How Apostasy Starts
Many people observe the leaves and twigs of a tree and recognize instantly that "this is a tree." But few of them ever wonder what this "tree" might have looked like when it was but a seed or a root. So is it in viewing apostasies. People can see the full growth of a system of error and instantly recognize that "this is an apostasy". But how few are they who have the ability to see the seed or root from which this system has grown!
All disobedience and perversion of truth comes basically from a lack of faith coupled with carnality. In the church at Corinth the carnally minded turned the spiritual feast of the Lord's supper into a fleshly revel. It is sad but true that our brethren who are so intent on building "recreation fellowship halls" are coming dangerously close to the Corinthian apostasy. At the present rate of departure, one shudders to think what the picture will be fifty, or even twenty-five, years from now. This is a path so pleasant and satisfying to the carnally minded that they never turn back. Take a careful look at the U.C.M.S., the full grown tree of the Christian Church movement. See how far they have travelled in seventy years. There has been the development from a church adhering very closely to the New Testament pattern into a fully developed ecclesiasticism, with a constitution and by-laws written by seven attorneys. And not one single passage from God's word in the entire 132 pages of their constitution! The U.C.M.S. is governed by a board of 120 people, of whom sixty must be women. They can change their constitution and by-laws at any meeting by a simple majority vote. The leaders of this denomination do not believe that Christ is as divine as God; they admit into their full fellowship people who have been sprinkled instead of being baptized.
Leaders of the Christian Church are frank in admitting that they have no scripture on which to base their ecclesiasticism. They say, "We believe that democracy is the best form of government for both church and state. It only remains for us to enter more fully into democracy." Will not our brethren who are not yet too fully committed to the movement toward complete apostasy take warning before it is too late? Can they not realize what is latent in the seed or root of the departures they are now promoting? Will it take the full-grown tree in all its hideous evil to open their eyes — when it is too late?