1 Timothy 4:1d
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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