Is the Everything Getting Worse and Worse?

FALLING AWAY

Deuteronomy 18
²⁰But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. ²¹And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? ²²When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

(1 John 2:18) Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
(1 John 4:3) And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
(2 John 1:7) For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

David Chilton writes:

The connection people often make between the Antichrist and “the last days” is correct enough; but what is often missed is the fact that the expression the last days, and similar terms, are used in the Bible to refer, not to the end of the physical world, but to the last days of the nation of Israel, the “last days” which ended with the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. This, too, will come to many as a surprise; but we must accept the clear teaching of Scripture. The New Testament authors unquestionably used “end-times” language when speaking of the period they were living in, before the fall of Jerusalem. As we have seen, the Apostle John said two things on this point: first, that Antichrist had already come and, second, that the presence of the Antichrist was proof that he and his readers were living in "the last hour.” In one of his earlier letters, St. Paul had had to correct a mistaken impression regarding the coming judgment on Israel. False teachers had been frightening the believers by saying that the day of judgment was already upon them. St. Paul reminded the Christians of what he had explained before:

Let no one deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first . . . .
(2 Thessalonians 2:3).

    By the end of the age, however, as John was writing his letters, the Great Apostasy — the spirit of Antichrist, of which the Lord had foretold — was a reality.

The Great Apostasy

    The Church began to be infiltrated by heresy fairly early in its development. Acts 15 records the meeting of the first Church Council, which was convened in order to render an authoritative ruling on the issue of justification by faith (some teachers had been advocating the false doctrine that one must keep the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament in order to be justified). The problem did not die down, however; years later, the apostle Paul had to deal with it again, in his letter to the churches of Galatia. As St. Paul told them, this doctrinal aberration was no minor matter, but affected their very salvation: it was a “different gospel,” an utter distortion of the truth, and amounted to a repudiation of Jesus Christ Himself. Using some of the most severe terminology of his career, Paul pronounced damnation upon the “false brethren” who taught the heresy (see Galatians 1:6-9; 2:5, 11-21; 3:1-3; 5:1-12).

    St. Paul also foresaw that heresy would infect the churches of Asia Minor. Calling together the elders of Ephesus, he exhorted them to “be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock,” because “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:28-30). Just as St. Paul predicted, false doctrine became an issue of enormous proportions in these churches. By the time the Book of Revelation was written, some of them had become almost completely ruined through the progress of heretical teachings and the resulting apostasy (Revelation 2:2,6, 14-16, 20-24; 3:1-4, 15-18).

    But the problem of heresy was not limited to any geographical or cultural area. It was widespread and became an increasing subject of apostolic counsel and pastoral oversight as the age progressed. Some heretics taught that the final Resurrection had already taken place (2 Timothy 2:18), while others claimed that resurrection was impossible (1 Corinthians 15:12); some taught strange doctrines of asceticism and angel-worship (Colossians 2:8, 18-23; 1 Timothy 4:1-3), while others advocated all kinds of immorality and rebellion in the name of “liberty” (2 Peter 2:1-3, 10-22; Jude 4, 8, 10-13, 16). Again and again the apostles found themselves issuing stern warnings against tolerating false teachers and “false apostles” (Romans 16:17-18; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 12-15; Philippians 3:18-19; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 2 Timothy 4:2-5), for these had been the cause of massive departures from the faith, and the extent of apostasy was increasing as the era progressed (1 Timothy 1:19-20; 6:20-21; 2 Timothy 2:16-18; 3:1-9, 13; 4:10, 14-16). One of the last letters of the New Testament, the Book of Hebrews, was written to an entire Christian community on the very brink of wholesale abandonment of Christianity. The Christian Church of the first generation was not only characterized by faith and miracles; it was also characterized by increasing lawlessness, rebellion, and heresy from within the Christian community itself — just as Jesus had foretold in Matthew 24.

We are, actually, in the first days of the New Covenant.

Many Godless men dare to call themselves pastors and lead pentecostal and fundamentalist churches, too. They deny that human beings are to exercise dominion over the earth. They are unfamiliar with the implications of God's commandments, such as the Sixth and the Eighth Commandment. They couldn't show you in the Bible where inflation and currency debasement are prohibited. They say and do nothing about the millions of people trapped in socialism and communism.

The fact is that we in the first days of the New Covenant all have much to learn about applying Biblical Principles.

Was St. Paul talking about "latter times” which would happen thousands of years later? Why should he warn Timothy of events which Timothy, and Timothy's great-great-grandchildren, and fifty or more generations of descendants, would never live to see? In fact, St. Paul tells Timothy, “If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 4:6). The members of Timothy’s congregation needed to know about what would take place in the “latter days,” because they would be personally affected by those events. In particular, they needed the assurance that the coming apostasy was part of the overall pattern of events leading up to the end of the old order and the full establishing of Christ’s Kingdom. As we can see from passages such as Colossians 2:18-23, the “doctrines of demons” St. Paul warned of were current during the first century. The “latter times” were already taking place. This is quite clear in St. Paul’s later statement to Timothy:

    But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come; for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so also do those resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith (2 Timothy 3:1-8).

    The very things St. Paul said would happen in "the last days” were happening as he wrote, and he was simply warning Timothy about what to expect as tie age rushed on to its climax. Antichrist was beginning to rear its head.

    Other New Testament writers shared this perspective with St. Paul. The letter to the Hebrews begins by saying that God “has in these last days spoken to us in His Son” (Hebrews 1:2); the writer goes on to show that “now once at the end of the ages He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:26). St. Peter wrote fiat Christ “was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for you who through Him are believers in God” (1 Peter 1:20-21). Apostolic testimony is unmistakably clear: when Christ came, the “last days” arrived with Him. He came to bring in the new age of the Kingdom of God. The old age was winding down, and would be thoroughly abolished when God destroyed the Temple.

I John 4:1
"..many false prophets are gone out into the world."

Acts 8:9-10
"But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:
"To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God."

Acts 5:36
"For before these days (12 years after the death of Christ) rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought."

Acts 21:38
"Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?"

Acts 5:37
"After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed."

Peter was talking to his readers about the same danger Christ foretold in Matthew 24.

The fact is that liberal churches are not waxing worse and worse. Their enrollment is declining every year, and Bible believing churches are increasing their attendance every year.

This happened back then. These were warnings to people who lived in the last days of the Old Covenant. They are not warning to us (though we can gain insights from them) because we do not live in the last days of the Old Covenant. We live in the first days of the New Covenant.

Paul's warnings were not prophecies of events thousands of years away.

it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
(Amos 8:9)

Is the point here one about astronomy?

Do we need churches?