Ways of Backsliders

Forget God:

Deuteronomy 8:11  

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

Forsake God:

Deuteronomy 32:15  

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.

Provoke God:

Deuteronomy 32:16  

They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols.

Turn again to folly:

Psalms 85:8  

I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints— but let them not return to folly.

Turn aside to sin:

Psalms 125:5  

But those who turn to crooked ways the LORD will banish with the evildoers. Peace be upon Israel.

Turn from righteousness:

Ezekiel 3:20  

“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

Ezekiel 33:12-18

12 “Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness.’

13 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done.

14 And if I say to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right—

15 if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die.

16 None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live.

17 “Yet your countrymen say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just.

18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.