Falling Away

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Christians Falling Away

The Apostle Paul wrote: Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3)

What is the “falling away” as cited in 2 Thessalonians? Is it falling away from our faith, or just from church attendance?

There are an estimated 23 million people in the United States who have made a conscious decision at some point to accept and follow Jesus, but who seldom go to church any more.

If you polled a bunch of people who don’t want anything to do with religion just why that is, you’ll likely hear a bunch of reasons as to why they feel that way.

Some may voice the opinion that “I love Jesus but some of His followers freak me out!”

The thing is in most cases when they speak of their experience with Christianity, they are probably not referring to the real thing.

Writes Bob Goff, in “Loves Does”, “I too used to think religion tasted horrible, but now I know I was just eating the fake stuff. … When I meet people who have been fed the fake stuff about God and what He is all about, it’s not surprising that they have a little indigestion.”

In his book “Loves Does”, Goff goes on to explain his position that Jesus is a Jesus unencumbered by religion, denomination and cultural overlays.

BTW, when Jesus described things He didn’t like about religion, and the hypocrisy too often associated with it, he used religious people and lawyers as dandy bad examples of what he didn’t like. (Many might agree that these particular comparisons in themselves make Jesus’ teaching relatable!)

Two generations ago, eminent Christian spokesman A.W. Tozer thundered, “A fact is that we are not producing saints. We are making converts to an effete type of Christianity that bears little resemblance to that of the New Testament.

“The average so-called Bible Christian in our times is but a wretched parody of true sainthood. Yet we put millions of dollars behind movements to perpetrate this degenerate form of religion, and attack the man who dares to challenge the wisdom of it.”

Grant Montgomery – Grant’s Rants on Christians Falling Away