The Danger of Spiritual Decline

Intro:

Good evening.

This morning we talked about the importance of spiritual growth.

It goes without saying (though we did say it this morning) that a babe in Christ is allowed to BE a babe in Christ FOR A TIME …

But eventually, he’s got to grow well past that!

Eventually she’s got to get to the point where she can eat strong meat, spiritually speaking!

(And we referenced Hebrews 5:14 and some other verses).

Tonight, we want to look at the flip slide of that and talk about the danger of spiritual stagnation, being “stuck in neutral,” and eventually spiritual decline.

The Bible has various terms for this:

Being “at ease” (Amos 6:1 - Woe to those who are at ease in Zion).

Being lukewarm, like those of Laodicea (Rev. 3:14ff).

We might call that complacency.

Or how about backslidden? (Has it been a while since you’ve heard that one?)

Listen to what the Bible says about that:

Proverbs 14:14 - “The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways [wicked ways is implied], But a good man will be satisfied from above.”

(Read Jer. 8:5-22).

We’ve got to be careful not to backslide!

Well, tonight I want to look at just a few symptoms of not just a lack of spiritual growth, but actually falling into spiritual stagnation, neutrality, and decline.

Acceptance/Tolerance of Sin:

“Be ye holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16).

What was the reason that Jerusalem lie in shambles as we just saw in Jeremiah chapter 8? (Sin!)

And what will cause the lives of the people of God today to be in shambles? (The same thing, sin!)

Church, why do we sometimes become so casual when it comes to acceptance of sin?!

Maybe it’s our “little pet sins” (quote, unquote) that we don’t want to let go of.

Maybe it’s the sins of our family and friends, so we make excuses for them.

Maybe it’s really messy sins that are found even in the church, so rather than deal with them we would rather sweep them under the rug because that’s the easier thing to do!

Brethren, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 that “a little leaven (the leaven of sin) leavens the whole lump!”

The Bible also says in Isaiah 59:1-2 that it is SIN that separates from a holy God.

May we never DECLINE/Backslide/Stagnate (however else you want to say it) that we begin to view sin as no big deal!

And we get that, don’t we, when it comes to sins like:

Adultery,

Fornication,

Homosexuality, and

Murder?

Yeah, but what about:

Those “little white lies?”

Gossip and other sins of the tongue?

Pride,

Jealousy,

Contentions,

And we could go on and on!

May we never accept/tolerate/make excuses for what the Bible calls just plain old-fashioned sin!

And may we do some soul-searching, because if we’re being honest it’s EASY to point out everyone else’s sin …

But it’s a whole lot more difficult to find and fix our own, isn’t it?!

So I think that may be the number 1 indicator of a lack of growth as a Christian, but now let’s look at another and that is the tendency to fall into …

Patterns of Discouragement:

Notice, I didn’t say an occasional moment of discouragement (we all have those!)

No, I’m talking about falling into the destructive PATTERN of discouragement.

A downward spiral, we might say!

There are going to be in the faithful Christian life moments of weakness, moments of doubt, moments of trial, and moments of discouragement.

If somebody promised you different when you first became a Christian, I hate to be the bearer of bad news …

(But there’s GOOD NEWS! Great news, in fact! We’re all going to be okay on the day of judgment if we’re found faithful!)

But we have moments of discouragement while we are here, don’t we?

Is it not the case that sometimes we go from just an occasional inevitable bout with discouragement to …

A continuous negative feedback of it?

And what I mean by that is, let’s say we begin focusing too much on the negative. (Pessimism, right?)

(Should Christians be pessimists? No! We should be the utmost optimists in the world! If we’re not, something’s wrong!)

But let’s say that you get a pessimistic streak, and you dwell on that, and in the constant negativity you begin to complain, you look for more things to complain about, you spend your time finding fault instead of looking for the good …

You start making excuses for your own sins (back to point number 1).

And it’s a constant negative feedback loop to the point to where your life eventually looks NOTHING LIKE Christianity!

And if we’re not careful, just a little momentary discouragement is the first step down that path!!!

Brethren, the Bible contains examples of people who got discouraged from time to time:

Faithful people! (Even Jesus Christ Himself was troubled at times! John 13:21; John 11:33).

But if they were truly faithful people, they didn’t allow themselves to stay discouraged for very long!

So … the next time you get to feeling down, I want you to think about three of the Bible’s HEROES:

Elijah, Jeremiah, Peter — and realize that they all had moments when they were down … but they all got back up!

Elijah — He felt like he was the only one left faithful to God (God tells Him, “I have 7000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal! 1 Kings 19:18)

Jeremiah — He felt like giving up preaching at one point! But he then realized - “His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not!” (Jer. 20:9)

Peter - He denied Jesus 3 times (Do you think discouragement played into that?) - He evidently was so exasperated and discouraged after the death of Jesus he simply said: “I’m going fishing” (John 21:3). It wasn’t much later he was preaching that marvelous sermon on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2)!

But a continuous pattern of pessimism, complaining, and discouragement — I would say that’s a sign of a lack of spiritual growth.

Think about it carefully, if we are truly GROWING as Christians as we should be, is that an ENCOURAGING endeavor, or a DISCOURAGING one? (An ENCOURAGING one!)

That ought to tell us something!

Finally, one more …

Giving Up:

Thus, we go from bad to worse.

Brethren, do you know that there are some Christians who are so dead set on not giving up their SINS that they instead just throw in the towel, and effectively say: “I just can’t do it! I just can’t be faithful, so I think I’ll just quit!”

And to that I’ll quote my Momma and my Daddy!

My Momma always says: “Can’t never could!”

And my Daddy says, “I ain’t raising no quitter!” (Maybe not an exact quote, there).

Brethren, don’t quit!

If you’re not growing, if you are in spiritual decline, if you are stagnating, complacent, at ease, lukewarm, and backsliding, there will come a time …

When you will eventually just throw in the towel and quit!

Don’t do that!

Make up your mind right now - “I … will … be … faithful!”

I’m going to give you one example of a man who DID give up, and that’s such a shame! (Then the lesson will be yours)

You ready for it?

“For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (2 Tim. 4:10).

Demas gave up!

Conclusion:

Don’t be like Demas!

Don’t give up!

Three things that I presume are key indicators of spiritual decline:

Acceptance/tolerance of sin,

A continuous pattern of discouragement,

And flat out giving up.

Do these describe your spiritual life tonight?