The Falling Away, Judgment On the Church and Martyrdom

Posted : 16 Aug, 2012 08:08 AM

The Falling Away, Judgment On the Church and Martyrdom



II Thessalonians 2: 3 says "Let no man deceive you by any means: for

that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and

that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"



Matthew 24: 11 says "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall

deceive many."



II Peter 2: 1 says "But there were false prophets also among the

people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily

shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought

them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction."



In addition, I John 4: 1, I Timothy 4: 1, and II Timothy 4: 3-4 speak of false

prophets, and of a time when there will be a departure from the faith and they

will not endure sound doctrine (II Timothy 4: 3-4). Even Paul's

prophecy about the

personality traits of people in the last days when perilous times will

be going on (II Timothy 3:

1-7) is about the apostasy of Christians at the end of the age.



Then Luke 13: 21 uses the metaphor of leavening of bread to say that

"It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of

meal, till the whole was leavened." "Till" indicates that the

leavening of the churches goes on or a time until it is complete.



The supernatural God imparts his Spirit to and into those who can understand

through the words of scripture. After the falling away and the

leavening has gone

on a while, then the words of scripture, for most Christians, no

longer put them into

direct spiritual contact with Christ through the Holy Spirit. Christ

is always there and present for those who are in him. But he does not

know those who have positioned themselves in doctrines that are not

his (Luke 13: 25-27). They think they are born again,

because they attend churches. But they often treat scripture as

though it was just a secular

piece of writing and impose the same critical standards on the Bible

as they might use for a secular book, as Westcott and Hort advocated

in their attempt to overthrow the Textus Receptus and the King James

Version with the Greek Alexandarian texts.



God will judge the church for its falling away into false doctrines.



I Peter 4: 17 says ."For the time is come that judgment must begin at

the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be

of them that obey not the gospel of God?"



Here is another New Testament text on God's judgment of his people.



Hebrews 10: 30-31 says: "For we know him that hath said, Vengeance

belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The

Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the

hands of the living God."



Psalm 135: 14 says: "For the LORD will judge his people, and he will

repent himself concerning his servants."



Deuteronomy 32: 36: "For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent

himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and

there is none shut up, or left."



The martyrdom of Christians shows that in the time when the leavening

of the church has gone on for some time there will be witnesses for

Christ's true Gospel and his truth. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance

defines the Greek word martus, Number 3144, or martyr, as "a witness,

by analogy, a martyr." Some of those who stand up and witness to Christ's

truth in a time of great apostasy, or falling away from the truth of

the Gospel and of the New Testament, will be martyred, or killed.



The two witnesses of Revelation 11: 3-7 become martyrs in verse 7 where

the beast who gets out of the bottomless pit (Satan is released from

the restraint

put on him at the Cross), causes them to be killed. The number two here is

metaphoric for a large number of such martyrs.



In Revelation 12: 17 the dragon makes war with the Remnant who have the

testimony of Jesus Christ and apparently wants to cause them to be killed also.



In Revelation 6: 9 it says "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I

saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of

God, and for the testimony which they held: And

they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and

true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on

the earth?"



There are several New Testament scriptures which predict martyrdom of

some Christians.



Matthew 24: 9-10 tells us that "Then

shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye

shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many

be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one

another.



Luke 21: 16 says: "And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and

brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they

cause to be put to death." "Some" has been added to the King James

English in Luke 21: 16, because the Greek word "tis", or "men",

meaning some is not in the Greek Textus Receptus, from which the KJV

is translated.



"And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates,

and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or

what ye shall say:" Luke 12: 11



The reference to synagogues is not limited to Jewish synagogues.

Synagogues is Strong's number 4864, meaning "an assemblage of persons,

a Jewish synagogue, by analogy, a Christian church, assembly,

congregation, synagogue." Sunagoge in the Greek, or synagogue,

can mean a Christian church. Magistrates probably refers to judges, to

whom Christians are brought on some kind of charge, such as blasphemy

under the Noahide laws,hate speech laws or laws on terrorists.



John 16: 2 says "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the

time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God

service."



In the end time the spiritual battle between a small group and the

huge multitude

following false doctrines inside the churches is likely to become more

intense. This conflist could

result in some of the small group to be turned over to the

"magistrates" and executed.



One target of the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees in the last days might

be those who then come out of the churches, and become critical of the doctrines

then being taught in the churches. Another possible target would be

the small remnant

which is made up of those who have been out of the churches for some

time and defend

the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1: 3). Many or some of

these, however, will be

protected as Luke 10: 19 (power to tread on serpents and scorpions)

and Luke 21: 36 show.

Luke 21: 36 says to watch and pray in order to be worthy to escape all

these things that shall

come to pass. Spiritually, those in Christ who defend the doctrines

of Christ will be protected by him. Some may also be protected in the

physical realm from harm.



But there could

also be a martyrdom of those who remain in the churches and in false

doctrines, or

of some of them.



In I Corinthians 5: 1-Paul writes that "It is reported commonly that

there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much

as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

2. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that

hath done this deed might be taken away from among you...To deliver

such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the

spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."



Those who stick to a consistent literalist interpretation would argue

that giving one to Satan for the destructuion of the flesh that his

spirit may be saved applies only to sins of the flesh and not to

belief in false doctrines. Yet this principle could be used by the

Lord on a larger scale - to allow many to die from weapons of mass

destruction - that their souls might be saved.



The question then becomes one of how many in false doctrines who seem

not to have a love of the truth are damned forever

because they have received strong delusion as II Thessalonians 2: 10-12 says.

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