The Great Apostasy

I never realized how far along this road the church has come since I was first saved in 1993. Back then it was just weird and strange and amazing and awesome for me to even BE in a church building. At the time it was the most holiest place on earth to me. Nothing was wrong there, nor could there ever be anything wrong in the church.

It didn't take long for me to go crazy with drugs and alcohol. It really began in junior high and after high school I went downhill fast. When I came to the end of my rope I was seriously thinking that if partying was all there was to life then I would just kill myself. Suicide WAS an option. I came back to live with my parents and vowed I would do no more partying. I would not call any of my old buddies because I knew that once we got together that would be it. I just didn't know what to do. Stuck living with my parents in a town where there were no jobs and a vow that pretty much had me confined to staring out a window, I did not know how long I would last. I got a call one day from a guy I hung out with in school. In school he was the metal head. Music was this guy's life! To this day I have not seen the like in anyone else. He would bounce from being a satanist, buying and listening to all the satanic metal. Then something would happen and he would throw out all his tapes, become a Christian and buy Christian metal tapes. Something would happen that would have him hating God and he would throw out the Christian tapes and...you get the point. There was a sort of yo-yo thing going on.

He called me up and wanted to hang out and since I didn't know if he was a Christian or Satanist, I asked him. I didn't want to get high or drink, just hang out. He said he was a Christian still. So, I decided that I would put up with the preaching, which was sure to come, if only I could get out of the house and hang out with someone and not get high or drunk. I did this daily, and everyday he would “fire and brimstone” me. He told me the Gospel. I was going to Hell if I did not repent and come to Jesus and ask His forgiveness. Jesus would save me, paying my sin-debt to God, being crucified on the cross in my place. He died and rose again and would come to live in me. The crazy thing about this is that I knew this. Or, more specifically, I knew that if there was a God that I WAS going to Hell. Only a fool would think they could have lived the life I had been living and NOT go to Hell. God had been preparing me for that, to hear the Gospel, to be convicted of my sin and shown that I was under His judgement. I understood it! I knew it! Everyday my friend would preach to me and when I left his house he would give me a Gospel tract.

One night I knew that I had to decide – God was at work in me and I didn't even know it – Jesus? or Hell? Because of His work in me I chose Jesus. It wasn't until many, many years later that I realized that I chose Him because He first chose me. I literally got down on my knees – I wanted to do this right and I knew that when people prayed they got down on their knees. I opened all the Bible tracts he had given me and read each one through from beginning to end – I wanted to make sure I got it right, not wanting someone to come along at a later time and tell me I did it wrong. I then prayed the prayer that was on the back of each one. I then prayed myself, asking Jesus to come into my heart and forgive my sin. I remember saying, “As bad as I am right now, I want to be that good for You. I know I can't do it. You're going to have to change me.” It was really a strange experience. It felt like someone was in the bedroom with me and I knew, somehow, that what I had asked for was acceptable – He would change me because I couldn't. The weight, the burden that I had felt was suddenly gone. Just like that, it was gone. That was the greatest night of my life! It was after that night that I started attending a Bible study and “going to church”.

I grew to love it! Learning about Jesus and wallowing in the salvation that had been given to me. I was forgiven because of what Jesus did for me. ALL of my sin had been forgiven. He paid my sin-debt to God. He was living in me and He was changing me. He is so awesome! I had my ups and downs. God did some cool things in my life and I had some “run-ins” with people in the church who didn't like what God was doing through me or how my new life in Christ may have been making theirs seem not so good. I didn't care – Jesus was awesome and He was transforming my life. What great and hard times those were.

Around this time I was also asked if I would be interested in meeting with a guy to be discipled. This guy had recently graduated from Bible School with a Bachelor of Theology degree. This guy was awesome! Everyday I would meet with him and talk with him about the Bible, about Jesus, what I had been reading and had trouble understanding, etc. He would explain these things to me, answer my questions and enquiries – he even cried one day when he saw how much Jesus was at work on my life and how I was growing. It made me kind of uncomfortable – I had never had another guy cry about me before! It wasn't long before he moved to another province and we just lost touch. It wasn't until Facebook that we reconnected – more about that later.

A few years after my salvation I attended a Bible school and it was here that I first learned that maybe some things in the church were not all I thought they had once been. The Patriarchs, Moses, David, the Prophets – these men of God had been super-human to me before Bible school. I always thought they never did anything wrong and that only the very special people, like them, had relationships with God like they did. While studying the lives of these great men of God I saw they were just like me, sinful and corrupt human beings whom God chose for His purposes and used as He saw fit.

There were other things as well. I had thought all Pastors were super human to. I came to realize they were not, that they were just like I was. They also didn't know everything like I had once thought. Shoot! I knew NOTHING about my salvation and a life in Christ when I was newly saved. My Pastor had all the answers to the questions I was asking. He was so good and understanding and he put up with a lot from me, both good and bad. I know he would be the first to confess his imperfection and would balk at the phrase “all Pastors are super-human.”

I started to see how worldliness was in the church. It was very subtle. Instead of growing to know Jesus, who He is, although that would always be the stated goal, what seemed more important through the actual preaching from the pulpit, was going out and telling people ABOUT Jesus. I started to think, “How can we tell people about Someone we don't know?” However, it was implied that we DID know Him. After all we were all Christians, right? It appeared to me that sharing your faith was more important than making disciples. Making disciples is about teaching others who Jesus is, sound doctrine, right theology, and following Him. There were classes presented on how to share your faith. Use a certain technique, say it this way, tell at least one person each day about Jesus, etc. Numbers and doing more rather than growing in Christ and learning about Him. You see...subtle.

Success was presented as getting a good career and rising to a position of influence where one could make a “positive change for Christ.” This conflicted with a reading of Hebrews chapter 11. What was being presented to me as success was very different from what chapter 11 presented as success. “The world was not worthy of them.” I began to see more and more how the things of the world, the worldly ways of doing things (ex: marketing the church), were becoming more accepted in the church.

Years passed and I attended another Bible school. I was a second year student when I enrolled as they took the year at the first Bible school into account. I really didn't take any actual courses on any books of the Bible as there were no Bible courses for the second year. So, Psychology, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology and Witnessing were some of the course offerings. We did a course on preaching but it was more on “how” to preach, your technique. I remember questioning the school counsellor about it - “This is a Bible school, how come there are no Bible classes for me?” All I remember was his look, not what he said. It is hard to describe – shock, concern, and then a smirky smile. It's a weird memory. I remember reading the job posting board at the school and all the Senior Pastor positions required the senior to have a degree in Business Admin. Business Administration to be a Pastor!? Maybe to help market the church? Or, perhaps, run the office more efficiently?

Fast forward to this present time, 2012.

The person whom the Lord used to lead me to Him is currently living “in sin” with his girlfriend. His justification - “We're not like a bunch of horny toads. We're old so we're not having sex all the time.” He knows that what he is doing is wrong but continues in it. He thinks that as long as he has a longing to live rightly before God then this is enough because he can't stop. He has the longing without the life to back it up. I have talked to him about this a few times but the more I do the more it appears to drive him away because he thinks I'm judging him. This breaks my heart and makes me very afraid for him because if he continues in this broken, unrepentant sin then I fear for his salvation. Is a person whose life is characterized by unrepentant sin really saved? I hope and prayer is that he will repent of his sin and follow Christ. Jesus knows His sheep – I hope he is one of them.

The person who discipled me has completely rejected Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The Gospel is now foolishness to him, the Bible written by ancient writers from ancient times using ancient languages and it is so filtered by other peoples interpretations and other cultures that it is no longer reliable or trustworthy. He attempts to find truth through rationality and because he can't understand rationally what the scriptures say he rejects them, and rejects Jesus Christ. The Bible is so clear that the Gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing and they cannot know it apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It is foolishness to unbelievers, but the wisdom of God to those who have been saved by Him. His defection has been very hard for me to come to grips with. From what I remember of him he appeared to be what I thought he was – a Christian. So was Judas, I guess, until he defected. The Apostle John says, “They went out from us but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.” Seeing this episode in my life with this person in light of this verse, I see the amazing sovereignty of God. He used someone who was “not of us” to teach me amazing things about Jesus.

The church today accepts cultural norms rather than standing on scripture. The church wants so desperately to not offend anyone they have lost sight that the Gospel itself is offensive because it calls people to repentance after exposing their sin. The Gospel message of the church today is “Believe in Jesus. If you do, welcome to the Kingdom!” There is no exposing of sin, being broken by the Law of God. A person is not forced to see what they are, their condition before God. There is nothing like this at all because that would offend people and drive them away. We want people to come to the church and feel welcome, then someday we might give them the Good News. I think it is this kind of watered down teaching that helps one along the road of apostasy. Better that a person be broken by the Law of God and see how great his sin and need of a Saviour really is and be brought to genuine repentance than to have a person make a lifestyle change and learn the church lingo, all the while believing they are saved because they've made some changes that appear good.

I am constantly reading a blog called Pyromaniacs and just recently Phil Johnson, one of the writers and the creator of the blog, posted this very interesting piece on Apostasy. http://teampyro.blogspot.ca/2012/04/apostasy.html. It's a very timely post. 

Lastly, this hard message preached many years ago by Paul Washer.