Evidences of a Backslidden Condition

Backslidden Christians are evident everywhere. They are in the churches. They are in the pews and in the pulpits. They are on the boards and are bored. They serve on committees and teach Sunday school. The backslidden seem to be more numerous than the upright and their influence throughout the world vastly more profound. While backsliders do not all manifest the same traits, evidences of their condition are not difficult to pinpoint. The following characteristics merit our serious attention.

1. When prayer ceases to be a vital part of a professing Christian's life, backslidding is present .
2. When the quest for biblical truth ceases and one grows content with the knowledge of eternal things already acquired, there can be no mistaking the presence of backslidding.
3. When biblical knowledge possessed or acquired is treated as external fact and not applied inwardly, backslidding is present.
4. When earnest thoughts about eternal things cease to be regular and gripping, it should be a warning light to the backslidder.
5. When the services of the church lose their delights a backslidden condition probably exists.
6. When pointed spiritual discussions are an embarrassment, that is evidence of backslidding.
7. When sports, recreation, and entertainment are a large and necessary part of your lifestyle, you may assume backslidding is in force.
8. When sins of the body and of the mind can be indulged in without an uproar from your conscience, your backslidden condition is certain.
9. When aspirations for Christlike holiness cease to be dominant in your life and thinking, backslidding in there.
10. When the acquisition of money and goods becomes a dominant part of your thinking, you have a clear confirmation of backslidding.
11. When you can mouth religious songs and words without heart, be sure backslidding is present.
12. When you can hear the Lord's Name taken in vain, spiritual concerns mocked and eternal issues flippantly treated , and not be moved to indignation and action, you are backslidden.
13. When you can watch degrading movies and television and read morally debilitating literature, you can be sure you have backslidden.
14. When breaches of peace in the brotherhood are of no concern to you, that is proof of your backslidding.
15. When the slightest excuse seems sufficient to keep you from. spiritual duty and opportunity, you are backslidden.
16. When you become content with your lack of spiritual power and no longer seek repeated enduements of power from on high, you have backslidden.
17. When you pardon your own sin and sloth by saying the Lord understands and remembers that we are dust, you have revealed your backslidden condition.
18. When there is no music in your soul and no song in your heart, the silence testifies to your backslidding.
19. When you adjust happily to the world's lifestyle, your own mirror will tell the truth of your backslidding.
20. When your church has fallen into spiritual declension and the Word of God is no longer preached there with power and you are still content, you are in a backslidden condition.
21. When the spiritual condition of the world declines around you and you can not perceive it, that is testimony of your backslidden stance.
22. When your tears have dried up and the hard, cold spiritual facts of your existence cannot unleash them, see this is an awful testimony both of the hardness of your heart and the depth of your backslidding.

-Richard Owen Roberts