How to Turn Your Back on God

By Jerry D. Ousley

            What a title for a message!  It seems, maybe, a bit blasphemous don’t you think?  Why would anyone write an article to tell people how they can turn away from God?  Why, it might even be a false teaching.  Doesn’t the Bible tell us that once we are saved that we can never become unsaved? 

There are two schools of thought on this subject (as there seems to be with every subject and doctrine found in the Bible).  People tend to go to one extreme or the other. One teaches that any time we commit the least sin that we are immediately separated from God because He cannot endure sin (which is true), and so once we fail, we have to start all over again, while the other school of thought says that no matter what we choose to do, once we have accepted Christ, we cannot become unsaved.  In other words, we can do anything we want to do and still be in the good graces of God.  They go so far as to even say that even if we want to, we cannot become “unsaved.”  As with all extremes, there is a bit of truth to both and a lot of untruths to both.

In order to get to the bottom of this, let’s first take a look at how we get saved.  We are told by the great Apostle, Paul, that, “… if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).  Basically, he was saying that if we confess that He is Lord and the only way to salvation and truly believe in what is accomplished in His resurrection, then you will be saved.  Unfortunately, so many confess in words and say they believe, thinking that is all there is to it and then go on their merry way doing whatever comes into their minds to do.  But have they really believed?  Have they really confessed Christ as Lord of their lives?  While these words are definitely true, they go hand in hand with what Jesus taught in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.  The illustrative story He told was that the sower put his hand in his bag of seed, and scattered it in the field.  Some of it went to places where it would unlikely grow, like on the hard, beaten path, or where the birds could quickly grab it up and devour it, or where thorns grew, which hogged up the nutrients of the ground and didn’t give the seed a fighting chance to live, or where there was no depth and the hot, scorching sun dried it up.  Only what fell on the good soil took root and grew. What Jesus was teaching was that our hearts have to be completely and entirely receptive to the good word of salvation and when it takes root and grows in our lives then we have something that cannot be stolen from us.

Paul also wrote in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor power, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  No outside force can take away what our God has given, once it has become rooted deep within us.  So then, isn’t this saying that we are eternally secure?

Paul wrote this too: “For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.  And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches.  But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’  Well said.  Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith.  Do not be haughty, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.  Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God; on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness.  Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.” (Romans 11:16-23).  It goes on but the point is that the Gospel was first given to the Jews.  Some accepted and many rejected.  Those who rejected were cut off and the believing Gentiles (that’s most of us if we aren’t actually Jewish), were grafted into the olive tree.  But we aren’t to get too secure.  Because if we fall into unbelief, we too can be cut off and others grafted in in our place.  So, it is possible to fall out of grace. I’ve always said that, yes we are eternally secure as long as we choose to remain eternally secure.

Let’s put it together in proper perspective.  If you notice the pattern in all this it all boils down to a choice.  Let’s look at another scripture: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.” (Hebrews 6:4-6).  One more scripture and then we will pull it all together.  Hebrews 10:26-29 tells us, “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.  Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”  Scary, isn’t it?

Okay, so to look at the full picture, we know from the parable Jesus told, that the word of the gospel can fall in places where there might be some interest, even some “just to make sure” belief that doesn’t take root.  I agree with those who say that those folk really didn’t get saved to begin with.  Why?  There was no real, genuine belief. 

But those who do genuinely receive the gospel, truly believe in the work our Lord did by dying on the cross, then resurrecting the third day thus conquering sin and death, are very much saved.  They begin to grow and have tasted those things the writer listed in Hebrew 6.  They cannot be plucked out of God’s hands by any external force found in creation.  However, there is one thing, and one thing only, that can take that away – CHANGING OF ONE’S MIND IN DISBELIEF.  “Impossible” you might say.  But it has happened.  These are those the writer of Hebrews is talking about when he wrote about there being no further sacrifice for sin, and trampling the Son of God underfoot.  These are the ones who can be broken off and others grafted in in their place.  It is possible.  But it is only possible by a conscience choice made.  A slip of the tongue in sin, a yielding to temptation does not take away the provision Christ made for us.  His sacrifice is way too powerful for that.  By the way, we don’t have to sin, but I haven’t yet met a Christian who hasn’t sinned and needed to repent of that sin.  Have you gossiped?  I bet you have.  That’s why John wrote in 1 John 2:1, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  We are going to slip up from time to time.  Why?  Because even though we are saved we are still human and we still fail.  Thank God for that Advocate!  Thank God for Jesus Christ!

It seems so ridiculous to think that someone who has tasted all the gospel has to offer would turn their back on God, but it has happened.  There are instances where people have renounced their faith and turned away from God.  How?   By changing their minds.  Only you can lose your salvation.  No one can take it from you.  It must be a conscious choice.  Why anyone would do it is beyond me.  But it can and does happen.

So, I conclude this teaching by saying that if you have contemplated turning your back on God, please consider deeply and in great length the decision you are tempted to make.  Don’t do it.  I’m reminded of the Israeli people who, after four hundred years of bondage to the Egyptians, found themselves delivered but in the wilderness.  They began to long for all the food and things available to them when they were in Egypt.  They forgot about the cruel whips of the Egyptians.  But more importantly, they forgot how devastated the land was when they left.  Because of the plagues rained down by God in effort to get Pharaoh to change his mind, the land was poor and destroyed.  That’s what they would have gone back to.  And that is what you will go back to if you do choose to turn your back on God.  I say again, don’t do it.  Instead turn once again to Christ.  Remember all the great things you have experienced in Him and in having the Holy Spirit indwell you.  Remember, and dismiss the thought from your mind.  No one can take it way except you.  Never forget that!  How to turn your back on God?  Make that choice.  But it is a horrible, terrible, scary and stupid thing to do.  Once more, DON’T DO IT!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.?  Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.