What Can Believers Do in Days of Apostasy?

Thru the Bible Radio Network
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Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture references
are from the New Scofield Reference Bible.
Printed in the United States of America
1969, Revised 2005

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your
most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep
yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of
some have compassion, making a difference; and
others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire,
hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now
unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and
to present you faultless before the presence of his glory
with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both
now and ever. Amen. (Jude 20 – 25)

The Apostasy Has Arrived

The church is in a very sad state at the present hour. The thing that is alarming about it is that the church is satisfied with it. Some preachers are greatly exercised over it, but they are the minority. I find very few people who are disturbed today. Most of the church has settled down into this deplorable state we’re in, have accepted it, and feel that nothing can be done about it.

As we approach this subject of apostasy, I want to define our terms so that we do not get lost in the labyrinth of bewildering theological nomenclature. We need to understand exactly what the apostasy is before we can know what to do about it.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that, in the latter times,
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits, and doctrines of demons. (1 Timothy 4:1)

The verse begins with the little Greek word de, which is translated here as “now” but is better translated as “but” since it indicates a contrast with the early doctrinal creed given in the verse that immediately precedes it:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen
of angels, preached unto the nations, believed on in the
world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

“Latter times” in 1 Timothy 4:1 is a technical expression. In the Bible you will find the terms “last days,” “last times,” or “the time of the end.” The Bible doesn’t use the expression “the end of time” because the world doesn’t come to an end. (Although “the end of the world” appears in our Authorized Version, it is more accurately “the end of the age.” The world doesn’t come to an end. Oh, I know there will be a new heaven and a new earth, but that doesn’t mean we get rid of the earth. It’s here for eternity. Therefore, there is no such thing – as far as the Word of God is concerned – as the end of the world or the end of time.)

But there is such a thing as the last days, the latter times, and the end of the age. When you find this expression occurring in the Scriptures, you need to discern to what it refers. It can refer to the nation Israel (as in Genesis 49:1) or it can refer to the church. Those “last days” refer to a very definite technical period that the Lord Jesus in the Olivet Discourse labeled the Great Tribulation Period.

Now when Paul uses it here, speaking to the young preacher Timothy, he is referring to The latter days of the church – that is, those days immediately preceding the Rapture. This is the way the church will conclude its earthly career: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1). In other words, the Spirit of God would emphasize to believers that in the latter days some shall depart from the faith.

The expression “depart from the faith” is where we want to center our attention. The word “depart” is the Greek aphistemi, formed by the little preposition apo, which means “away from,” and histemi, meaning “to stand.” The apostasy (for we bring it over into English by transliteration) means “to stand away from.”

It means to one time profess something and another time deny that which you once professed. Webster, who always does a good job of defining words, says that the apostasy is the abandonment of what one has voluntarily professed; total desertion of the principles of faith.” Abandonment of that which was voluntarily professed.

Our Lord used that expression when He was giving the parable of the sower. Referring to the seed that fell on the rock, He said:

They on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the
word with joy; and these have no root, who for a while
believe, and in time of testing fall away. (Luke 8:13)

“Fall away” is the Greek aphistemi – they apostatize. They professed to believe, then they Moved away from it. They no longer believe; they have departed from the faith. Apostasy would be impossible among unevangelized tribes who have never heard the gospel. An apostate is one who has not only heard the gospel, but who has professed to believe it, and then departs from it. That’s apostasy. This word occurs also in Hebrews:

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart
of unbelief, in departing from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12)

Here are those who have professed to believe, and then they no longer believe. They have departed from it. Time and time again I have heard this among preachers. There are today thousands of men in the ministry (and they’re an unhappy lot) who can say, “I once professed it, but I no longer believe it.”

I want to give an example that I think is startling. Frankly, it ought to cause us to bow our heads in humility before God and ask for His help. We are told to examine ourselves to make sure we are in the faith. These are days when God’s people need to examine their relationship with Christ.

It may surprise you to know that Karl Marx was an apostate. This is the man who wrote Das Capital, the basis of Communism and world revolution. He was brought up in a Christian home. His father, who descended from a long line of rabbis, accepted Christian baptism for himself and his family when Karl was six years old. Young Karl attended the gymnasium at Trier and his school-leaving examination papers have been discovered.

The one that gained the most unqualified approval was a theological essay on the union of the faithful in Christ according to John 15:1-14, portrayed in its origin and essence, in its unconditional necessity and in its effect. That is quite a subject for a young fellow! It was marked by the teacher as a thoughtful, copious, and powerful presentation of the theme.

The boy was 17 when he wrote this essay in 1835. This is the man who went on to write the ideology for godless states. He was an apostate! He once professed to believe something, there came a day when he stood away from it, and then he no longer believed it.

In my own lifetime I have known man after man who once preached the faith, then later on repudiated it entirely. They are apostates. The Word of God warns that this will happen: “In the latter times, some shall depart from the faith” – they will apostatize.

All the New Testament writers speak of the approaching apostasy. To them it was just a little cloud on the horizon the size of a man’s hand. But that cloud has now darkened and covered the sky. Today you and I are in the storm. We are seeing one of the greatest departures from the faith in the history of the church.

When the church was young it thought of itself as a pilgrim and stranger in this world. It was true to the Lord. It preached the gospel, as defined in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. Had it continued in that condition, there would have been worldwide evangelism in the first 500 years. But in A.D. 313 Constantine was converted. He issued the Edict of Toleration, which meant that persecution ceased.

No longer was the church a martyr church. It came up out of the catacombs. Five million Christians had shed their blood and laid down their lives gladly for Jesus Christ. But suddenly the church found itself in power. Augustine, a great man with a keen mind, wrote The City of God, which gave the church a vision of building the kingdom of God down here upon this earth. Actually this explains Roman Catholicism today. They have attempted to do what Augustine said the church should do – build the kingdom of God here upon this earth.

But God never intended that His church should do that. Its mission was to preach the Word of God and to win men to Jesus Christ. But it got away from that. By the end of the nineteenth century, with the tremendous expansion of the British Empire, the most optimistic ideas and notions entered the church.

Let me give you two illustrations of this. Ernest Naville in his book, The Problem of Evil, pointed out that the civilization of Europe, which he characterized as Christian civilization, “is visibly making the conquest of the world. Its triumph is only a matter of time. No one doubts it.” A few years ago a man could make that statement and nobody would contradict him. (Oh, there were a few old mossbacks who contradicted him, but nobody paid any attention to them.) But how absurd that statement is today!

Also, Justin Smith wrote in1883: “It has been said that in twenty-five years more, if the present rate of progress continues, India will become as thoroughly Christian as Great Britain is today. There will be 30,000,000 Christians in China, and Japan will be as thoroughly Christianized as America is now. The old systems, they tell us, are honeycombed through and through by Christian influence. It looks as if a day may soon come when these systems, struck by vigorous blows, will fall in tremendous collapse. Meantime, every weapon formed against Christianity breaks in the hand that holds it. Already the Lord’s right hand has gotten Him the victory.” On and on he goes in that vein, as if the entire world would be converted by the beginning of the twentieth century!

However, today there is a line of demarcation running through the organized church, irrespective of denomination, that is as deep and as wide as the Grand Canyon. This breach cannot be resolved, and it cannot be reconciled. It has passed the point of no return. This bifurcation in the church began years ago in Germany in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

These started the assault upon the integrity of the Word of God. Also during that century Darwin wrote his Origin of the Species, and the theory of evolution was introduced into the church and accepted by many. Also it was at this time that Karl Marx wrote Das Capital.

At the turn of the century these philosophies were splitting the church. The protagonists who espoused these viewpoints boastfully took the name of “modernism.” They were progressive, modern, and intellectual, according to their own estimation. Those who did not adopt their viewpoint were called “intellectual obscurantists” – that was their favorite designation. Today
modernism has pretty much gone out of style, and the tag that it bears today is “liberalism.” That covers a multitude of sins, let me tell you! It covers a wide range of those who hold various viewpoints in the church today.

Those who adhered to the old creedal statements of the church and defended the fundamentals of the faith were designated as “fundamentalists.” This was an honorable and proud name in the old days. Under this banner marched an array of brilliant scholars and fine Christian gentlemen of the past. The outstanding Hebrew and Greek scholars (who still stand head and shoulders above any that we have today) were called fundamentalists, for that is exactly what they were. They believed in the integrity of the Word of God.

As time went on, “fighting fundamentalists” appeared in the ranks. They were more interested in attacking than in defending the faith. Many of them were unlovely in their conduct and questionable in their ethics. Also there appeared among the fundamentalists religious racketeers, making merchandise out of those who loved the Word of God.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I am a fundamentalist in the true sense of the word, but today the label of “fundamentalism” is almost in desuetude. The press uses it as a term of aspersion and derision, and it is applied to some peculiar groups. For example, several years ago there were articles in the press concerning a group of Mormons in southern Utah and northern Arizona who practiced polygamy, and they were called fundamentalists!

We find that the term “fundamentalist” was dropped by a great many, and a broader term “evangelical” was adopted. Under this banner march many speckled birds. It is a catch-all for those who make some attempt to stand for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. Today the term we use more often to designate one who stands for the fundamentals of the faith is “conservative.”

When I entered the ministry in the 1930s, this matter of the apostasy was something way out yonder in the future. We had modernism, yes, but it was a minority and discredited. Dr. Machen had absolutely put the critics of the New Testament (especially concerning the virgin birth) to riot – they were running for cover. Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, the greatest scholar of the twentieth century as far as the Old Testament is concerned, spoke forty languages and had written many books on these ancient languages. I heard him make the statement that the thing he objected to was that his critics had to use his books for source material because there were none others. Dr. Wilson was an outstanding defender of the faith.

Next Part 2.