Falling Away From Faith

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the FALLING AWAY comes first

No matter how hard men want to analyze or speculate on the Holy Scriptures, it is perfectly clear that salvation is a journey, an enduring walk of holiness that we must finish.  I am a big believer of the truth of eternal security that is spelled out in the Scriptures.  But there are clear conditions that come with this promise and that is simply that we continue walking in covenant with God all the way to the end.  But the teachings of Once Saved Aways Saved that remove these conditions and cherry pick the truth are lies and are a perversion of the truth as I believe this post will demonstrate.

Jesus did not come to judge the world but to save it.  Yet we all will be judged by our deeds by the WORD spoken by Jesus.

John 12:48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.

We best heed the truth and not be ensnared by doctrines of demons and the traditions of men that will lead us astray from the truth.  The devil says we can’t fall away.  Jesus said the opposite.

John 16:1 Jesus said, All this I have told you so that you will not FALL AWAY

Paul gives the church many warnings about God destroying those that practice rebellion to His Law and thereby defile God’s temple.  Please go read this chapter but Paul ends it with a clear warning about overconfidence and any doctrine that remotely comes close to Once Saved Always Saved.

1 Corinthians 10:12  if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t FALL!

Falling away got into our bibles because Christians can indeed fall away.  It is indeed a very dangerous doctrine that says we cannot fall away.  Such error allows Christians to live focused on worldly things and the lusts of the flesh and claim to be walking with the Lord.  We must overcome these things, actually die to their control on our lives and never go back.  Otherwise we make God a liar telling Him that His grace is not sufficient for us to live a godly life being led by His Spirit.

The Flood of Deception Defines the End

I have written extensively on the flood of deception.  This is the apostasy and the great falling away spoken of by Paul in the opening verse to this post.  This falling away from the faith is brought about when we are seduced away and follow things taught by demons.  These spirits are the adversary to our Messiah and work under the guise of religion and godliness to actually pull off the deception.

1 Timothy 4:1 – But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will FALL AWAY from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons

If we get hooked into this movement, some of us will fall away from the faith.  Paul told us right here that this is what the Holy Spirit expressly spoke.  If we fall away from the faith, we are no longer saved my friends.  Without faith nobody can please God.  Without faith, nobody can be righteous.  Without faith, nobody will see the Lord. 

In this post I want to show some very clear teachings about falling away.  The doctrine of eternal security or once saved always saved continues to be taught and believed by the majority of Christians.  Teaching the true gospel of repentance and a walk of holiness is just too unpleasant for flesh to hear and does not build numbers or fill the offering buckets nearly as well as the false doctrines being passed off as truth.  As a deceived local pastor once told me “we don’t want to scare anyone away”.  It is the truth that saves.  Fearing God is a very good thing and its elimination from the church enables deceivers to bring in their destructive heresies.  

Whether or not an individual is saved or not is not the place of any man to judge; as indeed God does all the saving anyway and He alone knows the hearts of His people.  Yet the error of OSAS is likely to influence the choices and response we have to the inevitable and promised temptations and trials of life. 

You have heard the saying “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”.  In Spiritual wisdom, this cliché could be written.

“When the trials intensify, those of true faith trust only in the LORD”

Paul spoke to Timothy about standing firm and fighting the good fight, knowing full well that many would not endure to the end.

1 Timothy 1:19 I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, ¹⁹holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

Nobody is saved without faith. The faith that Jesus and the writers of the Bible defined has been so perverted from what is typically found today that I doubt the Apostles would even recognize it.  Jesus asked the rhetorical question “when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”  The trials are coming, the furnace is getting hotter for all that strive to live a godly life in Christ Jesus.  These trials come to both believers and non believers alike but prophecy and the truth of God’s WORD tells us that MANY will fall away from the faith in the end.  This has already happened for the most part as what men call church is not church, what we call faith is not faith, even the very image and nature of who God is — has been perverted.  Babylon is fallen.

I wanted to be brief in this post and simply highlight the clear Scriptures that make it as clear as the nose on my face, that WE CAN INDEED FALL AWAY FROM THE FAITH.  I have written before on one of the all time doctrines of demons called eternal security or Once Saved Always Saved.  I have a lengthy post on my blog header titled OSAS if you are so led.   But the Scriptures contain numerous passages that make it clear we can fall away and which also warn us about such occurences.

Jesus says in the end, many will fall away

Matthew 24 – Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. ¹⁰“At that time MANY WILL FALL AWAY and will betray one another and hate one another.  Jesus goes on to tell us how this comes and the results or evidence of it.

“Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.¹²“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. False teachers are everywhere.  They teach doctrines that do not conform one to godliness and out of their greed they are exploiting people for gain and selfish ambition.  Be it building an earthly ministry, money or simply esteem and reputation,  they draw disciples upon themselves and to do so they must pervert the truth and tickle ears.  I am sick of seeing people peddling books, seeking donations and the like so they can serve God.  This is the merchandising of religion that the third seal of revelation spoke of.  Everyone wants to sell you the truth in return for your money, your labor or your favor.  Do not be deceived but pay heed to what Jesus told us countless times.

But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.

Speaking to the churches, the LORD spoke to those that had fallen away.  He warned them that they had better repent and come back to Him.  Have you left your first love?

Revelation 2:5 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. ’Therefore remember from where you have FALLEN, and repent

The parable of the sower tells the sad story

This parable which is in all the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) speaks to four types of believers.  Only one kind makes it all the way to the end.  While interpreting this parable to the Disciples, Jesus again shows us many will fall away by turning their hearts back into the world.  This is exactly what Lot’s wife did, she was saved then was lost and you can read that in Luke 17. Here in Luke’s version of the parable of the sower, hear what Jesus said.

Luke 8:13 Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation FALL AWAY.  This is the truth.  Anyone resting on their laurels or what they believed or did in the past becomes prey for the powers of darkness who will test your faith until the day you die.  If you fall back into sin, and believe you are saved,  you are deceived.  You have been sent the GOD SENT delusion that comes to all who love their sin.  I pray you will wake up soon as time grows very short.

The Book of Hebrews is about a Walk of Salvation

Writing to the “brothers”, Paul warns against continued sin and hardening of our heart by pursuing things in the world.  This is falling away.

Hebrews 3 –  See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that TURNS AWAY from the living God. ¹³But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  There sure is a lot of wasted Scripture if we can’t fall away??  Instead of listening to religious liars and false prophets, we should be heeding the words of God, otherwise we deceive ourselves.  The truth will set you free and keep you on guard for the wiles of our enemy.

Hebrews 4:11 - Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one WILL FALL by following their example of disobedience.  Disobedience is sinning or committing lawlessness.  If we pervert the grace of God into a license for sin, we have fallen from truth.  We have been swept away by the flood of deceit that brings about the end.  If we do not press on to maturity but stop as an infant or a baby, we will fall away.  We must mature, we must be sanctified by coming through the furnace of affliction.  Babylon teaches salvation is an event not a walk.  They are shedding the blood of the saints with their false gospel and are teaching another Jesus.  The Jesus they define is actually the image of the beast as spoken about in Revelation 13.

Hebrews 5 - and having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, …..¹²For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  ¹³For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

I showed this passage in a recent video about the end signs, but speaking about nursing babies that are still on milk and do not press on to maturity – Jesus said WOE UNTO THEM. 

Hebrews 6 - It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, IF THEY FALL AWAY, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.  This warning along with the one in Hebrews 10 should be enough for anyone to see the truth about our walk of holiness and endurance unto the end.  The fear of God is a very good thing and if one is without that, they do not know the true living God.

Peter’s warnings on false teachers and falling away

Just like in the parable of the sower, Peter shows us we can come to know the truth, operate in a true faith but then can be enticed away.  Once we escape the world and its lusts we can never go back there, but that is exactly what the enemy will try to get us to do.

2 Peter 2 – For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.  ²²It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

The metaphor of a dog (someone outside of covenant) returning to its own vomit or a pig once washed going back into the mud confirm what falling away means.  It means we put on a religious badge but eventually return and pursue the world and the things in the world.  We fall from grace, we break covenant with God.  We revert to being a DOG when we do this.  

There comes a point where we can fall so far and harden our hearts where we cannot receive the true WORD and be healed.  That is a fall from faith which is the sin unto death for which there is no recovery and no repentance.  This is why we must not play around with sin and need to come out and be separate and touch not what is unclean.  We can be deceived, we can be enticed back into the world.  Remember Lot’s wife.  If we are led astray by false teachers and churches that teach we can keep on practicing sin and be in the will of God, look out below, you are in a free fall from the true gospel.

2 Peter 3:17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position

Paul’s instructions on appointing elders

I found it interesting that even the instructions Paul gave about appointing elders reference falling into condemnation and out of grace.  There is no condemnation for those IN CHRIST, but if we fall away and follow demons and practice sin, we are indeed under condemnation, even an elder or religious big shot.

1 Timothy 3:6-7 … and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and FALL into the condemnation incurred by the devil.  ⁷And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Falling Away from the Grace

Grace is the power of God working in us.  When we try to make up for our sinfulness and justify practicing sin by fleshly human attempts at being holy and nice, we are practicing a WORKS salvation.  We are not being led by the Holy Spirit anymore.

Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have FALLEN AWAY from grace.

This is what many in Babylon are doing.  They have put on forms of godliness but deny the power of Yeshua (Jesus) to transform us into a new creation.  We do not believe what Abraham believed when we attempt to justify ourselves by all our good deeds.  God must do the circumcision, He must give us the new heart.  We must believe and stand in His grace being led by the Holy Spirit.

So I hope these clear passages on falling away and the related warnings have opened the eyes of those that have turned their hearts to the world and lusts of the flesh.  Do not run your race in vain and rest on false doctrines like eternal security.  Jesus will not cast us out, nobody can snatch us out of His hands, but we can on our free will walk away from the faith by following the wrong spirit and following the deceitfulness of sin.  The harlot churches of these end times have created an image of God that is false.  There is no fear of the Lord in Babylon.

Romans 11:22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off

Don’t wander away from the truth.  Don’t let anything get your heart besides Jesus.  He demands it all.  Many people have fallen away.  They have forsaken their first love and have wandered off in pursuit of the world and the things of the world.  Guard your heart and beware.

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

May God Bless You Richly!