Dave’s Monday Blast – November 20, 2023

Happy Thanksgiving my friends. I trust this week you will be filled with sincere hearts of gratitude, and that you can experience a time of rest and peace with family and friends.

One of the signs of the near return of Christ is a sharp increase in Apostasy. Apostasy is a term used to refer to those who have fallen away from their once professed faith in Jesus Christ. It’s a tragic reality that the Bible speaks of and warns against numerous times.

Christian Ministries International (CMI) comments: “Apostasy can happen for many reasons: doubt, fear, conformity to the world, a desire for things of the world, etc.”. I would add a mischaracterization of God; i.e., God is only seen as LOVING, MERCIFUL and full of GRACE. There is no acknowledgement by apostates that He is also a God of TRUTH AND JUSTICE. However, the root cause of apostasy is demonic deception. The apostle Paul declares, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.” (1 Timothy 4:1)

CMI continues: “Most who apostatize wouldn’t recognize the spiritual battle behind their decisions, but that is the biblical truth of the matter. Jesus calls our enemy, the Devil, ‘the ruler of this world’ (John 14:30); and the apostle Paul calls him, ‘the god of this world’ (2 Corinthians 4:4). Furthermore, we are told in scripture that our battle in this present age is a spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12) and that Satan’s goal is to ‘steal and kill and destroy'” (John 10:10).

What are we to make of those who have fallen away from their formerly professed faith in Christ? (CMI) comments: “Scripture is clear that a genuine faith is a faith that persists in belief. 1 John 5:1 declares, ‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God…’ The word believes here in the Greek is a present tense verb, which speaks of continuous action. So, a truly saved child of God will be marked by a persevering faith.” There are over thirty references to the word perseverance throughout the Scriptures. INTENTIONAL men of God know that we can be very weak-kneed at times in our faith journey, but Scripture affirms numerous times that the payoff to persevering in our walk with the Lord is to “…receive the Crown of Righteousness” (James 1:2).

Sadly, throughout the history of the Church there have been those who simply didn’t persevere, marking themselves as people without a true faith from the beginning. The apostle John speaks to this reality in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”