1. The Falling away from Faith taught by the Lord in Matthew 24 and by Paul in 2 Thess. 2 cannot happen to any born again Christian within the church, we are told. Each individual within the church is a recipient of a promised eternal security. No man can pluck you out of My hand or out of the Father’s hand. Therefore the falling away would need to be either for the Jews during the time of Tribulation or for unsaved Gentiles both before and after the Rapture. The term in question here is Apostasy. There are actually two problem’s with this argument. First apostasy is interpreted to mean falling away. To apostatize is to remove ones self from the faith. It is the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief. In order to have abandoned something, one must have at one time held to it Apostasy is the opposite of loyalty. The only persons in a position to commit apostasy in scripture are believers, and in so doing they become unbelievers. Paul tells of these in Romans 11’s olive tree examples. I’ve written on the olive tree teaching before, so I will not repeat that teaching here.

We are basically warned in this example as believers to stand otherwise we too can be cut off. Jesus does not cut us off, man cuts himself off through unbelief. This happened to Adam when he believed the lie, which caused him to disbelieve what God had previously told him, and what he had previously believed. He became guilty of unbelief. We will deal with the “church age” later, and with the teaching that that “age” has changed things. But Paul is quite emphatic in his instruction to Timothy in 1 TIm 4, that our teaching and how those hearing it are effected by it. Our very teachings or doctrine does effect not only our own salvation, but also it can effect the salvation of those who hear us. Effecting the salvation of those who hear us is easily understood, after all they may not be saved yet, but Timothy was certainly saved when these words were penned to him.

1 Timothy 4:16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. (KJV)

Did Paul when writing this mean to cause Timothy to think that he was not yet saved? I don’t think so, do you? What he was doing was to stress the importance of what is believed by us. Remember Paul taught that we are to take on the mind of Christ. What we think is the compilation of our belief system. It will effect our belief in the end. Jesus had stated “he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Is He contradicting His own statement “no man can pluck you out of my hand”. This would only be a contradiction if you are not still (after your turning to Him for salvation) a free will agent. Think on these things.