Some time ago I watched a t.v. documentary concerning a young North Korean man who had been born in one of the government’s many gulags–prisons where thousands of innocent Koreans are kept in animal-like conditions. I will call the man Fo. Many who had gone before him had been born, lived and died having never been allowed to experienced life outside the electrified fences. Over the years those who had been transferred from other gulags had told the same story, never having experienced life outside the wire.

For that reason Fo, as well as his family and friends, had no reason to believe that there existed any other kind of life. Having been born and having lived his entire life in the gulag, he believed that everyone on earth lived exactly as did he and those he knew and had ever known. Their lives consisted of want, need, fear, heat, cold, pain and hunger–nothing else. He admitted that he did not think about any other kind of life, believing that such did not exist.

One day a new prisoner arrived in his gulag. I will call him Lu. Fo became acquainted with the stranger expecting to hear the same story about the same type of life. To his amazement Lu began telling about a world outside the gulags, a world free from all the things Fo had taken for granted. Lu told of a world free from captivity, guards, dogs, pain, hunger and fear. At first, Fo did not believe him–his story was too fantastic to be believed. But after a while he became convinced that Lu was telling the truth.

One day Lu told Fo that he was going to try to escape by digging an opening under the electrified fence. It would be extremely dangerous. Did Fo want to go with him? Fo did. During the attempt Lu was electrocuted. Fo managed to escape and spent the next several weeks running and hiding, finally making his way to South Korea and freedom. There he met several other escapees from the gulags. All gave the same accounts of life in North Korea. All also were greatly enjoying life in South Korea.

While thinking about this story I began to see that those who are trapped in Catholicism/Protestantism are like Fo and his fellow captives. Never having been told the Truth, they do not know that it exists. If they accidentally hear the Truth they are conditioned to reject it, thinking it too radical to be believed. The wire represents the church system which keeps them from experiencing life in God’s church. The guards represent the false prophets who, having lured them into the Counterfeit Church, make certain they remain where they are by telling them that the life they live is the only life available.

So who represents Lu? Lu is the witness who tells those inside the religious fence that there is another world–the Church of God–lying outside the fence. The opening Lu dug under the fence represents the strait gate; the path leading away from it is the narrow way that leads to eternal life. The captive must  “find” the strait gate and walk the narrow way. “Few,” God tells us, manage to do so (Mat. 713,14). Having been warned to avoid Lu, those inside the fence spend their lives believing that what they have is all there is.

Lu, the Bible student quickly realizes, represents the one who today is witnessing to those trapped in the wilderness of so-called Christianity. He, like his Lord, is rejected along with his message. Like his Lord he is thought to be mentally deranged. In Mark 3:21,22 we learn that those who knew Jesus, including his family, said of Him that He was “beside Himself” (Gr.-existemi–out of one’s senses, confused, bewitched) and under the influence of the devil (Lk. 11:15). In John 7:3-7 we find Jesus’ brothers telling Him to take His ministry out of the area because they did not believe in Him. Jesus noted that the world hated Him because He exposed its true character. His message was so radical and so hated by the religious masses that many of His disciples left Him and returned to the world (Jn. 6:59,66).

Like those of Jesus’ day, the masses that make up professing Christendom have closed their eyes and ears to the Word of God. He describes them in Second Thessalonians 2:10-12: “And with all deceivable- ness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the Truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they might all be damned who believe not the Truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.” Note it: One must love the Truth (God’s Word-Jn. 17:17) in order to be saved. Those who do not love it enough to obey it are damned by God for preferring unrighteousness over the righteousness that comes from obeying it. These, God says, will perish. Those who reject any part of God’s Word are operating under a spirit of delusion which convinces them that their way is the right way and God’s way is bogus–“a lie.” This perfectly describes the Counterfeit Church.