In These days Of Apostasy and False Christianity, Should We Still Attend Apostate Churches?
A Little About The Apostasy
The apostasy includes an overwhelming acceptance of ecumenism, i.e. unity with the pagan Babylonian originated Roman Catholic church, and even ALL FAITHS unity, New Age thinking and much occult activity. The church of the 21st Century has widely compromised on the fundamental teachings from the Bible by putting greater emphasis on the physical, mental, psychic, mystic and “spiritual” EXPERIENCES rather than following after the pure, unadulterated, simplicity of the Bible and NT Christianity.
They have forgotten the exhortation (in the Bible) that EVERYTHING must be weighed up by the plumbline of Scripture. What has happened to “testing all things” by the Word of God? What about 2 Tim 3:15-16:
“And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able tomake thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”
But the Word of God rarely NOW has centre place in churches and very few believers are discipled into proper Bible study and certainly are not trained to follow 2 Tim 2:15:
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Instead many simply open the bible randomly (when they do actually go to that extent) and collect their doctrine from isolated verses and WELL out of context, instead of comparing scripture with scripture and properly seeking to understand the context of why something was written.
Instead they are taught to seek “experiencing the Lord” rather than seeking to know the Lord through His word and prayer. For more on this, see footnote below.
In the light of these apostate days and apostate churches, SHOULD true born again believers STILL go to church? To find out, please click on the icon entitled "read more" below.
My answer is YES! I will go on to explain why it is vital to still go to church. Although whether you should attend any specific church should be according to its own unique situation.
Who We Should NOT Have Fellowship With
Before I give my reasons why we should still attend EVEN an apostate church, we first need to consider what the apostle Paul said in 2 Cor 6:7:
“Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord”
What was he referring to?
Let us look at the context, verses 14-16:
“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is therebetween the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people”
The context was about Babylonian inspired pagan religion which was seeking to infiltrate the infant Christian church. Paul made it clear that they should be completely separate from such pagan ecumenism.
Clearly a truly born again believer should NEVER seek fellowship/unity/ecumenism with paganism of any sort. This blog has already proved that the Roman Catholic church came into being from out of this Babylonic paganism and successfully (for hundreds of years) infiltrated the true Christian church by “Christianising” Babylonic idolatry and practices forcing the true church to go “underground”.
So, a true believer can NEVER feel at home in such darkness and will be badly affected by such darkness if they do not come out of it.
The NT is full of warnings about the dangers of apostasy.
So, What is apostasy?
Apostasy is basically a falling away from the true gospel as was first preached to the early first century church. It is a falling away from the true faith and teachings of the Bible by bringing in added extras and teaching “another Jesus” and other ways of salvation.
So it is clear that true believers should NEVER fellowship with the Catholic church, but come out from it. It is also clear that believers and true churches should never fellowship with paganism either.
There are many churches today (maybe the vast majority) which DO fellowship with such paganism. Some are blatant ecumenists directly – some indirectly by joining an ecumenical organisation.
Does that mean that we should never attend ANY ecumenically (or such) linked church?
It all depends on the circumstances. If they are seriously in fellowship with Rome or into the occult etc, then I would suggest there is nothing to be gained by joining them.
This is the key “IS THERE ANYTHING TO BE GAINED BY ATTENDING THESE (DIRECT OR INDIRECT) APOSTATE CHURCHES?”
In many cases I would suggest that we DO STILL NEED to attend their churches. I will now give my reasons.
Why We SHOULD Still Attend Some Apostate Churches
The apostle Paul said that in the last days that the time of the gentiles would come to an end and at the same time a falling away from THE FAITH. There will be a time when (probably culminated after the rapture) the adoption of gentiles into the olive tree would come to an end but then replaced by a mass return of Jews to the olive tree.
Paul was called as a missionary to the gentiles. However, (as was his custom) would still go into the Jewish synagogues and preach there, despite that the vast majority of Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah and actually were “apostates” i.e., had fallen away from their relationship with the LORD. Jesus had said that they had reached a point where "their house was left desolate" and "you will not see Me again UNTIL you say 'blessed is HE who comes in the Name of the LORD' ".
From that moment, the grace of God was being moved from Israel (from their apostasy) to the gentiles, YET Paul still went into the Jewish congregations to preach regularly.
This tells me that despite the apostasy growing in our churches (in these last days) we should STILL attend these churches and preach against their apostasy by declaring the truth and exposing the darkness by preaching the light.
God has not finished with these dead churches - NOT UNTIL THE RAPTURE, because there are some individuals (within these churches) who are NOT DEAD but are true believers.
Only at the rapture will God have finished finally with the gentile church and return His favour on Israel and those gentiles who join themselves to Israel during the tribulation.
Therefore, we need to still attend these apostate churches (like Paul did in those synagogues) and take every opportunity to expose the darkness and preach the truth, because there are many who need to hear our message and maybe many may still respond favourably and join us in our campaign.
Despite this discussion, I still need to remind us that Hebrews 10: 23-25 says:
"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching"
In these days it is becoming increasingly difficult to fulfill these verses and obtain REAL fellowship. Therefore, I would like to conclude this article by showing a shortcut link to another article I wrote on this subject:
Please Click here to read how we can obtain this sort of fellowship and how it relates to THIS article. You may also like to refer to this older article of mine on what real fellowship is Click Here (note: I may not agree with ALL of it anymore in the light of newer understandings, but most of it still applies).
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PS. For John's comprehensive list of false organisations and false prophets in these last days of apostasy, please go to
NEV.
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