EVIDENCES OF A BACKSLIDDEN CONDITION
1. When prayer ceases to be a vital part of your life. It has been said that "revival delays because prayer decays.” In New Testament times, we found men in the upper room agonizing. We now find believers in the supper room organizing.
2. When the quest for Biblical truth ceases and you become content with the knowledge you have already acquired. This is not to say backsliders do not read the Bible. Many of them have habits of dutiful devotions, but while they read the words they do not receive fresh revelation and application of the truth. The knowledge they acquire is treated as facts and not applied to their lives.
3. When thoughts about eternal things cease to be regular and/or important.
4. When you pardon your own sin with self-righteousness and by saying "the Lord knows I am just dust" or "that is the way I am.”
5. When pointed spiritual discussions are an embarrassment. For examples, discussions about things that are convicting and/or witnessing to the lost make you uncomfortable.
6. When other things like recreation, sports, and entertainment become first in your life.
7. When sin can be indulged in without protest by your conscience.
8. When aspirations of Christ-like holiness are no longer dominant in your life.
9. When the acquisition of money and goods becomes dominant in your thinking.
10. When you can hear the Lord's name taken in vain, spiritual concerns mocked, and eternal issues flippantly treated and not be moved to indignation and action.
11. When "worship" becomes a weariness. Church services lose their excitement, you can mouth religious songs and words without heart, there is no song in your heart, no praise with the ring of joy.
12. When breaches of unity in the fellowship are of no concern to you.
13. When the slightest excuse seems sufficient to keep you from Christian service.
14. When your fleshly senses are out of control: You watch degrading movies and television, listen to ungodly music, and read morally debilitating literature.
15. When you adjust happily to the world's lifestyle: For examples, unpaid debts, bankruptcy, lying, dishonesty, unkept appointments and promises, immodest styles of dress, cheating your employer of a full day's work, etc.
16. When your lack of spiritual power no longer concerns you; there is no restless yearning for more of God and His power in your life.
17. When your church has fallen into spiritual decline. Such spiritual decline is indicated by carnality. A carnal church may have...
-Equipment, but not evangelism.
-Commotion, but not creation.
-Action, but not unction.
-Rattle, but not revival.
-A dogmatic attitude, but not be dynamic for God.
Such spiritual decline is also indicated when the Word of God is no longer preached with power in your church and yet you are content.
18. When the moral, political spiritual, and economic condition of the world and your nation is of no concern to you.
19. When your heart is hard: Your tears do not flow easily, you are uncaring, abrupt, etc. You do not weep over the things which Jesus wept like a lost city, the spiritual condition of man, the sorrows of others.
20. When you have lost your spiritual strength, and do not even realize it. Revival is never more needed than when a church or individual suppose themselves victorious on the front lines of battle, but in reality all around are the scarred corpses of the victims of its backslidings.
