If you live in a time of apostasy, you may be tempted to think that the primary battlefield is doctrinal. But is that really the case? 

When we look at the passages that deal with apostasy and last-days living, we see that things are more complex. Apostasy doesn’t come about as a result of intense and learned debates that produce a change in one’s thinking. It comes from what we give heed to, and how we hear. Paul tells Timothy, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons…”

Is apostasy then a matter of beliefs only, or of what we give heed to?

Paul also connects it to “speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” Notice: he mentions all these things before he comes to mentioning any particular items of false teaching. (See 2 Tim 4). So, have we been focused on the facts of apostasy, what constitutes it, or have we focused on what drives it, and what are the dynamics of falling away?

Apostasy is not a matter of the mind—whether one can sign off on a statement—but of the heart. Missing this has been a colossal pastoral failure in the Western church. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul says that people will be deceived and then deluded “because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

In our day, truth is plastic, even elastic, and molded like Play-Doh to serve one’s desired narrative.

The fear of the Lord, which is to hate all evil, includes valuing the truth — because God is true and all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. We are constantly told by Jesus and His apostles to “take heed.” Those passages, always so vital, are today more critical than ever. To guard our hearts against the inroads of easy grace (sin without consequence) and the world’s powerful and incessant drumbeat, we need to listen to Solomon:

Buy the truth and do not sell it! - Nick Uva