Apostasy and Revival

The Anatomy of Apostasy

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.” Jeremiah 7:12.

Jeremiah was sent to speak to God’s people, and he was to speak to them in God’s house. These people came to worship God regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath.

And God said, Jeremiah, I want you to go and talk to My people. Let us see what God asked Jeremiah to tell them. “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.” Verses 3–8.

They undoubtedly had turned away from God’s Word to listen to somebody else’s word, because we know that God’s Word never lies. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and what God says, He means. And what God means, He says, and it is truth. It is as endurable as is God. But here was a people who professed to be God’s people, but they were believing lying words.

“Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not?” (Verse 9.) Do you see how deep this apostasy has become? They professed to be worshippers of the living God, yet they were committing murder, stealing, and worshipping images.

After you have done all this, God says, “And come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.” (Verses 10, 11.)

He Watches Us, In Love

The statement, “Behold, even I have seen it”, is very interesting. Does God see everything? Oh, yes, He does. Yet, in all our weakness of humanity, we need to be constantly reminded of that fact—not that we should fear and tremble under condemnation, but so we know there is a God who is so concerned that He watches us. He is interested in us.

There was a time that I thought otherwise. I thought God wanted to watch me to see when I made a mistake. Some of us still carry that concept. In Psalm 40:5 we find that God’s thoughts toward us are a multitude that cannot be numbered. Jeremiah points out that God’s thoughts toward us are not thoughts of evil, but of expectation of the end that He wants to give us.

We see Israel just before they went into the 70-year Babylonian captivity. God is seeking to deliver His people from such captivity, and with His mercy and pity, He pleads with Israel through Jeremiah. Let us see how bad things had become. “They hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” Jeremiah 7:24. “Yet they hearkened not unto Me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.” (Verse 26.)

Apostasy Does Not Diminish

“They did worse than their fathers.” The sad reality is that apostasy does not diminish; it grows. It is a malignancy with which man cannot deal—apart from God. If we separate ourselves from God, we are definitely headed toward apostasy, and there is no cure apart from God. They did worse than their fathers did, and the apostasy grows, not only through the years, but through the decades and the centuries, until we find ourselves today in deep darkness.

In Jeremiah 6:19, we find clearly delineated the cause of this apostasy. God is speaking: “Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto My words, nor to My Law, but rejected it.”

What had they rejected? They had rejected the words and counsel of God, and they had rejected the Law of God. Every subsequent apostasy by God’s people has followed this same anatomy. Not only as a group, but also as individuals. When we reject the Law of God, we start walking in a way that is contrary to God.

It is a marvelous and wonderful Law! It is actually the very transcript of God’s character. Paul refers to that in Romans 7:12, where he describes the Law of God as holy, just, and good. That is a description of our God, the God who created us.

He is holy. He is altogether whole. As Solomon put it, “He is altogether lovely.” Song of Solomon 5:16. He is a God of justice, and we live in a generation where justice seems to be nonexistent. We live in a very unjust, unfair world, but we serve a God Who is just and who someday will make things right.

He is a good God. Has He been good to you? He has been good to me. We bend, sometimes, to the weakness of the flesh. It is easy to look at the enormity of the injustice, unfairness, trials, temptations and trouble that comes into our lives through various sources and forget the goodness of God.

Overcoming by the Grace of God

If we would be mindful of the goodness of God in regard to those things that we take for granted, a problem that we think is a huge mountain, will become less than a mountain. It will become something that, by the grace of God, we can overcome. Let us focus on the goodness that God gives to us.

Let us look away from those things that trouble us and we may find victory a lot easier. He is mindful of our weakness. He knows us. Two thousand years ago He sent His Son into this world, and Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus took upon Himself our flesh. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

He knows what it means to be tired; He knows what it means to be hungry; He knows what it means to be tempted; He knows what it means to be misunderstood, and He knows what all this weakness means. Yet He overcame, and He wants to give us that victory.

The reason for the apostasy was that Israel turned away from God’s holy, just, and good Law. They found themselves in darkness. However, they did not think they were in darkness.

What are we really rejecting when we reject the Law of God?

Rejecting Knowledge

God says, through the prophet Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to Me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against Me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.” Hosea 4:6, 7.

When we walk away from God’s Law, the result is a lack of knowledge. We come into an experience where we do not have the knowledge that God wants to give us. What knowledge does the Law give, that, when we reject it, we lose? Paul clearly states in Romans 3:20, that the Law of God reveals to us our sins.

The Law of God is a revelation to us of sin. But if you and I are oblivious to what sin is, then we do not know we need a Saviour. We do not know we need One to save us from our sins. As we look out over the Christian community today, we can see that this is their experience. They have rejected the Law of God in one manner or another.

Knowing Christ’s Righteousness

God wants us to have knowledge, not only of what sin is, but a knowledge of truth. Psalm 119:142 tells us that the law of God is the truth of God. It also tells us that all of God’s “commandments are righteousness.” (Verse 172.) So, we not only see from the Law of God what sin is, but we see also what is righteousness.

God has created us as free moral agents. He has given us the ability to think, to reason, and to choose. Marvelous, indeed! Is it any wonder that the Psalmist said, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”? Psalm 139:14. God will not trespass that marvelous gift of free choice that He has given us. He honors it; even if it costs us our salvation. This was part of the price paid at Calvary. Christ died that we might have a choice of something other than sin.

Israel rejected the Law. Once they rejected the knowledge needed to understand God and themselves, what happened to their thinking? “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; they put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20. What was Israel thinking? They were thinking; I am all right. I am in the light. But God said, What you are doing is calling light darkness, and darkness light.

The ultimate result of rejecting God’s Law is confusion. It is confusion concerning what constitutes God’s righteousness, and once we are in confusion and we have no standard for righteousness, we start setting up our own standard of righteousness, even as we continue to profess to be the people of God. So it was with Israel.

Sounds Right —All Wrong

There is a very interesting statement in Scripture, which says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 14:12. It seems right; so if it seems right, it should be right. Is that right? Oh, no, that is not what God says. God says, It may look right, it may sound right, but it may be all wrong!

Have you ever come to the realization that if we are saved at last in the kingdom of God, it will not be by our own wisdom or by our own power? But it will be by our own decision!

We find that when we reject God’s Law we reject the knowledge that we need to determine what is right and what is wrong. The consequence of this rejection is confusion of mind. The ultimate result is rejection of God. “But My people would not hearken to My voice; and Israel would none of Me.” Psalm 81:11.

It is very hard to read those words once you come to know Him and know that He is everything He says He is. It is very hard to reject the individual who loves you the most. But what is harder, is to understand what this rejection means to Him. We catch glimpses of it in the life of Jesus.

Alone and Rejected

Jesus came into a world that He had created altogether good. He came unto His own, and His own rejected Him. At the end of His ministry, just prior to Calvary, we find Him on the hill of Olivet, preparing to go into Jerusalem on that triumphant entry. He paused and He wept. He wept not only for what He saw was coming to the people who had rejected Him, but, I believe, in response to their rejection of Him.

Each one of us played a part in that rejection. Each of us knows wherein, in times past, we have rejected Him. We may know some areas wherein we are rejecting Him today. But He is pitiful and merciful, and He is willing to forgive to the uttermost.

He wants us to become a reflection of His Law—holy, just and good. That is what He wants from you and from me. Is it any wonder that the psalmist says, I delight to meditate day and night upon the Law of God? (See Psalm 1:2.) Maybe there is something that we have not seen in that Law. Maybe we all need to study the Law in the light of Calvary, because that is where the Law takes on its significance. Christ thought enough of that Law to die for us. The anatomy of apostasy stands before us as a lesson of the past, but what about the present?

Let us look at Laodicea. 2,000 years ago, the prophet John, while on the Isle of Patmos, received a revelation from Gabriel and from Jesus Himself. In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus portrays the dispensation from the beginning of the Christian Church all the way down to the very end, where we find ourselves today.

Seven Churches depict seven different periods in the Christian Church. Laodicea is what we are concerned with, because it is the one in which we find ourselves. What does God see? John takes us back to the fact that God sees everything. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched.…” Revelation 3:15–17.

Here we find a counterpart to ancient Israel. This is the sad reality that God foresaw 2,000 years ago. There is an attitude among Laodicea which says, We are all right, when they are indeed all wrong—not only in the manner that they are walking, but also in the attitude they are taking.

A Vast Deception

The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that this message is more specifically applicable to those to whom God has entrusted the special messages which are to be given to the world for the end time. (See Review and Herald, March 10, 1904.) It is us! I am not sharing anything new. We need to become riveted in the old ways. We need to go back to the paths that were traveled by the people of God—the faithful and true, the prophets of old who walked in all the truth. That is the path that God is lifting up before His people today. A path filled with truth, but also filled with sorrow and sighing.

So Laodicea finds itself doing as did ancient Israel and suffering the same delusion. It is interesting to note that this apostasy in Laodicea has the same ultimate consequence in regard to Jesus Christ.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.…” (Verse 20.) Notice where He is standing; He is outside; just as surely as ancient Israel put Jesus outside and would have none of Him, so Laodicea has done the same thing. The reason they have done the same, is because, like Israel, they are rejecting the Law of God while professing to uphold it.

What a vast deception! To profess something, to do something totally contrary to what you are professing, yet believe that you are doing what you are professing, is deception! It almost gets mind boggling! It is confusion! “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door.…” Ibid.

There again, God is not going to trespass your decision, your will that He has given to you. He wants you to consent. Let us open that door by which He can come in and do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” Ibid.

It is a marvelous thought that our God, the mighty God, the wonderful God, the One who is altogether lovely, not only wants to talk to us, but He wants to walk with us.

Apostasy

Paul had a tremendous burden for Israel. Paul had been caught up in apostasy for years. But one day light came, a bright and brilliant light, for that is what our God is. On the road to Damascus, Paul experienced a conversion. He came to see things in an altogether different light, and he no longer called darkness light and light darkness. He was no longer confused. He wanted to share that experience with those who were still in the apostasy. In Romans 10 he tells us his burden, but he also tells us what Israel was doing in regard to this apostasy.

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” Verses 1, 2.

Now we know what that is. We know why they do not have this knowledge. He continues in verse 3, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” God’s righteousness is linked up with God’s Law.

So here was a people professing great things about the Law of God, but Paul comes along and says, You are totally ignorant about that law; you do not understand the righteousness of God that is found in that Law. They were adding and subtracting from God’s righteousness, which is found in His Law. That is what we do if we only have a profession of religion without the possession. If we are subtracting from what God has said, then we are adding our own opinion, our own standard, our own manuals. We are turning away from God’s manuals. Where there is subtraction there is always addition.

Tradition

Mark tells us more descriptively what Israel was doing in regard to this apostasy. Speaking concerning Israel, Jesus said, “‘Howbeit in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’” Mark 7:7.

Israel was replacing the commandments of God with the commandments of men. “‘Making the word of God of none effect.’” (Verse 13.) How did they do that? “. . . through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.” Ibid.

Jesus said that Israel was putting tradition above the word of God. We live in a dispensation of earth’s history in which the majority of professed Christianity today are doing the same thing. If we are basing our experience on the past experience of our forefathers, who may have walked contrary to some of God’s Laws, it follows that we, too, will be contrary to those Laws. This is what happened to ancient Israel and is now happening to professed Christiandom..

There was a time, and I say this sadly, when my life was full of apostasy, and I walked away from God totally and completely. And I can tell you, not only from God’s Word but also from my own experience, that God can save a person out of apostasy. Paul would tell you the same thing. Yes, you can be brought out of apostasy, whether it is in an organization or whether it is in your own heart. God help us not to be deceived into thinking that if we hold the truth, externally, in our hands that we have it in our hearts. I hope you understand that you can actually hold it in your hands and not have it in your heart.

What is the Solution?

What is the solution to apostasy, whether it is on a corporate level or whether it is in our personal lives?

What was God’s plea to Israel in the days of Jeremiah? “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16. God is calling us back to His Law. He turns us back to those truths that have been riveted upon the Rock of our salvation by His people in past generations who have chosen to walk in those paths.

God calls for us to get back on the path of truth—not merely to look at it, not merely to observe it, not merely to hear it, but to walk in it. That is the experience to which God is calling us—an experience of walking in His Law, a Law that is holy, just, and good.

Micah enlarges upon this: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8. This is what the whole plan of redemption entails. It is a call from our wonderful God in heaven, to walk humbly with Him!

God not only wants to talk to us, He wants to walk with us. He created us for that purpose. He has made a way by which we can walk with Him. Romans 5:8 says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Sin is transgression of the Law. While we were rejecting God’s Law, He was dying for us. Oh, we cannot comprehend it all! But what we can comprehend will be sufficient for His grace to save us. We are told that through eternal ages we will constantly be looking and reflecting upon this subject and never come to the fullness of His infinite goodness! (See Steps to Christ, 109.)

This story is an eternal story, and God wants us to be a part of telling that story through eternity. He has made a way, and it cost Him everything.

“Come Unto Me”

Jesus gives us a solution to our predicament in apostasy. He gives us two invitations. He is the One who created us. He is the only One who can re-create us into His likeness, and so, with mercy and pity in His voice, knowing the weakness of our flesh, He says, “‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’” Matthew 11:28. He will give us rest, and if there is one thing that we need, it is rest. It is the peace and confidence of knowing that we are right with Him.

We need that experience because what stands before us in the remaining time of this earth’s history is a very dark and troublesome time. God wants to give us confidence, right now, that when we walk into that trouble, we shall be at peace. He is preparing a people. He is calling a people, one by one.

Is He calling you? Is He inviting you? Oh, yes, “Come unto Me.” And then He asks us to do something more. He says, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me.” (Verse 29.) We will never learn of Jesus unless we become laborers together with Him. We will never learn the burden that He carries for this world until we take the yoke. And it is interesting to find that His yoke is involved in service and it is the very Law of God, because the Law of God is a manifestation of God’s divine love. It is a love that is constantly being revealed in heaven, as we minister unto one another of the love of God. This, and only this, will banish apostasy from the midst of our churches and from the midst of our hearts.

That is what the Law of God does in our hearts. That is why Paul could say, in Romans 13:10, that love is the fulfilling of the Law. We now know how God is able to solve the apostasy problem, but when will this happen?

“For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2 Corinthians 6:2. God has called us. He continues to call us, because He continues to love us.

Brothers and sisters, God tells us that we do not have to wait another year or another month. No, we need not wait even another day to receive the solution to the apostasy that may be found in some of our hearts as a result of compromising God’s Laws. He tells us that the “acceptable time” (See Isaiah 49:8.) is now. He tells us that He “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (See 2 Peter 3:9.) We can choose today, right now, to turn from compromise to commitment, from darkness to light, from apostasy to “walking humbly with thy God.” (See Micah 6:8.) He invites us today to “come now, and let us reason together…though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18. May we determine to receive the invitation and allow Him to make us bright and shining lights in these last days of earth’s apostasy.