Purpose: There are so many religions and faiths today. How did religion start to change so much? This simplified lesson on the Great Apostasy will help explain why there are so many churches and will help illustrate through a great activity how the apostasy happened.

Scripture: Matthew 24:4-14

Song: "This is My Beloved Son"

Lesson:

"There is no question that the authority from God to guide and preside over the Church of Jesus Christ resided in the Apostles of the Lord. Jesus reminded the Quorum of the Twelve of this fact on different occasions. For example, he said to Peter, one week before they stood together on the Mount of Transfiguration: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

One by one the Apostles chosen by Christ were killed, as he had predicted (see John 16:1–4). James, the brother of John, was the first member of the Quorum of the Twelve that we know of to be executed, sometime around a.d. 44 (see Acts 12:1–2). Others followed. James the Just, the brother of the Lord, may have been martyred in a.d. 62. And then during the Neronian persecutions of Christianity in Rome (a.d. 64–67), “the Church suffered the greatest loss it had yet sustained in the death of the apostles Peter and Paul.”Thus, as scholars point out, no tradition about the early Church is more firmly held than that “all the Apostles except John were martyrs.” The Apostolic Age came to an end, and the keys of the kingdom were gone.

The deaths of the Apostles meant the loss of what Paul had called “the foundation” (Eph. 2:20) of the Church. This loss allowed false brethren to drive the true Church “into the wilderness” (Rev. 12:6) until the promised restoration. Modern scholars have labeled the post-apostolic era an “obscure period.”Indeed it was, for the doctrinal integrity of the Church began to be compromised with self-appointed rulers stepping in to fill the void left by the Apostles’ passing. Formerly, bishops and other Church officers had been appointed and supervised by the Apostles, as indicated in the book of Acts and Paul’s letters (see, for example, Acts 6; 1 Tim. 2, 1 Tim. 3; Titus 1). But immediately after the Apostolic Age, things changed radically. Evidence indicates that by the end of the first century, the great apostasy was an accomplished fact. Paul’s prophecies had been fulfilled.

After centuries of silence and confusion about religion among mankind, God spoke his will again clearly and definitively in 1820. As a result, the true Church of Jesus Christ was reestablished on earth; the apostolic office and authority were restored to the Prophet Joseph Smith and to Oliver Cowdery by the early Apostles Peter, James, and John."

(from Andrew Skinner, "Apostasy, Restoration and Lessons of Faith", lds.org)

Discussion:

Why is it important to have one church that contains all the truths than a lot of churches only containing one or a few?

How does learning about the Apostasy help your understand of the gospel?

Activity: