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Over twenty years ago I acquired a book titled, "The Great Falling Away, Today" by Milton Green. I was also fortunate enough to attend a seminar he gave at Temple Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. The first evening, before he even started the teaching, he made a strange announcement. He said that each of the three remaining evenings would have less than half the attendance of the previous evening, and he was right. He also said that though there were nearly 1,000 people there that first evening, by the fourth evening there wouldn't even be 100 in attendance, he was right again. Then he told us the reason why is that too many people, even those in the churches, despise the truth and will not tolerate it; do I really need to say that he was right again?

The Bible speaks of a great falling away, or apostasy, before the return of Jesus. Many believe this event is evident in their churches today, but fluctuation in church attendance is relatively normal. In times of strife attendance goes up, and in times of calm attendance goes down. This is ordinary and expected, but lately church attendance has dwindled below expectations and there have been churches that have closed their doors and joined with other congregations {reverse splits?}. This is perhaps the reason that the issue of the great falling away is being raised today.

There are two groups of people who stop attending churches; the disillusioned and the Disillusioned. Both groups have determined that they are only getting religious mumbo-jumbo with little or no truth and virtually nothing of value either in life or in learning about the Kingdom of God. Both have tired of the manipulation through fear, the candy coated placebo of cheap grace and salvation, and the paradox of "You can't understand mystery; the Bible is mystery; read your Bible." Neither group wants to check their brain at the door as they enter the auditorium {what used to be the Sanctuary}, nor do they especially like footing the bill for hypocrisy {sending food and missionaries to far away lands when folks just down the street are hungry, struggling, and being turned away at the door of the church}.

The first group equates religion and God, so their disillusionment with religion extends to disillusionment with God, and they conclude that they are better off without both. If they've been in a "Once Saved, Always Saved" church, they rationalize that if they were truly saved, great; and if they weren't then there really isn't a God anyway.

The

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