Standing Firm Through the Great Apostasy

Book excerpt: From the outset, the implications of Standing Firm through the Great Apostasy are terrifying. In fact, the most alarming aspect of this book is its utter plausibility. As Steve Gallagher leads his reader through a systematic and piercing examination of Scripture, the Great Apostasy emerges, not as a future event of which to be forewarned, but as the very essence of today's postmodern Church. In this thorough, and sometimes disquieting, investigation of the biblical predictions about the Great Apostasy, readers quickly come to realize what the Bible clearly reveals: there will be a Church within the Church during the end-times. Today, like tares in the wheat field, false adherents are growing up alongside true believers. But how will we know them? What is the hallmark of the Apostate Church? What are the distinguishing qualities of its rank and file confessors? This is where Gallagher is at his best. By mining the treasure-laden writings of biblical scholars from past centuries and carefully examining the sacred Scriptures, he presents the reader with a classic portrait of the Apostate Church: a prevailing self-centeredness, widespread sensuality, and rebellion to authority. At first glance it seems unthinkable that such words could be attached to the lives of confessing Christians. But by the end it becomes all too clear that those who would cause "the way of the truth to be maligned" sit in our pews, sing in our choirs and stand in our pulpits.