"My understanding of the falling away is the removal of the true God from both church and state, in writing and mention."
The apostasy is the replacement of the doctrines taught by Christ with another Gospel, which is false, while pretending to continue to follow the doctrines of Christ.
In Matthew 24 deceive is used in verses 4, 5, 11 and 24. You could call the apostasy also the age of deception. The false prophets, who deceive, are defined in Matthew 24: 5, "For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." That is, many will claim they follow the Jesus Christ of scripture, but in their doctrines they will deceive many.
"And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Matthew 24: 11-12
Scripture defines the spirit of anti-Christ as being different from the false prophet. "Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."
Here is an important method by which the apostasy is brought about: "God cannot speak into the pre-flood, Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, dialectic mind, even though it might quote scripture." From: Dean Gotcher
https://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/brai...ic-gotcher.htm
"The dialectic is man thinking through his feelings. This is the reason God flooded the world and will judge the world again. "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." (Luke 17:26) " So says Gotcher.
Revelation 13: 11 says the second beast has two horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."
A lamb has two horns? How does the dragon speak? In Genesis 3 the "serpent" "was more subtle than any beast in the field," and he used the dialectic on Eve, saying in effect lets talk about you eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "Lets have a dialog." "And come to a consensus."
Satan used Dragon Speak on Eve in Genesis 3: 1-6 to fix her obedience to God: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."
In John 8 the Pharisees used the dialectic - or Dragon Speak - to argue in opposition to the absolute Truth. Here the Absolute Truth was Christ standing before them. But their arguments did not change Christ's position. He said in John 8: 44 that the Pharisees were "... of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth."
The dialectic depends on establishing a dialogue and argues in direct opposition to a position,which for Hegel is called the thesis. The opposition to the thesis is the anti-thesis. The thesis is the doctrines of Christ and the anti-thesis is the false doctrines meant to overthrow and replace the doctrines of Christ, one at a time perhaps.
There is a text in the New Testament which, in the Greek, mentions the anti-thesis, which is part of the early Greek philosophy of the dialectic. This is I Timothy 6: 20-21.
The key part in Greek says "και αντιθεσεις της ψευδωνυμου γνωσεως,or "and anti-thesis of falsely called knowledge."
αντιθεσεις, or anti-thesis, is a technical term in the early Greek philosophy of the διαλεκτική, or dialectic, before the time of Christ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
"Dialectic (also dialectics and the dialectical method), from Ancient Greek διαλεκτική, is a method of argument.....The word dialectic originated in ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues."
"In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses)."
"Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method."
The dialectic is a form of deception and the Marxist version of the Hegelian dialectic has been developed into a belief and attitude change procedure, which also infiltrated the major institutions,including the churches, in the 20th century.
In Marxism the dialectic is used to overthrow absolute Truth and absolute Morality.
Versions of the dialectic have been used by he false prophets to weaken and eventually overthrow what in II Timothy 4: 3 is called sound doctrine.
The dialectic operates within dialogue and becomes a kind of game of arguments and counter-arguments within a quarrel which goes on a while. In being lured into this dialectic game the person who begins by defending the thesis - the doctrines of Christ - can be led to lose some or much of his love of the truth and faith. In this way sound doctrine can be replaced by false doctrine.