My 4-year-old daughter got a set of play money for her birthday or something. A few pieces of it have been laying around the house and she has – on a few occasions given me some of it to buy this or that. While she is too immature to realize that the paper she has isn’t real, it is really a bad fake. It is not trying to deceive anyone; it says very clearly that it is a prop and a copy – not legal tender. Most of the time – however – fake money is trying to fool someone. Someone trying to get another to believe that what they have is real.
While sometimes counterfeits may seem practically harmless, they can do irreparable harm. A man by the name of Samuel Upham was an infamous manufacturer of counterfeit confederate paper notes. He is said to have made over a million counterfeit notes in the early 1860’s. “The Union officials did not want his operation to continue and to put a stop to it they accused Upham of counterfeiting Union notes as well, an accusation which he hotly denied. If it were not for intervention by the then Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to get the case against Upham dismissed, he may have met the gallows. Evidently, Stanton had recognized the value of Upham’s operation in the war effort – he was single handedly destabilizing the Confederate economy. Upham wrote that Senator Foote in an address to the Confederate Congress said that Upham had ‘done more to injure the Confederate cause than General McClellan and his army…'”*
It is not just paper money that can be faked. There are all kinds of Counterfeits out in the world today. I own a counterfeit coin that presents itself as a 1799 draped bust dollar with a small eagle reverse. I’ve heard of people having counterfeit ID’s to travel. There are counterfeit brands – I once bought a fake coach purse online. A counterfeit is something that is fake. It proports itself to be the real deal, but it pales in comparison. People can be counterfeits. Pretending to be something that they are not. A Chiropractor is a counterfeit Doctor – just a joke. But one of the most dangerous fakes that exist is the counterfeit Christian.
A counterfeit Christian is one who – from the outside – looks the part of a real person of God. They are pious – a word you don’t hear too often today to mean they act morally. They often dress the part. Suit and tie-on Sunday, or perhaps a long dress – even on Wednesday night. They may act the part, bringing a prayer requests when needed. Praising things that are good and quick to shun things that not wholesome. They may even be a good public speaker, reading the word of God, praying, bringing thought provoking ideas up in groups when appropriate. They can fill any void in a church, from the pulpit to the back row – maybe even the backslider that won’t darken the doors of a church filled with “hypocrites.” They say they know God, and they look pretty good at first glance, but how do they look behind closed doors? Is there piety a front to gain the confidence of man? Maybe their act is so good that even they are not sure if it is real. If they were asked, they would be quick to say that they are a believer, but maybe deep down they know they are a makebeliever.
How could this be the most dangerous type of counterfeit? They are doing good, maybe for the wrong cause but good is done, right? Oh, how wrong this idea is. One reason that this is the most dangerous type of fake is because of what is at stake. If one forges a 100-dollar bill, all that is lost is paper. But if one forges his ticket to heaven, his eternal soul will be lost to Hell – not because of the deception directly, but because we all are condemned to Hell apart from Christ. This is a grave matter.
Well, one might say, yes he affects his own soul by counterfeiting his religion, but that does not affect anyone else. Wrong again. What if an airline ticket agent forged tickets to board a plane and passed them off as legitimate. Every person that had a fake ticket would not be allowed to board. So, it is with a man who has a fake gospel. He peddles it off to any who will buy it. He may discount it to make it seem more attractive. He may lie and say it is a first-class ticket to persuade those seeking comfort. In the end, when they find out that the ticket they have is not worth the paper it is printed on, who will pay the eternal cost? Yes, a counterfeit Christian is a danger to many more than himself.
Christ starts out telling his own disciples to make sure they are on the right path. He tells them that there is a way to life eternal, but it is not way most people follow.
Matthew 7:13-14 KJV
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
There is only one genuine path to God, through Jesus Christ, but there are many counterfeit paths that promise to deliver life, but only end in death. Unfortunately, there are many “Christians” in the world today who are on a counterfeit path to life. They believe that by baptism, or by good works, or by keeping the Old Testament Law, or by taken the so called “Holy Communion” they are going to get a first call ride to heaven. They have been told that it doesn’t matter which path you go down, it will all lead to life if you are sincerely following it. They are sure that so many others couldn’t be wrong too. They have been fooled by a cheap forgery of a magnificent gospel that not only sets a person apart for Heaven but changes them from the inside out so that one day they will be fit to go there. One day, every man’s faith will be examined by the one who knows how to tell a fake from the real thing. He already knows who is a counterfeit and who is genuine. One day Christ will separate the wheat from the tares and it will be too late to change.
What a fearful day it will be to all the make believers when they stand before God with the wrong faith. They are sincere, they are doing all these wonderful works in God’s name, but they will be told by Christ to depart into damnation.
Matthew 7:21-23 KJV
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
One day, you will stand before God and he knows if you are his child; He knows if you have repented of your sins and turned to him for salvation. He is the Lord that tries the hearts, you cannot slip a counterfeit by him. If you are faking it, you will not make it. You can do everything “right” but if you have not called upon the name of the Lord alone for salvation you will turned away to depart into everlasting torment apart from Christ.
I believe that most of the “churches” today in America are filled with counterfeit Christians. Most of them probably don’t know it. They thing that they are on the sure foundation. They trust was the teachers tell them about the Bible. But one day they find out it is fake. Don’t be turned away by Christ because you would not examine your own life to see if your faith was based on what the Bible actually says. You don’t have to be another counterfeit, Christ can make you a genuine child of God.
John 1:12
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”
God can be your father, he has already paid the price for your sins on the cross, and will adopt you into his family and give you his spirit if you only cry out in faith and believe on his name. That is a confession that you are not a child of God, but of sin, but that you want to believe he has paved the way for you to to inherit eternal life by his shed blood on the cross and not by any deed that you have done. You deserve Hell, but he offers you mercy and grace to life with him in Heaven.
*Quote Taken from https:WWW.pmgnotes.com/news/article/4181/- accessed 05-15-2026.
S.T.
Acts 20:24
"But none of these things move me..."
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