Falling Away

[Christina]

Jim Bramlett Apostasy Jim BramlettFeb 22 2007 03:14AM Dear friends: The Bible speaks of apostasy in the latter times, such as in 1 Timothy 4:1: 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." Comment: Unfortunately, some believers are using this against other sincere believers with reckless and mean-spirited accusations because of some doctrinal disagreement. We are using it against each other! May God help His fractured, hostile body. The real problem is in the statistics below. Also, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 says, "that day (day of Christ) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." Comment: The "falling away" is from the Greek apostasia, but it may not mean apostasy as we usually think of it. It also means "departing," and it has been shown that every major English translation of the Bible before the KJV translated it as "departing first," which many believe to mean the rapture. The real problem: Researchers of the problem continue to come up with increasingly grave statistics that explain how serious the condition is. Among Christian adults: 64% believe moral truth depends on the situation; 60% believe male/female co-habitation outside of marriage is acceptable; 55% believe a good person can earn his or her salvation; 44% believe Jesus Christ committed sins while on earth. [1] And consider the condition in our colleges and universities: 67% of college professors approve of homosexuality; 84% of professors approve of abortion; 65% embrace socialist and communist ideals; [2] 88% of students from "Christian" homes deny their faith before they graduate from college; 91% of students from evangelical churches do not believe in absolute moral truth. [3][1] George Barna at barna.org [2] March 30, 2005 Washington Post mentions survey by Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman [3] George Barna at barna.org Recognizing the life-and-death nature of the issue, the Southern Baptist Convention, to its credit, has even done a self-study and found that 88% of young people from SBC homes deny their faith before they graduate from college. The late Dr. Bill Bright addressed this problem. He asks, "What is the real cause of America's current spiritual and moral crisis?" He wrote: "In previous messages, I cited several forces, or movements, such as Marxism, atheism and humanism, aided by anti-biblical court decisions, which have contributed to the problem. But it may surprise you to learn that the real problem has not been any of these things. "In the words of Pogo, the comic strip character, 'We have met the enemy, and it is us.' The real problem has been the church! "Lukewarmness and impotence in the church of Jesus Christ for the most part has been the real culprit. This has resulted in a loss of spiritual power, the power of the Holy Spirit, who is willing and eager to fill us and manifest Himself through us to a lost and hurting world, if we would just surrender and totally commit ourselves to our Lord. An on-fire church would have prevented most of the problems our culture faces today." An example of the church without power is that most every time there is an example of God's power and presence being manifested in a church, many automatically give the glory to the devil and say it is from him and not from God, just because it has never happened before in their own cold church. They obviously think the devil has power and God does not. They limit God but they do not limit the devil. It is insane, and spiritual blindness. This contributes to the young people falling away and the general apostasy. If these young people had been raised in an on-fire church, as Dr. Bright said, where the power of the Holy Spirit was present and manifested, few if any would later fall away. We are reaping what we have sown.Jim

 

[betchevy]

I moved to a small town with 2 churches one Baptist one Pentecostal.... I being a Chrsitian Jew and desiring fellowship attended both....Until spring, when Easter was to be celebrated... I went to both pastors and their wives and spoke to them about why I could not paticipate in pagan practices . I gave them the history of Eastor and told them about the rites and how the first eggs were dyed in the blood of babies sacrificed to the goddess... ISHTAR.. They both knew of these things, but said they could not stop celebrating Easter because that was the only time they had a full house and it was better to have a full house to give them the gospel than to tell the truth to their congregation. I have not been backBetchevy

 

[IBelieve]

I can't believe some of those statistics in the article...staggering! I knew our universities were becoming more and more liberal, but I didn't know it was to this extent. Supporters of the ideals of extreme tolerance and moral relativity are indoctrinating our youth at such a young age now. Our only power lies in faith in Jesus and the will to proactively spread his gospel through every aspect of our lives.I can't remember where I found this quote, but it seems true now more than ever: "Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

 

[HammerStone]

You'd be surprised how badly Christianity is attacked on a daily basis on the college campus I am afraid. You're already being hated for his blessed namesake and it will continue to get worse as this indoctrination pays off. "Toleration" is just a guise, the purpose, although supposedly hidden, is obvious to anyone who will pay attention.

 

[guerrillasaint]

Betchevy Christianity has covered many different ritual and practices that were evil in order to convert or just grow the population of a congregation (quantity or quality). Still the Lord can use evil for good. Ester is no longer what it used to be. Just like you are no longer what you used to be since you confessed you sins and gave your life to Christ. Have mercy on other and don't stop going to church because of what has happened. See how you can use you knowledge for good. Not by being the spiritual police but something that can grow the body of Christ. You information is already enlighting to me! If you ask maybe they will allow you to teach others about what the celebration used to be, and use it as an example of how God can use something evil to bring people who don't hear the Gospel most of the year to hear it and maybe have the life touched forever. Don’t let the Devil keep you from church or that church because you don’t agree see how you can make it right. Pray to God before you just leave he may want you there for a reason. Someone misses you even if it just seeing you.

 

[betchevy]

I love my Father God more than anything in this world, and I cannot participate in anything that would make Him upset... Don't you think that not telling the truth to a congregation that you have responsibilty to is a sin? Perhaps if the pastor taught the truth ,then people would go in order to hear the truth. God says in His Word over 100 times to put away our idols not to dress them up as "Christian" and bring them into His presence. Did God say to stop keeping the feasts He ordered us to? No, but we have and in their place we have put these practices that were pagan. The church is rejecting the things of God and replacing them the idols of men. I love the people of these little churches but I cannot participate in something my Father God has ordered me to put away, no matter what they may call them now. I keep Passover which is called Pesach and is mistakeningly transcribed in ACTS 12:4 the Strongs give the refence as 3957 pascha or Passover... The feasts given to Israel were all pictures of the plan God had for them through Jesus...They are feasts about His coming, His death and resurrection, His 2nd coming, who he is to us..the light of the world... the bread of life... All these wonderful gifts from God and you would want to give them up for yuccky leftover idol worship? You may not have been around when Easter was Ishtar, but God was and he hated the things His children did when they participated in her worship. Why would He suddenly change His mind now? The date of the feast has not changed, the 40 days of lent were kept to her son Tamuz who was killed by a wild boar a age 40 this practice is the same now...The ham on table and the sunrise service all were her rituals. You want me to keep her rituals and say they are God's rituals? You have not been told the truth and you are keeping idol worship alive by doing thise ritual things. I cannot participate in a church where the truth is veiled in order to not rock the boat. But just because some reverand says its okay, then the Word of God who says over 100 times to put away the idols is what?out of date? God just didn't understand that we can clean up idol worship and make it pure?Again I do thank you for your concern for me... I too am concerned for you and the people who are keeping these idol worshipping traditions. God will not be mocked and when HE says it in His word, to put them away... what will happen to those who go against it?

 

[tomwebster]

Betchevy,We are in full agreement on these points.

 

[guerrillasaint]

You have been given a gift Betchevy use your knowledge to teach others. Have you asked that pastor if you can tell others about this day? Maybe (and I not sure what this pastor is like) he will tell the congregation about the evil that used to be done on that day. As you probably know Sunday isn't the true Sabbath but we still worship on that day. God is more concerned about our motives than what we physically do. "Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."I can say that don't I really celebrate Ester. It is just another day at church to get the word. It is good that it is packed because someone my understand the Love of Christ. Other than that I can't say that it is any more special than Valentine’s day. (I barley remember V-day and I never know when Ester is. It always catches me off guard. Someone has to tell me.) It is just another Holiday on the calendar. Ask God why has given you this knowledge and what are you going to do with it. I think new Christians and old for that matter could use it. It makes us all put in perspective why and what we believe. Do we truly believe in the one true God or are they just going through the motions. Are we caught up in traditions so that we can't see that we are moving down the wrong road? Are we worshiping religion or God? What is God calling us to do? I think God wants you to use this knowledge to build his body. Have a good just chew on some of the things I have said. Pray to God about what you know about Ester because he knows better than me what he wants you to do. Peace

 

[betchevy]

I do tell those who want to know the truth about it. The pastors must make the decisions themselves to teach the truth to their congregations. I am always willing to speak of the love I have for the Father and His Word, but have not been called as a pastor and it would not be right for me to attack a pastor in his church or teach what he has said should not be taught there. That is why I no longer go.. I tried to get the pastors to tell the truth, they knew the truth...but they were going along with the traditions they had always gone along with. God says He will judge them. I just pray for them. I ask you though, are you depending on a man to tell you how you should worship God? Or are you looking at the Word... I mean really everyday feasting on it. Babies can't eat without someone chewing up their food for them. God compares us and the His Word to these babies. If we do not get into the meat of the Word for ourselves and if we continue to take all of our sustinance from the mouths of other men, aren't we continuing to be babes? If your pastor has not taught you these things we have shared here is he a good pastor? Chew on that... I am praying that you will continue to look at the True Word and forget the "traditons of men" . If the pastors in the churches would teach the truth, stop allowing the traditions to dictate to them how to worship God, then maybe the statistics would be different. How much actual Word is taught from the pulpits.. You get 1 or 2 verses of the Word and then an hour of talking. I would take forever for a congregation to go through the whole Bible and understand what it says . If you go deep and use a Strong's concordance and look what the original languages say...it can be a whole different book than those traditions have made it. It is alive and real and connected to us today, especially today in these days.Gurry, you have a wonderful way about you. I think God desires more from you than you realize. Shake up that pastor where you go to worship... ask him when he will tell the truth about Easter.I bet he knows it..I will be praying for God to help you .

 

[guerrillasaint]

Today my pastor was talking about something that I think you need to know. The message was about forgiveness. and it says in "Mt 18:15 if another believer sins against you go privately and point out the fault. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.""Mt. 5:22 Leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God." (this one is about someone harboring something against you) God does not want you to run away from the situation but to go and try to make it right. You must go back to you old pastor and tell him about the problem you have with him. You must try to rebuild this relationship. Also let it go in your heart don't let anger take hold in your heart because the lead to other sins. Have the mercy that God has for you and the forgiveness he has for you. I just want to let you know about that. I like to see things from the other persons point of view. That is not to say condone what they have done but to remember to have grace and mercy like God has grace and mercy for us all. My pastor is a very good pastor. I have been blessed with this church because it has accelerated my growth in Christ. I don't know if my pastor knows about what Ester is about. If he doesn't I don't really think that there is something wrong with him for not know. If he knew I wouldn't be surprised if he told the congregation.( the more I think about it the more I think I will share it with him) It is a very different church than most churches. It is a nondenominational but it doesn't say it is nondenominational. Christian go and the word is taught there then we are sent out to tell others. The church has elders which are also pastors and we even have a female pastor. ( I know not everyone agrees with that.) We call them all pastor not reverend. We don't have deacons but I forgot what they call them. The pastor decided to do away with that name deacon because of the baggage that came with it. It is a pretty cool church. I study the word every day and I just started BSF which is way cool. I have studied things that I didn't even know existed. It is mind blowing how connected every verse in the Bible is and how blatantly plan it is that Jesus is the messiah. I love the Book Isaiah now It just spells it out for you. Also I have a Power Bible CD that give me translations of the KJV to Hebrew and Greek. It also has many different translation, commentaries, word searches, dictionary, lexicons and so much. I is very helpful.You are most defiantly right about God. He expects a lot from us all. He seems to keep on piling it on. I get used to one thing and the He's like “keep moving kid we have more to do.”( boy is it great to be included in his plans) Man for a while there I felt like he was dragging me along.

I glad that he dragged instead of just letting me be. Also remember Lu 6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:Have a great day. Thanks for the complement and the challenges I appreciate it. God Bless

 

[tomwebster]

betchevy, ever fealt like you were reading Job sometimes?

 

[Christina]

You are so right guerillasaint you are discovering why it is called the living word it grows with your knowledge as you learn and understand one thing you realize there is a whole new layer of knowledge you didn't see before.Isn't it marvelous that it never stops teaching whether you are a new student or been studying scripture for 30 years there is always something new to learn

 

[guerrillasaint]

Yes it is truly the living word. Still I don't want to beat down betchevy. If he doesn't think it is right to worship Ester he shouldn't.

 

[betchevy]

Thanks Gurryst. I appreiciate your thoughtfulness. Tell me did you speak with you pastor about Easter?

 

[DrWhat]

The reason for some of those numbers presented in the first post in this thread is pretty clear to me. Simply put: Humanity changes. What is once considered bad is accepted. Slavery or women's rights are good examples of this. We all collectively learn new info and all of a sudden things don't make sense anymore. The liberals of yesterday are the conservatives of today. It's just how it works, whether we like it or not.A lot of us now stand at a point where we can see that we've changed from a long time ago, from the time when the Bible was written. This completely explains the appeal of the LDS Church, as it is much more recent and "up to date." I'm not saying that is a good way to think or not, I'm just saying that's how it seems to work. But we humans change. Those kids going to college and coming back atheist or agnostic or something different because they stepped away from the church for a while and found out they didn't need it. Then they start to look at it and none of it makes sense anymore - it seems outdated. And maybe that the church is not necessary for them. The proved to themselves that they can still have morals without the church, or maybe some of them decided that they don't even need morals. I would hope not the latter but you never quite know.I say there is only one way for this "problem" you speak of to come to an end. That everyone take a good whole-hearted look at all of the worlds religions and atheism. Sadly, this is tricky because there are questions that all groups can ask each other that just don't make any sense to other groups. For example a Christian often asks of the atheist "What if you are wrong?". To the Christian this is a reasonable question that is easy to answer because there are all sorts of great things about religion and it is easy to look past the negatives to justify it. But this question is totally irrelevant to an atheist because the whole core of his belief is pointing out the very fact that it is improbable that all belief systems are correct because they all consider themselves to be the one true, correct belief system. An atheist would ask the question "What if you are wrong about Zeus?" He zaps people with lightning, which really sucks mind you. This question to the Christian seems like a waste time to answer. And around and around we go.My personal belief is that religion and atheism CAN live in peace, but as with anything, both sides need to give up a something. Both teams can lose players to the other and not be upset about it. There is plenty of room in the middle for everyone to live in harmony. Christians need to get rid of the idea that things in the bible should be taken literally. It's a poor argument and the only justifications for ir a weak - it prevents religion from embracing scientific facts. More liberal Christians would agree with me here. Now Atheists needs to get it out of their heads that religion is a bad thing and that maybe, those things that science can't answer just might be God. In fact, the only times religion can be bad is when things are taken literally, and with this compromise we've eliminated that idea.DrW

 

[Bamp;#39;midbar]

(IBelieve;7561)
I can't remember where I found this quote, but it seems true now more than ever: "Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
You heard it from G.K. Chesterton.(DrWhat)
In fact, the only times religion can be bad is when things are taken literally, and with this compromise we've eliminated that idea.
"Literal" can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it just means take the bible seriously. Other times it means to take poetic talk as literal. Others might mean believing in moral absolutes. What do you mean? Give a few examples.

 

[Jon-Marc]

The biggest problem (in my opinion) in the church today is the lack of unity. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Eph. 6:12Unfortunately, Christians ARE fighting against flesh and blood by fighting one another, and we have forgotten as one singer said "The enemy is out there." Unfortunately, the enemy will and does infiltrate our ranks, but just because someone believes slightly different doesn't make them a heretic. Yes, there are heretical teachings in many religions, but what day a person worships on isn't as important as what he does with Jesus. What name a church has on its door doesn't matter as much as their name being written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

 

[Joyful]

The biggest problem (in my opinion) in the church today is the lack of unity.
I wonder how it is possible. Truth is only one and there are tons of denominations with ridiculous theologies IMHO.Jesus says He did not come to make peace but strife. That's what is going on.

 

[betchevy]

It is what the Word says that either agrees of disagrees with our actions.. if a church, person or groups actions do not agree with the Word , then they are in sin, must repent and line up with the Word... it is a dividing line..

 

[Kirangel]

Well, I fit in with the 88% of students from Christian homes who deny their faith before leaving college.You are not going to be able to change those numbers either. Most of those proselytizing and trying to spread the word go about it the wrong way. And the vendetta against Christianity in the western world doesn't help anything either.