The departure, the great falling away, first, of those who one time appeared, or stated, professed to be Christ followers, true believers, to my knowledge, as limited as it is, equates to the seed of the sower:

 “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23

Wherein, much of the seed sown falls upon individuals of the wayside, stony places, and thorns where there is no rooted in, grown up, maturing, taking hold, producing good fruit —they are not founded upon the Rock and do not demonstrate, give any witness of being born from above, born again, changed of heart, mind, and spirit from within.

Oh, they may go to church every Sunday. Perform a lot of works. Be there. They may even be a pastor, a pastor of your church even not believing the whole Word of God and not being born again.

Many give a good outward show.

But narrow is the gate where few will enter.

Most are on the big, wide roadway. Paved by the world. With rest stops and entertainment, distractions and attractions along the way to deceive, pull away, pollute, and so on.

Also, writing of departure…

Many will probably be in this line:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

Matthew 7:21-23

Because…it’s exactly like this:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Matthew 7:13-20

Yes, it’s fact — no truly born again individual can be cast out of the flock, banished from the fold according to Jesus, according to the Word of God.

But there is a vast difference in a truly born again individual and one by the wayside, among the rocky soil, within the thorns, and of the example given to us by the LORD Jesus Christ, only 1/4th of the sowers seed falls on good ground, takes root, grows, flourishes, and produces fruit.

We are living in the times of the great falling away, the departure. Keen, even modest observation and reason, rational thought, critical thinking, and awareness reveal this. We do not need to hedge. Hem or haw. It’s happening. Now.

Just pay attention to what is, has been taking place in so many churches, in so many places, among so many pastors and professed Christians, so many denominations. It is the time of itching ears turned to fables, the rise of the false teacher, the time of wolves in sheep’s clothing, the time of lukewarm, of Jude 1:4, and more…

“For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is the time of Romans 1.

Of lawlessness. Of Isaiah 5:20.

Clearly. Just look. Just listen. Just inhale.

Be among the seed that is established in good ground, sound doctrine, deeply rooted in the Word. Growing faithfully, maturing, producing good fruit, always looking up to the Light, the Way, of Truth leading to Life — the LORD Jesus Christ, Yeshua Hamashiach.

Read on…

Ken Pullen, Wednesday, April 16th, 2025

The Departure

April 14, 2025

By Terry James

Reprinted from Terry James Prophecy Line: Current Issues and Events Through the Lens of Bible Prophecy

The Scripture is haunting. It echoes and reverberates throughout the spiritual hallways of the Church with each passing hour:

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils. (1 Timothy 4:1)

This forewarning fits into the last-days pattern also given by the Apostle Paul in the familiar prophetic passage:

 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of Perdition. (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

The “falling away,” apostasia in Greek, means a “departure from.” Paul prophesied in the 2 Timothy 4:1 passage that there will come a time at the end of the Church Age when people will depart from the “faith.” He says in 2 Thessalonians that this will be a general “falling away,” the apostasy of the end time. What is this “faith” from which people will fall away, and who are the “people” who will fall away? Another crucial question is: Can the departure that God, through Paul, warned about be recognized when it occurs?

“Faith,” as here defined, must, by context, be the faith in the One who is at the heart of the gospel—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, chosen from the foundation of the world to be the propitiation for the sin that separates fallen humanity from God. It is the faith you and I must have in order to confess with our mouths that Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God, and to believe in the deepest part of our spirits that God raised Him from the dead.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)

A person can’t fall from a position (doctrinally speaking, in this case) he never has attained. The “people,” then, whom Paul the apostle is writing about in his prophecies of 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 are those who have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation of their souls.

This brings us to the question: Can the departure God, through Paul, warned about be recognized when it occurs? To recognize that “falling away”—that apostasia, or apostasy—when it begins to happen, will almost certainly give the Christian attuned to God’s will a heads-up on the nearness of the Tribulation era, thus to the nearness of the Rapture of the Church.

We’ve looked at the “faith” as faith in Jesus for salvation, and at the “people” who will “depart” from the faith as being the Church—that is, the true Christians who are alive at the time of the end, when the apostasy takes place.

Although there are those who think this departure includes the possibility of one losing one’s salvation, the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 cannot include that meaning. A quick look at Romans 8:38 and 39, to name just one security-of-the-believer passage, shows that God’s Word teaches that the believer can’t depart from the Heavenly Father to the point of losing his or her family status. Jesus, in John chapter 17, makes that absolutely clear. I suggest that if you have questions about this, read the Scriptures I just mentioned.

What, then, is meant by “departing from the faith”? Glad you asked. The “faith” mentioned in 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy 2:3 is a collection of faith principles wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. These principles are doctrines put forth by the Word of God. The Word of God is none other than the Lord Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

“People” at the time of the “falling away” will “depart” from the “faith”–the doctrines put forth by the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ. This departure will mark the generation of Christians at the very end of the Church Age.

The question that applies most relevantly to us today is: Are we seeing signals of the departure?

We have analyzed, dissected, examined, and inspected every end-time signal found in God’s Word many times in these commentaries: Israel again being in the land of promise; the EU looking to be the reviving Roman Empire; Russia, Persia (modern Iran), and other nations looking to be a nucleus that will one day form the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. These, plus, all the other end-time characteristics of this generation.

However, I believe the most insidious of all the things taking place under the clever, devious hand of the devil—Satan—is the falling away, the departure from the faith being currently orchestrated by Lucifer, the fallen one.

This departure is evident to the spiritually discerning when looking at the church-growth movement. This “seeker-friendly” approach to both the saved and the lost (all who don’t know Christ) through New Age, corporation-type seminar seductiveness and brainwashing techniques that water down or completely eliminate true Bible doctrine has led in a profound departure from the “faith once delivered” (see Jude 1: 3).

The new paradigm instituted by the champions of the church-growth movement has been the shift from New Testament Christianity to “new spirituality-driven Christianity.” Like in the modern corporate organization, invented in large part by German economic guru Peter Drucker, who mentored some of the leading designers of the church-growth movement, the system is more an organism than an organization—adopting Drucker’s model based upon Freudian psychology and Darwinian evolutionary principles. The individual is assigned a value, and he or she must fit in or be removed from the system. To put it as I long ago heard one person of the movement say: “Pillars just hold things up. So, they need to be moved out of the way.” So, those who hold to doctrine must get out of the way so no one will have their feelings hurt by talk of sin, blood atonement, and eternal punishment in the place called Hell, if repentance is not forthcoming. Again, the Apostle Paul wrote God’s view of this watering-down of doctrine:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8)

Are we at the point of departure from the faith prophesied for the very end of the Church Age? Maybe we can get a better sense by looking at one more area of Scripture pertaining to the matter:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:1–4)

 There is another prophetically scheduled departure to consider. It’s the one we should be looking forward to. It is a God-ordained departure that will remove every child of God of the Church Age–living and dead—from the earth in one millisecond:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13)

 Based upon the spiritual departure from the true faith we are seeing, the physical (spacial) departure of the Church from planet earth in the Rapture must be near indeed!