Sunday, November 19, 2017 - Signs of Possible Apostasy!
Pastor Roger Marcos
Nov. 19, 2017
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." George Washington
We can learn, so many things in life by being sensitive to the word the Bible. The Christian has not invented the claim that the Bible is the Word of God-it is the claim of the Bible itself.
We find in the Bible the claim that the words and deeds it records come from the living God.
How Would You Recognize a Church that is more Secular than Sacred?
To be honest to answer to that question- is to be familiar with the sacred teaching of the church.
The Christian church focuses on being fed out of God's word and seeks to align itself with what it says.
The secular church allows the ways of the world to seep into the beliefs and practices of the Christian church thereby diluting the truth.
What Is Apostasy?
Apostasy is the departure from belief and great faith in Jesus Christ; to fall away from the truth.
"Standing Away," hence the concept of "falling away." It is "an abandoning of what one believed in, as a faith, etc." Webster.
Apostasy is a rebellion against God because it is a rebellion against the truth.
Two Types of Apostasy:
- Those who have knowingly turned completely from Jesus Christ and no longer even pretend to be Christians; --- Hymenaeus and Alexander - 1 Timothy 1:18-20.
- Those who still claim to be Christians but have departed from the faith. -
TEXT: 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. Matthew 24:12
What does it mean that the love of many will grow Cold? I am only quoting what Jesus is saying. 1 Corinthians 13:7 True love cannot become cold because it is sustained by Christ who is able to keep us from falling (Jude 1:24). Anyone who feels that their love of service is getting cold is a sign that their love for Jesus is not true-true love for God sustains itself.
I. LOSS OF APPETITE FOR GOD’S WORD. Mat. 4:4
Man Shall Not Live By Bread alone; but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Here are the Causes:
1. Worldliness - James 4:4; 2 Timothy 4:10.
4 Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.
10 for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica-Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. 2Tim. 4:10
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires. 2 Tim. 3:1-6
2. False doctrine - Acts 20:29-30 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves
3. Hardened hearts against God's revealed will - Hebrews 3:12-13.
"Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God.13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
So if we let our appetites run out in God’s word- there is no peace
II. NEGLECTING POWER OF PRAYER.
1 Th. 5:17 Pray without ceasing. - Unceasing, prayer is essential to the vitality of your relationship to the Lord and your ability to function in the world. But exactly what does it mean to pray without ceasing?
You're to be continually in an attitude of prayer. It is living in continual God-consciousness, where everything you see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to Him.
1 Jn. 5:14-15 14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
Col. 1:9-11 9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
Conclusion:
Be faithful in the Lord.
My Question to you is do you Love the truth? Then Obey It -
- Hear John 12:48
- Believe John 8:24
- Repent Luke 13:3
- Confess Matt. 10:32-33
- Baptized Mark 16:16
- Faithful Matt. 24:13