The Apostasy........Part 2

Yesterday, I spoke on how the apostasy came about historically, and today I would like to discuss how the scriptures foretold of the apostasy.

But first, let's discuss how the Bible has not brought about unity of the many different churches found on the earth today. One anti-Mormon states in his book, " The doctrine is that the true Church of Jesus Christ is not to be identified exclusively with any one earthly organization, but that it includes members of various denominations scattered throughout the earth." If this is true, one only has to ask why don't all true members of the Church of Jesus Christ from these different denominations come forth and form one true Church? Another question also comes to mind - who gave these different and various denominations permission to break off into different divisions? And where in the Bible does it say that it was ok to do so? Why does one church teach baptism by immersion, and another by sprinkling? Can they both be true? Why do the different churches teach differently about the next life? Why do they teach differently about how and when one receives the Holy Ghost? Why do they teach differently about grace and works? Infant baptism? The Sabbath day? Tithing? The sacrament? How can different teachings from all the various denominations all be true?

In Matthew 15:8-9 Jesus said : " This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their hearts are far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

In his letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul assured the members of the imminent coming of Christ. Many apparently thought Christ would arrive in their lifetime, but Paul corrected them saying, " that day shall not come but there be a falling away first." Thessalonians 2:3 The word for "falling away" in the Greek for this passage is apostasia, and it literally means apostasy.

The Apostle John also knew that an apostasy would take place and that the time of the Church was growing short. In 1 John 2:18 he said: " Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; we know that it is the last time."

Acording to John, the falling away predicted by Paul was already beginning in his own time. The author of Acts reaffirms this prophecy of a falling away in Acts 20:29-30 : " For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."

These passages, clearly show that a falling away from the truth was to occur before the second coming of Christ, but see also the following verses: 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 1:15; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 2 Peter 3:3; and John 16:1-4.

One of the marks of the apostasy, or falling away, was the changing of the name of "The Church of Jesus Christ" to the Catholic Church, and when the protesting groups finally broke away from the Catholic Church, through the Reformation, none of them took the name of Jesus Christ but named themselves after men, or after the method of baptisms, or after other religious beliefs that caused them to break away from the Catholic Church in the first place.

The Church of Jesus Christ, established during His ministry, was properly known as His Church. and not the Church of John the Baptist, or the Church of Peter the Apostle, nor the Church of Paul the Great Missionary.

One of the problems with anti-Mormon logic is that they insist that Christ's original church did not fall away. Then to be consistent they should also admit that their own church is a fraud, because there would be no need to organize any modern-day churches if the original church was still here.

Tomorrow, I will discuss the infallible, perfect, and final Bible. IMHO

The Apostasy............

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, believe that an apostasy, or falling away, of the true church occurred and that a restoration, not a reformation, was necessary to establish the Church of Jesus Christ back on earth.

The anti-Mormons do not believe that this happened, but there is a ton of evidence that supports the apostasy both scripturally and historically. The early church struggle through many changes and evolved into many apostate groups. Let's look at it today from the historical side. Please read about the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed from my previous posts for some solid evidence of this struggle between many different groups.

Even more important, let's consider what I had posted earlier:

The Christian churches of today may be generally classified as follows:

1. The Catholic Church, which contends that it has had an uninterrupted existence upon the earth since it was originally founded by Jesus Christ.

2. Protestant churches founded by reformers who contend that the original church fell into apostasy, and who, therefore, through a study of the Bible, have attempted to return to the original teachings and practices of the church. The number of these churches is evidence of how impossible it is to agree upon the teachings of the Bible when left to the wisdom of man to interpret and understand them. Because of this lack of unity, churches have continued to multiply in a further effort to return to what they consider the original teachings of the Christ.

3. Those who believe that the church established by Jesus Christ while he was upon the earth fell into an apostate condition as predicted by the apostles, and that the church could not be reestablished upon the earth merely through a reformation, but only through a restoration.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands alone in this latter classification.

In considering these claims, it is obvious that if the first is true, there is no excuse for the existence of any other Christian church. If the original church had gone astray, could a reformation restore its power?

The issue is really between the Catholics and the Mormons. If the Catholics are right, then Mormonism is wrong. If Mormons are right, then Catholicism is wrong. The Protestants don’t have a leg to stand on, because if the Catholics are wrong, so are they, for they were originally a part of the Catholic Church.

I would challenge any anti-Mormon to trace the roots of his/her church back to Christ. There are several web sites that do just that, and all the roots go back to the Catholic Church. the roots of the Evangelical Lutheran Church can be found here:

http://www.elca.org/communication/roots.html

Here, they state that their roots can be claimed all the way back to the Protestant Reformation, and that Martin Luther was a monk who didn't agree with the teachings of the his church, so he started his own church. ( Reading about Martin Luther can be quite enlightening. Did you know that he threw out some of the books of the Old Testament, and was talked out of throwing out four books of the New Testament?) Within a couple hundred years, even the Lutheran Church was by then broken up into different synods, and I quote " There were "revivalist" and "confessional" movements within Lutheran churches in Europe and in America, and as Lutherans migrated to this country they were influenced by the "fundamentalist" movement here. Consequently, there developed a wide variety of expressions of Lutheranism in North America."

The Baptists can trace their history also back to the reformers who broke away from the Catholic Church, as seen here: http://www.allaboutreligion.org/baptist-church-history-faq.htm

There are many, many, different forms of Baptists, and trying to Google Baptist Church turns up a lot of miscellaneous information, but I found this interesting here:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Baptists-954/baptist-1.htm

This site claims, and I don't know if this is correct or not: "There are approximately 250 different Baptist groups worldwide, plus within each group, any given local Baptist church is autonomous, which means that each congregation decides how it will "do church." The answer to your question, therefore, is ... there is no one answer, or even only 100 answers, or even only 1000 answers. There are about 50-60 million Baptists worldwide, and perhaps as many as 1 million congregations. If one were to examine all Baptist individuals and congregations, one would find that Baptists worship in tens of thousands of different ways (and perhaps more than that)."

Like I said, I don't know if that information is correct, but I do know that there are a lot of different Baptist Churches and they don't all teach the same thing. The following is taken from: http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0575.htm

"If it is a fact that the lost world is bewildered by the conflicting claims of hundreds of churches and denominations all calling themselves Christian; is it not equally true they would be confused by the conglomeration of beliefs that are covered by the name Baptist? There are American Baptists, Southern Baptists, Christian Unity Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Duck River & Kindred Associations of Baptists, Baptist Church of Christ, Freewill Baptists, General Baptists, General Six—Principle Baptists, Independent Baptist Church of America, National Baptist, Evangelical Life & Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A., Regular Baptists, Separate Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, United American Freewill Baptists, United Baptists, Free Communion Baptists, Anti-mission Baptists, Conservative Baptists, Fundamental Baptists, and a host of others."

There is no way logically that all of these different Baptist Churches are teaching the same message that Christ taught......no way.

Again, I would challenge any anti-Mormon to trace his/her church history back to the original Church that Christ established.

Yet, the anti-Mormons claim that there was no apostasy or falling away of the truth in spite of all the historical evidence.

Tomorrow, I will post on the scriptural evidence of an apostasy. IMHO