{"id":413,"date":"2012-01-29T11:45:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T16:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/isittheendoftheworld\/?p=413"},"modified":"2012-01-29T11:45:35","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T16:45:35","slug":"the-growing-apostasy-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2012\/01\/the-growing-apostasy-of-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"The Growing Apostasy of the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error.<\/p>\n<p>They would be styled \u201cevangelical\u201d and yet be of the school which is really anti-evangelical. Look well to these gentlemen. I have heard that a fox, when close hunted by the dogs, will pretend to be one of them, and run with the pack.<\/p>\n<p>That is what certain are aiming at just now: the foxes would seem to be dogs. But in the case of the fox, his strong scent betrays him, and the dogs soon find him out; and even so, the scent of false doctrine is not easily concealed, and the game does not answer for long.<\/p>\n<p>There are extant ministers of whom we scarce can tell whether they are dogs or foxes; but all men shall know our quality as long as we live, and they shall be in no doubt as to what we believe and teach.<\/p>\n<p>We shall not hesitate to speak in the strongest Saxon words we can find, and in the plainest sentences we can put together, that which we hold as fundamental truth.<\/p>\n<p>                                  \u2014Charles Spurgeon<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/isittheendoftheworld\/files\/2012\/01\/charles-spurgeon-scan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/237\/2012\/01\/charles-spurgeon-scan-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-414\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. They would be styled \u201cevangelical\u201d and yet be of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Growing Apostasy of the Church - Is it the End of the World?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2012\/01\/the-growing-apostasy-of-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Growing Apostasy of the Church - Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. They would be styled \u201cevangelical\u201d and yet be of the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2012\/01\/the-growing-apostasy-of-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-29T16:45:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/isittheendoftheworld\/files\/2012\/01\/charles-spurgeon-scan-228x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Fletcher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Growing Apostasy of the Church - Is it the End of the World?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2012\/01\/the-growing-apostasy-of-the-church.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Growing Apostasy of the Church - Is it the End of the World?","og_description":"We have nowadays around us a class of men who preach Christ, and even preach the gospel; but then they preach a great deal else which is not true, and thus they destroy the good of all that they deliver, and lure men to error. 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