Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 says that there will be a great falling away from faith in Jesus Christ in the last days. This is the apostasy that Paul warns will take place before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. (Some scholars interpret the word Aposticia in this verse to be the falling out of the way of believers, i.e. in the Rapture, which is an alternative interpretation.)
The apostasy is characterised by people who will not endure sound doctrine but will have itching ears and heap to themselves teachers that will fulfill their own lusts. We are living in the last days where many in the mainstream and denominational churches are following doctrines of men rather than the Bible. Sadly, the apostate church is a reality even in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today.
Jesus Christ calls the apostate church the church of the Laodiceans. In Revelation 3:14-19, He tells the apostle John,
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would that you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
The following lists (but not exhaustively) the types of doctrines, practices and rituals that an apostate or Laodicean church teaches its congregation to follow.
First of all, success seminars are taught on the premises of some Evangelical churches as if they were the rosetta stone of biblical doctrine. Multicultural events are held on their church stages in support of the New Age interfaith unity and ecumenicism that are creeping surreptitiously into evangelicalism and churchianity. Thence, these churches compromise the essentials of the Christian faith for a watered-down ecumenical message of unity among denominations and religions. Prominent proponents of this New Age inter-faith unity are Rick Warren and Leonard Sweet.
Furthermore, by welcoming cross-cultural events into the Church premises, their leaders are permitting other religious rituals, prayer icons and worship vestures that contain demonic symbolisms and origins that will desecrate God's holy place of worship. These are also the churches that tend to teach a social gospel (doing good works like feeding the poor and cooperating in community health, environmental and infrastructural projects) in place of, or to supplant, the gospel of salvation which is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, was very direct about the church's role in winning souls:
"You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those that want you, but to those that want you most. Observe: It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring them to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in holiness without which they cannot see the Lord."
Second, many who call themselves evangelicals embrace the Replacement theology that posits that the Church today fulfills the promises that have been given to natural Israel by God without condition. They say there is no future Kingdom on earth from Jerusalem and that natural Israel will not be restored on earth. This makes the God of the Bible a capricious one who doesn't keep His Word.
Then there are the churches that have embraced the Kingdom Now/Reconstruction/Dominion theology, which rejects the literal reading of unfulfilled prophetic Scripture and replaces it with a strange doctrine that is not taught in the Bible. For instance, they purport that the Church will rule on earth before Jesus can return. What's more, the Prosperity gospel believers worship the idol of money and care more about their building programs than the evangelism of the lost. These are known as the 'name it and claim it' prophets who teach with hubris that "if you believe it you will receive it". Among the proponents include the congregations belonging to the New Apostolic Reformation.
The apostate church is one that has bought into the seeker-friendly and Purpose-driven church growth movement. This is the third characteristic of a post-modern heretical church of the Laodicean age. Its reprobate leadership is frequently found using paraphrases of the Bible that twist Scripture and The Message Bible is a favourite. The leaders generally envisage the Church ruling on earth before Jesus' return, and they teach that studying future Bible prophecy is a distraction. To be all-inclusive and to reach non-believers, they have made their Sunday worship service a time to entertain with loud bands, mini skits and disco-style décor, instead of following the apostle Paul's instruction for them to feed the flock, worship God and provide the message of the true way to salvation to the lost.
Their Purpose-driven philosophy is a combination of Scripture mixed with Jungian Psychology and business success strategy hot on the heels of Napoleon Hill and Andrew Carnage. Creeds are replaced by deeds, God's purpose for our life by their man-made purpose in life, and sound doctrines by the goals of ecumenicalism. Their teaching of the Word is superficial and focuses on milk for babes just to fill their pews with a constant flow of new converts. In-depth and real Bible study is replaced with the study of quarterly magazines about Bible passages and applications for living, books by men like Charles Colson and Rick Warren, and The Prayer of Jabez, and courses like the Alpha course, The Dream Giver and the global P.E.A.C.E. Plan.
Part 2
Many members of the Laodicean apostate church have gone the way of liberals and libertines. Characteristic of the liberal church apostasy is the congregation's voting into their leadership practising homosexuals in addition to performing gay weddings in defilement of the Lord's house of worship.
Liberals are no different from atheists in their professed beliefs and included among their heretical pro-atheistic doctrines is the view that the Bible is not the inerrant and inspired Word of God but merely an instrument that points them to the possibility of God's existence. Therefore the liberal church leaders have a poor foundation in the Bible and consequently lack discernment when it comes to making decisions that govern their respective churches and teaching a miscellany of heresies from the pulpit. Their church is usually a social club that exalts self instead of an assembly of believers to glorify and honour God. The liberal church is in possession of the vertex of apostasy, which is the denial and arrogation of Jesus' divinity and like John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, they question the Trinity and other core Christian beliefs. Most important but tragic of all, they question and deny Jesus Christ's substitutionary atonement for the sin of mankind which was completed once and for all when He died on Calvary's cross.
In addition, the apostate Evangelical and Charismatic churches teach doctrines that resemble New Age heresy and Emergent Church harlotry such as occult-like inner healing and birthing seminars. Their leaders inculcate in their assembly the notion that they can become a prophet by self appointment and self will, or by going to a prophetic school. These deny the biblical triune nature of God but teach that we are now gods and we have God-like power in our words, being able to assert things into existence.
Like Brian McLaren's Emerging church philosophy based on mystical experiences and a re-invention of Christianity in order to provide meaning for the younger generation, the apostate church undermines the authority of the Word of God in favour of a cloak-and-dagger method of relating to God that is conjured by their false prophets. They use coercion, peer pressure and emotionalism to lead the church into altered states of reality and ferret a cookie-cutter investiture into their cult-like institution. Their proselytes are pressured to conform to their leaders but soon are backslidden because their confessed conversion has never been a genuine one. These, having been led to believe that emotional experience is just as reliable as Scripture, return to their old life when their emotional high cannot be sustained.
Last but not least, an apostate church espouses a smörgåsbord of deviant doctrines that are not found in the Bible. For example, not a few of its acolytes profess that the King James translation is the only inerrant version and the only correct translation, and all other honest translations of the Bible are Satanic. Some attribute all the sins of the flesh to Satan without taking personal responsibility for sin in their life. Others twist the Word of God to support their deviant practices such as allowing women to be pastors and to rule over men contrary to Scripture. And many more deny the reality of hell as described in Scripture, preferring to teach instead that all damned souls will be annihilated. Worse than this is the apostate church that does not address the problem of sin and, therefore, salvation from sin is unnecessary. Countless numbers in their congregation will find themselves doomed to spend eternity in hell as a result.
Equally tragic are those who adopt theistic evolution, which teaches that death preceded sin and postulates a billions of years' evolutionary process. Their theory brings into disrepute the necessity and historicity of Jesus' physical death and bodily resurrection (since death did not result from sin), makes a myth out of the Genesis accounts of the 6-day Creation and Adam and Eve, and reduces the Noahic flood into a fable, albeit one that transcends a localized culture.
The apostate church of this Laodicean age has an off-kilter view of who God is, courtesy of the heretical and demonic doctrines of its leaders. And so we have in the place of the God of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, one who is made over in the image of man-made ideas and personal preferences. What we have is the God-of-my-near-death-experience, the God-of-my-global-peace-plan, the God-of-my-feminine-mystique, and the God-of-my-liberal-mindset ~ to borrow some of Dr. Erwin Lutzer's eloquent epithets. Several have gone so far as to maintain that God is gay, female and black whereas some apostate leaders have reduced the living God to an anthropomorphic energy force. Now, this is quite a nasty assortment of made-over gods.
The apostate church is a post-modern obloquy of evangelicalism and churchianity. Failure of its disciples to realise their error results in their condemnation for they are just like any unbeliever who has rejected Jesus Christ's gift of salvation. They have twisted and denied the absolute truth of God's instructions for the philosophy of men; they have rejected the divinity of Christ, making themselves deities who ride on the coattails of their fortune – amassed from forcible tithing – which is their pantheon; and they have obeyed the Satanic and Antichrist spirit that resides in their churches rather than being led by the Holy Spirit who should reside in their body which is God's temple.
To the apostate Laodicean church, Jesus has given this admonition: repent. The Saviour of the world says,
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:20).
