My previous article ‘Catastrophic-Christianity‘ dealt with the absence of bible teaching on ‘falling away’ in a paper by the prominent teacher in the former ICOC churches, Andy Fleming. In this second piece on the theme, I am reviewing some of the cases from scripture of catastrophic falling away in the history of the people of God.

A cursory reading of the Old Testament shows a clear historical pattern of catastrophic falling away of God’s people. A church following and informed by ‘All scripture’ (2 Tim 3:16-17) (a First Principle of the ICC) would therefore not be surprised to find themselves in catastrophic circumstances! Not only do we learn much, from the ancient people of God about the reasons for falling away but we also see very high profile members of the nation of Israel falling away for all of the top reasons. The reasons that most people fall away can be attributed either to money, sex or power and on occasions combinations of these three things. The following sin-list shows how Paul warned disciples to stay away from these three deeds of darkness.

Romans 13:13-14

So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

I have focussed on issues around Power in this two-part edition of my Remnant Rats articles. In one of the first documented cases of power based, catastrophic, falling away, it is very, very easy to see how the problem develops in Ex 32:1

Exodus 32:1

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us.”

Here we can see that a decision is made by the people. This is not dissimilar to a democratic style decision. What can I say about democracy? The Constitution of the United States of America claims to be an act of “We the People.” It is a very loaded term that has been bandied around in legal courts for centuries. To some extent, it embodies a democratic system of the US government that predated the US, again, by several centuries. In Exodus 32, the people, over a short period of time recognise that Moses, their great leader seems to be delayed in his return to govern them. They essentially choose a new system of government by bringing the proposal to Aaron, the eloquent man who was, as a more senior member of Moses’ leadership team, left in charge of them until the return of Moses from the mountain. For some reason, Aaron quickly succumbs to the temptation and follows the Egyptian worship model of golden statues. So here we see the people falling away en masse and bringing with them their interim leader and essentially the second level of the leadership structure of God’s people.

Exodus 32:1-6

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

For taking the mantle of leadership on themselves, and corrupting what weak leadership they had left, God describes the people as ‘corrupt’ and assigns to them the death penalty (Ex 32:9-10)! In spite of God’s grace in holding back their total annihilation, the Levites put three thousand to the sword (Ex 32:25-29) and God further punished them with a plague (Ex 32:35). Order and central government are restored. Democracy was not God’s leadership style! What can a christian say about democracy? It’s nice to be able to vote for a political party that you feel epitomises at least some of your core beliefs. We all know that when we choose a party of non-christians they will inevitably in some way let us down, either by not fulfilling promises or simply fulfilling some of the promises but then doing other terrible things in our name. It is a flawed system at best. When we look at Jesus and his attitude towards temporal power (John 6:15), we can learn a lot about what our attitude might be to politics and power.

There are many that I’ve spoken to in the former ICOC churches who use the statement ‘I’m not into politics’ to avoid talking about any of the leadership issues involved in the falling away of many thousands of people in 2003. My friends make it sound like a legitimate claim and a spiritual reason not to talk about biblical topics like church government. They are of course using a weak excuse to avoiding talking about one of the main reasons why so many members of our churches fell away in 2003 and indeed throughout the history of God’s movements on earth. In 2004 and 2005, all over the world in ICOC churches, there were democratically held elections to ‘vote in’, interim leaders and since that time the secular church board members have had a huge say in how the churches are run by the “spiritual leaders”. This is obvious from the fact that the leadership questionnaire sent out in 2017 to the leaders in the ICOC included many of the board members. Their opinions are as equally valued as those with leadership roles authorised in Scripture. This, of course, is going down the road of the Catholic church where it has put tradition on the same footing with Scripture. The former ICOC churches have put legal board members, necessary because of temporal powers in our worldly governments, in the same position as those supposedly spiritual leaders defined in the bible. Conversely, ICC board members, are not church leaders but simply upright disciples willing to stand for the church and represent it to the government. They fulfill a great role without the burden or authority of leadership. The former ICOC churches have adopted a completely new form of international leadership which has drastically reduced the number of people that they are able to get to the waters of baptism. It is an essential difference between the ICOC and the ICC. I was there in 2003 and I remember that feeling of ‘We the people’. ‘We the people’ got rid of our central leader. ‘We the people’ decided this, based on the needs that we perceived we had in the church family. ‘We the people’ succumbed to a new democratic church government system brought in by a very select few evangelists mostly from mainline church backgrounds, who designed the cooperation system still in place today 19 years later. The people, en masse refuse to see the fruit of this decision ‘by the people’ and ‘for the people’ that has led to the ineffectiveness ‘of the people’ today.

Most recent reports are that growth rate in the former ICOC from 2018 is around 2.5%. This represents approximately 2700 additions for the whole world in one year in the former ICOC churches. Conversely, the ICC which has restored a central leadership structure consistent with the ICOC in the 1990s has had approximately 1000 additions in the same period of time. The figures become more indicative when one realises that the former ICOC churches with approximately 108,000 members had nearly 2700 additions and the ICC with approximately 6000 members had 1000 additions. It doesn’t take a great mathematician to see the direction that this is going.

The real issue is whether ‘the people’ really care about this state of affairs. The number one question with this state of affairs should be ‘What does God think about all this?’ Let’s add it up!

1 Timothy 2:3-6

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.

We can see from this passage that not only does God want all men to be saved but that Jesus actually died so that all men could be saved. It is, therefore, God’s heart to save as many as possible. Indeed this is exactly what the Apostle Paul says.

1 Corinthians 9:19

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.

With the ICC growth rate of approximately 20% during the same one year time period detailed above, this presents a deficit in terms of the former ICOC churches of 18,900 precious souls. This comparison truly exposes the Holocaust that results in the decision ‘of the people’ to take the leadership mantle upon themselves: Whether it be a group of people approaching leaders to change their model of leadership or a group of leaders  (like the evangelists who put forward the cooperation proposal) approaching the people to change the leadership. The reason why God had the death penalty for this sin was that it automatically leads to many thousands of people going to hell! God simply cannot allow this kind of sin in His Kingdom. If we extrapolate the numbers backward we can see that the decision of tens of thousands of members of the former ICOC churches to follow a group of evangelists defining a new ineffective cooperative church government system (and to be persistently stubborn in doing so over the last 16 years), has led to as many as 300,000 individual precious souls not having the saving blood of Jesus wash away their sins. Certainly, the figures look like this moving forward over the next 16 years. This rough calculation does not account for cumulative growth. To be in line with God’s will, one only has to read the scriptures above and move to churches that have a system of government that is 10 times more effective in the mission and in saving thousands of individual precious souls.

The saving grace in the catastrophic events around the Golden Calf is that Moses, though he had a period of interruption returned to the people and assumed leadership again. Though Aaron was very scared (Ex 34:30-31) based on his own sin and the sin of the people, there was a grace applied to the situation some months later and like the Prodigal Son, he was given some very ornate garments to wear (Ex 39:1, 27) and his sin was atoned for and the death penalty was avoided for the people because of the intercession of Moses. A date was set for a restoration service (Ex 40:1-2) and both Aaron and the people were restored in a bloody and expensive re-dedication. (Ex 40:12-16, Leviticus 8:2, 6, 22-24). Aaron’s restoration and the restoration of the people shows that after catastrophic falling away there can also be a great period of restoration. It is expensive and it is bloody but it is a great victory.

In spite of the grace shown to Aaron and the people in this circumstance, some time later, the people openly rebel against the leadership. In this case, they are fearful of the people of Canaan. Instead of obeying the Word of God they focus on their fear of man and go along with a bad report given to them by the spies who had been into Canaan (Num 13:31-32). They quickly forget how ‘We The People’ took over the leadership and nearly received the death penalty for the Golden Calf incident. They press on with their rebellion even talking about physically harming their leadership. Again, we see catastrophic falling away in light of one of the greatest challenges to the movement since they had left Egypt, the conquest of Canaan. The people give in to irrational fear that their leader might be wrong, that God might be wrong. The go right back to the belief that ‘they should choose’ their leader.

Numbers 14:1-45

That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.” Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O Lord, are with these people and that you, O Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.’ “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.” The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’ I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die.” So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it— these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived. When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly. Early the next morning they went up toward the high hill country. “We have sinned,” they said. “We will go up to the place the Lord promised.” But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord’s command? This will not succeed! Do not go up, because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, for the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.” Nevertheless, in their presumption, they went up toward the high hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the Lord’s covenant moved from the camp. Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah.

God again describes all this dissension and usurping of power in leadership as ‘wicked’ and the whole community as wicked (Num 14:27). Again the death penalty sentence is applied and again Moses pleads in defense of the evil people of Israel! Knowing that they are in such a mess, the people even blame the spies themselves for ‘making them do this’ (Deut 1:28). The faithless dissenting spies are executed (Num 14:37). Nonetheless, the blame remains on them all. God ignores their cries. They are punished with a forty year wandering and death in the desert. Again the punishment is designed to symbolise the sin (Num 14:3). God needed the nation-state of Israel to begin and protect the inscripturation process for the salvation of the whole world and the people’s sin and disobedience set back this great work by 40 years. They falsely accused God of leading their wives and children to their deaths. They died because of not believing God and not remembering His miracles (Ex 14:11-22). Imagine if God were to hear the false accusations leveled against his commands to evangelise the world! Imagine reducing God’s commands to ‘make disciples’ (Mt 28:18-20), to ‘a good idea’ instead of a great commission. The 1984 NIV translation has headings over the main sections of each chapter. Imagine how God would punish a people who had the following disregard for his Word. If they rejected the plan to evangelise the nations, God would give them hearts of stone (Rom 9:18).

Here is one recent question asked of 1000s of those considered to be leaders in the Former ICOC churches.

Over 30% of ICOC leaders think 2.5% growth is “good enough”. 50% fully acknowledge they are not in obedience to God in this area but describe this state of affairs as ‘needing work’. According to the lessons from the initial conquest of Canaan, if they have rejected God’s leadership model, God could punish them with a leadership model crisis! That seems to be what is happening. Only 2-3% of ICOC leaders describe their evangelism as ‘ineffective’. Many of these are joining the ICC.

Note here that 50% of leaders feel new leaders is the biggest challenge. They are not capable of raising up the next generation of leaders because they are baptising their children and a small number of others who do not have the level of leadership that they themselves developed under centralised leadership in the movement between 1967 and 2003.

Deuteronomy 8:19-20

If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

Ruth 1:2,4-5, 7-8,14-18 The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.

With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me”.

At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ruth 4:13,22 The Genealogy of David So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

In this situation we see that the leader in the situation which was Naomi originally starts out with her two daughters-in-law under her leadership on the road back to Judah. There they could both have found husband’s (Ruth 4:13) and a great life within the plan of God. Naomi, however, makes the faithless yet well-intended suggestion that they turn back and let her go on alone. Orpah immediately sees the worldly wisdom in Naomi’s suggestion and showing her great love for her mother-in-law she weeps and then says goodbye. We do not know what evil that may have lay in wait among her pagan family when she returned or what abuse she might have suffered for following this well-intended advice. Ruth on the other hand clings to her mother-in-law making the famous statement ‘your God will be my God’. She refuses to leave. She exercises her right to choose to stay with this old woman who she has very likely known for a decade. She remains faithful to the relationship and the obligation to care for her mother in law and takes a great risk going to be with the people of Israel that she does not actually know. She can only judge them by the character of Naomi. And Naomi gives in to this because she herself knows that this is a righteous response. Sadly though, the focus of this point is Orpah. Orpah missed her chance. She could have decided to cross over the border with her sister in law but she chose to take what she saw was the wise and easy way out. She reasoned that she would still be with her family of origin. Sadly though she was lost forever. She could not hide behind the sin of the people. She saw her sister in law decide to stay. She chose to follow the wrong leadership. She followed the words of the leader rather than the God of the leader. Because Ruth chose the God of her leader she gave birth to the ancestor (Ruth 4:32) of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What a mind-blowing result! What a profound reminder of the importance of the decision regarding where we will go to worship.

It is a somewhat bizarre phenomenon when those who fall away from the ICC (sometimes even from among its ministry staff and for some of the reasons listed above), end up very quickly attending the ICOC. Of course, it is only a matter of time before some in their new congregations will see their character issues and they themselves see the great divide in the former ICOC churches. Some former ICOC churches are having small victories with bringing salvation to the lost world. It is even possible for those falling away from the ICC to have small short term victories with great effort in the weeks and months following their leaving but it is clear as day, they add no real benefit to the former ICOC churches in terms of their floundering leadership strategies. The saving baptisms are still abominably in deficit.

The former ICOC churches take comfort that they are baptising their young people. But they are baptising them into lukewarmness and ineffectiveness.

Luke 23:28

Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.

If only for the sake of their baptised children, joining the ICC makes sense. Their baptised children, if they place membership with the ICC will be fully engaged in the mission and remaining saved. Clinging to the hope that a failed reformed Church government will keep their kids faithful, is a very risky business. Orpah chose the easy path and was never heard of again. Her children (if she had any, and they lived) were not in the plan of God. Ruth emigrated and her children had a central role. It is futile to go out from under God’s leadership. God’s leadership are blessed with the good fruit that means their roots can be clearly known to be in Christ. In both the New and Old Testament we see the ‘politics’ of power in God’s kingdom. We can understand the outcomes to be relevant to us today. Grappling with church politics is easy. Look at the Cooperation system. Look at the fruit. Read the Bible. Look at the ICC, Look at the fruit. Join the ICC. Following the bad advice of our leaders or those they delegate to act on God’s behalf, will never be accepted by God as an excuse for rebellion against God.

In my next article, I will look more at Power and falling away.