I don’t know how many f you have been paying attention to recent events, but things are going from bad to worst in a hurry. As we all know last week was what is considered as holy week. In other it was the season that marked the last days of our Lord here on earth in a physical body. Since the latest census of this nation has proven that 90% of this nation claims to be Christian, the more popular medium of entertainment, that is to say television, always produces movies about the Christian faith, and/or broadcasts old movies all related to this season. The problem isn’t that they produce or broadcast these types of movies; the problem is that in the majority of the cases, these movies are not biblically correct, and only serve to confuse those that may not know very much about the Word of God or those with a debilitated faith. For example, I don’t remember exactly what day it was, but I saw that there was a remake of the Ten Commandments being broadcasted. It was a movie that I think was broadcasted over the course of a couple of days; in all reality I only watched about 20 minutes or so of the movie. I only watched for approximately 20 minutes because in that short period of time I was able to discern that the movie did not glorify God, instead God appeared to have been taken out of the equation. The last part that I saw was when the actor that was playing the part of Moses was sitting in the darkness, and was speaking to himself out loud saying something like, God I don’t know when you are speaking to me, I don’t know if it is my imagination or what. I also saw another scene where Joshua, perhaps the most faithful and brave servant that Moses had, was portrayed as rebellious and a coward. According to this movie it wasn’t until Joshua had a physical confrontation with Moses, where Joshua tried to kill him that Joshua became a brave and obedient servant. I don’t know about the rest of you, but in all of my years as a Christian and in the ministry, I have not been able to find any biblical reference that will support that God is a god of confusion, and that Moses was unsure of when God spoke to him. Additionally, I have also not found any biblical reference to support the fact that Joshua was a coward and had a fight with Moses and tried to kill him. Why have I said these things? I have said these things because these lies are exactly what are being spread through the world in our time. With every minute that passes Satan’s army advances taking more and more territory. With every minute that passes Satan maneuvers his troops and advances in the battleground, and God’s army retreats in defeat. Why is this happening? This is the topic that we will be examining today. Let’s now turn to the Word of God.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
I think this small portion of the scriptures clearly allows us to see what is happening in God’s people today. What is happening in God’s people today can be easily described with just one word, and this word is “apostasy.” But, what does apostasy mean? When we look up the definition of this word in the dictionary we discover that it is defines as: “1: renunciation of a religious faith. 2: abandonment of a previous royalty;” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). As we can see, by definition of the word, in order for an apostasy to take place first there has to have been a following of a true doctrine. Therefore, we can say without a doubt that these verses that we are examining today are not directed to those that live in the world, or at still trapped in the different religions and sects that exist. These verses are completely directed at the body of Christ; these verses are directed at the church. These verses here are a warning about what would occur in the church of antiquity, and what is happening in the church today. I say that it is something that is happening in the church today because it is not uncommon to see how congregations that once followed the sound doctrine, now have departed from it to follow the doctrines of men. It is not uncommon to see how numerous congregations have traded grace for law, and repentance for prosperity. I think it is for this exact reason that Christ declares in Luke 18:8 “…Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
Brethren, the reality of it all is that if things continue the way they are going, the number of true believers that the Lord will find upon His return will be very few. The fact that some abandon the true doctrine and depart from the way of the Lord, but continue calling themselves Christians is not something that should surprise us. The Lord warned us that this would occur, and would continue to occur, and this clearly reflected in His words as we find in Matthew 7:21-23 when we read “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Therefore, we can clearly see that not everyone that call themselves Christians will be accepted by the Lord, but only those that faithfully keep His word and live within His will. As I have said in numerous other occasions, it is very easy to say that we are Christians, but saying it is not enough. It is not enough because a true Christian is a person that leads a holy life, and submitted to the will of God. Tell the person next to you, a true Christian lives in Christ. But the question that we should be asking now is, why has apostasy taken place, and why does it continue to occur? It would be almost impossible to signal out all the reasons why people depart from the true doctrine, but I would say that there are two principal reasons. These two reasons are lack of knowledge and lack of understanding. Let’s explore these two reasons now to see if we can identify them in our life.
Lack of knowledge in the life of a person can be described in two ways. These two ways are that the person lacks the knowledge in the Word of God that allows discernment between good and evil, or that the person rejects what they know to be true or simply ignore God’s warning to follow their own desires. Unfortunately this is something that has occurred from the very beginning of humanity, and it is something that is very well reflected in the words of the prophet as we find in Hosea 4:6 when we read “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” If we were to examine the history of the people of Israel, we would quickly discover that the reason why they went through such difficult times was because they abandoned God’s truth. It’s not like they didn’t know the Word, or that they didn’t know God’s will. They had the prophets, and these faithful servants of God were diligent to preach His word, but regardless of this, the majority of the people, especially the leaders, chose to do what they thought would best benefit them, or what was more convenient instead of following God’s word. The prophet said it this way in Isaiah 5:13 when we read “Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” As I said, this is something that continues to occur even today.
I say this because there are numerous leaders within the today’s church that having an excellent knowledge of the Word of God, have abandoned and rejected their knowledge and conviction to follow doctrines established by men because it is more convenient, or because they can obtain better benefits, or simply because it is the popular trend to follow. It is also not difficult to find how there are many believers that having a good understanding of the Word submit themselves to the doctrines of men, and reject God’s truth. It is not difficult to find how a large number of believers that have a good understanding of the Word, remain in places where they have seen how the leader is departing or has completely departed from God’s truth. But none of this is something new; we have all been told what to do when we encounter this situation in our life. Look carefully at how the apostle Paul said it in Galatians 1:8 when we read “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” We serve a just God; we serve a God that does not want us to distance ourselves from Him. But on many occasions we fall in the sin of apostasy due to the lack of knowledge of the Word of God.
I say this because if you well know that what you are hearing, and seeing is not what Christ preached and taught, but you remain without doing anything, then by definition of the word alone, you have apostatized. By definition of the word alone you have traded God’s truth to follow the doctrine of men. And the devil takes great pleasure when he can make this happen in the life of a believer. The devil is very pleased when he is able to separate a believer from God. How does he accomplish this? He is able to accomplish this for two reasons; first is because he disguises the lies to make them seem as the truth. This is why we find such a stern warning about this in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 when we read “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” And secondly is because he does not do it all at once, but rather does it in small portions. What happens is that when things are done in this fashion, people fail to see the changes and they slowly grow accustomed to them even though the changes may be mortal. It is very much like the boiling frog syndrome. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is a theory that states that if you put a frog inside a pot of boiling water, the frog will quickly jump out of it. However, is you take the same frog and put it in a pot of cool water, but slowly raise the temperature until it reaches the boiling point; the frog will remain in the pot of water and will die completely cooked. Why did this happen? It happened because it got accustomed to the changes in temperature but in the end, these changes caused its death. This is the same that has occurred to many believers; they have grown accustomed to certain things, and they have submitted themselves in such a way, that it is no longer submission to the will of God, but rather manipulation by men. And all of this has taken place due to the lack of knowledge and/or ignoring or rejecting what we very well know to be the truth; but there is a second reason that contributes to all of this. This leads me to the second point of this sermon.
The second reason that contributes to the apostasy is the lack of understanding. In John 3:16 the Word of God declares “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This piece of scripture is one that many people know, but can’t fully understand. Do you know why people don’t fully understand this? The reason why people can’t fully understand this is because none of us here is capable of loving in this fashion. It does not matter how good we think we are. None of us here would offer our son or daughter as a sacrifice to save someone else, especially if that someone else had hurt is deeply as was the case of the nation of Israel.
Something very true about our God is that none of us here will ever completely understand His thoughts. It is as the Word tells us in Isaiah 55:8-9 when we read “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” While it is true that we will never fully understand His thoughts, we can however, obtain full conviction of His Word. For those that live in the world what I say seems like sheer madness. For those that live in the world what I say makes absolutely no sense whatsoever; but for all faithful believers, today’s message, although it may be considered a bit harsh by some, should serve to makes us reflect and analyze our life within the body of Christ. Paul said it this way in 1 Corinthians 1:18 when we read “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” Many within the body of Christ know about God’s love for mankind, but they never fully comprehend it, and that is why they fall from His path and follow false doctrines that only lead them far away from His will. Many fail to understand that although God loves the sinner, He abhors sin. Tell the person next to you, God loves you.
God loves us in a way that we will never be able to love, but God will never accept us if we continue in a life of sin, or if we become accomplices of them. Look carefully at how this is clearly reflected in Romans 6:1-2 when we read “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” This is why we can’t be accomplices to all of this falseness and hypocrisy that we are seeing within today’s church.
In conclusion. The verses that we have studied today tell us, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” There are a large number of believers that just like those that live in the world are being separated from God’s truth. The main reasons why this is happening are lack of knowledge, and lack of understanding. Many are being led away from God’s presence because they are not taking the time to seek the truth in the only place where it can be found. Brethren, the truth will never be found in a movie, or a television show. Just like those that live in the world, there are a large number of believers that are looking to fill their knowledge, but they trying to fill it through the different philosophies and doctrines that exist in the world. But we have also been warned against doing this. This is something very well reflected in Colossians 2:8 when we read “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” There is but one place where we can find the truth. The truth can only be found in His holy and divine Word. There are many in the world that profess to tech the truth, but the only thing they really do is manipulate people, and keep them deceived with the sole purpose of satisfying their avarice and appetite for the things of this world. Many leaders have departed from the true teachings and the true doctrine, and this has led many believers to apostatize without even knowing it. This is why I urge you today to examine your life. Don’t allow the lack of knowledge and understanding to separate you from God. I leave you with a final piece of scripture to reflect upon. Colossians 3:1-2 “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
