By John R. Rice
Everywhere people want to know whether the backslider is saved or lost. After one has sinned, is he still a child of God? When he has lost the joy of salvation, does he still have the salvation?
Well, the answer to this question is that the backslider does not deserve to be saved but deserves to go to Hell; that other people will often think that he is not saved; that he himself is likely to doubt his salvation or to believe that God has forsaken him utterly; but, thank God, the backslider still is a child of God. He is a disobedient child of God and he will be punished for it, yet every born-again child of God who falls into sin is still God's child.
It is true that the backslider does not deserve salvation. What a tragedy when a child of God brings reproach on the cause of Christ! It may be an outrageous sin such as drunkenness or adultery. Or it may be sins like the sins of those other backsliders - Noah, Lot, David. Or it may be a backsliding in the heart that does not seem so bad to outsiders but really results in damning souls that might have been won.
Who knows whether in God' s sight a cold heart, that does not win souls and never has the anointing for power, may be more wicked than the man who is tempted and falls into drink or blasphemy or adultery! What could be worse than letting a soul go to Hell for millions of years because of our carelessness, our love for the things of this life? But in either case, the backslider deserves nothing good from God. That means that I ought to have gone to Hell long ago! How many times I have failed God! How many vows I have broken! How many duties I have neglected!
But then the same thing could be said about every Christian in the world. We deserve nothing good from God. No one does. It would have served us right for Him to let us all go to Hell.
But, thanks be to God, my salvation is not depending upon my works. I did not deserve salvation when I got it, and I have never deserved it any thirty seconds since that time! Salvation is all of grace. How sweet to all of us poor sinners is Ephesians 2:8,9, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." And when we get to Heaven there will not be one living soul who can say, "I deserved this. I earned my way to Heaven." No, how our hearts will run over with gratitude and rejoicing when we say there that
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
And that is true of my life today as it was the first day I trusted Jesus as my Saviour. Oh, thank God for His mercy that never fails! He saves every sinner who trusts in Him, and He keeps every one of His erring children. He chastises them but He does not lose them.
Not only does the backslider not deserve his salvation, but others will often judge him and think he is not saved. Had I seen Noah lying drunk and naked in his tent, I might have said, "You old hypocrite! God ought to have let you die in the flood with the rest of the drunkards!" I would have thought, perhaps, that there was no difference in Noah's lying there drunk and another man whom I saw two days ago lying drunk outside a saloon in Philadelphia.
I think my indignation would have mounted high against David had I been there and had I known how he seduced Bathsheba and had her husband killed. I might well have thought, "You hypocrite, you psalm-singing sinner! You pious adulterer and murderer! You ought to be in Hell!" Had I been the judge, I probably would have sent David on to Hell.
