The Amazing, Alarming, and Awful Apostasy

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All Scripture references are from the New Scofield Reference Bible.
(This message is also included in the hardback book, J. Vernon McGee On Prophecy, copyright 1993 by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN.)

The Amazing, Alarming, and Awful Apostasy

Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God, the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained [written of beforehand] to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord
Jesus Christ. (Jude 1-4)

We are seeing in our day an amazing, an alarming, and an awful apostasy of the church. There has always been a question among students of prophecy about just how far the organized church would go into the apostasy before the Rapture occurs. That is, at what particular point in the apostasy would the true church, made up of those who were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, be taken out of the world?

Now some of us did not believe that we would see the organized churches plunge this far into a departure from the faith before the true church — that is, the body of believers who actually trust in Christ as Savior, recognizing they are sinners and their only hope is in Him — would be taken out of the world. When Dr. William Culbertson was here in Los Angeles speaking at the Prophetic Conference, he said to some of us privately, “The things I am seeing today I thought would not take place until the Tribulation!” And I’m sure that this is the viewpoint of many students of prophecy today.

In this sense, therefore, it’s an amazing apostasy that has come upon us. Suddenly the church has departed from the faith, and many of us thought that by the time this happened the true church would be gone.

In view of some of the activities of the contemporary church it’s an alarming apostasy. Because of the present conditions in the church (and in this message I will merely touch the fringe of them), it is an awful apostasy. For this reason I think we can accurately say that we are right now in an amazing and alarming and awful apostasy in the church.

Now when I say apostasy, I mean it in the Bible sense, a departure from the faith. The word in the original Greek is aphistemi. Histemi means “to stand” and apo means “away from.” Let me illustrate it this way: It’s my custom to stand at the pulpit to preach, but if I stood over by the piano, it would be aphistemi, standing away from the pulpit. And today there is an aphistemi in the church, which means that men who at one time professed to believe the great basic truths of the Christian faith have now denied those things. They have departed from them.

For that reason it might be well to take a second look at what the Scripture states about the apostasy in relationship to the Rapture of the true believers. In light of where we are at the present time we need to see what the Word of God actually says in this connection.

The question arises: Will these organized churches go into total apostasy? Will there be a total eclipse of the faith? The Lord Jesus made a statement in Luke 18:8 that has been difficult for many to accept, and I must confess that it was very difficult for me to accept years ago.

He asked: “...When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”

That is, will He find the body of truth that He left here some two thousand years ago?

Will He find the faith upon the earth? This question is so couched in the Greek (we can’t do this in English) that it demands a negative answer. So the answer to it is no, He will not find the faith upon the earth when He returns. And so we draw from this that there will be a total apostasy of the organized church.

We have this confirmed, I think, in the seven churches of Asia Minor (see Revelation 2 and 3). You find that the church in Ephesus represents the apostolic church, the church at its best. And it’s true that after the apostolic era the church grew numerically, and it spread over the earth. But never has the church been as strong spiritually as it was back then. Today it’s like that little
mustard seed that got hold of the Vigoro — my, it just blossomed up and outdid itself. That little mustard seed should have been a plant, but it became a tree. And that is exactly what has happened to the church, which has gone in for numbers and buildings and programs and those things that you see from the outside. But I think it can be said of the church today what the Lord
Jesus said of the Pharisees: “Outside you’re a beautiful sepulchre, all white marble. But inside — dead men’s bones” (see Matthew 23:27). That’s an awful, frightful picture He gave of religion in His day, and He said that those conditions would prevail at the end of the age.

Now the church of Laodicea is the seventh and the last of the churches mentioned in Revelation. It represents that last period, the last death struggle of the church. The question is asked again: Why is not the Rapture mentioned at the end of the Laodicean period? And I must confess that I’ve had the post-tribulationists and the amillennialists taunt me with that question. It has been difficult to answer them. What exactly do we mean by insisting upon a Rapture at the end of the Laodicean period? The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t take place, apparently, at the end of the Laodicean period. John was caught up to heaven at the beginning of chapter 4, and chapter 3 ended the Laodicean period. We always think of John as being representative of the church. But when he gets caught up to heaven he finds the twenty-four elders, who actually represent the church, and it’s already there! So at some time during the Laodicean period the true church leaves the earth, and the organized church goes right on into the Great Tribulation as an organization that supposedly represents God—yet it denies Christ. We are moving very close to that today, by the way.

To the church of Laodicea the Lord Jesus Christ gives a word of warning, and He gives a word of wooing. He says in Revelation 3:17, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing....” In other words, “You say you’re rich—you have many buildings, you have a tremendous program, but you ‘knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked’ (Revelation 3:17).” Did you know that the church in this country—and that includes the Roman Catholic and all the others—as far as the buildings and physical wealth are concerned, is the wealthiest organization in America? The church today, if it would pool all of its assets, could buy Standard Oil Company and the Rockefeller holdings to boot. It is wealthy, but powerless in this hour in which we live.

Back in the early days of the church, the pope was counting his money when one of the real saints of that period walked in on him. When he saw that he had intruded he turned to leave, but the pope said to him: “No longer can the church say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’” And this saint as he was walking out said, “That’s true, sir, but no longer can the church say to the impotent man, ‘Rise and walk.’”

You and I are in the presence of a mad world, and the church at this hour seems to have no spiritual message for the mad world that we live in. Therefore we find that at the end of the Laodicean period Christ is absolutely outside of the organized church. When He says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock,” it’s an invitation coming from the outside, a personal invitation, the same kind of invitation He gave when He was rejected by His own people as the King. It was right after He pronounced His judgment upon Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum that He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). And here in Revelation He gives a personal invitation, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). This, my friend, is His response to the total apostasy of the organized church.

Now how did this apostasy come about? What has happened that has brought the organized church into what is not yet a total apostasy, but is moving in that direction fast? Well, the Epistle of Jude is the epistle on the apostasy. It has also been called the introduction to Revelation, and it certainly is that.

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 3)

There is a tradition that Jude actually started to write on some other great theme. For instance, he might have been planning to write on salvation as Paul did in Romans, or he might have written on the church as the body of Christ as Paul did in Ephesians. Or he might have written on this matter of fellowship, as John did in his first epistle. But whatever the subject was that he intended to write on, the Spirit of God had him push that aside. Knowing that the faith was going to be in jeopardy, He wanted him to write on that theme.

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 4)

Now I would like to bring to your attention a translation of the Bible that is practically unknown, because it was done by an Englishman who made his own translation. But he has what is probably the best translation of verse 4:

For certain men have wormed their way into the church. Long before this they were designated for judgment, impious they are who twist the grace of God into a justification of blatant immorality and who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

According to this verse, the ungodly men who would come into the church would do two things: They would bring about in the church a departure, an apostasy, in two directions — blatant immorality and a denial of Christ.

First, there will be blatant immorality, and they will espouse it and support it. They will be licentious, loose, dissolute. And may I say to you that earlier in my life this passage of Scripture seemed so far removed from the church as I knew it that — I’ll be very honest with you — what James wrote here made no impression on me at all. My response then was: “You mean that people who would come into the church would actually espouse immorality? It can’t be! The church stands as a bulwark against that sort of thing.”

The second departure of these ungodly men is to deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. This denial of Him and the teaching of immorality are the two departures the church will take.

Now not only Jude speaks of this, but Paul wrote to Timothy,

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but...they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3, 4)

And Peter wrote,

…Even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. (2 Peter 2:1, 2)

Blatant Immorality

Now I’m going to confine myself to a very limited number but very specific incidents that illustrate the first of these two departures from the faith. The first example that I want to give is of a church here in Southern California many years ago. I have the bulletin of this church, and the heading of this item is: “Is Your Mind All Made Up?”, which we might translate into: “Are You One of These Narrow-minded, Bigoted Fundamentalists?” That’s the sense of it, you understand. But you can be sure that the assistant pastor who wrote it is broad-minded!

As I write this article, I’m preparing to leave for a four-day national planning conference for homophiles (homosexuals) in San Francisco. This will be the second such meeting for this particular group, and the discussion will include such items as Who Can Represent the Homosexuals in this Country? What Should Be the Attitude of Homosexuals Toward Heterosexuals? and What Can Be Done to Ease the Persecution of the Homosexual? I will be attending the conference in my capacity as chairman of the Southern California Council of Religion and the Homophile, which is composed of ministers and homosexuals who meet in order to establish communication between the church and homosexuals. Now I realize that some persons are extremely offended at the thought of ministers even talking to homosexuals and the purpose of my writing this article is to state that many of the homosexuals I have met are persons with high moral standards. Also, I am quite sure that we have much to learn about homosexuality. We do not have an adequate definition of who the homosexual is, and we certainly have much to learn about why some persons are homosexual. If you have your mind all made up on this subject, relax a little, discuss your position with somebody with a different point of view and maybe you’ll change.

Well, before I was saved I discussed things like this quite thoroughly in places where I would not want to go today. And I wonder where some of these pastors have been all their lives. This was in a church bulletin! Are you worried about what homosexuals think about heterosexuals? Apparently some people are. Now what kind of communication does this planning conference want to establish with homosexuals? Are they going to give the gospel to them? That’s not in the cards at all, I can assure you.

Notice that there is no reference to the fact that God condemns homosexuality in no uncertain terms. And as for the statement he makes about some homosexuals having high moral standards, this is the “playboy magazine” approach to morality we are seeing in our day, where sin is being made to appear sophisticated. And boy, are you a square if you can’t go along with it! Some preachers feel like they have to go along with it. But I’m not going along with this crowd, I can assure you of that. Oh, my friend, God loves the homosexual as much as He loves anyone else, and He gave His Son to pay the penalty for his sin. Who is going to tell him this good news if the church doesn’t tell him?

But who would ever have dreamed that this once-great church would ever get so far away from their original purpose. I never dreamed I would live to see the day.

Now the other example I want to give comes from Portland, Oregon. While I was up there some time ago their newspaper, The Oregonian, came out with an article about a woman police captain who worked with runaways. In this interview she said that the greatest opposition she had was coming from the church. The church has established there, as some have here, a place for these young people to meet. This police captain, testifying on proposed amendments to the 11:00 P.M. curfew law for city parks, cited the case of a 15-year-old girl from another state who was hidden from the police by church workers. She said this incident was typical and that the police were foiled in their efforts to find the child. According to this police captain, the girl was sequestered by these churchmen, and when found was high on drugs and had been bused to a center for birth control pills and then spent the night partly unclothed with four older males—in a church center! The ministers of this church were called in by their church federation, and do you want to hear their answer for all this? It was: “There must have been a breakdown of communication
somewhere.”

My friend, may I say to you, it is happening exactly as the Bible says, that men would come in—slip in, worm their way in—ungodly men who would turn the grace of God into blatant immorality. That is happening. I never dreamed that I would see in my day the church combining what years ago was only found in the corner poolroom, the corner saloon, the gambling den, and the red-light district! They have it all now under one roof, a hangout for hoodlums. And the condition of the church in Los Angeles and certain of its centers is even worse than what I’ve related to you. In fact, some time ago a wiseacre here in Los Angeles wrote:

The Joneses in our town used to lie, cheat, drink, play cards, gamble and dance. They had no standing with the better people of the community. Then we had visitation evangelism, and they lined up the Joneses in the biggest church in town and they joined. (They weren’t converted, but they joined.) Now the Joneses lie, cheat, drink, play cards, gamble and dance, but they’re widely respected because they are members of the leading church in town.

What an awful picture this is!

Now there are a multitude of instances like this that I could relate, but these examples are sufficient to show that the apostasy is not new and is being fulfilled exactly as Jude predicted.

Denial of Christ

Now I would like to pass on to the second part of this prophecy, about those who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. It is in this direction of doctrine that there has been the most grievous departure from the faith. There has been the repudiation of the whole spectrum of Scripture. And I think that I have the evidence to back up this statement. This quotation was written at the turn of the century:

Towards the end of the last century, unconverted and evil men crept in unawares to the professional ministry of the Gospel. They began to criticize instead of expounding the Bible, to deny its blessed truths instead of proclaiming them. Men who were paid to preach the Gospel and, in some cases, had sworn to do so, have been occupied in an ignoble effort to black out its searching light and deny the great fundamentals of Christianity. It is no longer, “thus saith the Lord,” but “thus saith the scholars, scientists or critics” who sit in judgment, not only upon the Word of God, but upon God Himself, daring to tell us what is and what is not worthy of God, thus measuring Him by the plummet of their own darkened mind.

As I said, that was written at the turn of the century. And I’d like to begin to bring you down through the years to our day, because actually the liberals recognized what was happening before the fundamentalists woke up to what was happening. I want to give you an excerpt from an editorial that appeared in The Christian Century on January 31, 1924.

Two worlds have clashed: the world of tradition and the world of modernism. There is a clash here; it is pronounced and as grim as that between Christianity and Confucianism. Amiable words cannot hide the difference. “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” can be sung in the Te Deum Sed, but it cannot bind these two worlds together. The God of the Fundamentalist is one God; the God of the Modernist is another. The Christ of the Fundamentalist is one Christ; the Christ of the Modernist is another. The Bible of the Fundamentalist is one Bible; the Bible of the Modernist is another. The church, the kingdom, the salvation, the consummation of all things—these are one thing to the Fundamentalist and another thing to the Modernist. Which God is the Christian God? Which Christ is the Christian Christ? Which Bible, which church, which kingdom, which salvation, which consummation are Christian? The future alone will tell. But the issue is clear and the inherent, incompatibility of these two worlds has passed the state of mutual toleration.