Danger of Backsliding

Using Psalm 95 the author of Hebrews warns believers, Christians, of the danger of falling away from following Christ.

Two references are recalled of how to Stop the regression by remembering God's Word of promise and the confession of a true faith. "Well, on Saturday, about midnight the pilgrims began to pray; and continued in prayer till almost break of day.

Now a little before it was day, good CHRISTIAN, as one half amazed, break out in this passionate speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise; that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle." Then said HOPEFUL, "That's good news; good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom, and try."

Then CHRISTIAN pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door; whose bolt (as he turned the key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease: and CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL both came out. Then he went to the outward door that led into the castle yard; and with his key opened that door also. After, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went exceedingly hard: yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant DESPAIR: who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the king's highway again; and so were safe." [John Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress] https://www.biblebb.com/files/bunyan/pilgrimsprogress1.htm

Martin Luther's prayer from Psalm 119:94 ,taught to him by his friend and confessor Stauptiz,  when Luther was in torment over his sins,in the movie, I am yours save me.

When you know you are moving away from the Lord in your heart and actions recall whose your are. You belong to the Lord Jesus.  Confess your sins. Get up and use the key of promise in faith. Run to Christ who died and rose you. Get back on the road heading for that city whose builder and maker is God. Do not despair use the key of promise. Run to Christ

Bible Insights with  Wayne Conrad
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Psalms 119:105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Transcript

Title:  Danger of Backsliding

Date: February 2, 2026

Scripture: Hebrews 3:6-4:3; Psalm 95:6-11

AI TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. 

God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. I pray to God today that my words to you from the word of God will help you, will help you and me as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ to stay on the path because today's topic is the danger of backsliding, the danger of falling back and falling away from communion with the living God.

It's very important that we should beware lest we fall. I do not say these words as some kind of way to whip somebody into doing something, that's not their purpose, nor sounding some kind of alarm, like telling you that once you're saved, you can be lost again, because that's not what I'm saying, and that's not what the word of God is saying.

But when God saves us, he saves us to be his people. He saves us to be his sons and daughters, his servants and his soldiers in the army of the Lord. He saves us for a purpose, to glorify Him and to strengthen us as fellow believers in the household of God, in the assembly of the faithful, in the congregation of the righteous. So, we need to beware of the danger of backsliding.

And backsliding just means to move away from Christ, to move away from the active, intimate relationship we have with Him and to fall back into negligence, into conformity to the world, into shallowness in which we are not closely connected with our Savior and with His people. There is danger of backsliding.

The book of Hebrews addresses this in a number of places. And I shared in our church assembly yesterday, as part of our prayer time, these words from Psalm 95 that are quoted then in Hebrews chapter three. I want to share them with you today and with myself.

Remember, every time a messenger of God or servant of the Lord seeks to warn you or exhort you. They may have a finger or hand pointed out toward you, but remember the thumb is pointing back to them because we are one of you. Servants of God are one with all the other people of God. There's nothing specially holy about us. What's holy about us is the same thing as what's holy about you, if you're a servant and a child of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hear the words that the Psalmist writes, come and let us worship and bow down. I'm quoting from Psalm 95. Let us kneel before Yahweh, our maker. Why? For he is our God and we are his people. He is our shepherd. We are the sheep of his pasture under his care. And that care is given to us in that Psalm 23 that we're most familiar with.

But right after saying these words that you need to worship God, the psalmist talks about the danger of not hearing God's voice. So he writes, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the wilderness. Now, Meribah is the location in the journey toward the promised land where they were at. But the day of Massa, that's a word for quarreling. So it's on the day of your quarreling with the Lord and quarreling with Moses.

And I refer you to look at this in Deuteronomy, I mean, Exodus chapter 17 and verse seven, and then referenced in Deuteronomy 6, 16. Do not harden your hearts. It's on the day of quarreling in the wilderness where your fathers tested me. They tried me though they had seen what I did. Now he's recalling for them, God's recalling for them. Remember that I saved you by my mighty hand, the hand of miracles, by which I took you and enslaved people for a long time, hundreds of years in Egypt. And I brought you out of the house of bondage by my outstretched hand. By the many miracles, I delivered you from the hand of Pharaoh and I brought you into the wilderness and ultimately, I brought you, that is some of you, into the land of Palestine. 

You see, what happened is that in for a two-year period, the Hebrews came out of Egypt and they're on their way to what we call today Israel, but the promised land, Palestine. But soon, as they began their journey, they began a practice that sabotaged their relationship with God and their spiritual experience with God the Deliverer. 

They began doubting God, they began disbelieving God, they believed in complaining to God, they complained and quarreled with God and with God's leaders, Moses and Aaron. The first time was that they had water that was bitter, and they complained. Another time, they didn't have food, so they complained. But every time, you know, God provided them. He provided them ample waters in the wilderness, and he provided them daily manna. 

That was bread that's called, what is it? What is it, bread from heaven, that they could eat, that sustained their lives, that gave them everything they needed. So, God was with them. That's the most important thing. God and his presence was with them. If they had simply believed that they would know that the God who's with them would never desert them or not provide for them. 

You see, it's unbelief, disbelief that causes us to doubt God's intentions and to doubt God's provision. Well, we're not Israel. We are the people of God, Jew and Gentile, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And using this very psalm, the author of Hebrews sounds the warning, the warning of the psalm to us. 

We find it in Hebrews chapter three, which begins with, but Christ was faithful as a son over his household, and we are that household. if we hold on to our confidence and the hope in which we boast. We're God's household. We belong to God. We're the people of God, but we are to hold on to our confidence and the hope that we have in him, in his provision and in our future. 

And then he quotes from Psalm 95, He says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says. This is very important. You notice that the author of Hebrews is saying the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet who composed Psalm 95. Psalm 95 was composed by the inspiration, the guidance, the superintendence of the Holy Spirit. 

As the author recalled the wilderness testing of God, which was also a testing of the people. And the Holy Spirit says what? Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me and tried me and saw my works for 40 years. Therefore, I was provoked to anger with that generation and said, they always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways. So, I swore in my anger that they will not enter my rest. 

Now he wasn't talking about eternal salvation, he's talking about entering into the promised land that God had promised to bring the Hebrews back to after they had gone to Egypt some 400 years earlier, close to 400 years earlier. in order to escape famine. And they become honored guests. And then the Pharaoh changed and they ended up becoming slaves. But God remembered his promise, his covenant to Abraham. And in accordance with that covenant, he has bringing them out. They're his people because he had entered into a covenant with Abraham graciously, sovereignly. They belong to Him. And He had proven Himself before them in the great miracles He'd done for them. But now they're in the wilderness. They're on the way. And sometimes there are challenges on the way, both for them and for us. 

And how do we react to those challenges? How do we react to those periods of conflict? How do we react to those times of testing? Do we in turn go and test God? That's not the thing we need to do. What we need to do is to repent where we need to, and we need to trust in Him, believe His words of promise, cling to Him, cry out to Him, and say to Him, I am yours, save me, deliver me. 

Based on this story and this psalm of exhortation, the author of Hebrews says, watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won't be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. That's backsliding. Watch out, brethren, so there won't be in any of you, plural, an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 

How do I do that? He tells us, verse 13, but encourage each other daily while it is still called a day so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception. For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start. 

Remember your first love. Remember how you loved and clung to Christ. Remember how much you believed in him and trusted him. Remember how you felt when you emerged from the waters of baptism and you knew in your own heart, I am his. He has forgiven me and I belong to him. Remember where you came from. Remember how he delivered you and remember that he is for you. 

As he says in his word today, If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who heard and rebelled? Wasn't it all who came out of Egypt under Moses? With whom was God angry for 40 years? Wasn't it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? So, we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief, 

You know that all of the hundreds of thousands that came out of Egypt, only two entered ultimately into the promised land itself. Even Moses and Aaron fell in the wilderness because they had sinned against the Lord and not honoring him before the people. This doesn't mean they were lost. It's not talking about eternal salvation or heaven. It was talking about God's promise to bring them to the land that he had sworn to give to them. And now he was bringing that to pass. But only those who believed, only those who honored him, ultimately entered into that reward. 

So, we see they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Since the promise to enter his rest remains, let us beware that none of you, plural, be found to have fallen short. For we have also received the good news just as they did, but the message they heard did not benefit them ultimately since they were not united with those who heard it in faith. 

For we who have believed enter that rest. in keeping with what he has said. So, I swore in my anger, they will not enter my rest, even though his works have been finished since the foundation of the world." So today, do you hear his voice? Do not harden your hearts. 

The book of Hebrews is taken up with telling us how we can stay on the road of encouragement be firm in our faith and continue to grow. It tells us that we are to believe, we are to approach God as our great high priest. It tells us that we are to meet together as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we might encourage one another, even as we offer to God the praises that are due to his name. Listen to him, Hebrews chapter 10.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let's draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Let's hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering since he who promised is faithful. And let us watch out for one another to provoke love in good works, how do we do this? By meeting together so that we may encourage each other in the way, even as we see the day of his return approaching.

Let me tell you a little story, two little brief stories, bear with me. One is a story from Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 16th century. who was a Roman Catholic monk in the Augustinian order. He had a great sensitivity in his conscience to the smallest infraction or perceived infraction. So he was always confessing his sins to his confessor. In fact, he had spent hours in the confessing situation, trying to recall every infraction he could possibly think of. And then after he'd given some, he would then think he didn't do it right and start all over again. It became so much that his confessor, who was a man of faith, one day, as Martin was agonizing in his cell, his little monk room, crying out to God, Stumpowitz, I think was his name, he came in and he spoke words of encouragement to Martin and he gave him a little cross on a chain. He said, here, take this. And when you feel the tempter near, when you feel spiritual despair, hold it to your heart and say to God, I am yours, save me.

Oh, that's what we need to do. But sometimes we take the path of Pilgrim, Pilgrim's Progress, Christian, as he's on his way to the promised land. He's on his way to the Celestial City. And his friend, I think the name was faithful, was with him. Things were easy. He was going along the path, and then his interest drew to a little by-path. And he says to his friend, his companion, why don't we take the by-path? And we'll meet up down the road there from it. Let's just see what's down the by-path. And so he and Faithful went on the by-path. But soon, but soon, they were entrapped and caught by the giant despair. thrown into his castle and locked up and beaten, mistreated and meant to be killed.

Ah, but you know, after many days of striving and hours of agony, one day Christian reached into his bosom and he felt something and he pulled it out and it was just the word he needed. It was the word of God's promise. And he spoke to the faithful. And he said, the key, the promise of God. Using that key of the promise of God, they unlatched the cave, the cage, and they fled from the castle. giant despair awakening from his slumber, tried to come after them, but he couldn't reach them. And they fled to safety and back to the road, on to the celestial city.

Remember these two stories in light of the story of Israel. Beware, beware of falling off the path. Beware of taking bypass Trust in God, in his promises, in his law. Confess your sins. Confess your sins to one another. Get up. Use the key of despair. Flee to Christ and say, I am yours. Deliver me.

This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights.