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1 Timothy 4:1d
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1 Now [de] the Spirit [pneuma] speaketh [lego] expressly, [rhetos] that [hoti] in [en] the latter [husteros] times [kairos] some [tis] shall depart from [aphistemi] the faith, [pistis] giving heed [prosecho] to seducing [planos] spirits, [pneuma] and [kai] doctrines [didaskalia] of devils; [daimonion] KJV-Interlinear
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, NASB
Now the key to this verse is in the words ‘fall away.’
It is the view of most people that there will exist on the earth, at the time of the Rapture, lots of believers and lots of unbelievers. And, that it is because of the unbelievers that the Rapture occurs, which whisks the believers out of the way, so that God can deal with the unbelieving world.
That is only partially correct.
God does not take any action until and unless there is a need for action. And that need always has to do with the spiritual status of believers, not the beliefs of unbelievers per se.
In the Garden, Adam and Eve were living their merry little lives naming the animals and eating the fruit and so forth, until they violated the one and only rule of not eating from the forbidden tree. It was at that time, that they became spiritually dead (we call this state an unbelieving state). They hide from God (Christ) who had been walking with them every day prior to this sin.
But when He gave them the promise of a savior, then they believed and thus became the first believers in history.
This is verified by the fact that they were provided with clothing made of animal skins. Those skins came from animals that were sacrificed. The demonstration of their belief and the promise of a savior. Cain and Abel further defined the difference between the correct sacrifice and the incorrect sacrifice.
Anyway, history continued and did not come to an end because they believed. Christ was there, and they heard the gospel and they believed. The gospel was available and they responded positively.
In Noah’s day, Noah was there and the population rejected him. They were apostate, or they were in total rejection of the gospel as taught by Noah. The flood was the result. The gospel was there and it was rejected.
Now we move forward to the birth of Jesus. In the four centuries prior to His birth, the Old Testament was completed and there were no further revelations from God. The population was going generally toward works and forgetting the grace provisions of God. They even crucified Jesus in total rejection of Him as the Savior. Yet many were still believing in Him as demonstrated by the quick rise of Christianity.
But during those centuries preceding the birth of Jesus, the gospel was diminished, but not completely and replaced with works. Even the apostles had their confusion as to the accuracy of the mechanics of salvation.
This has continued as humanity has moved to the four corners of the planet, populated it, and believers now exist in all nations. Even with the rise and fall of spiritual awareness, Christianity has blossomed and people have been saved, and people have advanced to spiritual maturity.
However, we now are studying a change in the attitudes of society and more particularly the change if attitudes of Christians.
And that is where apostasy enters into the picture of history. And more particularly the ‘great’ apostasy that will occur at the end of our dispensation.
The word for the phrase ‘depart from,’ ‘aphistemi,’ means to leave a place that was once occupied, to depart from, to remove oneself from a position originally occupied, to abandon, to go to another place.
And the place that is being abandoned is ‘faith,’ ‘pistis,’ or the fundamental beliefs that make up Christianity.
So the apostasy, the great apostasy which will occur at the end of our dispensation, is going to be caused by Christians falling away from their basic beliefs. And not only falling away, but adopting other beliefs in a proactive way.
Apostasy is not merely an indifference but a total abandonment of one belief, and the pursuit of something else.
And what are the implications? Well, with fewer practicing Christians, then the evangelization of the world slows down or comes to a halt altogether. This does not mean fewer believers, because there will be millions who will be raptured away. This only means that of those believers, most will have adopted non-Christian values.
And this too, does not mean that the Christians will become Buddhists, or Muslims, or members of some other group. It only means that their practices will not be proper or correct Christian practices or beliefs. Certainly many will pursue salvation by works, or they will pursue works, and calling them their Christian calling.
But when we view recent trends in the world, it would seem more likely that people will become more secular, or worldly, or material oriented, or socialistic. And because the anti-christ will pursue extreme liberal socialism policies (we will get this from our study in Revelation), then it also indicates that the general population will promote and support these views, rather than the fundamental establishment principles of Christianity.
We can already see the acceptance of alternative lifestyles and anti-Christian views everywhere around us. These things will only get worse as time moves along.
This word is also used in Lk. 8:13, when Christian behavior is described as seed falling on rocky ground, and then with no growth, act like or adopt the same pattern of life as that of Judas, choosing evil over truth.
Apostasy is not a matter of struggling within ones faith, but a willful abandonment of truth and turning to lies.
This is the state of the world when the end of our dispensation finally arrives, a virtual disappearance of the gospel and evangelism.
When will that be? How long with it take to get to that place in society? None of us can answer those questions.
We only know that faith rises and falls with each succeeding generation. And in the case of our own future, then it would seem that faith will falter either a little or a lot with each succeeding generation, until the time arrives that most people will have no concern for, and nothing to do with, Christ.
We do have a lot so other indicators of the end times, namely the rise in frequency of knowledge, of storms and such, but there is one rapid rise that might be more significant, and that is the rapid rise in population.
At the time of the end of our dispensation, the population on the planet will be huge and growing rapidly. And if you think about it, then with a larger and larger population, come more and more social problems from the need for jobs, to food, to crime, to personal meaning in peoples lives (hope, despair, etc.). And all of these can significantly contribute to the spiritual falling away of people, from Christ.
The population is currently doubling about every thirty to forty years. If our current population of seven-billion doubles at that rate, then within this century there will be over fifty billion people on the planet, with no end in sight for even more. Simple common sense dictates that at some point the system for humanity will breakdown, one would think.
Anyway there is one more topic from this verse and that is the source of apostasy, which we will study tomorrow, and then we will resume our study in Rev. 2.
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