by James E Burson

In these frightening times, you need to know where you stand with Christ.
Our people are rich and spoiled today—beyond any time in human history.
In his autobiography, Herbert Armstrong said the most interesting and liveliest Bible studies He had ever attended were in Oregon, during the depression of the 1930's, when the people had almost nothing and they sat on bare floors or on old vegetable crates.
During the 50’s and 60’s in the Church of God, hundreds of sermons were preached and hundreds of articles were written, warning the Church of the Great Falling Away prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2. A simple glance at the context of this scripture proves this is an end-time prophecy.
We heard repeatedly, this end-time prophecy refers to large numbers forsaking God’s Church—rejecting and rebelling against the government of God on earth! They even said Christ could not return until this happened.
Well, the sermons and articles were right—almost!
They claimed Paul was speaking of a wholesale desertion of the true Church by many of those who were formerly faithful.
Of course the structure of the Church would remain intact, but great numbers of lukewarm, proud, faithless Laodiceans would desert this staunch central core of humble brethren and faithful ministers. This is what was taught and this is what we believed!

Greater Churches of God

Well, many decades have come and gone since then and many changes have taken place in the Church of God.
What actually happened was a little different from what we thought it would be.
The horrifying reality is that the entire church has rushed headlong into apostasy—embracing every evil from which God had delivered them!
The scattered remnant has broken into hundreds of bickering little groups, and lately, have actually taken to proudly calling themselves the “Greater Churches of God!”
All of them have become complacent and self-satisfied and increasingly tolerant of sin within the church.
They are pleased with themselves and no longer feel the need for strict and regular self examination.
During the last four decades, they have been steadily drifting away from the truth they once had and forsaking the “faith once delivered”.
How better could an honest, objective person describe the “Greater Churches of God” today than with the description Jesus gave of His end-time Church in Revelation 3:15-18?

Prophecy for our Day

Nearly one third of the Bible is prophecy, and most, over 90% of this prophecy is for our day, today.
This means that nearly every one of the terrifying, prophecies in your Bible will be fulfilled and packed into those few short years, just ahead of us now! Things are about to break loose into a time like nothing ever imagined by the human mind!
The days just ahead of us now will be the subject of millions of frightening conversations, for thousands of years into the future!
And you have a front row seat!

Prophecy is often dual

Many Bible prophecies have already had one or more preliminary or partial (typical) fulfillments in history.
These partial fulfillments are called types, by the professional religious folk.
The anti-type or anti-typical or main fulfillment of these prophecies is for our day, today—the time of the end.
We are very close to the end of the time, which God has allotted, for man to misrule himself and to mismanage this earth.
These typical fulfillments or types are where some, or even most of the prophecy is fulfilled, but not in its complete and final form.
There are many reasons for these recurring partial fulfillments of a prophecy, but largely, they occur because the heart of man has always been the same. His actions down through history have been cyclical, because he has a selfish heart!
Man has the heart of a self-serving beast!
Despite his vanity, which makes Him want to appear so noble, when the pretense is stripped away, he reacts as a selfish beast! He has rebelled against God and created this world as it is today, with all of its suffering and misery and that pretty much says all that needs to be said about the natural, carnal heart of man.
Man’s selfish heart will always lead him in the general direction of fulfilling God’s negative prophecies about him.
This is the natural result of sin and rebellion against God!
However, the complete fulfillment of most of the specific prophecies of the Bible is reserved for the end of the age—the point in time, for which these prophecies were actually given.
The Bible refers to this point in time in many different ways. Sometimes it is called the End of the Age; or The Last Days or the Day of the Lord or That Day, as in the phrase In That Day.
When these descriptive terms are connected to a prophecy, you know that the primary fulfillment of that prophecy is for the end-time.
These partial fulfillments have greatly confused students of the Bible down through the centuries, but they can also be very useful to us today. Even though it is unwise to rely on them too heavily, they can greatly aid our ability to rightly understand the true meaning of the prophecy.

Apostasy

The prophecy of the 2nd chapter of 2nd Thessolonians is perhaps the best example of this in the entire Bible. This prophecy has been fulfilled, in part, so many times it would be all but impossible to even mention each one, much less discuss them in any detail.
Apostasy in the Church of God, is one of those subjects which, even though we may not realize the truth, until someone points it out, the facts are so well known that once the trend is seen, it becomes self-evident. Even a casual study of the history of the Church of God reveals one constantly recurring theme.
One event is common to each Church, in every age. That recurring theme is apostasy—a church-wide departure from the doctrines and faith, which was originally delivered to them.
It doesn’t matter if we look at the New Testament Church during the last years of the first century, or Polycarp and Polycrates as they struggled with Rome, over the 14th Passover.
When we study the history of the Paulicians, we find that after standing their ground for a few generations, they eventually surrendered their faith and managed to justify accepting the Catholic Sacraments for themselves and their children, in order to avoid persecution.
They held that “God would understand,” because of the enormous pressure upon them.
Finally, they went to war—actually taking human life, trying to force what little was left of the Holy Spirit within them, to submit to the dictates of carnal men!
But God’s Spirit does not submit to evil! It simply leaves and they disappeared from view!
But some few refused to accept these departures from true doctrine and obeyed the Words of their Savior and fled the persecution, moving into Bulgaria.
When we examine the history of the Waldenses, we find they preserved much of the truth for centuries, but their history reads much like that of ancient Israel. They practiced the faith of God in spurts--never lasting more than a generation or so.
God would raise up a leader, and they would follow Him and spread His word, and then their faith would wane, and their doctrines would become corrupt. Then God would raise up another leader, and the pattern was repeated. Eventually, they were absorbed by the Protestant Reformation!
They still exist today, but as just one more Sunday keeping church.
Again, a few of them held to the truth and slipped away into Germany. Some went to England and later some of those migrated to America and became the Sabbatarian Church.
They prospered for a while in the new world and by 1800, had founded dozens of churches. Of course, these Churches were not altogether agreed, in doctrinal sentiments, so they began to feel the need for a governing body. They formed a general conference of voting members and typically, the true believers were soon out numbered and their wishes were out voted!
(By this point in a study of the history of the true Church, this theme becomes very familiar.)
Soon they adopted the name 7th Day Baptists and soon after this, they accepted the pagan doctrines of the Trinity, and the Immortality of the Soul! Today, they too have degenerated into little more than a Saturday observing, Sunday Church.
But again, some few refused to accept these changes.
By 1860 these few had again grown in numbers, but with many corrupted doctrines among them. Many had joined with the Adventist movement, and many of the Adventists had accepted the 7th day Sabbath.
In 1861 they adopted the name Seventh Day Adventists.
And yet again, some few refused to go along with the group—holding to the TRUE NAME for the Church and preserving at least some of the basics of God’s truth.
These people eventually moved to Stanberry Missouri, and began to publish what eventually became know as the Bible Advocate.
There is little point in mentioning the Lollards, or the Bogomils, or the Ebionites, the Henricians, the Albigenses, or dozens of others, because each time, the story is identical.
In each of these cases, and any of the others, where there is sufficient documentation to establish a theme, there is one thing in common—apostasy!
This is the cold hard truth of history. This is what YOU, as members of the Church of God are up against.
Each time, as this recurring apostasy grows and the Church abandons more and more of the truth and accepts more and more of the false doctrines of this world, it is swallowed up by the world!

The Tares of Satan

The never ending work of Satan the Devil is sowing tares among the wheat!
These tares do not wear name tags. Usually they do not know they are tares or that they are serving Satan's purposes. They are often convinced of many or even most of the true doctrines, which makes them very believable.
They are often talented, compassionate people and aggressive natural leaders. After all, this is the most useful type of tare.
Again, this is what you are up against brethren. This is the deception you must face and Satan is just gaining his stride for his last great end time push of deception!
You better memorize and believe this scripture!
“Narrow is the way, and straight is the gate which leads to life, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14).”
Those who will not learn from the mistakes of history are DOOMED to repeat them!
Why does God allow this?
How can He work amid such confusion!
Brethren, this was His idea!
He permits all of this deception and confusion for a very good reason.
During this dispensation, He is creating the firstfruits of the earth—those who will rule all things, with Him, for all time.
These firstfruits—the first born of His among His Children, need to be faced with lies and deception and learn how to deal with them and come out the other end of it, still believing the truth!
The truth of God is for those who love it—and only for those who love it—and even for them, only as along as they love it!
When God offers you His glorious truth, you must love it and you must continue to love it and grow into it and cling to it, just as Jacob clung to Christ!
If you do not continue to love it, God will take it from you!
“…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:” (2 Thessalonians 2:11)
Even a casual study of history, will poke giant holes in the claim that large numbers of people are prophesied to desert a single great “One True Church” in the end time!
History reveals, beyond any doubt, that it is the other way around.
Time, and time, and time again; without even a whimper, the ENTIRE CHURCH followed their leaders, as they slowly introduced false doctrine into the Church!
Actually, the full truth of this amazing fact is that the membership usually pressured their leaders, into accepting false doctrine, because they were no longer willing to endure sound doctrine! It requires faith to endure sound doctrine!
It is utterly astonishing, how the overwhelming majority of the members of God's true Church—so many times in the past 1900 years, have willingly—sometimes almost eagerly—walked away from the truth!
NEVER, was it the many that refused to accept these false doctrines! Each time, it was only the FEW, and the VERY FEW at that!
History is very clear about this. Always, it was the FEW who “held fast,” and remained faithful. It was the FEW, who “tried them, who claimed they were Apostles and were not, and found them liars (Revelation 2:2)!”
After the death of the Apostles, it was only among those who “FELL AWAY” from the Church that the truth survived at all.
This is a solidly established historical fact! It is not the exception; it is the rule. Actually, it is one of the few rules in this world, to which there seem to be no exceptions.
One of the main reasons it is so difficult to trace the true Church through history, is that by the time a church has been around long enough, to have grown large enough to be noticed, its doctrines have already become so corrupt that it is difficult to see it as the true Church.
Each time, and in each age, it ultimately becomes necessary for some to “fall away” from the Church, in order to continue to practice the “faith once delivered”!

Great Danger ahead

Lying just out ahead of us now, is the greatest time of trouble and the greatest period of deception, this poor unhappy world has ever known.
Only a few years ago the Church was saying that this end-time deception would have to be very close to the truth, because the Catholic Church couldn’t deceive them.
Look at all of the candles at the next wedding or the Celebration of Life concepts permeating the next Church of God funeral.
Brethren these things come straight out of the Catholic Mass!
Yet these things are only the small outward symbols of a much deeper spiritual lethargy, which is permeating the Churches of God today.
This is a common sign of a people without true faith, grasping for physical signs and symbols, to satisfy the need for spiritual fulfillment, which they are not receiving from their relationship with God!
Study the first three chapters of Revelation.
Revelation 1:1 says, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, TO SHEW UNTO HIS SERVANTS things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:”
Here Jesus is REVEALING things which must come to pass. This entire book is a prophecy, which Jesus is revealing to His servants—His Church.
In Verses 4 and 11, It is specifically addressed to “the seven churches which are in Asia.” But remember, it is a prophecy of future events and it is “TO SHEW UNTO HIS SERVANTS things which must shortly come to pass.”
He begins this prophecy with a detailed description of the spiritual condition of each of these seven small churches. But these are only types of the seven successive ages of His Church, between His first and second coming.
The end-time apostasy has already happened! Many truths have already disappeared! And many more are on the chopping block—with their eventual demise well underway and inevitable!
The greatest evidence of this apostasy is the absence of the true Love of God among the scattered, bickering Churches of God today.
An equally apparent sign of our growing distance from God is the almost total absence of the signs, which Jesus promised would always “follow them that believe!”
Even the simple sign of James 5:14 is almost non-existent!
These are a stark, glaring beacon, SCREAMING that Jesus Christ is NOT pleased with His Church today!
Remember when the Disciples came to Christ in John 6:28, “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
v.29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye BELIEVE on him whom he hath sent.”
Believing means trusting!
If you trust God to stand behind His Word, then you will commit those scary things in your life into His hands and simply do what He says.
If you do not trust God to stand behind His Word, then you will have ignored God’s promise of healing and protection, and trust yourself or His enemies to take care of you instead!
Which of these is believing “on Him that whom he hath sent?”
In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

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