The Grand Apostasy

The Grand Apostasy

”And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12)
The Grand Apostasy referred to is the seventh seal, which ceases abruptly at the onset of the seventh trumpet. The Grand Apostasy cannot be overthrown without the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as foretold in the book of Revelation. Man cannot end the apostasy, because that is not part of God’s revealed plan. The spiritual blindness that undergirds the Grand Apostasy will afflict all of man’s religions, including atheism and secular humanism. The multiplicity of the 29,000 or so religions today will support the Grand Apostasy when it arrives.

Are the End Times Near?

At first glance, it is difficult to imagine how the Western world can become any more apostate that it already is:

• In September 2005, the Catholic Archbishop Washington, D.C., Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, prayed publically to ”Allah, the compassionate and merciful Lord of all the world," to help make the King of Jordan and his people "a bridge across which all nations might walk in unity, fellowship and peace." He closed his prayer, “May Allah ... guide and protect you, your family, and your beloved country.... In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate God, we pray. Amen.”
• Pope John Paul II publically kissed the Koran.
• Mainline protestant denominations not only deny that homosexuality is a sexual sin, many also ordain gay clergy and perform homosexual marriages. The White House even decreed a Gay, Lesbian, Transgender (and Others) Tribute Month.
• In a Lambeth Conference in England, Anglican bishops voted narrowly to affirm the deity of Jesus Christ.
• The United Church of Christ set up a $500,000 scholarship fund for gay and lesbian seminarians Friday and urged wider acceptance of homosexuals by other denominations.
• Josh Reich stated, "Some of the values of the emerging church are an emphasis on emotions, global outlook, a rise in the use of arts, and a rise in mysticism and spirituality."
• We can see many secularly-powerful and rich pseudo-Christian religions today such as the LDS, JWs, Scientologists, Christian Scientists and so many others not as powerful which have completely fallen away from the Gospel and the Holy Bible into their own apostate pseudo-faiths.
• Christian based Bible publishers are offering gender-neutral Bibles. Many also publish all kinds of pseudo-Christian, word of faith (prosperity) thinking, New Age and other heretical books under the guise of spirituality.

Sigh!
Talk about "strong delusion"! I started to do a reasonably thorough list of apostasy in recent times; alas there are simply too many examples of apostasy to even contemplate categorizing them in anything less than a PhD thesis.

Where are the Lord’s Prophets calling out to Christians to return to the days of faith in God and country? Where is the modern Jeremiah crying out, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…." (Jeremiah 6:16)

But the Israelites answered, “ We will not walk therein.” (Jeremiah 6:16)
And the Lord also said, “Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet.” (Jeremiah 6:17)
“But they said, We will not hearken.” (Jeremiah 6:17)
”Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush:” (Jeremiah 6:16)
Thanks heaps, Jeremiah, for your depressing lamentation on people today.!!!
If we were to find out that today was the “Grand Apostasy” (disregarding any other implications of the Scriptures), would any of us really be surprised? It is certainly a time of great apostasy, even if not the grand one. Seldom does a day go by without yet more attacks on Christ and Christianity on Page 1 or headlining television news. For example:

• The US President’s father and stepfather were both Muslims. He practiced Islam in Indonesia with his step-father as a youth, albeit possibly irregularly, but has claimed that he was never a Muslim. He now self-declares that he is a Christian, but has been unable in interviews to clearly state any Christian beliefs; indeed, his every action is antithetical to Christian beliefs (e.g., abortion, partial birth abortion, embryo harvesting, etc.). Oh, he’s in the news for proposing a US loan of $100 billion to the IMF, spending even more money that the USA doesn’t have.
• Don’t mention the pressure that the USA is trying to exert on Israel to act in other than Israel’s best interests. Oh yes, and Saudi Arabia is telling the Israeli’s that they’ll have a free pass through Saudi Arabia is they want to nuke Iran. Say what???
• The really big news, of course, is the release of Dan Brown’s sequel to the Da Vinci Code with an initial run of 5,000,000 copies.
• Let’s not forget that Miss California possibly lost out on becoming Miss America because she stood up for traditional marriage under questioning by a homosexual blogger who was judging.
• Now the USA is joining Cuba and Venezuela in ganging up on poor little Honduras because they deposed someone who wanted to follow Castro and Chavez as another “President for Life”. Whoever woulda’ thunk it?

Can things get any more unreal?
Alas, the answer is, “Yes we can”.
The prophet Joel stated concerning the last days, "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit." (Joel 2:28, 29)
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.” (Joel 2:32)
Thank You, Lord God, for Your promises!