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The Falling Away,& Judgment On the Church
Posted : 30 Aug, 2012 03:58 AM
The Falling Away,& Judgment On the Church
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.
In the falling away and leavening of the churches the Christians as the salt of the earth lose their savour; the salt's spiritual power diminishes. The Greek word used in Matthew 5: 13 is moraino, a form of moros, from which we get our English word moron,
Revelation 3: 14-16 says "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
The corporate Christians - in the IRS incorporated 501C(3) churches - have lost their zeal for the truth (II Thessalonians 2: 10-11) and they have become luke-warm, neither hot nor cold.
The falling away is a fall from the doctrines once delivered to the saints by the apostles. And the leavening of the churches is a metaphor describing the same departure from the doctrines of Christ.
Corporate Christians like theology and don't like it when they are fed scripture, especially a lot of scripture.
And in this condition of falling away from the truth and being luke-warm, the corporate Christians are vulnerable to the leaven of the Pharisees of our present time. If they had a great love for the word of God and knew it, the leaven of the Pharisees would have no power over them. The leaven of the Pharisees manifests as Christian Zionism, the Hebrew Roots movement, the Sacred Name Theology, Messianic Judaism and maybe soon also Mormonism.
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 conflict 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.
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