Okay, this guy says he is a Christian for over a decade. He says he was ‘sold-out’ for Jesus and was involved in ministry for many years; even said his conversion was a 180 degree turn from when he was in the ‘world’.
Obviously something happened. For the past couple years he said he backslid. When pressed, he said he went back to his old ways as a lifestyle but never denied being a Christian; just stopped going to church and openly talking about it.
He thought about coming back, but he remembers a story about ‘a dog returning to his own vomit’ or something like that.
What do you say to a person in this predicament?
Be blessed, Stay blessed!
And what a predicament it is.
This is the ugly truth of when sin and evil doctrine mix together.
Jam 1:14-15 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
The simplicity, and thats where I would start with him, in the Gospel is that Christ died for our sins and to set us free from them. The desire he is 'feeling' is a Godly desire to come out of sin.
However, the snare of the enemy is always to keep one in sin. How do you stay in sin? Unbelief of the Gospel, that Christ came to set you free.
The problem with some doctrines state that you have already "received" the eternal reward here and now, not just by faith. Yes, we have that reward with us in our hearts and are waiting for it with great anticipation. But the fact is that while we are still in this flesh and walking on this earth, we do not "have" it. And thank God for that! It is safe and secure with Christ. I would hate to think that I had to somehow keep a hold of it.
But what sin does is it tells us that its "too late". It snares us into the side of unbelief. Because if we believed, we would walk in the freedom that Christ set us free in. It does a number with our mind. Because it takes a piece of the Bible here and one there and then builds a "trap" using God's own words. How diabolical is that???
We have the faith to believe that Christ died for our selves, but yet when we fail and fall on our faces, we cannot seem to find the faith to believe again and continue on down the road.
Now the evil doctrine I speak of is the idea that he never had faith, or that if he did then he is 'secure'. Both sides of that can weave a dangerous web. The idea that he never had faith negates the work that God did in his life at the beginning. The person is therefore prone to seek out a "new" experience and when he realizes that there is none(because the faith he had before was indeed real and God given) he then looses all hope and decides that its too late for himself.
The idea that he is 'secure' is also dangerous for the same reason. The reason that the person is fooled into believing that there is nothing required of him, namely obedience, and that he is just the way he is and worst of all that
he needs to try harder!??? Huh? Thats not the Gospel. The Gospel is that he is set free from that sin, and he has been given forgiveness and right standing, all he needs to do is follow the leading of the Spirit.
So, with all that said. I would simply talk to him and ask what he thinks is going to happen. Maybe he never had faith. Who knows, and the fact that we surely do not dictates that we cannot help to anymore a degree than just telling the truth without trying to 'sugar coat it' so its easier on the person. God works in the Spirit, if we try to reach a person in the flesh we will always fail.
Talk to him, present the Gospel. Tell him he is free from sin if he will just accept the truth of it. Its amazing how much God can work through us when we stop trying so hard and start listening more to Him. I know that you do this, so I trust you do not draw offense from that statement.
