Eschatology
27. What’s the falling away which is to come before the coming of the
Lord, as it is written: “That Day will not come unless the falling away comes
first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3 - NKJV)? |
It’s the
abandonment of the faith on the part of some believers. For Paul says to
Timothy: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the
faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such
teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared
as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain
from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by
those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good,
and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it
is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:1-5 – NIV). |
As you can
see, among the doctrines of demons which will be followed by those who
abandon the faith, is the doctrine that forbids to marry and the one which
commands to abstain from certain foods. |
Certainly
till now there have been many believers who have abandoned the faith, but
more and more believers will abandon the faith as the coming of the Lord
draws near, for a short time before the coming of the Lord there will be a
falling away which has no precedent in the history of the Church. Just as
many antichrists have come but no one of them was the antichrist who is to
come, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with
the brightness of His coming, and the antichrist who is coming is worse than
all of the previous ones, so I think that the falling away Paul speaks about
to the Thessalonians is a falling away which has no precedent in the history
of the Church. |