Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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(Today’s Book Installment)
The One True Church
Chapter 32 – Apostasy in the 1st-Century Church – Fulfilled
Interestingly, the New Testament not only contains the prophecies of apostasy in the last days of the church, it also contains documentation of the fulfillment of those prophecies. We find the prophecies in the New Testament’s earlier writings, and the fulfillment in its later writings.
For example, consider something the Lord’s brother Jude wrote late in New Testament times.
Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
This calls to mind what Jesus had said decades earlier.
Matthew 24:11 “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.
Thus Jude is saying, in effect, that what Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:11 was being fulfilled by the time Jude wrote his letter.
As further testimony that Jesus’ prophecy of apostasy was fulfilled before the end of the New Testament period, consider something the apostle John wrote.
1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.
John is reporting that the appearances of antichrists were confirming that the late stage before the Second Coming had been reached.
Speaking of John, his book of Revelation contains messages from Jesus to seven churches. Because the great apostasy had taken root and was spreading, Jesus tells five of them that they need to repent!
Consider, for example, the rebuke Jesus gave to first church addressed: the believers in Ephesus.
Revelation 2:1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:
Revelation 2:2 ‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;
Revelation 2:3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.
Revelation 2:4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Revelation 2:5 Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.
Revelation 2:6 Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Because of these and similar scriptures, we can say confidently that the New Testament documents both the prophecies of apostasy in the last days of the church and the fulfillment of those prophecies.
To put an exclamation point on all this, consider what the following passage is describing. A church leader named Diotrephes is disregarding what one of the 12 apostles – one of the three closest to Jesus – says.
3 John 1:9 I wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.
3 John 1:10 For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.
Clearly, the apostasy of the church just before the coming of the kingdom happened just as Jesus had said it would. In next chapter, we’ll see how important that is.
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