Evidence of the Great Apostasy of the Church

Following in tandem with a universal religion are the prophetic statements of Jesus and His disciples that the final church would fall away from the faith and have a form of godliness without any genuine power. Essentially, as the church adjusts to the culture in the latter days in order to survive and appear tolerant, the salvific message of Christ gives way to the compromise of Truth.

What the New Testament says

There are numerous NT verses that clearly point to this occurring before the Day of the Lord arrives:

II Thessalonians 2:3 — “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition…” (New King James Version)

I Timothy 4:1 — “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” (New King James Version)

II Timothy 4:3 — “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.” (New American Standard)

Matthew 24:12 — “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (King James Version)

Matthew 24:10 — “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.” (New American Standard)

II Timothy 3:1–9 — “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people…” (ESV)

The current era

In the current era, we have many church movements compromising traditional Christian positions on marriage, gender, the uniqueness of the Christian faith as the only means to salvation,^1–3 the sanctity of life, and so on, seemingly to get along with the world system better. As emphasized by our group, the modern church has too easily lost the power of God by denying His supernatural nature and abilities. Our earlier quotes about George Barna’s surveys on the lack of traditional belief among self-proclaimed Christians is again relevant here.⁴

Other relevant works include Randy Alcorn’s The doctrinal crisis in American evangelical churches: What can we do?⁵