We have all been there. You are sitting in the same wooden pew you have occupied for ten years. You know the hymns by heart, and you are hearing the Word preached, but somewhere along the way, the fire went out. You aren’t out living a life of scandalous crime, but you are effectively just “going through the motions.” In our Reformed circles, we talk a lot about the perseverance of the saints, but we often forget that perseverance requires actually moving forward. His work, A Rebuke to Backsliders, is an urgent call for those of us who are “loitering” in the Christian life to wake up before the sun sets.
Your spiritual health might be failing while your life looks fine
Alleine makes a point that is often missed in our modern comfort. He explains that there is a difference between a total fall from the faith and a partial decay. You can still be a real Christian and yet be in a state of “consumption.” Just like a person can have a disease that eats them from the inside out while they still look healthy to a stranger, a soul can be wasting away even while attending every prayer meeting. This is a terrifying thought for many of us who rely on our church attendance as proof of our health.
Alleine uses the metaphor of “grey hairs” to describe this state. You don’t notice one grey hair appearing in the mirror, but eventually, your whole head has changed. He warns that we can lose our first love and our “spiritual appetite” so slowly that we don’t even realize we are starving.
Gray hairs are upon me though I knew it not. It is conspicuous, man, to everyone that observes thee; thy Religion, thy conscience, and all that Grace that is in thee, ’tis all grown gray.
Spiritual decay is a moth, not a fire
One of the most impactful insights Alleine offers is how backsliding actually happens. It rarely starts with a massive explosion or a sudden decision to leave God. Instead, he compares it to a moth in a closet. A fire would alert you immediately, and you would run to put it out. But a moth works in the dark, silent and slow, eating away at the fabric until the garment is useless.
This resonates with the Reformed understanding of the heart’s deceitfulness. Our “loitering” is often just a slow cooling of our affections. We don’t stop praying; we just stop praying with life. We don’t stop reading the Bible; we just stop letting it enter our conscience. Alleine’s point is that we must be as vigilant against the “moth” as we are against the “fire.”
This Consumption fretteth out the Heart as a Moth fretteth a Garment. If the Moth seized upon any Garment as fire doth, you would shake it off suddenly; but because it consumes but insensibly and by slower degrees, therefore it’s let alone till it hath done its work.
Our own righteousness can be our biggest distraction
Alleine pulls no punches when he quotes Isaiah, reminding us that even our “righteousnesses” are as filthy rags. For a confessionally Reformed person, this is familiar territory, but Alleine applies it specifically to the church. He argues that the special complaints of the church should be about the church’s own sins. We are often very quick to point out the drunkenness or profanity of the world while ignoring the “heart-idolatry” and “lukewarmness” in our own pews.
When we feel that we are “good enough” because we are better than our neighbors, we have already started to slide backward. Alleine suggests that the most dangerous backslider is the one who uses their past spiritual achievements as a pillow to sleep on today.
Our very righteousness is as filthy rags; ’tis but a ragged righteousness we have, a tottered, maimed, torn thing; the best we have is but as a rag, unprofitable as a rag.
Taking hold of God requires dropping your luggage
The title of Alleine’s text involves “taking hold of God,” but he makes it clear that your hands must be empty to do so. He identifies the “iniquity of covetousness” as the main idol that drives God away from a person. If our hearts are divided—half for God and half for our bank accounts or our reputations—we aren’t really holding onto God at all.
This is a direct challenge to our modern lifestyle. Alleine isn’t just talking about wanting to be a millionaire; he’s talking about any “earthly-mindedness” that makes us indifferent to God’s presence. He tells us plainly that if we want God to stay, the idols have to go. You cannot “loiter” in the world’s shops and expect to “flourish” in God’s house.
Your hands are full of dirt and ashes, empty them of these, or you can never lay hold on God. . . . For the Iniquity of his Covetousness I was wrath and smote him, I hid me and was wrath, and yet he went on frowardly in the way of his Heart.
The scary silence of a departing God
Alleine warns that there is a point where God simply lets a loitering soul alone. This is perhaps the most sobering takeaway. He describes “night” as a time of silence and sleep. When the light of the Gospel is removed, or when the Spirit stops “rebuking” us for our sins, we are in the most danger. A silent conscience is not a sign of peace; it is a sign of judgment.
If we continue to ignore the “alarms” God sends us through preaching and providence, Alleine suggests that God may eventually “loosen the reins of government” and let us run our own foolish course. For those of us who believe in the sovereign grace of God, the thought of being “left to ourselves” should be the most frightening prospect imaginable.
Night cometh when no man can work. . . . we give the alarm, but you will not take the alarm: this is the stirring of the soul which I am preaching of, when sinners are alarmed, and take the alarms.
Why you should read this book
You should read A Rebuke to Backsliders because your soul is more prone to wandering than you care to admit. Richard Alleine writes not as a judge, but as a concerned physician who sees a plague spreading through the camp. In a world that encourages us to be “comfortable,” this book is a necessary “spur.” It will help you identify the “grey hairs” in your own spiritual life and give you practical steps to “stir up” the grace that has grown cold. If you feel like your religion has become a carnal, lazy, or “formal” thing, this book is the alarm clock you have been sleeping through. It is time to wake up, for as Alleine reminds us, “the night cometh.”