Lamentations 3:40; Psalm 119:37
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Have we never inwardly backslidden, so that if God had not for His own mercy’s sake restored us, we must have departed forever?
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Let the spiritual believer take only the history of a single week as the gauge of the general tenor of his life, and what a lesson for him of the downward, earthly tendency of his soul! In one short week, how have the wheels lessened in their turning; how has the timepiece of his soul lost its power; how have the chords of his heart become unstrung!
CHARLES SIMEON: Since all are “bent to backslide,” more or less, it is of great importance to inquire of what kind our backslidings are, and to see whether they are merely the infirmities of an upright soul, or the revolt of an apostate. It is indeed difficult to determine this with precision; yet something may be said to aid you in this inquiry.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Be very honest and diligent in ascertaining the cause of your soul’s deadness. The correct knowledge of this is necessary to its removal; and its removal is essential to the recovery of the inner life from its relapsed state. Is it indulged sin? Is it the neglect of private prayer? Is it worldliness, carnality, carelessness? Any one of these would so grieve the Spirit of God within you as to dry up the spirituality of your soul.
CHARLES SIMEON: Examine diligently the cause, the duration, and the effects of your backslidings. Those of the sincere arise from the weakness of their flesh, while yet their spirit is as willing as ever: but those of the hypocrite proceed from a radical disaffection to the ways of God. Those of the sincere continue but a little time, and are an occasion of greater diligence: those of the hypocrite remain, and become the habit of his soul. Those of the sincere humble him in the dust: those of the hypocrite produce a blindness of mind, a scarred conscience, and a hardness of heart.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Be not beguiled with the belief that the real recovery has taken place simply because that, conscious of your state, you acknowledge and deplore it in meaningless regrets. “The soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing,” Proverbs 13:4 Observe that he has his desires, but nothing more, because with them he is satisfied. Let this not be your state.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is the great concern of those who have backslidden from God to hasten their return to Him…David, being convinced of his sin, poured out his soul to God in prayer for mercy and grace.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: His prayer is for divine quickening. His anxious inquiry is, “What course am I to adopt when I find deadness in my soul, and cannot feel, weep, sigh, nor desire—when to read and meditate, to hear and pray, seem an irksome task—when I cannot see the Saviour’s beauty nor feel Him precious nor labour as zealously or suffer as patiently for Him as I would?” The answer is at hand: Look again to Jesus. This is the only remedy that can meet your case. Go directly to Christ; He is the Fountain; He is the living Well.
CHARLES SIMEON: There is no other way for our continuance in life than that by which we are first brought into a state of spiritual existence. As at the beginning it is said, “He that hath the Son of God hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life,” 1 John 5:12; so must it be said even to the end: for “all our fresh springs are in Him;”―Have we continually fresh sins to be forgiven? There is no way of being cleansed from them but by washing continually in “the fountain which has been once opened for sin and uncleanness,” Zechariah 13:1. Have we on account of our remaining corruptions continual need of fresh supplies of grace? There is no other source of grace but He: “It hath pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell,” Colossians 1:19. and “out of His fulness must we all receive, even grace for grace,” John 1:16.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “He restoreth my soul,” Psalm 23:3—Either when backslidden, and He brings it back again when led or driven away, and heals its backslidings; or rather, when fainting, swooning, and ready to die away, He fetches it back again, relieves, refreshes, and comforts with the discoveries of His love, with the promises of His word, and with the consolations of His Spirit, and such like reviving cordials.
CHARLES SIMEON: If you reply, “There is no hope for me, because I have once known the Lord, and have backslidden from him;” be it so; yet, as a backslider, hear what a gracious message He sends thee by the Prophet Jeremiah: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings,” Jeremiah 3:2.
MATTHEW HENRY: Though our sins have been very great and very many, and though we have often backslidden and are still prone to offend, yet God will repeat His pardon, and welcome even backsliding children that return to Him in sincerity.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Seek earnestly and believingly until you possess more abundant life from Christ. Seek a gracious revival of the life of God in your soul. Seek a clearer manifestation of Christ, a renewed baptism of the Spirit, a more undoubted evidence of your conversion, a surer brighter hope of heaven. Thus seeking, you will find it―Oh, the joy of a revived state of the inner life of God! It is the joy of spring after the gloom and chill of winter. It is the joy of the sunlight after a cloudy and dark day―“Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved,” Psalm 80:19.
CHARLES SIMEON: Let us only examine the records of our own hearts, and call our own ways to remembrance; and there is not one of us who will not be ready to look upon himself as the greatest monument of mercy that can be found on earth.
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see that, while all emptiness exists in you, all fullness dwells in Jesus. There is a fathomless depth in the heart of Christ of love unchangeable, of grace all-sufficient, of truth immutable, of salvation from all sin and trial and sorrow. It is commensurate with your need and vast as His own infinity. Your grace can never be too low, your frame too depressed, your path too perplexing, your sorrow too keen, your sin too great, nor your condition too extreme, for Christ.
