“The backslider in heart is filled with his ways and a good man with his.”
~Proverbs 14.14
It’s really no big deal. A lingering fantasy. A cherished secret hidden from your spouse. A lack of hunger for what is good but an increasing appetite for that which God forbids. Decreased vigilance in guarding your heart, allowing your eyes and ears to let the enemies through the gates. It all begins small … dullness, apathy, refusal to fight, and the appeal of the forbidden. “This compromise won’t hurt,” you think to yourself. You deserve a rest from the fight. You have been patient up to this point and still don’t have the life you want. You need relief from the stress.
Apostasy, rejection of the faith, doesn’t begin with one giant leap off a cliff. Solomon describes this person as “one who turns in his heart” or, as it is popularly translated, “the backslider in heart” (Pr 14.14). Turning from the faith begins with the affections of the heart; a man is a “backslider in heart” before he is a backslider in deed. The sequence is well-summarized by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” The seeds you plant and cultivate in your heart, good or bad, will bear fruit in the future. You will reap what you sow.
Backsliding in heart is not the occasional sin for which you ask God for forgiveness or the battles you fight with thoughts, attitudes, and actions. Backsliding in heart is the heart’s affections, will, emotions, and thoughts turning away from Wisdom’s way. You begin to linger over thoughts of “reconstructing your faith.” You have “questions” about the faith that, if you were honest with yourself, you have already answered, but you want to appear to others to be “struggling.” But your heart has turned. You have decided that you want to be sexually immoral, and now you are trying to find a way to justify it, to convince yourself that it is the right thing to do. You’re cherishing thoughts of sin, and they have captivated you. Your actions will follow soon enough because you have prepared your heart to answer naysayers.
The bottom line is that Harlot Folly has become attractive to you, and Lady Wisdom has lost her appeal. The Scriptures and the ways of righteousness are no longer loved and desired. You may go through the motions, but your heart has turned.
The affections of your heart matter. From your heart springs all the issues of life (Pr 4.23). You will be “filled with the ways” of your heart, meaning you will become what you cherish and reap the consequences. If you fight God and are determined to cherish what God forbids, eventually, God will not fight you. God will give you over to the lusts of your hearts, dishonorable passions, and a debased mind (Rom 1.24, 26, 28). When all of the consequences of your backsliding are realized, calamity strikes you, and terror overtakes you, Wisdom will laugh (Pr 1.26). You will call to be delivered, but Wisdom will not answer (Pr 1.28) because you don’t want to walk in Wisdom’s way. You only want to be delivered from the consequences.
Consequences don’t work only one way. The good man will be filled with his ways as well. Those who guard their hearts with all vigilance (Pr 4.23)–who fight with sin, who flee when they see Harlot Folly, not allowing the chance for her to get her hooks into them, who listen to Wisdom, who discipline their eyes, ears, feet, and tongues in the way of Wisdom–these will be rewarded with the life that God promises.
You will reap what you sow in your hearts. Yes, it is a daily battle. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, there will be times of fatigue and discouragement. But if you want a good crop, you must plant the right seeds.
Photo by Oliver Roos on Unsplash
