idea that we can return to God, we can return to the Lord even when we get away from him, it just started to really just sink heavy on me. The fact that God loves me so much that He knows I'm going to mess up, He knows I'm going to choose, even purposely, I'm going to choose wrong and I'm going to sin against Him, and He still loves me. And he still says, you can come back to me and listen.
You could be away from God for five minutes or five years or 50 years, and it takes one step to get back. And that's the beauty of God's love.
So he says you can return to me.
So I'm going to give you some quick facts, and then I'm just going to give you a couple points from this passage, but we've got to cover a couple things.
So number one, or first, I guess, what is backslidding? What is backsliding? Like, if we're going to define it, let's give it a definition so we know. And I looked up a couple definitions. I'm going to give you two of them here.
So the first one I put down was backsliding is a term used within Christianity. to describe a process by which Um Uh by which um A person reverts to pre-conversion habits and or lapses or falls into sin.
So someone who goes back to what they used to do.
Now I was saved at a very early age. I wasn't smoking before I got saved. I wasn't smoking after I got saved. I can't go back to smoking because I never did it.
So I'm not talking about just one thing, but you get the idea of how we can lapse back into sin. Secondly, I put this on there: to stop moving forward in the Christian walk. Hmm. That hits a little more home, doesn't it? to spiritually regress.
See, if you're not purposely trying to work on your walk with God and be close to God, if you're not actively doing this, you are regressing away from God. There is no neutral ground. You don't get to stay still in your spiritual walk. You're either growing closer to God or you are drifting away from Him. It's one of the two.
And if you say, no, no, I'm in a pretty good place right now. I'm not really working on it, but I'm not really going against him either. That's the definition right there. I'm not working on my walk with God. I'm not working on growing forward in my walk with Christ.
So that's the kind of the definition.
Now, what does the Bible say about backsliding? Let me just give you a couple verses. Hosea 11 and verse number 7 says, And my people are bent to backsliding from me. God knows because God created us, God knows that we are prone to backslide against him. And he still made us.
God knew Adam and Eve would fall. God knew what was going to happen. He knew what would take place. And he knows how you are because he created you. Fearfully and wonderfully made, and God knows that you are just rotten to the core.
Listen, and he still loves you. He still loves me. He knows we're going to do wrong, but he still loves us.
So God's saying, hey, I know my people. My people are bent. They have a tendency, they have a direction to backslide from me. Revelation 2, verses 4 and 5. You remember the letter to the church at Ephesus?
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee. Why? Why did God have something against them? Because they left what? They left that they were there And they've departed.
They left their first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art, falling. Listen, it can happen and it can happen to anyone. Uh We have seen God over and over in the Old Testament the illustration of Israel. The pastor was talking about choices this morning.
He was talking about the, if you talk about the nation of Israel, God was doing all these things for the nation of Israel, for his people, and they would have bad things happen. God would save them, and they were all excited for about one minute. And then all of a sudden they complain about something else. And pretty soon they're worshiping false idols. And you're like, you were just there when God did this, and now you're already back over here.
Why? Because He knew they have a tendency to do this. They're bent toward that. And if you don't make an effort in your life, if we don't make the effort in our life to not do that, we're the same direction. It can happen, we can slide in that slope and it's slippery.
So we could get there. Before you think that you're immune, the Bible gives us a lot of examples to learn from. I just give you a handful that I want you to see tonight because it would take too long to go through them all, but let's just look at a couple of them.
So, Saul was the first one. Saul took God's word lightly. What happened? Lost his kingdom, lost his son, lost his life. The people said, We want a king.
God said, No, you don't. They said, Yes, we do.
So God said, I'll give you a king.
So they picked one that was tall because Obviously that makes a good king. And what happened? Saul had a choice to make. Saul kind of said, Lord, I need you to help me be the good king, to be the king I need to be. And Saul kind of went on his own and did some things and broke the rules.
And in the end, it cost him. David. David took God's word lightly, fell into sin, brought calamity and tragedy and heartache into his home for the rest of his life. David God says a man who A man after my own heart. God said, This is a man who is after my own heart, but we look at David's life and say, Man, but David really messed up.
That should be an encouragement to us. And we should be able to learn from it also. Israel, I'm sorry, King Solomon. I almost skipped one. King Solomon, known for his wisdom, the wisest man who ever lived.
turned to idolatry in his later years, leading to the division of Israel. The wisest man who ever lived. Not doing too good sometimes. Sure. Why do we think we are immune?
The nation of Israel, we mentioned, they took God's word lightly, and God let them be carried into captivity for generations. God said, You want to complain? You don't want to do it my way? You want to worship false gods? Have at it.
This is what it's going to cost you. And for hundreds of years it cost them. In the New Testament, 2 Timothy 4.10 mentions Demas. And that statement, how would you like to have this on your resume? For Demas hath forsaken me.
Why? Having loved this present world and has departed. What a great line on the resume that looks like, isn't it? I'd like to apply for a minister job. How was your last ministry?
Not so good. I left him. Why? Because I love the things around me more than I did the things of God. I wanted the pleasures of this world more than the things of God.
So no one's immune to it. We can see example after example, example, 1 Corinthians 10:12. This is where it applies to you and me now. Wherefore, let a man that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he what? Fall, lest he fall.
Listen, you may think you're the strongest Christian in the world, that you're immune to anything. Mm-hmm. And God says you better look out. Because the devil, believe it or not, does not want you to be an effective testimony for Christ. The devil does not want you to live the victorious Christian life that God has created for you, and he will do whatever it takes to get you off track.
And if you think, man, I'm so insignificant the devil will never mess with me, you are wrong. The devil will mess with anything that goes against what he wants because we're trying to live for God.
Now I ask the question. I looked it up as I was studying. What are the signs of backsliding? And I looked up, there are pages and pages and pages of lists you can find. And you can make this list also, but I'm going to give you one.
And basically, it's the answer to one question. And that's the only sign I'm going to give you tonight. We're going to answer one question. Don't answer it out loud. But here's the question.
Have I ever been closer to God? than I am right now. That's your question. Have I ever been closer to God? Than I am right now.
And if the answer is yes, Then congratulations, you qualify. What do I mean by closer to God?
Well, most people start making lists. Do I read my Bible? Do I pray as much? Am I in church? You can have a checklist of things.
And you could say, well, yeah, I read my Bible, but not as much as I'm talking about even deeper than that. It starts here. It goes deeper than that. It goes to my heart. God, what is my heart attitude toward you right now?
Do I desire to do the things?
Well, listen, you may have your devotions at six in the morning, you may have them at six at night. That's up to you. But do you desire the things of God in your life? Are you making an effort that the things of God matter in your life? Am I doing what God asked me to do?
Am I doing the things that God said, I want you to do these things? I'm commanding you to do these things, but I want you to have these in your life. Am I seeking after those things?
So answer the question quietly. Have I ever been closer to God? that I am right now.
So what's the message? What can we learn about Being backslidden from this passage in verse 6 and 7 of Isaiah 55. What can we get out of this? And I'm going to give you just a couple things and show you what the breakdown was, and then we're going to wrap it up.
So, number one, I see this. God is waiting for us. God is waiting for us. Seek the Lord while he may be found. God is there waiting for us, and he's saying, You seek after me, and if you do, you'll find me.
God's not going to hide from you. He wants to have this fellowship with you. It shows the caring of God that He cares for you. And he cares for me. Listen, the compassion is there.
If God didn't care for you, he would not stick around. If God treated us like we treat people, We wouldn't be around very long, would we? Oh, listen, aren't you glad God's a patient, merciful, gracious, loving God? And we take that for granted every day.
So listen. Seek the Lord. Seek him and inquire of him. Seek for him and inquire after him. Seek to be reconciled to him and acquainted with him.
to be happy in his favor. One pastor wrote it this way: Be sorry that you lost him.
Now I'm not saying you lost your salvation. But if we get away from God, we don't have the fellowship that we usually have. Be sorry that you lost it, be concerned with finding Him. Take the appointed method of finding Him, making use of Christ as your way, the Spirit as your guide, and the Word as your rule. Seek God.
why he may be found. Number two. I see God is wanting us. Look what it says in verse number six: Call ye upon him while he is what? Near, where's God?
You know what? I can wander far from God. Where's God? He's still near me. Listen, in the passage when God gave us the parable of the prodigal son, the prodigal son left home, left the father's house, and it says he came to his senses, right?
He was separated. Guess what? God never separates from us. I will never leave you. Nor forsake you.
We can have confidence with God that we can walk away, we can slide away, we can be away from God maybe farther than we've been before. And God says, hey, I still am waiting for you. God's calling to us because he wants us to be near to him. Do you want to be near to God? Call upon him.
Pray to him. Pray to God. Pray to be reconciled. And being reconciled, pray for everything that you have need of. Make your request known to God.
Why does God, who knows everything, who knows what you're thinking, He knows what's in your heart, why does He want us to pray and ask for things? Doesn't make him feel better. You know what it does? It reminds you that you're dependent on God for everything. It shows us our dependency on God.
It reminds us that everything we do, I can do nothing without Him, but I can do all things through Him. It says, God, I need you in every area of my life. And it gives us that reminder of a dependency with Him.
So call upon God. It reminds you, and when we forget that we need God, guess what? We start to take them for granted. And we take God for granted. Things are good.
You know what, there's no problems going on in my life, there's no big issues right now. I don't need to read my Bible as much. I miss some prayer time. It's okay. I'm not in church as much.
Whatever it might be, I can start sliding that little bit because I'm not dependent on God.
So it's important that we remember we call upon him while he's near. Number three. God is working in us. If you're a Christian, God is working in you. If you're a saved person who has slid away from God a little bit, who has walked away, who has turned away, whatever the case may be, God is working in you.
It shows us the conviction of God, the convicting nature of the Holy Spirit. And here's why: because He has plans for us. God has a plan for your life. God has a life he wants you to live. I call it the victorious Christian life because there's no greater life than living the life that God made for you.
And God said, There's a life that I want you to live. Verse number seven said, Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. How do we realize that we are doing wrong? How do we know if something's wrong or not? I love the story a pastor told this morning of his dad.
I've heard that story often. But when his dad got saved, he went back to work and he was sitting outside the nightclub that night and he sat on the hood of the car and he felt such conviction. No one at that camp said you shouldn't go to a nightclub and do comedy. No one said you shouldn't be, you know what? God was already in his heart.
The Holy Spirit's convicting him, working in his life. And he sat there torn about whether he should go inside that building or not. And it changed his life with the decision he made.
Well, that's the Holy Spirit's job, is to convict us, to bring remembrance the things that we've learned.
So, listen, if you have put Bible in there from a child, we train up our kids, right? We want to train our kids, and Bible verses have been put in. Pastor is preaching, teachers are teaching. All that Bible has been in there, and you may not know where it's at in that file cabinet, but the Holy Spirit does. And all of a sudden he starts bringing something up and you're like, oh yeah.
I probably shouldn't be here. I probably shouldn't be doing that. I probably should be doing this. Where's that thought come from? It's not your good that makes you think about that, it's the Holy Spirit bringing it up.
Jeremiah 14:7 says, O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us. Do thou it for thy name's sake, for our backslidings are many. We have sinned against thee. You know what that verse is saying? My backslidings are many, but guess what?
I realize I have sinned against you, God. If you read through Psalms, if you ever get into a, if you just need a good read, read through Psalms. And you see the life of David, and it's going to make you feel better because David, you'll find out, was just a man who had ups and downs like we do. And David would go through ups and downs, and when he was up, it was great. And when he was down, it was bad.
But David always came to this realization, didn't he? He would realize, God, you're my salvation. You're my rock. You're my fortress. You're my everything.
God, I want to worship you. God, I focus on you. Everything David did was a focus on God. And David said, I have sinned against. Yeah.
David realized when he repented, he needed to repent to God because he had sinned against him. In our life, we need to realize any sin. There is no little sin, there's no big sin, it's just sin. any sin in our life. We need to go to God and say, God, I'm sorry about that one.
And the problem we have, I think, and the reason we don't do this that often is because we realize we're convicted. We feel bad. The Holy Spirit's doing his job, and we feel bad about something. But what's happened is we felt bad last time we did it too. And we repented and we did it again, and we repented and we did it again, and we repented, and we have this mindset now that I am habitually broken because I keep sinning and messing up.
Can I remind you? That all those angels that have whiteboards in heaven that keep track of our sins. I don't know if it works that way or not, it's just what I envision. But when you say, God, I'm sorry. That board gets erased.
And God says he cast our sin as far as the east is from the west, buried in the deepest sea. Why is that? Because God doesn't hold it against your account when you made it right with him. Because he loves you, he's merciful, he's gracious, and he wants to pardon you from your sin.
So God says we can come back to Him. We can call on Him. He is welcoming us. He wants us. He's working on us.
Number four, God is welcoming us to Him. God is welcoming us to Him, talks about the compassion of our God. He loves us. Verse number seven says, he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Do you ever notice that God puts words in the Bible and no words are ever wasted, by the way?
God chose every word that would be in the Bible. And God put this word in here. It's kind of like when he said, you would be more than conquerors.
Well, if conquerors are the winners, what does it mean to be more than the winner? This is one of those phrases, I think. It says, abundantly pardoned. What does abundantly mean? A lot, right?
more than just a little bit. It means that I can sin. God will restore and forgive. I can sin again. He'll restore and forgive.
He knows I'm going to sin again. He'll still restore and forgive. My mind cannot forget what I do. But God can. God says, I'll wipe it away.
I don't understand it. I don't know. Why or how, but I know what. He promised he would do it. And I can have this restoration with God because I went to him and I forsook.
what I was doing, what I was going after, and turned around and said, God, I am sorry, I can return to him. And God said, I will have mercy upon you, and I'll abundantly pardon. That should give us hope. He will multiply his pardon as we have multiplied our offenses. The more that I sin, God says you can't outsin my love.
Now God doesn't want us to choose sin, so don't take that as freedom. But when we do sin, God says, you can't outsend my pardon. He will abundantly pardon. Though our sins seem great and many, and we have often backslidden and are still prone to offend God. God repeats His pardon and welcomes even backslidden children that return to Him in sincerity.
God says, I just want you to turn around, repent. Repent is just a 180, a turning away from what I'm doing. And God says, That's what I want you to do. And I love the story of the prodigal because the prodigal came to his senses when he was sitting there and said, Hey, my servants have it better than this. I'll just go home and ask dad if I can be a servant.
He was expecting to go home and beg his dad for something to do so he could eat. And what happened? The dad runs to him. The dad embraces him. brings them back into the family.
It ticks off the older brother, doesn't it? Because he's like, I didn't leave and you didn't act like this. But the dad was so thrilled to have his son back. And that's how God is with us. He's just thrilled to have this fellowship with you because he created you and he wants to have this fellowship.
Oh, we're like yo-yos, aren't we? We're up and down in our walk with God. We're close to God. We're far from God. We're close to God.
We're far. And that messes with us so bad because we feel like I can't have a consistency with God. I said I wasn't going to do something. How many of you have made conviction, had convictions, and on Sunday you've made a decision, and on Monday you broke it? That's my diet.
Happens every time. I'm good for one day. The next day, not so good.
Well, we kind of apply that with God. God, today I am never doing that again.
Next day, how did I do that again?
Well, we got to have some guardrails in our life. We need to get some restrictions in our life. We need to have some discipline in our life. But God says, I know you're going to mess up. And when you do, you can still come to me.
Listen, having raised two boys that were not perfect, I love my boys. I have good boys. But you know, and you were one too.
So you know what it's like. When a child. is not doing well with a parent. and being obedient, what's that fellowship like? It's rough, isn't it?
It's rough. We don't have a good fellowship. They're still my son. They still have my name. I still love them.
I am broken. that we cannot have the fellowship that we have when things are in line. And until that child decides, I'm gonna yield to the authority of my parent and do what they say, that fellowship's not gonna be there the same. And that child has to make a decision. We're the same way with God until we get in line and say, God, whatever the word says, whatever you told me to do, whatever you want in my life, and the things you don't want in my life, when I apply that, that's when we're in line with God and fellowship happens.
When, God, I'm learning, I'm trying, you know my heart, that's when fellowship happens. But when we say, God, I'm going to go against your word, I know this is wrong, but it's just a little wrong, so it's okay. We can't have fellowship with that. God says, I can't fellowship with sin. I can't have that.
I don't want that in your life.
So these yo-yos go up and down. Jeremiah 3:22, Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidden slidings. Behold, we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God. Hosea 14, 4, I will heal their backslidding. I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away from him.
Listen, every verse you can find about God punishing or God destroying or God blowing people up. There are a lot more verses about God's love for us. And about how God treats us and what He wants for us. And so, listen, I don't know where you're at. I don't know where you're at in your walk, and you don't have to answer it out loud.
That's between you and God. But I do want to go back to that question. As we land this plane, we're going to go back to that question. Have I ever been closer to God? than I am right now.
And for some of you, the answer is yes. I have been closer to God than I am right now. And you're going to make a decision about that tonight. Am I willing to do something about that? Or am I just going to pretend like it's not there and I'm just going to keep going the way I'm going?
That's a decision we have to make, and we make it each and every day by what we do. by our actions of our heart. Psalm 37, 24. Though he fall, he shall not utterly be cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. You know what that verse says?
that God is holding your hand. And you may trip. And stumble, but it's just like if a little toddler was walking with you and you could just pick him up. and keep him from going down skinning his knee. God says, I've got a hold of you.
I've got you. I love you. You know the verse, but I couldn't go without 2 Chronicles 7.14. If my people, what does God say? Not the world, not the unsaved, if my people.
Which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn away from their what? Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirkwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web.
at Kerwin Baptist Church.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin Broadcast today. God bless you.
