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I. WHAT THESE MEN DID. They turned their backs when the time for fighting came, and fled. This, I am sorry to say, is not an unusual thing among professing Christians. Some do this at the first appearance of difficulty. Timorous and Mistrust come running down tim hill crying, "The lions! the lions!" and thus may a pilgrim turn back towards the City of Destruction. Others are somewhat braver. During the first thrust they stand like martyrs and behave like heroes, but very soon, when the armour gets a little battered, and the fine plume on their helmet a little stained, they turn back in the day of battle. Some professors bear the fight a little longer. They are not to be laughed out Of their religion; they can stand the jeers of their old companions. "Cowards," say they, "are those who flee; but we shall never do this." But by and by the skirmishers have done their work, and it comes to a hand-to-hand fight; the struggle begins to be somewhat more arduous, and now shall we see what metal they are made of. We have seen grey-headed apostates as well as juvenile ones.

II. WHEN THEY DID IT. "In the day of battle."

1. At the only time when they were of any sort of use. If the Christian soldier never fights, of what good is he at all? Take off his colours, play "The Rogues' March," and turn him out of the barracks! And this is what will come to some professors who turn back in the day of battle! Their regimentals will be torn off, and they will be excluded from the Church of God because they turned back in the day of trial and at the time when they were needed.

2. They turned their backs, too, like fools, in the day when victory was to be won. The soldier wants to distinguish himself; he wants to rise out of the ranks; he wants to be promoted. He hardly expects an opportunity of doing this in time of peace; but the officer rises when in time of war he leads a successful charge. And so it is with the Christian soldier. I make no advance while I am not fighting. I cannot win if I am not warring.

3. They turned back, when turning back involved the most disastrous defeat. The ark of God was taken. "Ichabod," the enemy cried, for the glory was departed from Israel, because the children of Ephraim turned back in the day of battle. And so, dear friends, unless God gives you preserving grace to stand fast to the end, do you not see that you are turning back to — what? To perdition.

III. WHO THEY WERE THAT TURNED BACK.

1. Men of a noble parentage. "Children of Ephraim."

2. They were armed, and had proper weapons, weapons which they knew how to use, and good weapons for that period of warfare. And as Christians, what weapons have we? Here is this "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Here is a quiver, filled with innumerable arrows, and God has put into our hands the bow of prayer, by which we may shoot them, drawing that bow by the arm of faith.

3. Another translation seems to show that these Ephraimites were very skilful in the use of the bow, and yet they turned back. Oh! may God grant that none of us who have preached to others, and preached to others with fluency and zeal, may ever have our own weapons turned against US.

IV. WHY DID THEY DO IT?

1. "They kept not the covenant." Oh! that great covenant, "ordered in all things and sure," when you can fall back upon that, how it strengthens you!

2. "They refused to walk in His law." When we get a proud heart we very soon get beaten, for with the face of a lion, but the heart of a deer, such an one is afraid of the world. If I am willing to do what God tells me, as He tells me, when He tells me, and because He tells me, I shall not turn back in the day of battle.

3. They also seemed to have turned back because they had bad memories. "They forgot His works, and the wonders that He had showed them." Some of you have had very wonderful manifestations of the Lord's kindness, and if you forget all these I should not wonder if you should prove to be a mere professor and turn back.

V. WHAT WAS THE RESULT OF THEM TURNING BACK?

1. Their father mourned over them (1 Chronicles 7:22). What a lamentation it brings into the Christian Church when a professor falls!

2. Owing to their turning back, the enemy remained. It is our turning back in the day of battle that leaves Canaan unconquered for our Lord.

3. But, worse than this, the ark itself was actually taken. Those of you who are armed and carry bows, men of learning, men who understand the Scriptures, I do pray you, do not turn back just now, for just now seems to be a time when the ark of God will be taken. It can never really be so, but still we must mind that it be not the tendency of our actions. We must all of us hold fast the truth now. If there is a man who has got a truth, let him draw his bow and shoot his arrows now, and not turn back in the day of battle. Now for your arrows! Now for your arrows! The more our foes shall conspire against Christ, the more do you make war against them. Give them double for their double; reward them as they reward you. Spare no arrows against Babylon.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.

WEB: The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.