I recently read about a large
office building in New York City that started showing cracks on the 42nd
floor. The building manager called the architect to meet him on the 42nd
floor so they could look at the problem. However, when the manager arrived the
architect was not there. He asked around and found out that the architect was
actually in the basement. So the building manager went down into the bowels of
the skyscraper and there found the architect.
The manager said to the
architect, “Hey, why are you down here? The cracks are on the 42nd
floor?” The architect replied, “Indeed you have cracks up there, but the
problem begins down here at the foundation.” Then the architect took him over
to a wall where some bricks were missing.
After some investigation
it was discovered that the one of the building’s janitors was chiseling out
bricks. The janitor was building an addition on to his house and each night he
would remove one brick and take it home with him. The janitor figured that no
one would notice and that it wouldn’t hurt anything. However, over a period of months,
removing brick-after-brick gradually compromised the integrity of the structure
and cracks began to appear.
When I read that story, I
thought it a fitting description of what’s happening in the American church
right now. Brick-by-brick the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith are
being removed and the cracks are starting to show. The word that the Bible uses
to describe this gradual departure from the truth of Scripture is the Greek
term apostacia, which means “a
falling away.” The term is used to describe someone who drifts or defects from
the truth.
There are several examples
in the Bible of people who fell away from the faith. In the OT, Balaam the
prophet was hired by Israel’s enemies, the Moabites, to curse God’s people. In
the NT, Judas Iscariot is the ultimate picture of an apostate because of his
betrayal of Christ.
The NT is filled with
warnings about the age of apostacy that would characterize the end-times:
·
10 And then many will fall away and betray
one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. (Matt. 24:10-11)
·
1 Now the Spirit
expressly says that in later times some
will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and
teachings of demons . . . (1 Tim. 4:1)
Apostates are better known
for what they deny than what they affirm. For example, A recent Newsweek poll revealed that 68% of
evangelicals reject the idea that Jesus is the only way to heaven, agreeing
that a good person who is of a different religious faith will go to heaven.[1]
In 2010 the Barna Research Group found that 67% of church-goers denied that the
Bible was the unique Word of God. When asked, 43% of those who identified
themselves as Christians agreed that the Bible, the Quran and the Book of
Mormon offer the same spiritual truths.[2]
One of today’s biggest
apostates is Brian McLaren, dubbed by Time
magazine as one of the top 25 influential spiritual leaders. McLaren has
tried to reimagine Christianity for a post-modern world that denies absolute
truth. Not only does he teach that sincere followers of other faiths will be
saved, but he’s said, “I don’t think we’ve got the Gospel right yet . . . I
don’t think liberals have it right and neither do conservatives. None of us has
arrived at orthodoxy yet.”[3]
Presently, one of the
hippest heresies that we are seeing in the church is a rejection of hell. The
major proponent of this view is Rob Bell who wrote a mega-selling book in 2011
called Love Wins. In it he argues:
“A staggering number of people have been taught that a
select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called
heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in
hell with no chance for anything better . . . This is misguided and toxic and
ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace,
forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.”[4]
Friends, if there was no
Hell then Calvary was the blunder of the ages. It is incomprehensible to the
think that God would let His only Son to be killed for a punishment that does
not exist. Jesus’ sacrificial death is robbed of its eternal significance
unless there is a Hell from which people need to be delivered. And, if there is
no hell then why are we preaching? Moreover, if there is no hell then doesn’t
that make Jesus a big, fat liar, because he preached about hell?
Another way, we see
apostasy happening today is how churches are gradually accepting the homosexual
lifestyle. Several Baptist churches in 2016 began permitting its ministers to
officiate homosexual marriages. They also said they would ordain any person,
regardless of sexual orientation and lifestyle, to serve in a leadership role.[5]
According to one survey, in 2003, 39% percent of evangelicals supported
same-sex marriage, that number has risen to 62% in favor.[6]
While all this bad news
should be alarming to us, we should not be surprised or hopeless. The reason is
because it doesn’t catch God by surprise. In fact, the Holy Spirit inspired
Paul to write about the age of apostacy and how it serves a prophetic signpost
for us to take notice.
Let
no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the
man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition . . . (2 Thess. 2:3)
In this passage Paul is
addressing the program of prophecy, specifically what events will precede the
day of the Lord’s return. Paul clearly lays out a timeline—first, there will be
a great apostacy in the church; second, the antichrist will emerge as a world
leader; third, once the “man of sin” has been allowed to fulfill His purpose,
then Christ will return to destroy Him.
Friends, it’s obvious that
the time of the great falling away has already begun. We are seeing the age of
apostasy take shape before our eyes and that means that the rapture is even
closer.
Jude reminds that when we see
a surge of apostacy in our times that everything is running according to God’s
prophesied plan: “17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the
apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there
will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” The age of apostacy
should not deter us in the least bit from serving Christ. Instead it should
embolden us to greater service because it confirms the truth of the Bible and
it shows that the time is drawing nigh for the Lord’s return. -DM
[1]
Alex McFarland, The Ten Most Common
Objections to Christianity (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2007), 148.
[2]
David Jeremiah, I Never Thought I’d See
The Day (New York: Faith Words, 2011), 174.
[3]
John MacArthur, The Truth War (Nashville,
TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007), x.
[4]
Rob Bell, Love Wins (New York: Harper
One, 2011), viii, 1-3.
[5]
<http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2015/08/03/first-baptist-greenville-sex-couples/31071697/>
[6]
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449660/evangelicals-gay-marriage-debate-just-beginning>
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