A clear distinction must be made between apostasy, and' backsliding. Backsliding is a word which only occurs in the Old Testament, but, alas! we see many, backsliding, believers in the Christian profession to-day. Such are invariably dissatisfied and wretched in the secret of their own hearts. They deplore their folly and weakness, and cling tenaciously to the fact of their conversion.
The Apostle Peter was a grievous backslider when he denied his Lord thrice with oaths and cursing We love to read the story of his restoration, and how he was graciously recovered to his Lord and his service for the Lord.
But apostasy is a vastly different matter. For this there is no recovery. It is a fatal act. Apostasy is the total rejection of God, of Christ, of the Holy Scriptures, of Christian association and fellowship in every shape and form on the part of those, who profess to believe in the Christian faith. It is the deliberate stepping outside the circle of Christian profession into more than the darkness of rank heathendom. In the case of the heathen, there may be many who are groping after the light, but in the case of the apostate, it is the deliberate turning away from and refusal of the light once professed.
An Old Testament Scripture puts it very strikingly:- " The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us " (Psa. 2:2,32The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, 3Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. (Psalm 2:2‑3)).
The final apostasy of Christendom, as we shall see, will take a national form. Christendom with no reality whatsoever in it, will find it easy to throw off all pretension of a Christian nature, for the true Christians, the Church of God, will have been caught up to glory at the second coming of our Lord, leaving only a hollow sham of mere profession behind.
The reason for this is clearly stated. They will feel the restraints of vital Christianity irksome. So the " bands " of restraint, the standard set by the Word of God, will be broken asunder. The " cords " of decent moral conduct will be cast away. The gratification of evil, unrestrained, fallen nature in its worst and vilest excesses will sweep the face of so-called Christian lands like a prairie fire. Do we not see very sinister and alarming signs in this direction in this vaunted twentieth century?
Apostasy will take the form of the absolute rejection of God and of Christ, the Savior of mankind. For this there is no remedy, no recovery. Can we not see a foreshadowing of what we have been describing in Germany of late years? Who would have thought that Germany, the land of the glorious Reformation, the country of Martin Luther, would have disavowed Christianity as it has done under the misrule of Hitler? The Scriptures were flouted, in their place a neo-paganism substituted, hundreds of pastors flung into all the ghastly horrors of vile concentration camps for the only crime of refusing to bow the knee to this godless regime. The stark misery and shame of this staggered humanity. It is but a faint picture of what will take place on a vastly wider scale in the last days.