The loneliest person in the world is the backslidden Christian.
July 18, 2007 (Wednesday) – An illustration I used in the sermon last Sunday morning seemed to strike a chord in the hearts of some of the hearers. It went something like this:
Years ago in the city of Sheffield, Alabama, a worker in an iron works was fatally burned in an industrial accident. He was laid on the concrete floor by his horrified and shaken coworkers. Someone yelled, “Get a doctor!” The man spoke. He said, “Never mind the doctor. I’m dying. Without God. Who can help me?” Three hundred coworkers stood in stony silence and watched him die. None of them could help him. Later, one of those men, who was a Christian, confessed, “My life sealed my lips.”
What was he saying? He was saying he knew the words that would have shown the dying man the way to Heaven, but his own life had drifted so far away from God’s will that he felt unworthy to speak those words. His hypocrisy had weakened his testimony so badly that he could not speak. Though he was a Christian, he didn’t act like one. And he didn’t feel like one.
Someone has said, “The loneliest person in the world is the backslidden Christian. He doesn’t have fellowship with the world, because he is a citizen of the Kingdom of God. He doesn’t have fellowship with his fellow Christians, because he voluntarily withdraws from them. He doesn’t have fellowship with God because he is rebelling against his Heavenly Father.”
God does not want you to remain in that condition. He calls you home. He invites you to confess your sins to Him, and be forgiven (1 John 1:5-10).* The old hymn says it so well, “Come home, come home, ye who are weary, come home. Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, oh sinner, come home!”
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“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light;
in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet
walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood
of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a
liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (1 John 1:5-10 NIV).