HOW APOSTASY WORKS

It would be proper, at the beginning to define our terms, so let's define "apostasy." It means "a falling away."

Therefore when we speak of apostasy in the church we are speaking of the visible church falling away from the essential doctrinal truths. "Essential doctrinal truths" is an important phrase in this case. We're not talking about apostasy's being defined as deciding that sprinkling is the proper method of baptism as opposed to once holding immersion as the right method.

Sprinkling does not an apostate make. We're talking about the crystal clear teachings of the New Testament such as someone's departing from the doctrines of the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, Christ's deity and humanity united in one Person forever, the Trinity, and the bodily resurrection of Christ. Doctrines like that.

Apostasy is a stealth bomber. Tom Harris writes about the marvel that is the stealth bomber: "The B-2 bomber, commonly known as the stealth bomber, was an ambitious project. In the 1970s, the U.S. military wanted a replacement for the aging B-52. They needed a plane that could carry nuclear bombs to the Soviet Union, in only a few hours. And they wanted it to be nearly invisible to enemy sensors.

"Hiding a giant plane is no easy task. Northrop Grumman, the firm that won the contract, spent billions of dollars and nearly 10 years developing the top-secret project. The finished product is a revolutionary machine -- a 172-foot wide flying wing that looks like an insect to radar scanners!"

 Apostasy has much in common with the B-2 bomber: it flies undetected by the naked, unspiritual eye. It wings its way inside the church like an angel of light. When it reaches its target, it drops its fire and brimstone of total destruction on the unwary.

The working of apostasy is a deception used by the leaders, the movers, the shakers, and the scholars of any given denomination. Apostasy is not denomination-specific, it works the same way in all of them.

Let's take a couple of examples.

A problem has arisen in a denomination: should the ordained ministers of the denomination perform same-sex marriages? A corollary to this question is, "Is practicing homosexuality a sin?"

Enter the stealth bomber: The leaders must make a decision, "Yes" or "No," but they don't do so immediately. As they pilot the B-2 bomber, they make a motion: "We need to study this sensitive issue. We will appoint a committee to make such a study and report back to us in 6 months at our bi-annual meeting."

There is it. The B-2 has done its work and it works every time. Doesn't anyone realize that historically, the church has known the answer to that question for over 2,000 years? The church doesn't need "a study." The "study" is only a ploy. The decision of the committee is a foregone conclusion of 'Yes," but the appearance of a "study" is that they will find something new to justify what they, the apostates, want to do anyway.

Another case in point is a denomination under pressure to allow women to be ordained as pastors. Those putting on the pressure will call for the denomination to do a "study" and the stealth bomber goes to work.

After 2,000 years of biblical theology historical theology, and systematic theology, we need a "study?" The question is so obvious, it answers itself. "No."

A study is a way the camel gets its nose inside the tent. If your denomination is doing a study of the above topics, it's time to shake the dust off your sandals. (Acts 13:50-51)

WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO US?

There is a phenomenon in the land. We see it everywhere. It takes no holidays; we see it especially on holidays. It expresses itself in gag orders, sanctions and censorship. It's real and there for all to see, but its cause remains to many invisible to the physical eye. To see it, we need the spiritual lens provided by Genesis 3:15 in which God speaks of a supernatural conflict between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman.

SHAME! SHAME! CANDY CANES

A public school principal in Nebraska prohibits candy canes — because, she writes, "Historically, the shape is a "J" for Jesus. The red is for the blood of Christ, and the white is a symbol of His resurrection." Her prohibition would also include different colored candy canes, not only the red and the white.

However, the principal is propagating a myth and a legend: "The first historical reference to the familiar cane shape goes back to 1670. The choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany first bent the sugar-sticks into the shape of canes to represent a shepherd's staff. The all-white candy canes were then given to children during the long-winded nativity services. It has been claimed that the cane was shaped like a "J" for "Jesus" and that the red-and-white stripes represented Christ's blood and purity.

"The three red stripes were also said to symbolize the Holy Trinity and the hardness of the candy represented the church's foundation on solid rock. . . However, no historical evidence exists to support these claims." (Mary Bellis)

Not content with prohibiting candy canes, the principal censored two colors, red and green items along with an animal, the reindeer. The principal wrote to parents giving her reason: "Manchester Elementary will seek to be inclusive and culturally sensitive to all of our students.

Really? We wonder. Could there be another, a sinister reason of which the history-deprived principal is unaware? Or is she in on the plot?

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Over in the Centennial State, the Elbert County Charter School in Elizabeth, Colorado, had a holiday program that included"Jingle Bells." The school district was threatened with a lawsuit unless the event was cleansed of the song. After all, they reasoned, hearing "Jingle Bells" might trigger the sensitive hearers to think, "Christmas." The basis of the lawsuit was that "Jingle Bells" was unconstitutional on the grounds of the separation of church and state.

Really? To listen to or to sing "Jingle Bells" is tantamount to establishing a national church? Really? Aside from that, this phenomenon wants to control what a person thinks. That's scary.

But, "Jingle Bells wasn't written about Christmas but was composed as a song about wintertime fun.  The song doesn't contain the name "Jesus," anything about Bethlehem, the Magi, the shepherds, or the angels. The composer, James Pierpoint, wrote the song in 1857, about Thanksgiving as a celebration of winter recreation. We see this focus on winter fun when we examine one of the verses in which the lines are:

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side

The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank
And then we got upset." 

It's difficult to find any theology in those lines. Then there are the two lines which express the joy of winter: "Oh, what fun it is to ride/In a one-horse open sleigh." (However, many right-thinking people in the South know there's no such thing as "winter fun" in bone-numbing temperatures, shoveling snow, losing control of the car on black ice, dead batteries, and standing alongside a car gone into a ditch waiting for a tow truck. In spite of riding in a "one-horse open sleigh," wintertime's restriction of normal activities is best summed up as "going to jail for 6 months.") 

But, the question is, what is this phenomenon? Is it really a fear of a national, state-sanctioned church?

In New Jersey, the state motto is, "Liberty and Prosperity." The musical question on Maplewood, N.J.’s Columbia High School's agenda was the question of whether or not the school’s brass ensemble would be allowed to present instrumental — but not vocal — renditions of Christmas carols. The ensemble would not include the words of the carols; no words of the carols would be in the programs; just the instrumental versions of "Silent Night" and other traditional carols. They decided that there would be no instrumental Christmas carols.

What's going on?

Hypocrisy Alert! Schools may display items associated with Islam. But more than that--according to Israel National News, "A program called 'Access Islam' is being introduced as an educational religious program for millions of children in public schools across America. The initial phase of the program involves the basic tenets of Islam, called the five pillars of Islam." This curriculum is for grades 5-12. The recommended class time is three to four 45-minute sessions for the course.

But schools prohibit candy canes, carols, and colors. The question is, are they really afraid of a national church, a church which hasn't existed ever at any time in America even with all the in-school celebrations, with all the billions of times Americans have wished each other a "Merry Christmas," there's still no nationally sponsored church or denomination.

Is something else going on? I believe there is. I believe behind it all there's a goal that is tailor-made to the desires of the world-system. I believe the goal is a complete secularization of the society when it comes to Christianity and by that, I mean "a process by which religious ideas (a code word for "Christianity" in this case), institutions, and interpretations lose their social significance."

This phenomenon is not something new under the sun as we read the minutes of a meeting recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts 4:13-18: "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they [the Jewish religious officials] were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply. But when they had ordered them to leave the ^[b]Council, they began to confer with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.  But so that it will not spread any further among the people, let us warn them to speak no longer to any man in this name.”  And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus." 

How will the apostles and the early church present the gospel if they obey the gag order not to say, "Jesus?" Impossible, therefore Luke reports the response of Peter and John: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Secularization is what's going on the  process by which religious ideas (a code word for "Christianity" in this case), institutions and interpretations lose their social significance.

 

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You might disagree with his political opinions, I know I do, but a look at his campaign and the national party with which he was to run for president of the United States bear a look as an example of the culture of America in the great used to be.

He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. He participated in missions work around New York City with his father, whether the charity was church-related or “personal,” public or private—it was all God’s work to him.

He taught weekly Sunday school classes during his four years at Harvard. Throughout his life, he wrote for Christian publications. His wife, Edith, was an Episcopalian and she invariably attended her denomination’s church. However, he usually walked a little farther to worship at a humble German Reformed church, the closest he could find to the faith of his fathers. He and his wife did not see eye to eye on that issue.

He was a high-energy man, admired for his rugged, no holds barred adventures to the extent that the nation was enthralled. An assassin tried to kill him just before he was to give a speech in Chicago, but the bullet had to go through the 56 pages of his speech and a case for his glasses which he was carrying in his vest pocket.

The bullet did lodge in his chest, but didn’t have the energy to get to his heart. He decided to go ahead and give his speech in which he gave one of the most unusual introductions in the history of public speaking:

“Friends, I shall ask you to be quiet as possible.  I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.  But fortunately, I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet – there is where the bullet went through – and it probably saved me from it going into my heart.  The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.”

He spoke for 50 minutes, then went to the hospital where the doctors said all he needed was a tetanus shot and he was on his way. The bullet stayed with him all his life.

Politics and speech-making aside, a look at his American shows how far we’ve come.

When he engaged in the campaign of his life, he gave a speech he called called “A Confession of Faith.” Later he closed that speech with a clarion call: “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” Have you heard any candidate for president say those words lately?

The convention that nominated him for president featured evangelical songs and closed with the hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers.” In fact, the delegates to the national nominating convention adopted “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as their anthem. Have you heard of a national political party adopting a hymn for their official song? That’s the way it was in the used to be back in 1912 in America when Theodore Roosevelt got shot and made a speech.

NANCY PELOSI AND ISAIAH THE PROPHET

If you saw the President's State of the Union Address, you saw a biblical principle in action. I didn't see it because I was engaged in something that was having eternal consequences--I was teaching the Gospel of Mark in a GBS class. And, truth be told, I'd forgotten the oration was going to be on TV. But I read about the event and did so with interest because it illustrated a principle Isaiah announced to and about Israel.

Since context is king, we need to put the principle into its context. The prophet is telling Israel of its disobedience and about how God is going to discipline their nation. God does discipline cities and nations like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and even Israel herself.

There are various ways God may choose to discipline a nation. One of the ways He disciplined Israel is a little-mentioned one, but Isaiah wrote about it.

But first, what did you see and what was it I heard about at the State of the Union Address? From what I read and you saw, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, making sure a TV camera was pointed her way, sliced and diced the President's written speech for all the world to see. (Some say that action is against the law, the law forbidding damaging, taking, or shredding official documents. That's another aspect of the event.)

 At its minimum, it was an act of disrespect. But biblically speaking it was more than that; it was an example of one way God is signaling that a nation is in the divine woodshed of discipline. How so? Because it was an act of immaturity, a childish display, not suitable for adults and not proper for the dignity of the occasion.

But it's not only the immaturity of the Speaker of the House. Diana West wrote a book whose title tells us what's happening in our culture. She called it, "The Death of the Grown-Up." We see examples of the death of the grown-up in living color all around us: television programing is puerile, movies are adolescent (e. g. superheroes), and periodicals with a surfeit of articles, pictures, and quotes from and about vacuous celebrities, as in "People Magazine."

We read about immaturity when our newspapers report brawls by parents at children's soccer, baseball, and football games. Then we turn the page and read about adults beating each other, shooting each other, and killing each other over a parking spot. We listen to immaturity when we hear the celebrities we worship ranting, raving, using language about a candidate, a Supreme Court judge, or an elected official, words which would embarrass a longshoreman at a heated union meeting.

Immaturity is all around us. We see puerile college students who disagree with a speaker, getting a group together and shouting at him, beating a drum while he's trying to speak, chanting obscenities at him, ringing bells, pulling fire alarms, blockading buildings, and heckling him until he can't be heard and has to have police protection to enter and leave the campus. Or we see and hear people who don't get their way who want to show everybody that they're upset, so they get up, storm out of the meeting, finding doors to slam along the way, accomplishing their childish purpose--to make themselves and their anger the center of attention. 

What does Isaiah have to do with all this and with the Speaker of the House and what occurred after the State of the Union Address? Listen to what the prophet announced to Israel as one of the disciplinary actions God had for Israel:

"And I will make mere lads their princes, and capricious children will rule over them."

That wasn't a prophecy about America, but we can learn from it because it shows us a principle regarding how God may choose to discipline a nation: their leaders will be as immature as children.

You saw and I read about that principle in action.