Although the whole of Christianity does not believe in the restoration, even history, apart from the Scriptures, teaches us about it. The past five or six hundred years have seen some basic changes from the Dark Ages of Apostasy.
Even though people look for the great falling away to occur sometime in the future, that event has already taken place. It began in the first few hundred years of Christianity when the New Testament Church went into a decline. But now the New Testament Church is on the rise.
Instead of talking about apostasy or about people who are deceived giving themselves over to Babylon, we need to look at the increasing number of people who are contending for the restoration of buried truths.
The fact is that we are all deceived, because first of all, all the translations of the Bible are off; you have to translate the Bible yourself from the original manuscripts.
Plus our understand of Biblical terms has come from other preachers that we have heard and our English understanding of words may not be what the writers of the bible understood those words to mean.
More has been restored in this generation than ever before, and it is continually accelerating. For five or six hundred years, every century has seen new truths restored; and today the Lord is doing a quick work in the earth.
In Jude 3 and 4, two trends are defined: the trend we create as we eagerly contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints, and the great tide of ungodliness that we battle and contend against.
In verses 8 through 19 we read about a specific group of men referred to as “these men.” They had already crept in unnoticed (verse 4). We are told who they were and what they did: “In the same manner these men defile, reject, revile, are hidden reefs. About these also Enoch prophesied. These are grumblers. These are the ones who cause divisions.”
Jude was speaking about his day, as well as predicting situations in the end-time. The falling away occurred within several generations after the death of Christ. We know that it had already started in the days of the apostle John, because he wrote in his first Epistle that many antichrists had already entered into the world. If you believe that there is only one antichrist who will appear at the end of this present age, you are mistaken.
“These men” had already crept in before John died. He said, in effect, “Many antichrists are already in the world. These people had to go out from us, for they were not of us. If they had been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us; but they went out from us that it might be manifested they all were not of us” (1 John 2:18–19).
This shows that the ministries had difficulty discerning these people, even in the early Church. They crept in unnoticed.
Anyone who drives a car is aware that there is a certain “blind spot.” It is an area that is not reflected in the rearview mirror.
Similarly, there are certain areas spiritually to which even the most perceptive person is blind. Because no one was able to discern “these men” properly, they crept in unnoticed.
They were the main reason that the faith, once delivered to the saints, was lost. Jude spoke of their condemnation. The judgment on them occurs simultaneously with the Church coming back to the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
The book of Jude is a prophecy of God dealing with a certain level of ungodly people who had crept into the Church unnoticed and brought it into a thousand years of the Dark Ages.
This is what the Bible calls “the falling away” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Some Christians say it is yet in the future.
Can you imagine a greater falling away than occurred during the Dark Ages? We have passed through the Dark Ages and the falling away, and now we are in the days of restoration.
The New Testament Church went down, but now it is coming back up. It may not yet be quite up to the New Testament level, but in many cases it is. (I think this is relative, depending on the church.)
We must believe that to whatever extent the church had gone down, to that same extent it will be restored and go up, beyond the point where it started.
We at this end of the age don’t realize that there was a thousand years of dark ages in which men could be torn asunder, ripped to pieces, or disemboweled for disagreeing with one of the edicts of Rome.
That thousand years of darkness did more to retard and make people into a mold and image than we can know. It is an historical fact that the literacy rate in the days of the Apostle Paul, with all the slaveries and the different levels of life among the people, different class distinctions, was greater than it was even at the end of the renaissance.
There were more who could read, write, and speak a number of languages than there were when Martin Luther began to speak “The just shall live by faith,” (by about double).
The dark ages came because the church left its first love, because the Ephesians church did not repent the lamp stand was removed, and the light went out. No one seems to understand how suddenly the world was plunged into such darkness when it was such a literate world.
Going back to the time of the Greek philosophers, scientists, and historians, the atomic theory was already being taught as one of the scientific theories, long before experimentation and inventions.
There is nothing of the truth we speak that is not offensive to people of the old order, this great falling away doctrine has been around now for hundreds of years. It is impossible for us to avoid giving them offense. The very fact that we believe for God to do something in the church at large today offends them.
We talk about the restoration, and they talk about the great falling away—which started taking place within the time of the apostles!
The last apostle to be alive wrote, “Antichrists have already entered into the world” (I John 2:18). The antichrists were coming on the scene before the last apostle was dead, and they went into a thousand years of decline and darkness. How much falling away can you get?
Have I fallen away from the old-time religion? God forbid! The old time religion didn’t believe one-tenth of what we believe, it didn’t have one-tenth of the experiences we’ve had in the Lord.
In the time of those old camp meetings, no one believed in divine healing or in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, etc. That has come to pass within the last hundred years.
Face it, we are in a restoration. More truths of the Scripture are alive to the Remnant today than have been for centuries.
We are in a time that God is restoring to the remnant of the Remnant. The rest are in darkness, and they believe very little because the Bible is a concealed revelation, there is so much in it that the Lord has not revealed to us yet, but the seals are coming off.
Every day, every month, every year, we look back and say, “How much God has added to the Word that He has given us! How much we have increased, and how we are abounding in what He has done even from the beginning in our lives!” I rejoice in what is happening now!
Though the tests in my life have been very great, I have never moved in greater revelation or ministry, or closeness to the Lord than I have this last year because there is a path and pull upward. This is the path God wants you to take.
There is also a path downward. The lower course leads into almost a gradual apostasy. “Apostasy” means falling away from what you have. It becomes a dead, traditional orthodoxy. You talk about “the good old days” and the things that you heard. You defend the teachings that you have received, but all the time the truths are a dying tradition to you.
Yesterday’s truth can be today’s immobilizing opiate, which can put you to sleep. The experience in God that was alive and real to you yesterday can immobilize you today.
Note the people who are looking back to doctrines and revivals and movements of the past; but usually there is very little alive in those doctrines today.
These people are defending something that is dead to them, but it was once alive to their forefathers. The lower course can lead to this.
Our struggle is always against conforming to this present church age. The truths we receive from the Lord can become a religion to us, or else they can become a greater revelation to us. We can take the upward course, or we can take the downward course.