2 Peter 2:17-22
Spiritual Recession: Going the Wrong Way
I. Introduction
-One month from revival.
-Revival is upon us.
-The opposite of revival is recession.
-Are you in the midst of spiritual recession?
-What direction are you heading with God?
1. Forward, deeper, higher?
2. Backward, shallowness, weakness?
-Peter describes a frightening spiritual condition...
II. Scripture
III. Disconcerting State
-The politicians are talking about economic recession.
1. Economy is troubled.
2. Jobs, taxes, money.
3. Since they know everything, I won't deal w/ that this morning.
-There is a state even more disconcerting: spiritual recession.
-What is spiritual recession?
1. Spiritual recession = spiritual retreat.
2. It is spiritual sickness.
3. It leads to spiritual lostness/ death.
4. It is moving in the wrong direction.
5. Sometimes called backsliding.
-I'm not talking about those who have never been saved
1. Their's is a sad state.
2. Spiritual recession is worse.
-More prevalent than we realize today.
-Maybe you are affected.
IV. Spiritual Sickness
-Ill. There are observable things that happen when Jacob gets sick.
1. He doesn't act the same (being still & sitting in lap).
2. Take his temperature (high)
3. Vomiting, diarrhea, etc.
4. Excessive crying.
5. When older; he can tell me something is wrong.
-From a pastor's heart let me share with you some indicators of spiritual recession.
-Drop in Attendance
1. Are you in the house of the Lord less than you have been?
2. Are you consistent in your attendance?
3. Hit & miss?
-Drop in enthusiasm/passion
1. You use to be passionate about serving the Lord.
2. You loved to talk about God.
3. You use to do all you could to live for Him.
4. Study your Bible, pray, devotional time w/ Him.
5. Ppl commented about how much you loved the Lord.
-Drop in involvement
1. You use to be involved in God's Work through His church.
2. You did things in the church, you might have been a leader, you helped do things.
3. You were more involved than you are today.
-Drop in priority
1. The thing that usually proceeds the rest is a drop in priority.
2. The things of God use to be important to you.
3. Being at church, involved in church, and passionate about the Lord's Work use to be at the forefront of your list of priorities.
4. It just isn't important like it use to be.
-Have you taken your spiritual temperature lately?
-Jerry Vines said: "Are you back slidden now? I'm going to help you answer that question. A backslidden Christian is any Christian who is not as close to Jesus as he use to be. Was there ever a time in your life when you were closer to the Lord than you are now? Was there ever a period in your life when you felt the presence of God more than you feel it now? Was there a moment in your life when your love for Jesus Christ was more real than it is this minute? If so you need a revival!"
V. Immunity to the Holy Spirit
-There is a way to mask this sickness from yourself.
-There is a vaccine against the Holy Spirit, many have.
-Ill. Many years ago small pox was a scary thing.
1. For most it was a death sentence.
2. Maybe some of you remember those times.
3. They eventually developed a vaccine against it.
4. They noticed that many individuals who had cow pox (a similar disease) did not contract small pox.
5. They started giving an injection of cow pox to individuals and found out it built up their immunity against small pox.
-Have you found yourself immune to the Holy Spirit?
1. That isn't b/c you are a mature Christian.
2. You might be in recession.
3. Have you spoken intimately with Christ of late?
-Or have you taken a vaccine?
1. Have you injected yourself with religion & religious stuff?
2. So that the Holy Spirit is drowned out.
-I fear we have become so religious that we have ceased to be holy!
1. We have "In God We Trust" on our money, but we don't.
2. Our constitution speaks of God, but our conscious has closed Him out.
3. Oprah, Dolly Parton, presidential candidates all speak of their service to God, but they have missed him.
-I fear we have become too religious for God!
-I fear our hearts have led us astray!
-Hebrews 3:12 "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God."
VI. Counterfeit Christianity
-Have we settled for a counterfeit?
-I sometimes wonder as I read God's Word: Have we missed it?
1. Have we made Christianity a sedative to help us sleep at night?
2. Have we deceived ourselves into thinking everything is okay?
-Have we bought into some kind of cheap therapeutic Christianity?
-Have we reasoned God out of the equation?
-Someone said: "We have been so deprived of real and true Christianity that we cannot identify the holy from humanistic; we cannot differentiate God's glory from the world's garbage; we cannot tell righteousness from rottenness!"
-v. 20 "For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first."
-Ill. Mike Yaconelli in "The Wittenburg Door"
1. He writes of his upbringing in a small rural town.
2. Lot's of cattle farmers.
3. Asked a farmer how the cows would get lost.
4. "See a nice green patch of grass and go to nibble on it."
5. "Then they'd see another patch and go to it, then another. Before long they would look around and realize they were lost."
6. So it is with the church today.
7. We have wandered away from the truth of God, it has become foreign to us.
-I know there are some things you just cannot preach on in today's church w/out offending or shocking ppl.
1. Hell, Sex, Gossip,
2. Tithing, Divorce, etc.
3. I know it. "Lord Help Me"
VII. Retreat or Revival!
-Christians are in spiritual retreat.
-We are giving up ground to the forces of darkness.
1. We are surrendering to defeat.
2. We are signing treaties of surrender to the evil one.
-We are in spiritual recession.
-Ill. The African impala can jump more than 10 ft high & a distance of over 30 ft.
1. But they can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall.
2. Why? They will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.
-Many Christians in spiritual recession are that way.
1. They cannot see the solution to the problem.
2. They cannot see it so they will not jump.
-Retreat or Revival?
-The answer to spiritual recession is spiritual revival!
VIII. Conclusion
-Ill. Robert Robinson the author of "Come Thou Fount"
1. He was saved out of a life of deep sin through George Whitfield's ministry in England.
2. Shortly afterwards at the age of 23 he wrote the hymn.
3. At some point Robinson became a prodigal son, who wondered away from the Lord.
4. One day he was traveling by stagecoach w/ a young woman engrossed in her book.
5. She came across a verse she thought was beautiful and asked what he thought of it.
6. She read: "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love."
7. Crying he said: "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."
-vv. 21-22 "For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. [22] What the true proverb says has happened to them: ‘The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in th mire.'"
-Are you were you use to be?
-Some......are affected.
1. ...couples...
2. ...families...
3. ...churches...
4. ...individuals...
-Some of us are in recession b/c we've never really been shown what true Christianity looks like.
-The only response to spiritual recession is spiritual revival!
Response
