CHURCH APOSTASY

Church Apostasy

As of this writing, several things are going on that are really hair-raising. Though only speculation at this point, but of great interest, is the as yet unconfirmed news that the Vatican and Pope Paul have accepted the evolution theory as compatible with Christianity. In the Pope's words, leaving only the soul being of divine nature. If this report, from the Reuters' new service, is true, there can be no doubt that this totally renders the Catholic Church to an apostate position.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

With worldwide membership at one billion, the consequences are startling. Of course this doesn't mean that all Catholics are going to hell, because many will certainly not accept this fallacy as personal doctrine, although historically the Catholic faithful have been true to church teachings.
But, as we know, many in the Catholic church are actively waiting for church doctrine to change on other issues such as abortion, birth control and acceptance of gays, and will probably accept this to get what changes they want in church teachings. All of this is a get what I want, versus what does God have for me, kind of deal.
It seems to me as though the churches are moving to integrate, much as governments and other organizations/corporations. The power that comes with combining forces, as a lot of corporations have done in recent years, is growing. I know that most all denominations have recently met in Chicago to work on doctrinal differences. I'm sure, for reasons I do not understand, that there are people in powerful positions in the larger denominations who are diligently seeking greater union. The concessions that have to be made to achieve this will destroy not only many denominations but Christians as well. The problem with spiritual changes in the church is that basic Christian faiths and attitudes are not negotiable. How can a Pentecostal concede the spiritual gifts for doctrines of the Methodist or vice versa. Once we give up our belief system, whatever it is, we have diluted what brought us to that faith to begin with. Independently, none of the Christian doctrines are wrong, but make up the body of Christ. The combined churches would be forced to tolerate beliefs of others, including other religions, thus we have the New Age philosophy automatically becomes the norm. The new age movement is just waiting in the wings for the ones willing to accept such a scenario.
We know that most Christian churches or denominations are founded on specific beliefs taken from scripture. Some churches are strong in one scripture and weak in others, but overall Christianity can survive because the church of Yeshua as a whole comprises or encompasses true
Christian values. We know that a truly Christian denomination can't, under any circumstances, accept abortion, gays, or women preachers. This is all Biblical. How do we merge these basic beliefs with a church which accepts this?
Now, if these Biblical doctrine churches are allowed to combine with churches who do not represent a true Christian heritage, the concept would have to teach toleration rather than intoleration of ungodliness. Churches can differ on the rapture, when and how. The church can differ on how important the spiritual gifts are in today's church. None of this will bring down Christianity. What will bring it down will be the diluting of basic doctrinal truths. In other words, falling away from the word of God.When we hear reports that only 3% of theology students believe in hell, or hades, it's time we ask questions. Most do not accept the Bible as the actual words of God, just a wonderful way in which to live, fulfill our spiritual needs and hold the tide against the decline of immorality. We must come to the point that we become the teachers of ourselves and family. We can support the denominational church only as long as it supports us. I'm afraid things are changing too rapidly for me personally to accept that the church can stay pure. God's word has never changed, so how is man continuing to change it for him? Too many church leaders are willing to decide God's fate in our lives for us. When all is said and done, the church is a building with people in it making choices. The choices that are made will ultimately determine their salvation. If the majority of that congregation is led astray for whatever reason, the whole is in jeopardy of being led astray also. Know yourself what is the right way. God told us to study the word always. Preaching is foolishness to God, necessary only because people would not learn salvation themselves. In Biblical times, preaching was more relevant because not everyone had the word and certainly not a Bible. This is not true today. We all can have a Bible for free if we want it, but still we do not study for ourselves. The letters Paul and others wrote to the first churches was their Bible and became a part of ours.
The true message here is the belief or fear that the churches, like the worldly trend today is to organize to more effectively manage resources and reach the lost, will in short order be changed. The churches in all sincerity are doing the same as businesses. To better manage resources and available moneys, it is mandatory, in their view, to reorganize. Also, a lot of preachers are talking about sin and not about salvation. This is a sign of the new ager movement. No one in his right mind could come against this, right? The new age teaching and preaching says that if man can stop sinning, or their real meaning, stop doing wrong and bad things, then the world will be a wonderful place. Let your preachers teach that. Yeshua did not tell me that in the Bible. I am told that man will eventually get so evil even to the point that he destroys himself except for divine intervention. Why is that preacher worried about me becoming such a fine individual when I need salvation to escape from the evilness of man.
Man can only overcome sin through the Spirit, not the flesh. We may can train our bodies or withhold them from sinning physically, but our minds are still carnal. The Bible said that if you've sinned in your thoughts, you have sinned in the flesh. Remember, you and I will never overcome sin. We sin when we don't think we sin. Just because we are obeying the ten commandments, it doesn't mean we are living perfect before God. We sin driving down the highway when someone does something stupid, making us conjure up evil things to do to them. There is no way out for you and I except through Yeshua and the grace of God. All our thoughts of self improvement and righteousness are foolishness on our part. Doing things better and differently in not the answer. In the flesh, we cannot change. Only through a spiritual rebirth will we be changed. Our whole nature has to be changed, not just our thoughts. In a recent vision, I saw blood drops falling before my eyes. As I watched the blood drops fall before my eyes, I was wondering what was happening. Then I say a gigantic cross suspended in air with Yeshua hanging on it. As I saw the cross hanging in air with Yeshua dripping blood, a multitude of people came filing by like they were refuges journeying somewhere. There were thousands as far as the eye could see. The drops of blood from Yeshua was falling on them. I was in that multitude as I felt a drop fall on me. I only tell this to emphasize the importance of what Yeshua has already done versus what we can do.
What really teaches a Christian about sin? The Holy Spirit. The Bible says that when you are saved, you are converted and Spirit will lead you away from a sinful nature. If the preachers mentioned above were teaching from a spiritual perspective, they would be saving souls, not trying to create a utopia for the new agers.
If this sounds confusing, it is. It is a new way of looking at things. But, when you read the Bible, it says that in the last days, even the elect will be deceived. The next few years will be the most exciting times that Godly people have ever experienced. The prophetic word of God will be unveiled almost daily as prophesied events take place faster and faster. I think you will see the government and even the court system becoming extremely tolerate of established churches and religion in general, even to the point of welcoming or soliciting it's help. The reason for this will be that the changed churches will be the way the liberal establishment wants them to be. Once they have achieved the reorganization of the church establishment, this will happen. At that point, the church will not be a threat to the goals of government, much like the church in Russia was not a threat to communism. The communist even murdered 60 million people without much opposition from the church.
A few more words about the supposed Catholic decision on evolution. We know that the recent death of a prominent Cardinal in the Catholic faith was a very emotional time for Catholics. We also know that he was a leader in the effort to modify traditional doctrines or beliefs held since the beginning of the church. We also know that the Pope can change church doctrine through decree. We also know that the Catholic faithful are very dependent on church doctrine and teaching, contradictory to a Bible toting and reading Baptist in the south. Not that this is good or bad, just different. My point here being that people who read and study the Bible are less likely to follow false Biblical teachings than non-Bible readers. There is nothing wrong with faithful and true church teachings as long as it is such. If the Catholic faithful do follow the Pope's supposedly turn from "creation only" teaching, then I think a lot of Catholic faithful would follow because of the history of the church and acceptance of the primacy of the Pope. We have heard of many good things about the Pope lately. It's hard to understand why he would make a decision like this unless his health is such that he is lead astray by leaders in the Vatican. The finality of this decision is monumental in the fact that once the sacred ground of divine teachings are trampled on, it's too late to recapture their virginity. To say that other denominations will not follow the lead is presumptuous. I believe that the Catholics, in some respects, have held to some of these important doctrines better than the other denominations because most denominations were afraid, in most instances, to take the high ground on these issues.
We know that the Anti-christ will try to merge all religions into a single religion to worship him as god. We know that this is the time that the devil has and is using to prepare for the Anti-Christ and his reign. It is only reasonable to suspect that what I suspicion is not suspicion, but fact. Am I so naive as to believe everything is to run normal until that day arrives? The Bible says that Satan has but a short time once he is expelled to earth. Is it not reasonable then to assume everything is being put in place as I type this?
Why do we not want to believe that things could go bad? The reason you have to believe is because the Bible tells you so. It foretells that the old Roman empire will reappear. It has. It says that ten kings will rule that empire, which it has it's king although they are probably not the final ones. It says that in the days of these kings, God will set up his kingdom to rule and it will never be ruled by men or destroyed. It said that in 1948 Israel would be reborn and the Jews would have a homeland after 2500 years of punishment. They have and are. It said that the generation that saw the Jews restored to their homeland would not pass away. How old are you!
The key to everything prophetical is, "lest there be a falling away first", these things would not happen. In other words, if the church were to grow and be strong and everyone stops sinning, the earth would go on forever. Right? Right!
Doesn't that sound good? Isn't it a relief that the earth will not be destroyed and no one will have to suffer the indignities of the Anti-christ. We have one small issue here, though inconsequential, I assume. Salvation! Why did Yeshua promise to save us if everything was to be wonderful. Maybe he said, just in case something went wrong and man decided to straighten up and do right. Also, the heaven described in Revelation is not really for us, but a place that would be there just in case God needed to store something. And one more little thing that makes me think everything is getting better and no one should be concerned about anything is that Yeshua did something for us in Jerusalem that makes it all possible for us to be discussing this. Do you know what it was?
I think that after this exercise, the future of the denominational churches is not if, but when. We know Yeshua loves his church and will do what is right in his eyes to save it. We do not know his plan. My plan in this is to point out that we personally are the church of Yeshua. We, the Christians are the church. We must not let congregations of people or denominationalism lead us to apostasy, which the Bible says will happen, and to a degree it already has. Even the elect, Christians, will be deceived. It doesn't say all of the elect, but we know some will. Is that elect you?
As much as we don't know, there is a lot we do know. Trying to understand as I have done over the past year, I can come to some conclusions that may or may not enlighten the ones in my home. That's to say that I am not doing this for any other reason rather than to prepare my home for the events to happen. Yeshua said to watch and be ready. Those who lost the enthusiasm to watch will grouped with the hypocrites. Yeshua said when everyone talked of peace and safety, that sudden destruction would come upon us.
When Yeshua opened the first seal in the book of Revelation, the anti-Christ was revealed. The Bible tells us that unless there is a falling away first, the Anti-Christ will not be revealed. Assuming the Anti-Christ will eventually be revealed, the falling away or apostacy of the church will come. What will cause it and when? If we look back to the old churches that Paul talked with in the new testament, we see that they were all Christians to the best we can determine. If they we all or predominately Christian, we can assume that the entire church was made up of Christian people. Keeping that in mind and assuming that evangelicals have a better picture of the church today than you and I, then I can also assume that they are fairly accurate in their assessment of their congregations. One of the best known evangelist, Billy Graham estimated that 75% of the church, as he knew them were not saved Christians. Pat Robertson even moved that estimate as high as 80%. Assuming these estimates are fairly accurate then it would be safe to say that the 75 or 80% are either coming to Yeshua, leaving Yeshua or staying where they are at. In any of these scenarios other than the ones coming to Yeshua is not a good situation for the church today.
Compared to the church in Paul's day, could this be the apostate church? If 75% of the people are not Christian for whatever reason, what do you call this or these churches. Rather than the church being a place of Christians to worship God, it has turned into magnet to attract person's interested in church, God or what's going on. Is this what is intended? This is a tough question. The Christians themselves should be the Diciples doing the work. The church members have given their time and money for the building, paid the preacher, so they sit back and let the beautiful building and eloquent pastor see whom he can attact in. Is this the way it was supposed to be?
One problem associated with this is that the Christians have a hard time worshiping in the larger churches, because of the distractions of many kinds. The church is so highly chorographed today with the personal aspects left out. You go in and are put through a rigorous exercise in singing and preaching and run out to make way for Sunday School. If you had come to spend some personal time with God with good friends and Christian company, your time and space is at a premium. Parents come and do battle with the kids over how to act in church, when most of the time they have no idea of how to act at home, much less in church. The people sitting next to them are so emotionally beat up by the time they get home, they are strained trying to figure out what the pastor said. If many were to come to church to prevent them from feeling guilty or because mom and dad said they had to, is this not apostasy? The word apostasy means: Abondonment of a previous loyalty. How loyal are we in the church today as compared to our grandmothers day. We have to talk about this because in the book of Revelation, Yeshua describes the seven churches and all but one was not a good church. We must remember that Yeshua is the head of the church. The church was Yeshua' responsibility alone. He did not even allow John to describe the churches in Revelation, Yeshua himself did that and I think for a reason.
We hear today of preachers not being saved. I heard a while back that only 3 percent of seminary students believe in hell. If apostasy is not here today, it soon will be.
Apostasy is also the turning away from doctrine. How many churches preach nothing but love and joy and materialism. The book I'm reading right now has very little of that. In fact it has a lot of violence caused by the very subject I'm talking about. The first seal Yeshua breaks allows the Anti-Christ to be revealed. That won't happen until the falling away. Are we falling away? If new Christians do not believe in hell, then you can cast them out because they are apostate. If 75%, as Billy Graham suggests, in the church are not Christians, where does the church stand? If distractions in church keep 5% from worshipping God by distracting them. If the regimented program of the churches to get people in and out and to pass the plate around, then how do we describe our church today? If only 15 to 20% are Christians in church to worship their savior, where does the church stand? Based on this information, could Yeshua break the seal which releases the Anti-Christ to the world who brings the biggest destruction ever known to man? I think so.
Paul tells us many will turn to seducing spirits and demons. We also know there will be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the end times. Some say the pouring out of the Holy Spirit began in the early 1900's during the beginning of today's penecostal movement. I don't think that had anything to do it personally. The last days is the period from the time Yeshua left until the present. Also, I think today is that time and we don't know how long it will last. At the same time we do see many turning away, especially old people. Some, if not most old people have turned away seduced by medicare, social security and the good life many are living. When people vote against morality and for self gratification in money, benefits or whatever they have done just exactly what they were warned about in the Bible.
Many young people will never heed the warning signs of the end times. Many are so caught up in materialism so deep they will never recover. I keep saying this, but I will one more time. This nation will not recover. Most people seem to think, just elect another congress and they will fix it. Folks, it can't be fixed. It has gone too far. When a nation owes twice as much as it's total assets and still borrowing, how can it be fixed. When we talk about the evils of slavery, we are captives never to be freed as a society. Some may say the debt doesn't matter. It would not matter if the constitution of the United States was not being violated at this moment. But it is and that's that. The debt you and I owe and all the debt the nation owes by supporting programs, as good as they seem to be, will be paid in some fashion eventually. Although it may not be in money. The debt owed by this country is being held by all other countries and wealthy persons all over the world. True enough, it may not be morally right, but it is legally right. We will all wake up one morning in the near future and it will be over. This country has given itself away for short time gratification. Two things will happen. Either the stockmarket will go down enough to start the ball rolling fast enough that it can't stop in time or the oil exporting countries will turn on the U.S. because of debt, or supporting Israel. This may cause the U.S. to stop supporting Israel leading to attack from Iran and Russia. Either one of these scenarios will cause the economy to fall and the soveriegnty as well.