Out of the Back Door by T. L. Cuyler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 26, 1873

Out of the Back Door.

By T. L. Cuyler

There are two doors in our churches. At the front door new members are received. In revival seasons, this door is thronged with incomers. Some come in hastily, and without good evidences of conversion. And these are ones who commonly disappear soonest through the postern door.

For our churches have a rear door also. People do not go out through it in crowds; they slip out stealthily, one by one. I never knew of a concerted backsliding from Jesus Christ. Persons often urge the unconverted to repent and come in to Christ; but no one ever urges his fellow-member to steal out of the back door, and become a backslider. The very proposal would shock and alarm. People backslide without urging—and often before they are fairly aware of it themselves. That church which during the last year has had more travel through the door at the rear, than through the door of ingress, has gained a loss. They had better begin the New Year with a day of humiliation and prayer.

Backsliding is usually a gradual process. It is not a bold, sudden leap, but a series of slow and almost imperceptible slips. “Christian” and “Hopeful” first grew discontented with the straight road to Heaven, and found the footing rather rough. Then they looked over the stile into the soft, velvety “By-path Meadow.” It promised easier walking. They flattered themselves that the meadow ran close alongside of the King’s highway of holiness. So after looking over wistfully, they concluded just to step over for a little while. But that crossing of the stile cost them a kidnapping by Giant Despair, and a wretched imprisonment in his dungeons, by which they were only delivered by deep repentance and the key of prayer. That wise man, Bunyan, describes only one door of admission into the Christian life, but the gateways of egress are very numerous. So our churches have only a single door of admission, but there are a great many posterns through which deserters slip out.

One professor begins to neglect secret prayer. If he keeps up the form, he loses the spirit of devotion. Presently he drops off from the social prayer-meeting. A slight excuse suffices to quiet his conscience. “The meetings are growing dull,” he whispers to himself. “A sociable,” a concert, a sleighing-party, the opera or almost anything that promises a lively evening, draws him away. He drops quietly out of the back-door, and gets fairly over into the ranks of the pleasure-seekers before he is aware. The number of professing Christians who owe their spiritual declension to sensual temptations is larger than is supposed. When a young man begins to desert from his post of duty, I soon suspect that the dance, or drinking-cup, or secret licentiousness is at the bottom of it. The besetting sin soon becomes an over-match for him; and if he does not quit his sinning, he will very soon quit his praying. The backslider who slips out the door to gratify fleshly lusts, always intends to go “just this once” and then return again. But a person rarely commits one deliberate sin, and stops with that single transgression. When the devil fairly gets hold of a church member, he does not let go his grip so easily.

But back of all outward backsliding lies the decay of religion in the heart. Our heart must be in our religion, and our religion in our heart, or else it becomes an uphill drudgery, or a sheer hypocrisy. Here lies the secret cause of many a church member’s desertion. He has not heart for his religious duties. They are a downright penance. He tugs at them awhile as a galley-slave pulls at the oar. He goes to his closet, or to the prayer-circle, or to the Sabbath-school, because he must, and not because he wants to. If the church bell rings him to the sanctuary, he hunts an excuse in the weather, or his health, and if none avails him, he goes reluctantly to keep up appearances. Money-giving to the Lord’s treasury becomes a tax, and he submits to it with secret protest. It is not a free gift, but an assessment, like the tax on his house, or his income; he pays it grudgingly. In fact, the whole routine of external service is gone through slavishly and reluctantly, and he shirks everything that he possibly can. As soon as the service of Jesus Christ ceases to be a cheerful, voluntary labor of love, backsliding has begun. It is a mere question of time as to when he shall become an open deserter. His heart is outside of the door, and he soon goes with it.

This paragraph will probably reach hundreds of church members who have been stealing away from their duties during the year just closed. Perhaps some of them will lay down this paper, and say, sadly, “Well, this means me. Oh! that I were as in months past!” The man or woman who honestly feels thus, I have some hope for. When there is conscience enough left to feel “pricked” and penitent on account of guilty wanderings from Christ, there is a possibility of recovery. And this is a good time to begin a new life.

Upon every backslider’s ear the bell that strikes the incoming of a new year, ought to sound as a most solemn warning from Heaven. This is the right time to repent and do the first works again. This is a good time to give up false hopes and rotten foundations, and to seek a new conversion. Multitudes of church members are living on the mere memory of an outworn experience, or on a faint hope that they were converted long years ago. They are really out of Christ’s fold. “I am the door,” saith the Shepherd’s voice to these wandering sheep. The first step of these wanderers must be to Jesus. By him alone can they re-enter the deserted fold. Backsliding professor! what thou doest, do quickly! Even to thee very soon that door may be shut!—T. L. Cuyler.