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Catching a Counterfeiter
October 31, 2006
Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

How does one catch a counterfeiter? Ask anyone in a business that deals with lots of cash. The best way to tell a counterfeit bill is TO HANDLE THE REAL THING OFTEN.

So, how can the Devil get his counterfeits into the church? By doing anything he can to prevent us from frequently handling the real thing. And what is the real thing? Of course, the real thing in Christianity is God’s Word accompanied by regular prayer.

Here are some signs to watch out for dear shepherds and sheep. If you see these things popping up in your church, you are encountering the perfect setup for a damnable counterfeit (we can go to jail for passing counterfeit money, but we’ll go to Hell for accepting counterfeit Christianity). Let’s illustrate using the biblical word picture of the flock of sheep.

First, to be vulnerable to a counterfeit, all the age groups in flock must be divided. Keep the oldest, most experienced sheep (the ones who have seen the slinky wolf attacks, who know where the cliffs are, and which plants are poisonous) all by themselves. You can’t usually pass a counterfeit on the old sheep because they know to keep their eyes on the Shepherd and watch for His staff.

Then keep the parents of the young sheep by themselves as well. First, how could the Devil pass a counterfeit if the parents of the youngest sheep are being mentored by the oldest sheep? And second, the Devil sure doesn’t want those babies nursing from their moms who have just dined on the Bread of the green pasture and been strengthened by the Living Water of the stream to which the Shepherd led the flock. Or protected by their big, strong dads with the sharp horns. That would make the young grow strong, want to trust their parents, and learn to watch the Shepherd.

And finally, give the youngest sheep their own shepherd and make sure that shepherd is the one with the least amount of experience. The blind leading the blind so to speak. I believe the Bible says that they will “both fall in the ditch.” A brand new shepherd, if left to their own devices, is often distracted by the glitter along the journey. They’ll let the little sheep stand near a roaring waterfall and admire the tremendous power and noise. But, if the lambs try to take a drink near this much uncontrolled power, they’ll drown. Or the young shepherd may decide to see the marvelous view from near the edge of a cliff. He doesn’t realize that while he flirted with the edge, a bunch of his little lambs plunged right over the edge to their untimely deaths on the rocks below. Young shepherds, inexperienced as they are, forget that the little sheep need regular drinks of Living Water and they often don’t know how to get the sheep there anyway, unless they consistently communicate with a senior shepherd and especially the Great Shepherd Himself. The young shepherd doesn’t know where the wolves lurk nor which plants are poisonous and which are not. Thus, the young sheep are free to wander wherever their little sheep hearts take them and to take bites out of anything green whether it will kill them or not. And the younger shepherds are so young themselves, perhaps still smarting from a correction for their youthful foolishness, they don’t like to use their staff to bring wayward lambs back into line. So, if a little lamb plunges off a cliff every once in a while, it was their own fault for not knowing what a cliff was or that it was there.

Second, emphasis must be placed on getting new sheep in the flock. First, if the lambs outnumber the parents or oldest sheep, there won’t be enough older sheep to nurse the young ones to maturity or protect them from hidden dangers. Second, if we convert the flock from one where the older sheep are healthy and pass their health on to the lambs naturally (either by protective experience or nutritious nursing), to a flock that must depend on the under-shepherd to feed and protect every single sheep, then we have successfully opened the door to the Devil’s counterfeit! The little, foolish lambs will either encounter starvation from counterfeit food or a lack of nutrition, or death by wolves for those on the periphery of the very young and neglected flock.

Third, we must confuse the flock by eliminating their Universal Signal. Take the Rod and the Staff from in front of the flock. Let there be nothing to remind them of where their focus needs to be or of the consequences of not following the Shepherd. One good way to do this would be to constantly advertise the need for change. The Rod hurts you we could say and the Staff is old-fashioned. We could use a set of stop signs one week (hey, this might be the beginnings of a best selling book we think!). And the next week, we could change to railroad crossing signals. Perhaps best of all, we could have the sheep log on to the Internet for guidance on cliffs, poison plants and toxic pools of water! Without any older sheep around, to provide the warning call of experience, it would be a perfect setup to slip in the counterfeit shepherd—the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Dear church, doesn’t this seem all too familiar? We give our saints their own “traditional” service in A/G churches now. Then we have a more hip service for the baby-boomer generation. And then we have a rock and roll service with lights out, loudness on, and all little eyes centered on Jesus—sorry, not Jesus—the rock band (on whom we shine the only lights in the house) leading all the little, deaf sheep in “worship.” And that’s on Sunday. On “family” night each Wednesday, we separate the families once again. If we have a really fashionable church, the old people and youth have their own buildings. And even better yet, with our evangelistic focus, and not wanting to offend any new sheep that come to our “church,” we have removable crosses (if that) in front of our sanctuaries. We can project a cross when it’s convenient and take it down when it’s not convenient. No permanent display of the torture device on which the Lamb of God died for us! No sir! That would offend the community we’re trying to impress. Think of all the new lambs we’d lose if we put a Cross at the front of our pasture!

I defy anyone to tell me, after reading the New Testament carefully, that church was anything but a meeting place where Jesus Himself taught his disciples. Even after He died and rose again, the meetings of the church were always mentioned in the context of the Body of Christ communing and breaking bread with each other and being discipled. Evangelism, dear ones, took place outside of the church in the marketplace! See Jesus at the well with the Samaritan women, catching Zaccheus in a tree, answering Nicodemus’ question about salvation at night, telling the rich young ruler how to be saved, calling Peter the fisherman to be his disciple. These all took place while Jesus was living life in the world.

Dear Christians, you can’t give what you don’t have. You can’t teach what you don’t know. You can’t offer someone else wealth, when you are poor yourself. You can’t tell a counterfeit if you haven’t handled the REAL THING. What is the solution shepherds? Keep your flock together and let the little lambs be nurtured by and learn from the old sheep. And YOU keep your eyes on the Great Shepherd by reading every Word that proceeds from His mouth in the Bible and being refreshed by the Living Water through daily prayer with God through His Son Jesus Christ. And then preach that Word every chance you get on Sundays. And pray on Wednesdays with your sheep. Just pray. And don’t be offended by the Cross. It is God’s rod and staff to remind us of the penalty of sin and Who it was that paid it for us. We are sadly mistaken to think that we can win the lost without the Cross. Eternally mistaken!

What is the solution sheep? When your under-shepherd shows you the green pasture and the still, clear water, EAT and DRINK! You must be motivated by you shepherd’s direction on Sundays and Wednesdays to maintain your daily devotions. If you never read your Bible, how are you going to know whether your pastor is preaching from it or slipping you a counterfeit bill? If you never hear from God yourself in prayer, how will you recognize whether your preacher is hearing from God?

It is no mistake that Jesus constantly referred to us as sheep and little children. Both were totally dependent on others. We must be totally dependent on God. If we do not repent of our pride, our arrogance in this Information Age (I believe the media and Internet form the bricks with which the Anti-Christ is rebuilding the new, global Tower of Babel), then we are doomed to believe in a counterfeit. We will become part of the crowd that worships the beast in Revelation 13 and damn ourselves to eternal separation from God in Hell.

Do you know the Real Thing?

Brother Mike

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