On Apostacy

Dear Editor,

Apostasy is probably a word that you have never heard of before. But Apostasy is one of the many signs that we are living in the last days of this age, the age of grace or otherwise known as the church age. Just what is Apostasy?

According to the Bible it is a falling away (a deliberate turning away from) the truth of the Word of God to false teaching (doctrine). Lets read it from The Amplified Bible. Turn with me to II Thess. 2:3 where it says,

"Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first (unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come), and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition). Fundamentalists and many evangelicals are those believers who hold as absolute, that all mankind is lost (to God) because of Adam's sin. Listen to what the Bible says in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death (eternal separation from God) the result of sin, so death spread to all men, (no one being able to stop it or escape its power) because all men sinned." Romans 3:23 says "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:10-15 says "As it is written, there is none righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one. (vs 11) No one understands (no one intelligently discerns or comprehends); no one seeks out God. (vs 12) All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one! (vs 13) Their throat is a yawning grave; they use their tongues to deceive (to mislead and to deal treacherously), The venom of asps is beneath their lips. (vs 14) Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. (vs 15) Their feet are swift to shed blood." Get your Bible out and read verses 16-18 also. This is not a very pretty picture of the human race is it?

Genesis 2:16 & 17 say, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may freely eat of every tree of the garden (of Eden); (vs 17) But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and blessing and calamity you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die." We also hold fast that there is a penalty, decreed by God for sin. Romans 6:23a says, "For the wages which sin pays is death (eternal separation from God in Hell). As you can see man lost his spiritual life back in the Garden of Eden and subsequently his physical life as well. There are cemeteries all over the world and funerals every day. But God saw our helplessness and our hopelessness and He did something about it. He sent His beloved son Jesus, the one who raised the dead to life, made the lame to leap, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear and also healed people of every disease and sickness in the book.

Read John 3:16-18. Now listen to what the Apostle Peter has to say about Jesus in Acts 4:12 Talking about Jesus he says, " Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

What does all of this have to do with Apostasy? Next week I will connect the dots.

Your Friend,

Paul Schneider

McCook