Sermon: "Watching Out For Apostasy"
INTRODUCTION
A. Yeast as Sin
Yeast is a single-celled microorganism, a type of fungus. The kind of yeast used in baking is a type of budding yeast. Here’s what happens as budding yeast reproduces. A portion of the parent cell begins to protrude to create a daughter cell which is, of course, then capable of reproducing itself. In this way, yeast will eventually permeate an entire batch of dough. Just a measure of yeast will affect the entire product.
In the Bible, yeast, or leaven as it is called in the KJV, is a type of sin. A quick look at Exodus 12:15 will illustrate this concept:
EXODUS 12:15 – For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
In preparation for the Passover, the houses in Israel were to be cleansed of all leaven or yeast. This was an act of purging, a purification ritual to symbolize the sanctifying of the people as they made ready to worship the God who had delivered them from the sin-filled, “yeast-infested,” nation of Egypt.
Yeast, then, is a type of sin, and it is even so in the New Testament, as the apostle Paul uses it:
1 CORINTHIANS 5:6-8 – Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
B. Yeast as False Teaching
To introduce our subject for today (and also for next week), let’s observe how Jesus uses this same metaphor in discussing with His disciples the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees:
MATTHEW 16:5-12 - When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. 6"Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
7They discussed this among themselves and said, "It is because we didn't bring any bread."
8Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? 9Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 10Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? 11How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." 12Then they understood that He was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Jesus uses yeast as a metaphor for the false teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, two of the leading Jewish sects of His day. It’s a valid metaphor. Even as it is with sin, so yeast would certainly be analogous to false teaching as well. For some reason, contingent I suppose on some quirk of human nature, wrong-headed ideas seem to be contagious. They have a tendency to spread quickly throughout a community or group, just as yeast spreads through a batch of dough.
What were these two groups teaching? Well, the Pharisees believed that only an extremely rigid and rigorous outward adherence to the Law of God would produce righteous acceptance in God’s sight. The doctrine of the Sadducees rejected any notion of the supernatural – no supernatural beings such as angels and no supernatural acts such as resurrection from the dead.
Jesus’ warning to His disciples was that, like yeast in bread, the teaching of these two sects had the potential to corrupt the entire nation of Israel.
C. Don’t Depart From The Truth
From this warning of our Lord Jesus, we can derive a principle that is as every bit as useful in our time as it was in the time of the apostles:
Any deviation from the truth of God’s Word is an open invitation to the corruption of the entire system.
Any deviation, any departure, any variation, any movement away from the truth of the Word of God is bound to create the kind of conditions that are conducive to the corruption, the distortion, the warping of the Church, the Body of Christ. Just like a cancerous disease that ravages every cell of the human body, so unchecked false doctrine will pervasively saturate a body of believers, disrupting the work of Christ.
For this very reason, we would do well to heed Jesus’ warning to beware of false teachers and their false doctrines. So, this week and next, we will be concentrating our efforts at looking into what the Bible says about departing from the truth.
I. Apostasy Defined
A. Falling Away
Departing from the truth is also known as apostasy. The word apostasy comes from the Greek apostasia. It literally means “a falling away, defection.” While we don’t find the English word “apostasy” in the Bible, the Greek word is used twice, once in the book of Acts and once in the book of 2 Thessalonians.
ACTS 21:21 - They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.
In this verse, Paul is falsely accused of causing Jews to fall away or turn away or defect from the Law of Moses.
2 THESSALONIANS 2:3 – Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessnessis revealed, the man doomed to destruction.
Here we are told that Christ would not come until a falling away of some kind occurred. The NIV translates apostasia as “rebellion” in this passage.
B. The Great Apostasy
Please note that, in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, apostasia has the definite article, so it is “THE Falling Away” or “THE Rebellion” or “THE Apostasy.” Because of that definite article, the little word “the”, some Bible scholars refer to this as The Great Apostasy. The Great Apostasy must take place before Christ returns to earth.
Earlier we considered the warning that Jesus gave to His disciples about the false teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Along those same lines, here in 2 Thessalonians, Paul raises an alert. We have been warned that apostasy is coming.
II. Apostasy Predicted
A. Warned by Jesus
For example, Jesus taught the same thing to His disciples in His lesson on the Second Coming as recorded in Matthew 24…
MATTHEW 24:10, 11 – At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.
This “turning away from the faith” is indeed apostasy of the first order. Please note that Jesus said MANY will be deceived. If Jesus had issued just one warning about a falling away from the true faith, it should be sufficient to cause us to proceed with caution. But He gave us even more…
MATTHEW 7:15-20 – "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
We can expect preachers and teachers to come on the scene who will look good and sound good, but who will lead many away from the truth of God’s Word. Jesus tells us to watch what they produce. Watch their fruit. While it’s true that in verse one of Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”, in verses 16 thru 20 He gives us the “okay” to be fruit inspectors.
In fact, Jesus tells us more on the subject as we look further into Matthew 24. We already saw what it said in verses 10 and 11. Now listen to verses 23 thru 25…
MATTHEW 24:23-25 – At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. 24For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25See, I have told you ahead of time.
Please note how Jesus says, “You have been warned ahead of time.” It sound like Jesus is not going to accept any excuses from anybody who falls into the trap of following false teaching. He can simply say, “I told you that it would be so.”
Do you see how despicable, how devilish, this deception can be? “Look! This is of Christ! This is the teaching of Jesus!” Great signs and wonders will accompany these “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” making it look like they come from God.
Boy, that’ll be awful when it comes to pass! Deceiving the very elect of God!
B. Warned by Paul
But what makes us think that such things aren’t already happening in our own day? False teachers and their false doctrines, designed to cause the church to fall away from the truth, certainly will seek to make inroads into the midst of God’s people. Hear what Paul said to the leaders of the church at Ephesus…
ACTS 20:28-31 – Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.
In thinking about the passages we’ve looked at so far this morning, you can’t read these passages rightly and not be strongly impressed with the warnings that they give! Once again, we have this picture of wolves coming in among the sheep. But Paul goes even further to say that “even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth” for the purpose of garnering their own flock of followers.
And please take note of the urgency in Paul’s warning: “Be on your guard!”
What is the practice of these teachers? To distort the truth. Their teaching is a perversion! They take the truth and twist and change it to suit their own purposes.
So, Paul tells these men of Ephesus to keep watch over the flock. It’s bad enough to think that predators might seek to come in from the outside. How much more disconcerting it is to think that false teachers could even arise from within the church! We must be prepared.
What exactly does apostasy look like?
III. Apostasy Described
A. A Modern-Day Example
You take a certain level of risk when you publicly address an issue as sensitive as looking at the beliefs of others. You have to be cautious. Undoubtedly, there are folks here who have loved ones who are involved in churches and other religious organizations that are, quite frankly, not teaching the truth. Please understand that when we address these kinds of issues, we are not attacking people. Rather, we are looking at the truthfulness of the ideas that people are putting forth, judging those ideas according to the Word of God.
What did Jesus say in the passage we looked at earlier? “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.” We don’t judge people. But we do reserve the right to inspect fruit. I make no apologies for what I want to say by way of illustration. I just want you to know that I have no wish to offend or hurt anyone’s feelings.
On February 15, 1852, a baby boy was born to Joseph and Anna Russell. Charles Taze Russell was raised in the Congregationalist Church. Later, he became involved with the Seventh-Day Adventists.
As a Congregationalist, young Russell had developed a strong fear of Hell. Later, however, under the influence of Seventh-Day Adventism, he rejected the notion of an eternal punishment. Adventists teach a doctrine of annihilation, meaning that those not accepted by God will be destroyed or totally annihilated with no spirit, soul, or body ever facing any kind of eternal existence.
When he was 18, Russell started a Bible class in Pittsburgh. The group in that class elected him as their pastor. Adventism has an emphasis upon the Second Coming of Christ and Russell was fascinated by their teachings on this subject. He began to write and publish his own pamphlets on the end times.
Eventually, Russell began to disagree with Adventist doctrine. He got into trouble with Adventist leadership. In response, in 1879 he began his own magazine called The Herald of the Morning Star. Five years later, he founded Zion’s Watchtower Tract Society in Pittsburgh. In 1896, the name was changed to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
Today, I don’t know of any evangelical denomination that does not recognize The Watchtower Society, also known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, as a false cult. The teachings of Russell and those who came after him in this religious organization are viewed by evangelicals and others as a perversion of the truth of the Bible.
Russell came up from within a more traditional church background. But his legacy, his fruit, does not hold up under Biblical inspection. What did Paul say would happen?
ACTS 20:30 – Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
This is exactly what happened in the case of Charles Taze Russell and The Watchtower Society. Similar things have happened with other individuals, groups, and organizations over the many years. It seems that the apostle Paul was right on the money. The apostasy he described to the Ephesian elders is the same kind of thing that has happened in our own day.
B. “Buyer, Beware!”
Paul didn’t restrict his warnings about apostasy to just the Ephesians. Listen to what he said to those at Rome…
ROMANS 16:17, 18 - I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.
Watch out! Beware of the divisions and obstacles brought about by others who are teaching things contrary to the truth. Don’t even have any fellowship with them! That’s what Paul says – “Keep away from them!”
These false teachers are only about satisfying their own appetites. They are appealing with their smooth talk. Naïve people will allow themselves to be deceived by these flatterers. Don’t be naïve! Be aware!
Let me highlight the obvious. The warnings of Jesus and the apostles about false teaching are aimed at those who will be on the receiving end of false teaching. This is a kind of “let-the-buyer-beware” message that I’m giving to you this morning. The ones who are the targets, the potential victims, of the false teachers bear the responsibility to be discerning.
Paul tells Timothy that the ones being taught false doctrine are the ones responsible for the spread of false doctrine. We – you and I – are potentially those who would allow the yeast to permeate the entire batch of dough. Hear what Paul says to Timothy…
1 TIMOTHY 4:3, 4 – For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
The problem, Paul says, is with the listeners! People will get to a point where they no longer want to put up with the truth. In their estimation, the truth is keeping them from what they really want to do with their lives. So, to suit their own desires, they will only bring in teachers who “scratch their ears!”
Did you ever scratch a dog behind the ear? They love it! “Keep it up! Scratch me, Daddy! Mmm-mmm! That feels good!!”
People who don’t want to hear the truth are saying, “Tell me something that makes me feel good! Tell me something that makes me feel that things between me and God are okay! Give me the ‘warm fuzzies’ all over!”
I believe we have whole churches today completely dedicated to that philosophy. “Make me happy! Keep telling me that everything is alright!” Folks go to church, come away feeling they had a good time, and confuse that feeling with true spirituality. No change takes place in their lives. When they leave church, they’re the same people who came in the door earlier, if not actually worse off than they were before, having been lulled to sleep with the notion that, “Everything’s okay between me and God”.
CONCLUSION
Now that we come down to the end, you probably don’t know what to think, do you? “Are you saying it’s wrong to feel good in church?”
If that’s all you heard this morning, maybe you need to dig in a little deeper. Let me help you out by reviewing what we’ve said. We saw there was a principle that emerged from Jesus’ warning His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees:
Any deviation from the truth of God’s Word is an open invitation to the corruption of the entire system.
We defined that deviation as Apostasy – a “falling away, a defection” from the truth of the Bible.
We heard warnings from various New Testament passages, from the words of Jesus and of Paul about the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” – false teachers who would arise to gather flocks of people unto themselves. We said that, while some would come from without, most false teachers would arise from within the Church itself.
From 2 Thessalonians 2, we learned that The Great Apostasy will come before Jesus returns. There will be a time of a great departure from the truth of the Bible.
And we saw how we have been repeatedly warned about apostasy in general in several places in the New Testament. Don’t be naïve! Be on your guard!
Also, we shouldn’t assemble together each week solely for the purpose of “having our ears scratched.”
We should be coming here with the expectation of hearing God’s Word proclaimed for the purpose of changing our lives and making us more like God wants us to be. That can be a painful process; the truth hurts; we shouldn’t shy away from it because of our own desires, our own agenda.
We need to hear God’s Word so we can live in the light of God’s Word. Listen, we are called to be a holy people. And any deviation from the truth of God’s Word is a huge hindrance, a major obstacle, to that holy calling.
If you think that the Christian walk is solely meant to be path to your own personal satisfaction, then you are sorely missing the mark about the real truth of the Bible! We are not to live to please ourselves; we are meant to live to please God.
And it is our responsibility to be sure that what we’re being taught is indeed the truth!
We have to have our wits about us and beware of false teaching.