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###### Cause: Backsliding in the Christian Life and Decline in One’s Heavenly Trade

{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…

Exhortation and Counsel to Earthly Traders

Counsel Three: Search for the Cause of Your Afflictions

Backsliding in Christian Life, Decline of One’s Heavenly Trade}

Backsliding in one’s Christian walk and decline in one’s heavenly trade are usually followed by disruptions to people’s outward comforts and concerns, as has already been shown above. “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 ESV). When godliness flourishes, all things go well. When the Christian walk goes down, nothing prospers. “Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, ‘Thus God has said, “Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord and do not prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, He has also forsaken you”’” (2 Chronicles 24:20 NASB). For this neglect of obedience, God threatened to make Israel a waste and a reproach and to send the evil arrows of famine and break the staff of bread (Ezekiel 5:14–17).1201 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in my statutes or obeyed my rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations” (Ezekiel 5:7–8 ESV). Backsliding in holiness will make people fall back in the world also and bring a curse on their abundance. Now this decline in Christianity is the sin of this day as has been fully demonstrated.

1201“Moreover, I will make you a desolation and an object of reproach among the nations all around you and in the sight of all who pass by. You shall be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the Lord; I have spoken—when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken” (Ezekiel 5:14–17 ESV).

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