The deconstruction of our society and its plunge into the abyss of apostasy should strike fear into all our hearts. We should have a fear for those whom we love who are being devoured by Satan and fear for ourselves lest we follow in their demise. I am grieved and dumbfounded by “those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come” (Hebrews 6:4-5) who are or have fallen away. Seemingly, they had “escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” and now their “latter end is worse for them than the beginning” (2 Peter 2:20). No longer are their lives guided by faith and repentance, but instead, “they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:6). |
William Gurnall, the English pastor of the 17th Century, gives us some perspective concerning those who shipwreck their faith. He wrote, “None sink so far into hell as those that come nearest heaven, because they fall from the greatest height.” It is true, “to whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). The fall of those who build on the sand will be great.
“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” –Matthew 7:26-27
These are people we know and love. They are ministers and congregants. They are family members and friends.
This exodus is not some kind of baseline mathematical equation like when Jesus said in John 12:8, “the poor you have with you always.” No, this is an explosion and mass exodus!
The Bible and history record other apostasies, so we should not think this is something strange happening to us as if this has never happened before, but we should note that this is a major earth-shattering event. It is not a typical event or a once-in-a-lifetime event. We are witnessing a 500-year storm, spiritually speaking.
So, how should we respond, and what must we do?
First, we must acknowledge the urgency of the hour.
If there was ever a time needed for the saints to be like the “sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32)—it is now!
Because this apostasy is great, ordinary preparation and response will not do because this is an emergency. It is urgent and critical for all hands to be on deck. The alarms are sounding, and the sirens are flashing. Therefore, we must respond with immediate concern. We cannot afford to continue as before. We cannot roll over and go back to sleep. Time is the urgency!
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:
‘Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.’
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” –Ephesians 5:8-15
Second, we must respond in faith.
We profess God is sovereign over everything, but we live as if God is a beggar. Our faith sees Almighty God as no better than the false god of Baal. When Elijah was on Mt. Carmel contending with the false prophets of Baal he mocked them by saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:27).
And yet, we who profess faith in the same God as Elijah act and speak like God is no better than Baal. Because our faith is weak, we do not think, act, and speak in hope, righteousness, and dominion. We have more hope of the Colts lucking into a win than we do of God saving sinners and advancing Christ’s Kingdom in victory.
We must believe in God renouncing our fears and the lies of Satan.
“I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” –Job 42:2
Third, we must take heed of ourselves.
I have come to realize that my ministry is about survival and it always has been. If we are to see reconciliation, revival, reformation, and restoration, we must first survive by taking heed to ourselves. How will our loved ones ever be recovered if we validate their apostasy with our own? How will the fields be worked without laborers? How will the kingdom be advanced without soldiers?
However, this survival I am speaking about is not inactive but active. I do not mean surviving as in hiding. No, I am talking about dispelling the darkness by being light. Jesus is the Light of the world, and, if we are going to dispel the darkness, we must be conformed into His image.
Therefore, we must exercise the means of grace like never before. We must hear, read, and study the Word, observe the Sacraments, pray, fast, sing, i.e., worship the Triune God like our salvation, and the salvation of the world, depended on it.
Fourth, if the above is to be accomplished, we must be committed to the church.
The Church is the body of Christ; the Church is our Mother; the Church is the Kingdom of Christ; the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth; and, the Church is the sheepfold where sheep are cared for and nurtured.
Just with these descriptions, how can we neglect the very agent of our salvation and the salvation of the world?
God has given the Church everything that is needed and what is needed is for us to get about our Father’s business.
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” –Ephesians 4:11-16
Fifth, we should warn others.
The gospel message in calling unbelievers to faith and repentance and the edifying of believers in faith and repentance is basically to flee from the wrath to come by fleeing to Christ. It is a call to “Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40). It is a message of deliverance from Satan, sin, and judgment unto Christ, righteousness, and peace.
We have a duty to sinners and saints to warn them of the present and eternal dangers that are before us. We must warn the world that God cannot be mocked, that they will reap what they sown, and temporal and eternal judgment is coming.
"Him [Christ] we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. ,To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." –Colossians 1:28
Sixth, our focus must be on faithfulness.
In Paul’s call for unity and the abandonment of schismatic behavior, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." Contained within this statement is our duty to be faithful. Regardless of the increase God gives, we must plant and water.
An old maxim goes, “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.” Whether the results are positive or negative—humanly speaking—they belong to the Lord. Futhermore, we can be confident that they will yield positive results—divinely speaking—for God has said, “My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). Nevertheless, our responsibility is to be faithful in the work God has commissioned us to do.
Let us then do our duty and seek to be faithful in a faithless age.
“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” –Matthew 7:26-27
These are people we know and love. They are ministers and congregants. They are family members and friends.
This exodus is not some kind of baseline mathematical equation like when Jesus said in John 12:8, “the poor you have with you always.” No, this is an explosion and mass exodus!
The Bible and history record other apostasies, so we should not think this is something strange happening to us as if this has never happened before, but we should note that this is a major earth-shattering event. It is not a typical event or a once-in-a-lifetime event. We are witnessing a 500-year storm, spiritually speaking.
So, how should we respond, and what must we do?
First, we must acknowledge the urgency of the hour.
If there was ever a time needed for the saints to be like the “sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32)—it is now!
Because this apostasy is great, ordinary preparation and response will not do because this is an emergency. It is urgent and critical for all hands to be on deck. The alarms are sounding, and the sirens are flashing. Therefore, we must respond with immediate concern. We cannot afford to continue as before. We cannot roll over and go back to sleep. Time is the urgency!
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:
‘Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.’
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” –Ephesians 5:8-15
Second, we must respond in faith.
We profess God is sovereign over everything, but we live as if God is a beggar. Our faith sees Almighty God as no better than the false god of Baal. When Elijah was on Mt. Carmel contending with the false prophets of Baal he mocked them by saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:27).
And yet, we who profess faith in the same God as Elijah act and speak like God is no better than Baal. Because our faith is weak, we do not think, act, and speak in hope, righteousness, and dominion. We have more hope of the Colts lucking into a win than we do of God saving sinners and advancing Christ’s Kingdom in victory.
We must believe in God renouncing our fears and the lies of Satan.
“I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.” –Job 42:2
Third, we must take heed of ourselves.
I have come to realize that my ministry is about survival and it always has been. If we are to see reconciliation, revival, reformation, and restoration, we must first survive by taking heed to ourselves. How will our loved ones ever be recovered if we validate their apostasy with our own? How will the fields be worked without laborers? How will the kingdom be advanced without soldiers?
However, this survival I am speaking about is not inactive but active. I do not mean surviving as in hiding. No, I am talking about dispelling the darkness by being light. Jesus is the Light of the world, and, if we are going to dispel the darkness, we must be conformed into His image.
Therefore, we must exercise the means of grace like never before. We must hear, read, and study the Word, observe the Sacraments, pray, fast, sing, i.e., worship the Triune God like our salvation, and the salvation of the world, depended on it.
Fourth, if the above is to be accomplished, we must be committed to the church.
The Church is the body of Christ; the Church is our Mother; the Church is the Kingdom of Christ; the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth; and, the Church is the sheepfold where sheep are cared for and nurtured.
Just with these descriptions, how can we neglect the very agent of our salvation and the salvation of the world?
God has given the Church everything that is needed and what is needed is for us to get about our Father’s business.
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” –Ephesians 4:11-16
Fifth, we should warn others.
The gospel message in calling unbelievers to faith and repentance and the edifying of believers in faith and repentance is basically to flee from the wrath to come by fleeing to Christ. It is a call to “Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40). It is a message of deliverance from Satan, sin, and judgment unto Christ, righteousness, and peace.
We have a duty to sinners and saints to warn them of the present and eternal dangers that are before us. We must warn the world that God cannot be mocked, that they will reap what they sown, and temporal and eternal judgment is coming.
"Him [Christ] we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. ,To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." –Colossians 1:28
Sixth, our focus must be on faithfulness.
In Paul’s call for unity and the abandonment of schismatic behavior, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." Contained within this statement is our duty to be faithful. Regardless of the increase God gives, we must plant and water.
An old maxim goes, “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.” Whether the results are positive or negative—humanly speaking—they belong to the Lord. Futhermore, we can be confident that they will yield positive results—divinely speaking—for God has said, “My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). Nevertheless, our responsibility is to be faithful in the work God has commissioned us to do.
Let us then do our duty and seek to be faithful in a faithless age.