Fundamental
Evangelistic Association
selected
articles from:
©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
The Apostasy Sweeping Over
the Churches
An address delivered at the
Bible Institute of Los Angeles, August 17, 1919
by Dr. A.C. Gaebelein
FOUNDATION Magazine, March-April 1997
Dr. Gaebelein's biblical message is even more needed
today than when he spoke it nearly eighty years ago. Failure to heed his warning has
changed the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA) from a bastion of teaching and
defending God's Word to a promoter of man's ideas and philosophies. Note the closing
para-graphs of this message and take your stand today for truth and against error.
The greatest
evidence that man has a darkened mind and a corrupt nature is not the
existence of the gambling den, nor the house of ill fame. The greatest evidence is
unbelief; the fact that the human heart definitely and positively refuses to listen to the
voice of God; that there is a heart which hates the light and loves darkness; and the
greater the light which is rejected and refused, the greater the darkness, and finally God
who is Love and Mercy can do nothing else. In fact, He must mete out judgment for a race
which refuses to listen to His voice. That has been the story of the race from the
beginning. God did not leave man, after he had transgressed, without light. Man had the
light of creation and though there was not a written word, yet there was the Word of God
nevertheless, and yet as you follow the Divine Record, you find that man's evil nature was
evidenced by turning away from that Light. And though in 1650 years of the first age of
this earth, they built cities, invented instruments, were lovers of art and music--the
race wandered away from God, the earth became filled with violence and vileness, the voice
of God was rejected and finally God had to bring a judgment upon the earth. And let no one
imagine that that judgment, the deluge, is a myth; it is not. It is written in the Book
and it is verified by science, by geology and by tradition.
When you look to the favored race, the people of Israel,
you find the same evidence of the darkened mind and corruption of human nature. The nation
which received the tokens of God's grace and mercy, were led out of Egypt, miraculously
delivered from the hands of the enemy, seeing the demonstration of the power of God, the
giving of bread out of heaven and water out of a rock and witnessing miracle after
miracle, listening to the voice of Jehovah at Mount Sinai. A little time after, behold
them bringing their earrings and making a golden calf, stripping themselves naked, dancing
about this calf, saying, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt." Think of it! Though God had given the highest manifestation of
His presence, His power, His mercy toward His people, yet they could plunge into this
apostasy and if you follow their history, you will find that it is made up of revivals and
apostasy, and revivals and apostasy--always turning finally against God, against His Word,
and sinning against the Light until you find this Divine Record in 2 Chronicles 36:15 and
16.
"And the Lord God of their fathers, sent to them by
his messengers rising up betimes and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and
on his dwelling place;
But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his
words and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till
there was no remedy."
Finally when the Lord of Glory came to that nation,
educated in the very school of God, with a history of miracle behind it and promises of
glory before, they rejected the Lord of Glory and, instead of giving Him the Throne, they
gave Him the Cross.
But what about the age in which we are living? Has human
nature changed? Is it different today from what it was before the flood or amongst the
people of Israel? What does the Word of God say about it?
This "Christian" age, as we call it (though not
quite scripturally) has brought forth the greatest Light, the greatest Revelation and the
greatest Offer which God has ever made to man. God at last exhausted the omnipotence of
His Love in the gift of His Only Begotten Son and in the gift of His Son, He has shined
forth in the clearest light, in the purest light, and given a revelation which outstrips
every other revelation in that He comes to His creature--man--on the simple condition of
accepting this offer--nothing to pay, nothing to do--an offer of taking man from his
deplorable depths of misery and making him a child and an heir of God. What is man going
to do about it? What is man going to do about this Light, this revelation and this offer
of the grace and of the love of God?
The New Testament gives an answer. It tells us how this
present age is going to act about the Light, the Revelation and the offer of God as given
in Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament scriptures. I want to show you
the forecast first before we reach the very fulfillment of that forecast and demonstrate
that the race today is just as rotten as it was five thousand years ago. Let us listen to
the Lord Jesus. We must always put Him first. What had He to say about the conditions of
this age and of the race?
In a parable, He tells us how He, the Son of Man, brought
a good seed and another one brought a bad seed and the good and bad seed grew up together
until the harvest. In another parable, He tells us about a woman taking leaven and
corrupting the truth of God by it.
Twice He uses past history to give a prophecy about this
age when it is going to end, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the
Son of Man comes." "As it was in the days of Lot, so it shall be when the Son of
Man comes." And then the question "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh,
shall He find the faithful upon the earth?" Then listen to His great utterance
prophetically given when He describes the events preceding His coming, speaking of man
becoming more unrighteous, lawless, the age finally to end with a time of great trouble.
There is not a word as to what theologians teach about the world growing better through
the process of evolution, etc., and not a word about righteousness and peace, but the Son
of God predicts apostasy as it was in the days of Noah and as it was in the days of Lot.
Wherever these learned men get their message from, we don't know; they don't get it from
the Word of God nor from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice again what the apostles have to say about the
conditions of this age and what the last days of this age are going to bring forth. Who
were these apostles? If they had been uninspired men as they tell us today they were, (not
more inspired than Socrates, Ruskin and Shakespeare)--if they had been uninspired men who
invented a new religion or a new system of theology, they would have done what every
uninspired man has done when he said something nice and beautiful--they would predict that
their messages and what they taught would ultimately be accepted by the whole world and
sweep the whole world, but their inspiration is evidenced by the fact that they predict
the very opposite to that which a natural uninspired man would have predicted.
Think of the apostle Paul, when he said farewell, to the
elders at Ephesus (Acts 20:28, 29): "Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all
the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God
which he hath purchased with His own blood. For I know this that after my departing shall
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock."
He did not say, "You are going to have a big revival
and everybody is going to be converted and everybody is going to join the church; but,
"after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the
flock."
"Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking
perverse things to draw away disciples after them" (v. 30).
That was very pessimistic, was it not? He did not speak
about a great revival but said, "Listen, the worst is coming, the worst is
coming--what is going to happen in Ephesus?" and then let me read what Paul has to
say in the second chapter of Thessalonians, verse three, "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."
So take note that Paul says before the day of Christ
comes, there will be a falling away and that man of sin is going to be revealed.
Then I read from 1 Timothy 4:1: "Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed
to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.''
And 2 Timothy 3:1-5: "This know also that in the last
days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy...," etc.,
etc.
Listen again to Chapter 4:2-4: "Preach the word, be
instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and
doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their
own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn
away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables."
They sometimes tell me Paul was a sour pessimist, but was
he the only pessimist of New Testament Scriptures about the condition of this age?
Listen to James in the fifth chapter where he speaks to
the rich man in verse four: "Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped down
your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have
reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth."
Here you have the root of the matter of the high cost of
living. It is simply a number of deacons and elders in some church who are storing up and
storing up and defrauding the poor.
Now listen to Peter (2 Peter 2:1): "But there were
false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who
privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring
upon themselves swift destruction."
And John (1 John 2:18): "Little children it is the
last time and as ye have heard that anti-christ shall come, even now are there many
anti-christs whereby we know that it is the last time."
And once more let me read you a testimony of one who was
not an apostle but a servant of Jesus Christ (Jude 1:11): "Woe unto them for they
have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward and
perished in the gainsaying of Core."
And if you continue reading in the book of Revelation, you
will find that the Lord Jesus Christ predicts that the last of His professing church on
earth will be Laodiceans and that the Laodiceans will finally make a confederation with
the world and become the world church domineered over by the harlot Rome, rejecting every
bit of the revealed truth of God. This is the forecast of the New Testament and no man who
believes the Bible can challenge these things for they are written here black on white;
human nature has not changed one bit. The same unbelief exists, the same hatred of light
and the Great Light rejected must become the greater darkness, and this day, dear friends,
has come and we are right in the midst of it. All over this land, in Canada, England,
Australia, New Zealand, in the mission fields of China, in the mission fields of India,
everywhere are evidences of the fulfillment of this prediction. "Oh," somebody
says, "this is simply sporadic." If you say that, you know very little about
what is going on. Denying Christ is a universal thing today as it never was before in the
history of the church. It is an apostasy which defies God, defies His Word, which rejects
and blasphemes the most precious things which God has revealed to man.
Now then, let me tell you about this apostasy. The
cornerstone of it is the rejection of this Book as the authority of God making known to
man the truth which man is to know and by which He is saved. The rejection of the
inspiration of the Bible, that it is the Word of God, is really a rather recent thing. Of
course, the devil has always rejected it, although he knew better; and blasphemers,
heathen and infidels have always done so. Study the Reformation and there is the clearest
note as to the authority of this Book; in fact the belief in this Book produced the
Reformation and gave birth to Protestantism. It is only during the last hundred years that
you can trace the deliberate satanic attack upon the Word of God to rob the Bible of its
divine authority and as soon as that is done all is lost. Everything rests upon the
cornerstone--the Bible, the revelation, the infallible Word of God. Destroy this
cornerstone and the whole collapses and that has become the popular thing in
Christendom--to attack the Bible, to belittle the Word of God, to show up its supposed
errors and rob it of its authority.
Some months ago, someone in New York grabbed me by the arm
and said, (I didn't know for the moment who the man was) "Gaebelein, do you know you
are a back number?" and turning around I found it was my friend Dr. Burrell, Pastor
of the Collegiate Church, and he said: "Don't you know that you and I, who stand
foursquare on the Book, are back numbers and out of date?" Then he told me what
they say about him, yes, what they say about any other man who still holds to the
inspiration of this Book and who takes his faith, his courage, out of this Book. And do
you know, it is the big men of learning who have the popular message for the world and the
starting point of the apostasy is centered in the socalled Christian institutions so
many are backing and which are supported by the cash of people who believe the Bible. In
these institutions is the stronghold of this infidelity.
Let me take you on a trip. We will start in Boston as the
hub, the city I know for I have been going there for a month during the winter for at
least twenty years; the city which used to be famous for its men who preached the gospel
and the Word of God. There is Boston University of the Methodist Episcopal Church--one of
the rankest hot-beds of the rejection of the Word of God. Harvard is another institution
where the Bible is absolutely rejected and put upon the same level with other good
literature. Then there is Newton Theological Seminary of the Baptist Church equally
teaching error. Go down to Providence and you will find the same story in its universities
and colleges--the professors teaching that the book of Genesis is a myth, and that
evolution is still the thing which explains the existence of this universe. Then go to New
York City and you will find Union Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church which
every once in a while turns out preachers and when they are examined for entrance into the
Presbytery and ordination, say they do not know whether Jesus Christ was born of a virgin
or not; and about physical resurrection, they say they have not yet made up their minds as
to that.
Then go up the Hudson to Poughkeepsie. One father told me
with tears in his eyes that his daughter had attended Vassar. She had gone with faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ and came away an infidel. Go to Chicago and there you find the worst
kind of corruption in the Chicago University. Oh, the pernicious literature which is sent
out from there! I wish I had kept track of the stacks of appeals which preachers and
others send me and say, "For God's sake, do something to stop it!"
Go to Garrett or Northwestern or keep coming West to the
Coast up to San Francisco and all along through Canada. Institution after institution has
adopted the theory of reasoning which comes out of their teaching that there cannot be an
infallible Word of God, and these institutions are responsible for the men who stand up in
pulpits today and deny the Christian faith.
Now, let me give you the vilest attempt which has been
made upon the Word of God during the last year. It is "The Shorter Bible," by
Charles Foster Kent, of Yale. Methodist preachers today, before their ordination, are
forced to read the books of Charles Foster Kent--books of infidelity.
I have gone over this New Testament, endorsed by many
great men, newspapers, etc., and it seems the whole world endorses it. As I read the
endorsements, I found that "It is a thrilling account of the life of Jesus and His
great social and economic teachings," and as I went on, I found that everything about
the blood, redemption, the cross, salvation, eternal life had been cut out. It is just a
little bit of a book--you can slip it into your vest pocket; but friends, this is
something more blasphemous than anything Jehoiakim ever did when he cut the roll of
Jeremiah. They have cut out the heart of Christianity, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Then let me tell you to what this apostasy leads. It leads
to the rejection, not of the Bible only, but of the Person who is revealed in the Bible,
the Son of God. These are the tactics of the devil--first destroy the Word of God which
makes Him known and then attack His Person. As a result, you have hundreds of preachers of
every denomination who deny the virgin birth; who do not believe that salvation is a
definite gift of grace but that it takes character and a life-time to be saved; who deny
the physical resurrection; who deny future punishment; in one word, who sweep every bit of
faith out of every page. That is one result.
The next result is that it has led to the prostitution of
the church itself. That is one of the results of this war. This war has clinched the
religious apostasy and the war and future conditions are going to open up into that
prostitution of the professing church and the truth of God and the complete apostasy of
which this Book speaks. The professing church adopts today the program of the world. They
started in with that miserable lie that the world can be made safe for democracy, then the
lifting up of humanity, and making the world better, and then having a religious
brotherhood.
Observe what is going on. We have several churches that
are doing this in New York, but mark you, it is not in New York alone. I have had letters
from the state of Kansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Texas, where the same thing in smaller
communities is done. The pastor of a very prominent church in New York says, "A
spirit of progress is awakening in all churches, although it has not manifested itself in
all churches. I am a Christian, but I believe the best in Christianity and the best in
Judaism are identical. We already have about fifty Jews and some Hindus in our membership;
Chinese will be welcome regardless of faith. You will notice Christianity is not mentioned
in our statement of doctrine. This church is an institution of religion seeking truth and
wisdom knowing no sect, class, nation or age; but welcomes each one into its
service." That is what I call the prostitution of the church. It is coming, and is
the result of rejecting the Word of God, and bye and bye--it may begin today, right
here--you will find a cleavage between God's true church and those who dishonor His Word
and His Christ.
But there is another result. The rejection of the Bible as
the starting point of the apostasy leading to the rejection of Christ and the Gospel,
leads to immorality. Who is responsible for it? The men who have robbed this Book of its
power.
Let me read a verse which you may not have noticed in
reading your Bible (1 Chron. 10:13): "So Saul died for his transgression which he
committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord which he kept not and also
for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit to enquire of it."
Saul rejected the Word of God and did not keep it; then he
turned to a witch and got his message, and, mind you, it was not a spurious witch--she had
a familiar spirit, she was possessed by a demon.
In the latter days some shall depart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits. The time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine. Their ears shall be turned away from the truth and turned to fables.
Therefore, because the apostasy is here, people reject the
Bible and the masses are following witches.
Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy's whole system is witchery. It is
juggling with the Word of God and perverting the Word of God and I predict it is going to
grow in just the degree that the Bible and the truths of the Bible are rejected. If you
could find a place on this continent of a thousand inhabitants, where everybody knew his
Bible, a Christian Science church could never be built. It is always the result of having
rejected the Word of God. God permits error to come in the form of witchery.
New Thought is another form of witchery that they are
trying to accommodate as much as possible to some things which are still found in this
Book. But Theosophy and Hindu philosophy are a definite turning away. Then let me point
out to you the most prominent witch of spiritualism, with its demon possessed women.
Today in England hundreds of thousands have accepted the witchery of spiritualism, mostly
through Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Conan Doyle. Sir Conan Doyle has written a book, "The
New Revelation," but he lets the cat out of the bag when he says the "old
revelation has made too much of the blood and the cross of Christ and we have discovered
our boys are in glory without having accepted the Gospel as it used to be taught in the
church." Don't you see the witchery instead of the Word of God? I promise that for
every demon cult success in this world now that its glory will suddenly end and judgment
will certainly follow when the Lord comes.
And now let me come to the most solemn part. What is God's
call ? I will give it to you as it is written in this book. Moses comes down from the
mountain. He sees the altar and the golden calf, the naked multitude, drinking of wine,
the words of blasphemy and the first words he speaks are (Exodus 32:26): "Who is on
the Lord's side? let him come unto me." The next words he speaks are:
"Consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord" (v. 29) and then the third, take the
sword and cut them off (v. 27). God's call today is the same. If you are washed in that
precious blood, stand out and out on the side of the Lord Jesus and consecrate yourselves
fully unto Him and stand aside from the multitude doomed to perdition save when you go to
offer them the gospel of the Son of God.
Listen again--Aholiab and two hundred and fifty princes
had revolted against Aaron. They rejected Aaron as priest and said, "We also are
holy, we don't need Aaron." This is the same thing Christendom says today. "We
do not need Christ, we have good things in ourselves, we don't need His priesthood."
What did Moses say? "And he spake unto the
congregation saying, 'Depart I pray you from the tents of these wicked men and touch
nothing of theirs lest ye be consumed.'"
He says, "Depart; do not touch a thing; get out of
their tents; out of their villages, even if it is a brother or sister; get away from
them." But you say, "That is the command of the law. Whoever says that is harsh
and that is unchristian." Is it? Listen to what the beloved disciple says.
"Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ knoweth not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, (the Cross and all that goes with it) he hath
the Father and the Son. If there are any that come unto you and bring not this doctrine,
receive him not in your house, neither bid him Godspeed...." etc. That is the same
thing Moses said and whether it is in the Law or in the Gospel, God does not change His
demands when it comes to believing on Himself and His Word.
That is God's call, "Depart!"-- get away from
them; do not touch their books; do not buy their literature; do not support their
institutions; do not pay the preacher's salary if he does not preach the truth. If you do,
the Lord is going to hold you responsible for them.
Again Paul says, "From such turn away;" purge
yourselves from the vessels which are dishonored that ye might be vessels meet for the
Master's use.
Some Christians have told me that they are to remain in
Laodicea until the Lord gives them a call to leave. He has given the call. It is here and
what is happening and will happen is the separation of God's true church from the church
of the world, the church of the apostasy and of Laodicea. But you say, "Where am I
going?" Well, go first to the Lord and then you will have fellowship with the true
saints of God. When you get into the fellowship of the true saints of God you get power,
you get blessing, you have the reality of the Lord and He is going to use you.
FOUNDATION Magazine is available from the Fundamental Evangelistic Association. Click
here 
to go to the ordering form / price list.
Return to FOUNDATION
Magazine Index Page
