From the Pen of LEROY SEDGWICK....
APOSTASY
"...always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you" (I Peter 3:15).
In the course of questioning our faith, there will be some who will ask, that if God is so all powerful, why is it that so many have gone back into the world after having tasted of Christianity. It would be great if this never happened, but apostasy is a reality, and has always been.
With all the advantages Adam and Eve had, they still turned their backs on God. The answer then was "sin," and that is still the answer. Even during the lifetime and ministry of our Lord, His followers turned their backs on him, and followed him no more. Some who did not leave followed afar.
It surely can come as no surprise to us that there has been an apostasy in almost every generation. And it comes from the most unlikely of sources. Paul warned the elders of the church at Ephesus, "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after themselves" (Acts 20:28-30).
Timothy was told of a great apostasy. "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons..." (I Timothy 4:1).
Those who are convinced by false teachers that "once saved, always saved" will have a hard time reconciling with such teachings as found in John 15:4. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." Abide means to continue in something begun.
Also hear Paul again. "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (I Corinthians 10:12). How could Paul make such a blunder if it is true that once one is saved, he is always saved?
The writer of the Hebrews letter speaks of those who "fall away" (Hebrews 6:6). Peter speaks of those who "have escaped the pollutions of the world" becoming "again entangled in them and overcome" (II Peter 2:20).
God did not hide the fact that man would become unfaithful. But, remember, it was sin in the beginning that caused it, and it is sin still.
--Leroy Sedgwick