Psalm 73:2
“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped”
“THE DANGER OF SLIP, SLIDING AWAY!”
Introduction: Simon & Garfunkel recorded a song many years ago and the last words of the chorus are:
“We work our jobs; Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway, when in fact we’re slip slidin’ away”
Spiritually, we can think that we are gliding down the highway, when in reality we are slip sliding away. The Psalmist experienced this in his life and it’s as though he is brought back to reality and he sees what might have been. He said,
“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.”
The Contemporary English Version says, “But I almost stumbled and fell”.
The Bible warns of imminent danger in these last days. These are perilous times and times that must not be taken lightly. We are in grave danger and don’t even realize it. We are warned about the great apostasy of these days.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 (KJV)
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first”
APOSTASY means:
“The act of rebelling against, forsaking, abandoning, or falling away from what one has believed.”
There are untold thousands that never dreamed that they would be in the spiritual condition that they are in today. There is an old expression, “Never say Never!”
- Simon Peter declared that he would never fall away!
a. Just like so many others who have declared: “I’ll never leave the faith; I’ll never quit the church!”
b. But many people do including some of the most faithful.
c. Some that has served in the church for years.
d. Some who have sung in the choir and taught the Word of God.
The Psalmist seems shocked at his own actions:
“But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped”
- Slip, sliding away! Slipping away from the communion and fellowship you once knew.
- Slip, sliding away from the peace and joy that you used to know.
- Slip, sliding away from the commitment, dedication and faithfulness you once had.
Slip, sliding away until you can’t come to church:
- “The kids are sick”
- “The dog just had puppies”
- “The in-laws just dropped in”
- “The grass is high”
- “The wife is tired”
- “The husband is tired”
- “I have to work to pay for my luxury car, bass boat and big screen TV that we just have to have”
- “We have a family outing planned”
- “We’ve got to check on our house at the beach”
- “We’ve got to check on our cabin in the mountains”
They can’t come to church because they are slip, sliding away.
ILLUSTRATION
A man went to his neighbor and asked to borrow his chain saw. The man said, “I can’t, because I’m eating black-eyed peas”. The
neighbor said, “No, I’m serious, I have a tree laying in my drive way and I need to borrow your chain-saw” The man said, “I can’t be-
cause I’m eating black-eyed peas”. The neighbor got upset and said, “What does eating black-eyed peas have to do with your loaning me your chain saw?” The man said, “When you don’t want to loan somebody your chain saw, one excuse is as good as another”
When you don’t want to go to church or serve God, one excuse is just as good as another.
Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church.
It hasn’t always been that way! Paul told the Galatians,
Galatians 5:7 (KJV)
“Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?”
There was a time that you were faithful. There was a time that you were at church every time the doors were open. There was a time when you were actively involved in the church. You did run well! What has caused your love to cool off, what has stolen your affections? It’s so easy to make excuses and to try and justify everything.
The deadliest thing for any church and any individual is to lose our passion for God!
When we lose our passion it won’t be long until we are slip, sliding away!
I. SLIP SLIDING INTO TEPIDNESS!
A. Jesus warned that it would be better to be hot or cold than to be lukewarm.
a. There is just something deadly about lukewarmness.
b. The tepidness of being neither hot or cold.
B. When you are hot you try to cool off and when you are cold you try to warm up.
a. You can feel hot and you can feel cold but you don’t feel lukewarm.
C. The meaning of lukewarm is:
- Halfhearted
- Indifferent
- Unenthusiastic
- Apathetic
- Lackadaisical
D. None of those things describe a right relationship with God.
a. In fact they all nauseate our Lord.
b. He told the church at Laodicea that He would spew them out of His mouth.
c. There’s nothing worse than to have a church filled with: Half-hearted, Indifferent, Unenthusiastic, Apathetic and Lackadaisical members.
E. All of these have to do with the heart, spirit and emotions.
a. It’s when our worship loses its passion!
b. It’s when our efforts become halfhearted at best!
c. It’s when our attitude becomes apathetic and indifferent.
F. It’s an overall attitude of don’t care!
a. It’s a very, very dangerous attitude to have.
b. It’s when we don’t care if:
• We show up for church or not!
• We pray or not!
• We tithe or not!
• We serve in the church or not!
G. It’s when there is no longer a passion for excellence.
a. It’s the spirit of Cain of grabbing a few vegetables out of the garden and throwing them in the face of God.
b. It’s the spirit of Rehoboam substituting shields of brass for shields of gold.
c. It’s the spirit of Ananias and Sapphira misrepresenting their giving with a token.
H. When we lose sight of the majesty and glory of God…
a. When we lose sight of His holiness and purity…
b. When we lose sight of His power and strength…
c. We treat Him in a common and familiar way!
ILLUSTRATION
I was on my way to make a hospital visit the other night and was listening to a talk show that was interviewing a young man dying of cancer. He continually made a point that you believe your way and he would believe his way. He told about a woman that wanted to lay hands on him and pray for him and he refused because he doesn’t believe in that. He said that he believed that Jesus was a good man that wanted to teach others how to be good.
A man called in and commended him for his stand against religious fanatics. He said, “Just because you don’t go to church every Sunday and Wednesday and just because you have a drink and curse every once and awhile it doesn’t mean you are going to hell.”
a. In fact these days it seems that everybody is going to heaven regardless of how they live.
I. The standards have been lowered to a point to where anybody living any kind of life is going to heaven.
Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
Matthew 7:13
(Contemporary English Version)
“Go in through the narrow gate. The gate to destruction is wide, and the road that leads there is easy to follow. A lot of people go through that gate.”
J. God has become a buddy and pal!
a. He is referred to as JC or the man upstairs!
K. It is when we view God as common that we treat Him in a common way.
Psalm 47:2 (KJV)
“For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.”
Psalm 95:3 (KJV)
“For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.”
Malachi 1:14 (KJV)
“But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the LORD a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.”
L. Tepidness causes us to lose feeling.
• The Dentist will inject Novocain to deaden the nerve. You can have a tooth extracted and not feel any pain.
• The Anesthesiologist will put a patient to sleep and inject fentanyl. The surgeon can amputate a limb or do brain surgery and you will not feel any pain.
M. Lukewarmness causes us to lose our sensitivity to the things of God.
a. You can lose your power and strength and not even know it.
b. Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from him.
c. The Laodiceans didn’t even know that they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.
N. It doesn’t happen over night but little by little you start slip sliding away.
Song of Solomon 2:15 (KJV)
“… the little foxes, that spoil the vines”
O. There is a gradual decline.
a. A little here and a little there!
b. The progression downward starts with one step.
ILLUSTRATION
We have all heard the expression, “It’s enough to make a preacher cuss”. There’s the story of a boy trying to sell a broken down lawnmower. The local pastor walked up and he was able to persuade him to buy it. The pastor pulled on the rope several times but the mower wouldn’t start. The boy told the preacher that he would have to kick the mower and say a few cuss words before it would crank. The preacher said, “Son it’s been years since I said a cuss word.” The boy said, “Just keep pulling and it will come back to you!”
c. If you keep pulling and keeping walking in the wrong direction it won’t be long until old habits will come back into your life.
d. You start walking in the wrong direction and before you know it you are miles away.
P. The gossip, the rebellion, and the stubbornness begin to take their toll.
a. If you look back you can see where you started to fall.
b. When you do wrong and you don’t make it right.
c. When fail to repent and to apologize it has a devastating affect.
d. There are people out of church and away from God simply because they started to slip and never regained their grip.
II. SLIP SLIDING INTO APOSTASY
A. In the New Testament apostasy picks up the added meaning of "defection from the truth”.
a. It expresses the idea of:
• Falling away
• Lead away
• Drawn away
• Depart from the faith
• Follow destructive ways
b. All refer to rebelling against God and rejecting the truth.
1. Satan’s Influence Can Lead To Apostasy.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 (KJV)
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron”
a. False teachers can be found on every corner and they do the work of Satan in leading people astray.
2. False Brethren
Galatians 2:4 (KJV)
“And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage”
a. Everybody that professes to be a saint ain’t!
b. Some saints started slipping when they started sipping.
c. They started to live like the world until they became worldly.
d. These worldly and carnal attitudes began to show up in the church in the form of rebellion.
e. They come in promoting their own agendas and ideas seeking to bring confusion.
f. Someone that draws others away is self-seeking and full of pride.
g. There is always someone seeking to put together a posse.
h. Always someone that wants to lead a coup or orchestrate a take-over.
i. They remind of these dogs that lie in wait along the side of the road, if they ever catch a car they wouldn’t know what to do with it.
3. Persecution
Matthew 24:10 (KJV)
“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”
a. It doesn’t take much to get some to slip slide away!
b. Just a discouraging word.
c. Just a little offense.
d. Just look at some people the wrong way and they get offended.
4. Temptation
a. Some fall in love with the world and forsake Christ.
b. Demas forsook Paul having loved this present world.
5. Unfaithfulness
Hebrews 3:12-13 (KJV)
“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
a. When we are unfaithful it leads to an evil heart and rebellion against God.
B. Biblically, apostasy is rebellion against God or the abandonment of faith in God by those once enlightened by the truth.
a. In the Old Testament it always relates to rebellion against God.
b. In Israel, apostasy was a capital offense.
• If you sacrificed to another god you would be stoned to death.
• If an entire city was implicated, its inhabitants were killed, and the city and its contents were burned and reduced to rubble.
• Incitement to apostasy was also punishable by death!
• Anyone who gave his offspring to another god was stoned to death!
C. How can we go from light to darkness?
a. How can we go from liberty to bondage?
b. How can we walk away from serving God to serving the devil?
D. It doesn’t happen overnight!
a. You start to slip and then to slide away.
III. RETURNING TO OUR FIRST LOVE!
A. It is never the intention of someone to slip into apostasy.
a. You don’t wake up one day and decide that you are going to go back into sin.
• You slowly turn away from the blessings of God.
• You slowly move from His presence and toward the world.
• You slowly leave the Lord without even realizing it.
B. You start to cool off until your love waxes cold.
a. You lose your appetite for the things of God and you set your affections on the things of this world.
C. In the words of the old hymn:
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.”
D. It’s a matter of remembering where we have come from.
a. We have a short memory!
b. We’ve forgotten where we’ve come from!
c. We’ve forgotten where we were when the Lord found us.
• Forgotten the sick feeling of seeing the blue light in the rear view mirror and being pulled for drunk driving.
• Forgotten the indignity of hugging a toilet bowl; sickened from a night of partying.
• Forgotten the misery, guilt, bondage and shame of sin.
E. The Psalmist had to confess that his steps had well nigh slipped.
a. He confessed that a lot of his problems began when he got his eyes off of God and on other people.
1. Envious of the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked.
a. He was jealous when he saw proud and evil people prospering.
b. How can that be?
2. They don’t suffer, they are healthy and they don’t have troubles like everyone else.
a. They wear their pride like a necklace and commit sin more often than they get dressed.
3. Their eyes poke out like fat and their minds are flooded with foolish thoughts.
4. They sneer and say cruel things.
5. They speak against God and order others around.
6. It all goes well with them and they live in peace.
F. Have you ever been guilty of looking at the wicked and saying what good does it do to live right?
a. They live any kind of life and seem to be getting along well.
b. How can people live like that and seem to be blessed?
G. When he got back to church and got his eyes back on God then he could see the light.
a. He confessed to being foolish and ignorant.
b. He could now see how the wicked are in slippery places.
Psalm 1:1-6 (KJV)
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
H. This is no time to be slipping!
a. This is not a time to be sliding.
Hebrews 2:1 (KJV)
“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.”
Conclusion: We need to get in church, get in the Word and get on our knees. These are the last days and many are departing from the faith. Many are slip, sliding away from God. It’s time to return and be established in the faith.
