The Apostate Church

Deception gets a facelift with each successive generation. Repackaged for the times, it struts on stage acting as if what we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

It insists: “Why buy an old, outdated version of lies, when you can have a newer, contemporary edition?” Yet, “…history merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.”¹ No amount of time can transform lies into truth. The substance of every deception remains the same: it is birthed in Hell,² and to Hell it will inevitably be consigned.³ Unless truth is based upon the eternal Word of God, the Holy Bible, in due course it will deteriorate into apostasy. The root meaning of apostasy is “to depart or defect.”⁴

God’s Word is truth!⁵ Any philosophy or ideology that attempts to contradict the Word of God must be discarded or it will become an intellectual cancer. The serpent in the Garden so fraudulently promised, “You won’t die!“⁶ Many are still foolishly buying into this tragic lie of catastrophic consequence. It is a fatal distraction.

The devil couldn’t deliver on his promise back then, and he certainly can’t fulfill it now. Jesus passionately warned us, “What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets.”⁷

For all five years while attending a secular university I was an atheist, hedonist, and anarchist. I was a dedicated disciple of humanism. Not surprisingly, during that hopeless period of time, I became suicidal for six months, daily wishing for death. It is only by the grace of God, and my mother’s prayers, that I survived.

Since that depressing time, I have fully immersed my life in God’s perfect Word and found it to be flawlessly true. As the Holy Bible so clearly states, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”⁸

Unless we yield to the Bible’s timeless wisdom, we will one day find ourselves held captive by deceptive lies, each rendering grave and lasting consequences.

Remember the words of Paul the Apostle. Once totally deceived, but thankfully rescued to live a life filled with truth, he wrote, “For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God Himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one Husband—Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.”⁹

Paul knew all too well the frightening repercussions of believing a lie. Once delivered, he spent the remainder of his life fighting evil with the truth of God’s Word. For taking this valiant stand, he said, “And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of His return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to His appearing.”¹⁰