Dear friends:
 
The Bible speaks of apostasy in the latter times, such as in 1 Timothy 4:1: Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
 
Comment: Unfortunately, some believers are using this against other sincere believers with reckless and mean-spirited accusations because of some doctrinal disagreement.  We are using it against each other!  May God help His fractured, hostile body.  The real problem is in the statistics below.
 
Also, 2 Thessalonians 2:3 says, “that day (day of Christ) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”
 
Comment:  The “falling away” is from the Greek apostasia, but it may not mean apostasy as we usually think of it.  It also means “departing,” and it has been shown that every major English translation of the Bible before the KJV translated it as “departing first,” which many believe to mean the rapture.
 
The real problem:
 
Researchers of the problem continue to come up with increasingly grave statistics that explain how serious the condition is. Among Christian adults:

64% believe moral truth depends on the situation;

60% believe male/female co-habitation outside of marriage is acceptable;

55% believe a good person can earn his or her salvation;

44% believe Jesus Christ committed sins while on earth. [1]

And consider the condition in our colleges and universities:

67% of college professors approve of homosexuality;

84% of professors approve of abortion;

65% embrace socialist and communist ideals; [2]

88% of students from “Christian” homes deny their faith before they graduate from college;

91% of students from evangelical churches do not believe in absolute moral truth. [3]

[1] George Barna at barna.org

[2] March 30, 2005 Washington Post mentions survey by Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman

[3] George Barna at barna.org

Recognizing the life-and-death nature of the issue, the Southern Baptist Convention, to its credit, has even done a self-study and found that 88% of young people from SBC homes deny their faith before they graduate from college.
 
The late Dr. Bill Bright addressed this problem.  He asks, “What is the real cause of America’s current spiritual and moral crisis?”  He wrote:

“In previous messages, I cited several forces, or movements, such as Marxism, atheism and humanism, aided by anti-biblical court decisions, which have contributed to the problem.  But it may surprise you to learn that the real problem has not been any of these things.

 

“In the words of Pogo, the comic strip character, ‘We have met the enemy, and it is us.’  The real problem has been the church!

 

“Lukewarmness and impotence in the church of Jesus Christ for the most part has been the real culprit.  This has resulted in a loss of spiritual power, the power of the Holy Spirit, who is willing and eager to fill us and manifest Himself through us to a lost and hurting world, if we would just surrender and totally commit ourselves to our Lord.  An on-fire church would have prevented most of the problems our culture faces today.”

An example of the church without power is that most every time there is an example of God’s power and presence being manifested in a church, many automatically give the glory to the devil and say it is from him and not from God, just because it has never happened before in their own cold church.  They obviously think the devil has power and God does not.  They limit God but they do not limit the devil.  It is insane, and spiritual blindness.
 
This contributes to the young people falling away and the general apostasy.  If these young people had been raised in an on-fire church, as Dr. Bright said, where the power of the Holy Spirit was present and manifested, few if any would later fall away.  We are reaping what we have sown.

Jim