Solomon said, “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways” (Prov. 14:14).  Jesus warned, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12). John told the church at Ephesus “you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4). When a Christian begins to show less interest in things eternal, he is going the wrong way. When one is getting weaker instead of stronger, something is seriously wrong.  If this backsliding is not arrested, it is just a matter of time and he will be spiritually dead.

A preacher once told this unusual experience.  A man came to his office one day and told him this story of his life -- Only forty-one years old but he had come to face a problem that was the greatest of all human experiences in this world.  He had tears in his eyes as he told of the many years he had gradually neglected God and the church. He didn’t intend to ever be where he was at this time—but he was! He continued his story of how he had taken up habits of impure words and thoughts—these led him to neglect prayer because his heart despised hypocrisy. Thus, he began to neglect the assembly of the church for he felt out of place.

Finally, he even became angry if someone visited him and asked of his absences. After all, he said, the absences from the assembly were not the problem.  It was the things of the heart and his way of living that actually forced him to stay away.  So a few days before, he decided he would confess his faults to a brother in Christ (James 5:16) and ask for prayers. He continued on to say that unless he did this he knew that it was just a matter of time until he would be dead (spiritually).  How desperate was his soul as he asked the preacher to pray with him for God to forgive him and to make him alive again.

When the way to the meeting house seems too far; when the sermons seem too long; when one begins to dislike the company of brethren; when the sermons make one mad instead of penitent; when reading the Bible puts one to sleep; when one frets if called on to give more—dangerous symptoms of a backslider are beginning to surface.