Will there be a great apostasy / falling away during the end times?

(V. 3) With the Word of God in our hands the saints have no excuse for being deceived. Honorable self-judgment and honest exercise of soul to do the will of God will, with the Word of God open, preserve the soul from falsehood. Let us approach it, therefore, both in thorough distrust of ourselves and in fullest confidence in Him who has given us of His Spirit, for this passage tells us of Satan's masterpiece of deception, to be manifested publicly only after the Church is taken to glory, yet whose doctrine of falsehood has preceded him in the world. "The day of the Lord" will not be until "the apostasy" has come. This is of course a revulsion against the truth of Christianity, the rejection of Scripture as being from God, the rejection of Christ as being Himself the revelation of the glory of God. This will be seen in the very realm in which Christianity was once professed, for it is the abandonment of what was once acknowledged. It is this that opens the way to the grossest deception of Satan. In any complete way this will not be true until the Church is taken to heaven, though we may even now be deeply alarmed at the large-scale giving up of the truth of God in many so-called Christian denominations of our day. These are signs of the nearness of the apostasy and therefore indicate that the rapture of His own is most near.

(1) In 1 Tim. 4 it is only "some in later times" who apostatise from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience, etc. It is an ascetic departure from the faith in the pretension to superior sanctity, but real denial of God's rights as Creator and grace as Saviour. In 2 Thess. 2 it is no such partial turning away, but the extreme and general defection from the gospel which will boldly issue in the abandonment of all revealed truth and of what may be called natural religion, the testimony to the Godhead in creation and man's conscience. It is the revolt which the prophetic word declares shall characterise the end of this age, as is so largely and variedly revealed in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Revelation. Deut. 31, Deut. 32, Psalms 10 - 14, Isa. 65, Isa. 66, Dan. 7:8, 11, 25, Dan. 9:27, may suffice for the Old Testament. In the New one may cite Matt. 12:31-32, 43-45, Luke 17:26-30, Luke 18:8, 2 Tim. 4:4, besides 2 Thess. 2, 2 Peter 3, Jude, and Revelation throughout. These Scriptures warrant the awful expectation that both Jews and Christians will abandon their profession of the truth for which they are respectively responsible, and God be left publicly and in general without a witness of His truth and glory here below, save in the confession of a persecuted remnant and in the execution of His solemn and ever deepening strokes of judgment.

The coming of the Lord then is bound up closely with the gathering of the saints; the day of the Lord with the execution of judgment on His enemies here below. Hence we find here, "let no man deceive you by any means." It is evident there might be a great deal of mistake on this subject; "for that day shall not come except there come the falling away (or apostasy) first." "That day shall not come" is an insertion of our translators, marked therefore by italics, though, I believe, substantially correct. The "day" will come after the apostasy, the public abandonment of Christianity throughout Christendom.

The first thing is the apostasy, not of the Jews (this we have seen in Daniel), but of Christendom, and it will necessarily happen before the execution of the judgment - before the day of Christ; as must also the appearance of the "man of sin," who is clearly not the apostasy itself, but, I judge, follows and winds it up. The apostle marks the two events before the judgment: viz., the coming in of the apostasy, and the revelation of the man of sin - the son of perdition (an expression which signifies that he possesses this name, by his nature, his character, and his acts) "who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God, or is worshipped." Read to verse 10.

First Thessalonians was the first written by the apostle; the second epistle was written shortly after. Thus, from the beginning of revealed Christianity, from the first communications of the Spirit of God to the churches, such is the solemn warning. Those who profess the gospel will abandon it before the end comes, for that day will not come “except there come the falling away first.” It is not merely a falling away here and a falling away there, but the falling away, the apostasy in the fullest sense.

The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was also the first written by the apostle; the Second, from the nature of the case, was written shortly after. Thus, from the very beginning of Christianity — from the first communications of the Spirit of God to the churches — such is the solemn declension of which they were warned. Those who profess the gospel will abandon it ere the end of this age come. But that day is not to be "except there come the falling away first." It is not merely a falling away here, and a falling away there, but the falling away, or the apostasy.

The last stage of development is found in 2 Thessalonians 2, and there we learn that ere the Day of the Lord sets in there will come the apostasy, and the revelation of the Man of Sin. "A falling away" (ver. 3), is far too vague a rendering; "the apostasy" is what the Apostle wrote. The language is terribly precise, and its significance is solemn beyond expression. It means nothing less than the total abandonment of the very name of Christianity. Individual apostates there have ever been; we have yet to behold the absolute blotting out of all profession of the Christian faith.

But 2 Thess. 2 speaks of a later and more solemn period still. Grave as are the features of the "latter times" and the "last days," the Apostasy is immeasurably more serious. It means nothing less than a universal renunciation of all profession of Christianity. The Lord's true ones — the salt — having been removed, and the Holy Spirit having left the scene, what is to preserve the mass from headlong ruin? Not that the nominal profession of Christianity will necessarily be abandoned immediately the saints are taken away. It will doubtless be maintained for a time. Many a religious building will be opened as usual, many a Christless sermon will be delivered then, as, alas! too often at the present time. But it will not continue very long. Liberal-mindedness (so-called) will prevail. It will no longer be deemed necessary to contend for this truth or that; the union of Christendom (of which one hears so much even now) will then be more than possible, only to be followed, under Satanic leadership, by the throwing up of the very name and form of Christianity.

Further, "That man of sin (will) be revealed, the son of perdition." There was once a Man of righteousness — the Saviour; but He was rejected. There will be a man of sin — the son of perdition — "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped." I am aware that many people apply this to the Pope of Rome. I do not for a moment agree with them, though regarding that system as a frightful delusion, even Babylon. But I dare not say that the apostasy has arrived yet, and it is a sorrowful thing to use Scripture with a party aim, or for controversial objects; it is a sorrowful thing in the presence of growing evil, which pervades both Protestant and Catholic countries alike — a sorrowful thing to cast such a stone from one to the other. No, beloved friends, the apostasy is the result of despising the gospel, of trifling with the truth, of keeping up forms that are unreal, and then casting them off with shame.

The apostasy will be the result wherever Christendom extends. Wherever the gospel has been preached, or at any rate the Lord professed, the apostasy will be the issue, whether of Catholics or Protestants, whether of Greeks or Copts or any others; such will be the result, not outside but within Christendom. It does not mean the end of the Jews, or of the heathen. The apostle is here speaking of that broad scene wherever the name of the Lord has been professed. "The day of the Lord cannot be, except there come the falling away first and the man of sin be revealed." The climax is that lawless one who "exalteth himself." Jesus humbled Himself, and only exalted God. Here is a man, the man of sin pre- eminently, the personal adversary of the Lord Jesus. And, as the Lord said to the Jews, they would not have Him Who came in His Father's name; they will receive him who comes in his own name (John 5:43). At the end of this age he will come, and accordingly he is found as Satan's winding-up, not merely of apostate Christianity, but of apostate Judaism also.

There is no need to search minutely the history of the church to ascertain this. It is all too apparent today. Scripture itself indeed has prepared us for a departure on the part of the professing mass from the truth, the Christian revelation, on a scale and in a fashion never heard of before. Even in the time of the apostles there were not wanting signs of defection from the faith. Many antichrists then present made it evident that it was, even then, "the last time." There was warning given also of what would happen in "latter times" when "some shall fall away from the faith." Further, that "in the last days perilous times shall come," when wholesale lapse into ungodliness and infidelity would characterise the Christian profession. The testimony is consistent and clear that man's unvarying antagonism to the truth had, under Christianity, by no means been disarmed; but rather in increased and embittered form has risen up, and is sweeping on to extreme apostasy. A most solemn consideration this, without a doubt! It is in the face of the full Christian revelation that this attitude is predicted as the one which shall be adopted. And thus, in magnitude and enormity, this, which according to Scripture distinguishes Christendom in its final stages, exceeds all others.