With Apostasy ‘All Around Us,’ Christians Must Fight the Spiritual Deception
Second Thessalonians 2:3 says without question that the coming of the Antichrist will not happen until there is a great falling away within the church. It reads: “Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For that Day will not come unless a falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed … “
The “falling away” is also referred to as apostasy, and there is plenty of it to go around in churches these days. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of “The Return of the Gods,” says that a look at the word apostasy in the Greek will give people a strong idea of just what it means for the church today.
“The mystery is hidden in the word ‘apostasia,'” Cahn says. “It’s a word from 2,000 years ago. Apostasia is a combination of two Greek words that have a revelation for us. ‘Apo’ means ‘to depart from,’ and the second part of the word, ‘stasia,’ means ‘your stand.’ So, it is a great departing from your stand, or your faith.
“A falling away will take place, and it is all around us. We are watching this happen, falling away from the faith, morality and the Word of God. The second meaning is a departure from the state of being, your state of existence. You will see men depart from their state of manhood; women depart from their state of womanhood and fathers from their state of fatherhood. We are watching these two things happening at the same time. But if much of the world is departing, you as a child of God have to hold on all the more strongly the Word of God.”
Indeed, apostasy in the church is happening worldwide, and God is not pleased. Recently, a historic Presbyterian church in San Francisco declared its thanks for the “Gift of Drag Queens” while hosting an all-ages “Drag Queen Bible Story Hour,” a perfect example of Isaiah 5:20 which reads, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who exchange darkness for light and light for darkness, who exchange bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
It gets even worse.
A leftist, progressive pastor in Michigan, Salvatore Sapienza of the United Church of Christ in Douglas, not only says he isn’t sure if the Resurrection of Jesus was real, but he also says that because God’s love is unconditional, then people don’t need salvation.
Sapienza said in his Easter message in April, “Ï don’t really know if the Resurrection of Jesus really happened, but I know stories of resurrection happening all the time. Just go outside in the springtime and look at the flowers popping out of the ground, the leaves on the trees, the birds … Resurrection is real.”
Following another progressive pastor, Sapienza joined the United Church of Christ in 2006. Both preach the “gospel of inclusion.”
Sapienza also alleged that the scene on the road to Emmaus from Luke chapter 24 in which Jesus appeared to two of His disciples two days after His Resurrection is “a myth.”
In June, two days after celebrating Pride Month, the First Congregational Church of Spencer, Massachusetts, which had stood on main street as a place of worship for 280 years, was struck by lightning and burned to the ground during an afternoon thunderstorm.
In this video, their pastor, who stands against the inerrancy of God’s Word, says, “Why are all of these contradictions in the Bible? It’s because it was written down by people over a period of about 1,500 years. So, given that people are going to have different kinds of things, I am one who does not believe it was dictated by God.
This pastor obviously skipped over 2 Peter 1:20-21, which reads, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of the Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. For no prophecy at any time was produced by the will of man, but holy men moved by the Holy Spirit spoken from God.”
Theo, from the YouTube channel Fervent FOR JESUS with Theo, says “There are two types of error-ridden churches. One is polluted by the ways of the world and now is in its backsliding phase. And the other one is one that is completed defined by sin.” For example, LGBT churches, in which one pastor says, “Let us confess our faith today in the words of the Sparkle Creed”:
“I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads.”
Pastor John McArthur retorts to this heresy, saying, “The people that advocate this teach that homosexuality is a gift from God, that Jesus was not hostile to lesbians and homosexuals, that David and Jonathan were homosexuals, that Ruth and Naomi were lesbians; that Sodom was destroyed for a lack of hospitality. The false church aids and abets all of this.”
MacArthur also says this about the apostasy in churches today: The church is interested in finding out what the non-worshiper wants, the one who has no relationship with God whatsoever and is ready to redefine itself in the direction of the non-worshiper.
“In fact, churches measures their success on how many non-worshipers they can get in their building on Sunday. They count them.
“Many people might say they are Christian, but if you were to examine their lives, it would be clear that their father is not God. Many churches are dead and fruitless, but God is not looking for fruitless churches, and he certainly isn’t looking for churches who are preaching a false gospel.”
The falling away indeed has begun, and the coming of the Antichrist can’t be far behind. But, as Cahn says, true Christians will remain steadfast.
“Commit more strongly the ways and faith of God,” Cahn says. “Get yourself all the more grounded in the word, grounded in God’s ways. You will find yourself more and more as the person God created you to be. God has called you to hold true and stand. So, stand.” {eoa}
Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
