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"Is that love which trusts not and is not ready to share the lot even of the backslider?" "Yes, child, yes," interrupted the old woman. "To suffer all things, to endure all things, is the duty of true love, and therefore of yours; but you must not allow the most indissoluble of all bonds to unite you to him till the back-slider has learnt to walk firmly.
But if my suffering for these poor creatures can at all ameliorate their condition, surely I ought to be quite willing, and I can now bless the Lord that my labor is not all in vain, though much remains to be done yet." The secluded and inactive life she now led confirmed the opinion of her Presbyterian friends that she was a backslider in the divine life.
I started my life afresh with renewed energy, lived on bread and water until I had saved enough for what I needed, and escaped again.... 'For this second flight I was punished as an obstinate backslider, and it took several years before I could make another attempt, but that time I got farther away than before. It was an unusually hard winter, I had no money and only insufficient clothing.
In a word, he is all things to all men, in a very different sense from what Paul meant. In his sentiments, his associations, his pleasures, his mode of doing business, his conversation, his whole character, there is far too little that evinces strength of holy principle and godliness. O reader, has your case been described? You are then a backslider from the God whom you covenanted to serve.
The elder man rose; he hardly seemed the same man who had dominated his people a few days before. He turned with still greater embarrassment. "I want to ask a favor. I'm going back to my family. I'm going to say something of what you've said, to my congregation but I'm in debt and the moment they know I'm a backslider, they're going to bear down on me pretty heavy. I'd like to be independent."
In Jeremiah iii. 22; "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto Thee; Thou art the Lord our God." He just puts words into the mouth of the backslider. Only come; and, if you will come, He will receive you graciously and love you freely. In Hosea xiv. 1, 2, 4: "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
The traditional text of it is simple and clear, and the only point requiring comment is the clause providing for the treatment of those who go over to Islam and those of the Believers who rejoin the Kureisch. Mahomet was sure enough of himself and his magnetism to allow the clause to stand, which allowed any backslider full permission to return to Mecca.
He had not long to wait. To give the crowd an execution was to crown the Carnival. Condemned criminals were often kept till Shrove Tuesday, and keen was the disappointment when there was only the whipping of courtesans caught masked. But the execution of a Jew was the best of all. And that Fra Giuseppe was a Jew there could be no doubt. The only question was whether he was a backslider or a spy.
His communion with GOD is brought to an end, and it is hard to say how far Satan may not be permitted to carry such a backslider in heart and life. It is awfully possible not merely to "grieve" and to "resist," but even to "quench" the SPIRIT of GOD. We have a solemn example of presumptuous sin in the case of the man found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.
He comes not to God as an unconverted sinner comes; he comes not as a backslider comes when he is returning to God from his backslidings; but he comes as a son, as one of the household of God, and he comes as one that has not, since correction, wickedly departed from his God.
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