COUNTERFEIT– a copy (imitation/close resemblance) made to resemble something genuine for the purpose of deception.  The closer the counterfeit (fake) is to the real determines how effective the ruse will be.  The faker’s success depends on the fakees’ knowledge of the real.  Money is a prime example.  According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there is a constant flow of fake money entering the nation’s economic system.  For this reason a special division of the organization is dedicated to the investigation of counterfeit money, its source, its proliferation, etc.  An interesting fact is that those tasked with spotting counterfeit bills do not study counterfeit bills–THEY STUDY ONLY THE REAL ITEM.  This way, when they see a counterfeit bill they immediately recognize it for what it is.

This system also works in the spiritual realm.  It is extremely rare that I listen to preachers.  I listen to them only when the Lord prompts me to do so.  When that happens I invariably hear some “Bible truth” that Satan has placed in the speaker’s mind.  In such situations I have no intention of hearing anything any preacher has to say.  Such episodes seem to “just happen”–I “just happen” to be in the right place at the right time.  At other times the Lord will tell me to turn on the t.v.  I watch very little television normally.  But at times He directs me to turn it on and “run the dial” until He tells me to stop.  Invariably, some false prophet is mouthing a Satanic lie.  In other instances I will “just happen” to see a written article and be prompted to read it.  When such “happenstances” take place God wants me to see or hear yet another “Bible truth” Satan has prompted the speaker or writer into saying or writing.  “Knowing” that they have heard from God, they in turn unknowingly deceive others.  The truth is that the deceived do not know they are deceived.  This includes both the deceived and the deceivers.   Those trapped in Satan’s version of Christianity have allowed themselves to be sucked into a self-induced spiritual stupor.  “Knowing” what they have been told to “know,” and unwilling to study the Scriptures to “prove all things” (1 Thes. 5:21) relative to their beliefs, Satan’s “truths” are passed down from generation to generation.

The reason Satan’s counterfeit church system works can be stated with one word: IGNORANCE.  IGNORANCE simply means lack of knowledge.  In the secular world being ignorant is mankind’s natural state relative to most things.  For every one thing we humans understand there are millions of things about which we are ignorant.  This has very little effect on our lives.  For example, does the average person understand how gravity is created and how it actually works? or how people in Australia and the ocean that surrounds them stick to the earth and not fall off into heaven?  How do people living “down under” not “fall” into the sky?  We know they are upside down while believing that they are rightside up.  How is this possible?  We do not know.  Which does not create a problem.  The fact that we live our lives in ignorance of most things is accepted as “just the way it is.”  It is not important to know the why’s and how’s relative to most things in our lives.  Massive ignorance is simply a fact of life.  Being ignorant as to what causes our heart to beat is not a problem for us.  It does–that’s all we need to know.

However, in the spiritual realm, such gross ignorance has deadly consequences.  Spiritual ignorance enables Satan to operate with impunity.  His monumental success in deceiving the entire world (Rev. 12:9) is caused by ignorance of the Word of God.  By keeping his (Satan’s) ministers and their followers in gross Scriptural ignorance he is able to pass his counterfeit god (himself), counterfeit christ, counterfeit church, counterfeit conversion and counterfeit salvation off as real.  Not only has he passed his lies off as God’s Truths, he has convinced his parishioners to reject His Truth even when it is shown to them in their Book of Truth.  How can this be?

The “Great Deception” begins with ignorance of sin.  If asked for God’s definition of sin, ten church people will come up with at least five different answers, not one of which will be Biblical.  This is phenomenal in that God defines sin in a way that a child can understand it: “To transgress the Law is sin, for sin is the transgression of the Law” (1 Jn. 3:4).  The problem is that, as with almost everything else involved in Christianity, there are two versions: God’s Biblical version and Satan’s church version.  The key is to know the difference, which requires knowledge of the real, which the church does not possess and which she rejects when exposed to it.

Therein lies the problem.  The false exists, actually rules, because the vast majority of people within professing Christendom “know” that the false is actually true, and that the true is actually false.  God spoke to this phenomenon in Isaiah 5:20 where He said that religious man “knows” that good is actually evil, darkness is actually light, wrong is actually right, etc.  He places a “woe” on such people.   The irony is that they do not realize that they are living under His curse.  A recent occurance will serve as an example.

As noted, I sometimes just “happen” to hear, see or read something of a spiritual nature that I had not planned to hear, see or read.  This happened last evening when, in order to spend some time with my daughter who was visiting from Dallas, I went to the living room to join her and her mother before she returned home.  I found them watching a movie about a famous singer.  The time setting was the 1940’s.  The location was a deep south farming community.  I “just happened” to join them at the point in which God was the center of a conversation about the death of a child.  Why, the characters wanted to know, did God punish them when they were so religious?  They “knew” Him and His Son, prayed to Them daily, went to Their house every Sunday, read Their Book daily, celebrated Christmas and Easter every year, told other people about them, were faithful to their church, etc.  They “knew” that they were God’s children.  They “knew” that they were living in obedience to Him.  So why did they have to suffer such things as sickness, crop failure, social problems, etc.  Did not God promise in His Word that He would take care of those who believed in Him?  So why did He treat them the same way He treated the local prostitute, the local drunk, the cheating store owner?  The patriarch of the family–a preacher–had the answer.  It was the same answer heard repeated every day around the world.  The answer was written in the Book they read from every night.  Ironically, the root cause of the curses that continually beset them was their ignorance of that well-worn Book.  Because of their ignorance they failed to know, believe and obey what He had written.  The knew and believed only His “headlines” and what their ministers said about them, which was what Satan told them.

These people and their leaders did not understand that there were two versions of “the good Book”–God’s version and Satan’s version.  Satan allows his parishioners to know God’s “headlines,” but he hides from them God’s “fine print.”  Like the rest of professing Christendom, these poor people had embraced Satan’s version of the Truth while “knowing” that they were walking hand-in-hand with the Biblical God.  The Great Deceiver had seduced them just as he has seduced billions of other salvation seekers over the years.  His primary weapon against God seekers is IGNORANCE OF HIS WORD WHICH ENABLES HIS ENEMY TO SEDUCE THE MASSES INTO EMBRACING HIM.  IN SO DOING THEY PROVE THAT THEY DESPISE THE LORD GOD AND HIS SON (Lk. 10:16).  L.J.