As believers, we love Jesus, we follow Him, we’re all in. We’re so thankful for the gospel—for being transformed and given new life. So we don’t understand how anybody who’s tasted that could ever walk away from it. How does apostasy happen? I’ve discovered about thirty different reasons the Bible has for why it happens. Here are a few.
Number one, persecution. People just do not want to pay the price to follow Jesus, especially publicly. Popularity and other people’s opinions are just way too important to them. “If I made a big deal about Jesus publicly, it could hurt my business or my status in the community.”
In Jesus’ parable about the sower and the seed, there are different hearts of people who heard the message. Jesus said that when persecution or tribulation arises because of the Word, some fall away. They stumble (see Matthew 13:20-21).
Another reason is mixed devotion. Some people come to church, but they’re fence-sitters. They think, “I’m attracted to the Jesus who forgives me for my sins and gives me joy and purpose, but there’s a lot of fun stuff to do in this world.” They’re earthbound. They’re after momentary comfort rather than Jesus and discipleship.
The Bible says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). In the sower parable, Jesus said, “The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
A third reason it can happen is because it’s just plain hard to follow Jesus for some—probably for all of us—at one point or another. Have you ever read something and thought, “I have to live that? That’s hard!” I certainly have.
When people heard Jesus’ sermon in John 6, it was a tough message to receive. They said, “This is [a] hard saying; who can hear it?” (John 6:60, KJV). And then we’re told, “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66). The demands were too difficult.
Another reason people apostatize is because they’re not paying attention. Sounds like something your teacher would say, right? But it’s possible to fall away because you’re not really grabbing hold of the truth. Hebrews 2:1 says, “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.”
Another reason it can happen is laziness. Some people just aren’t interested in coming to church. They distance themselves from it because they don’t want that accountability of having other believers around them.
But Hebrews 10:25 says, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
These are just a few reasons. The Bible lists many more, including Satan’s devices, an unbelieving heart, a hardened heart, rebellion, bitterness, immorality, disrespect of leadership, not mixing God’s promises with faith.
In fact, the majority of those exposed to the Gospel will turn away from it. Look at the math from the parable of the sower and the seed. Of all the people that heard the truth, only twenty-five percent bore any kind of fruit, and a very small percentage bore what Jesus called hundred-fold fruit (see Matthew 13:23).
It’s no wonder that Jesus said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction…. Narrow is the gate…which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). Not most, not a lot—few. No wonder Jesus will say to many, “I never knew you; depart from Me” (Matthew 7:23).
