The Backslider's Way Hedged Up

Spurgeon opens with Israel's spiritual adultery as a mirror for every backslider, arguing that the first and most deadly step away from God is the perversion of his mercies into instruments of idolatry — the backslider, prospering in business, health, or family, piles up the word "my" (my house, my profits, my children) over goods that are borrowed, claims his success as the fruit of his departure from God, and sinks deeper with every new mercy until the thorn hedge of Providence — bankruptcy, sickness, bereavement, the sudden loss of every pleasure's flavor — is the only thing standing between him and final destruction. He then traces the painful and often repeated experience of those whom God has determined to reclaim: first one hedge of trial is driven through and another stronger wall is built, then the pleasures of sin lose all their sweetness and the man finds himself like Tiberius willing to pay a fortune for a pleasure his jaded appetite can no longer taste, until he sits exhausted at the end of an empty chase and the first honest thought breaks through — "It was better with me then than now" — which Spurgeon celebrates as the dawn of repentance, noting that the backslider returns with a double urgency, mourning not just original sin but the added shame of having despised a Savior he once knew. He closes with an equally solemn warning aimed at those who have never had the root of the matter in them at all, tracing the gradual cooling — forsaking weekday meetings, then the closet, then the sanctuary itself, then dying wealthy and morally respectable with no grace left — before urging every genuine believer to take the tiniest symptoms of backsliding with extreme seriousness, watch against the first coolnesses of heart, and above all cling to the cross, since the only security against falling is the continual keeping and anointing of the Holy Spirit. Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on September 18, 1864. Listen for free on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1Rndn9d... Podcast Index - https://podcastindex.org/podcast/7491057 iHeartRadio - https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-da... Podcast Addict - https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/dai... Castro - https://castro.fm/podcast/fc718d93-28... Castbox - https://castbox.fm/channel/6814639?co... Deezer - https://www.deezer.com/us/show/100221... PlayerFM - https://player.fm/series/daily-sermon...