So what would entail a great falling away? We never really focused on it over the past forty years or so but it was always in the back of our mind. We knew from God's Word in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 that in the last of the last days there would be a great falling away. If you had asked us for a definition......I'm guessing that we would have described a church with outlandish heretical doctrines....and that may indeed turn out to be right....but I am starting to have some doubts about that being the only description. Oh....the outlandish doctrines are indeed there.....and have been for a hundred years or so....but does that qualify for this end-times prophesy of a great falling away?
I've seen evidence of this for quite a while but it just keeps getting more and more pronounced. The gospel of regeneration has been displaced by a gospel of pacification. God just has to be pacified....no longer does sin have to be expiated. Propitiation no longer has to be made. To put it most succinctly....no longer does anyone need to be born again.
Everyone seems to be as nice as can be. The guys don't....smoke or chew....or go with girls that do. Pastors would never get drunk watching a Steeler Game on the Lord's Day....they'll watch the game on the Lord's Day.....but they would never indulge. Everyone seems to reserve ninety minutes a week to some kind of Bible study. Fathers....provided it is not summer....or the Steelers do not have a noon kickoff....will be in church.
We seem to have fallen away from the need for regeneration! Now I have no doubt that in any average evangelical church that there are regenerated born again members. I see them all the time. The problem is that they do not even know what happened to them....and if they don't even know what happened to them....then there is no way they are going to be able to explain the gospel to others!
I'm just comparing notes....from forty years ago....and today....and seeing if God's Word can clear some questions up. The mortification is missing. There is no need for expiation of anything....only change. We used to be fishermen....fishers of men....today we are just trying to save the oceans so that the fish can survive.
Addendum: Since posting the above....I asked a young person....a Christian....early 30s maybe.....when the last time was that he heard the term mentioned in casual conversation among other Christians....that term being....born again. He thought for a good while and could not remember. I would hesitate a guess that he may have never heard other evangelicals using it. I myself would probably have to go back two decades. (I bring it up all the time) This young person did hear it occasionally in a sermon. How about you? When was the last time that you were in a private conversation with a Christian brother or sister and the term came up? How should it come up? Well....one way would be for someone to casually say that they heard that someone else had been born again. We no longer think in terms of being born again. I dare say that the phrase today might even qualify as a....non sequitur....something out of place....or odd to bring up in a conversation about Christians? This is an essential of the gospel of salvation...a person is dead in their sins....but then....born again....adopted into the family of God....whose name has been written in the Lamb's Book of Life....of which caused angels to rejoice....and we apparently do not even know what it is!
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