How To Spot A Counterfeit | Part 2

Should we let counterfeit Christians keep us from the realness and the validity of the real? And every counterfeit is like, what is the basis of his teaching? Does he believe that Jesus Christ is a Lord?

Does he teach and endeavor to live a holy life? How else can we spot a false teacher? If you have your Bible, turn now to 2 Peter chapter 2 as we continue with the insightful conclusion of how to spot a counterfeit. Now, how do you spot a false prophet? Let me give you 5 tests. And you can take any preacher, teacher on the face of the earth and hold him up to these 5 tests and you'll tell whether or not he's real or whether he's a counterfeit.

First of all, there's the source test. What is the basis of his teaching? Does he have revelation other than the Bible? Number 2, the Savior test. Do they believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the virgin born Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father?

Third test, the subject test. Is the primary source of their teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Paul said, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And everything else comes out of that or folds into that.

That is the basis. That is what the Bible is all about is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And the Old Testament says somebody is coming. The New Testament says somebody has come. The book of Revelation says somebody is coming again. And that person is the Lord Jesus. He is the hero of the Bible. The Bible has one theme, it is salvation, one hero, it is Jesus, one villain, it is the devil.

What is the subject? What is the motivation? Do they want to talk to you about what they call kingdom truth or this thing or that thing? Or is it the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And is the Gospel salvation by grace through faith? The Apostle Paul said, if any man preach any other Gospel unto you than that which I preached unto you, let him be accursed. Literally that means let him be damned. You say that is harsh. It is not harsh if he says to somebody, you can't teach something that is going to lead people to hell.

You see we are not dealing with preference of the color of the walls or whether or not you want more salt on the potatoes. We are talking about the eternal destiny of people. The source test, the Savior test, the subject test, the salvation test. Do they teach salvation by grace? Or do they try to mix works or baptism or anything else into it? Friend, any time you say to anybody that anything else must be done other than trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved, you take the whosoever out of the Bible. If you say, for example, that a person has to be baptized in order to be saved, do you know what you've done?

Do you know how many people you have eliminated? I mean in Desert Storm, suppose a boy got shot or gassed and a chaplain comes to him and says, son are you saved? He says, no. Son, do you want to be saved?

Yes I do. Well son, I'm sorry, but I can't baptize you. I hear nothing but saying. Do you see how foolish that would be? You see any time you put anything else as a requirement for salvation you take the whosoever out. So the salvation test. Find out from these people, do you believe in salvation by grace through faith that gives glory to God? The fifth test is the sanctification test. Do you teach and are you endeavoring to live a holy life?

If they're not living a holy life, if they don't teach holiness, personal holiness and separation from sin there's something rotten in their teaching. Now folks, you just hold up those five tests and I'll tell you before long you'll be able to separate the faults from the true. Just as an agent has to learn how to look at a dollar bill or a twenty dollar bill or a hundred dollar bill and tell whether it's counterfeit or false. Now here's the second way you identify them. Not only by their message, but their method. Look if you will in verse 2. Verse 1 speaks of their message, verse 2 speaks of their method. And many shall follow their pernicious ways.

Now what is their pernicious way? Well, look if you will in verse 3. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. Then look if you will in verse 1, they shall privily bring in damnable heresies.

Now all these are talking about the way they operate. Look at the word privily. It means secretly. It means clandestinely. It means in a way that's hard to spot.

Give the devil credit for being clever. What they do is to lay false teaching alongside good teaching in order to confuse. Everybody knows that's a good thing to do if you want to fool somebody. He speaks of feigned words. Do you see that with feigned words?

Do you know what the word feigned is in the Greek language? Plastos. It's the word we get our word plastic from. These plastic preachers with plastic words. That is what is plastic? It's something that's pliable. It's something that molds itself just simply to fit and to imitate.

And they're so good at that, feigned words. I was in a law office one time and I met a man and this man was a professor in a Christian college. And he and I had a conversation together and I thought, boy I have found a brother. We began to talk about the things of God and I thought, this is wonderful.

We're sitting there and I was talking to this man and we had a wonderful conversation. Then we got to talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and we're still having a wonderful conversation but then he dropped a word and I smelled a rat. And I said, let me ask you one more question. I said, do you believe in the resurrection? Oh yes, he said, I believe in the resurrection. There I go, just my suspicious nature.

So we began to talk a little bit more and then I said, wait a minute. Let me just ask you another question. Do you believe that Jesus Christ walked out of that tomb, the tomb was empty? Oh no, he said, I don't believe that. Isn't that strange?

Isn't that strange? I mean here's the man saying, I believe in the resurrection. And I don't know what kind of resurrection he believes in but he doesn't believe in the Bible resurrection. Well they went in and found an empty tomb. That's faint words. Do you know what liberalism will do? Liberalism will use our words and their dictionary. And that's where it's so confusing because sometimes when you talk to these people and you say, well that man is a heretic, he doesn't believe.

They say, you're a nit-kicker, ask him, he believes in the resurrection. And to try to hem these folks up sometimes is like trying to hem up a snake in a barrel of oil. It's difficult. Now you see them by their method as well as their message and then their manner. Look at their manner in verse 2, and many shall follow their pernicious ways.

Pernicious, that's a word we don't use much unless we say someone has pernicious anemia, whatever that is. What it literally means is unbridled lust. You are going to find these counterfeiters because they don't love the Lord, and they can't love the Lord because they don't know the Lord, the center and substance of their message is themselves apostasy and immorality are always inextricably interwoven. Let me give you a couple of other verses that speak of apostasy and immorality. Jude verse 4, for there are certain men who crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. I know of people who spout about grace and who live in sin. They say, well Calvary covers it all. That's a heresy. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

God forbid. Listen to Jeremiah 23 verse 14, for I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen also the hands of evil doers that none of them doth return from his wickedness. They are all of them unto me as Sodom and the inhabitants therefore as Gomorrah. Now they call themselves prophets but they're living in sin. Their ways are pernicious ways and many will follow them. As a matter of fact they love to have a preacher who will drink with them, who will call filthy jokes with them. Who will be coarse?

Why? Because it makes them feel better. The Bible says many will follow their pernicious ways. Look in verse 2, therefore success in the ministry, what people call success does not necessarily mean that it's God's work. Statistics are no proof that something is of God because many will follow their pernicious ways.

There are people who love the sensual rather than the spiritual. Jesus said, not everyone 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. Many people are living lives, double lives, they're false prophets.

That's the test I was talking about, the holiness test, the sanctification test. You can spot a counterfeit by His message. You can spot Him by His method.

You can spot Him by His manner, or you can spot Him by His motive. What is His motive? Look in verse 3, and through covetousness shall they with fain words make merchandise of you. What is their motive? Well, they want to make merchandise of you. They want to use you, manipulate you.

Why? Because they themselves are covetous. Now I'm not saying here that a preacher ought not to be paid.

He ought to be paid. The Bible says you're not to muzzle the ox that treads the corn. The Bible says they that preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel. The Bible says the workman is worthy of his hire and the elder that rules well is worthy of double honor. The Bible says all of that. I'm grateful as any preacher is grateful for the love and the sacrifice of God's people that enable us to preach the Gospel.

He's not talking about that. But He's talking about people who for their own motivation and out of their own wicked heart make merchandise of the Gospel. If you have a television and you watch long, you've perhaps seen some of these hucksters, those who merchandise the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And in my estimation, the hottest part of hell is reserved for those who for whatever reason these plastic preachers, these counterfeit prophets who merchandise God's people.

Now many times with great swelling words they exploit the ignorant. They are prophets but you spell prophet, p-r-o-f-i-t. Now what Peter does here, he gets very serious. And he says God will surely judge them. God will not spare them. Look at his argument beginning in verse 4. He says, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly, and delivered just lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. Then skip to verse 9, The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment, to be punished. Now what's God saying?

God is saying here is God's solemn warning to every counterfeiter. When the angels fell, I judged them. When a civilization in Noah's day became polluted, I judged them. When Sodom and Gomorrah became perverted, I judged them.

And I'm going to judge these false prophets. God spared not the angels. He spared not the old world. He spared not Sodom and Gomorrah. And He will not spare a false prophet.

But here's the other side of it. Romans chapter 8 and verse 32 says, God spared not His own Son. When Jesus left heaven, came to this earth and became my substitute, my sin and your sin was put upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus went to Calvary. They stretched Him out on a hellish cross after having lacerated His back, after having put a crown of thorns on His head, after having snatched His beard from His face, after having hit Him with their fist and battered Him with clubs, they hung Him up on a cross. And in torture and pain unimaginable, Jesus suffered, but He did not cry.

He suffered as a lamb before his shearers is dumb so He openeth not His mouth. But then something happened. The heavens became black like midnight.

And there was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. God the Father, who had always been with the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity, turned His back on and forsook God the Son. And Jesus cried from that cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

The answer is this, that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And Jesus Christ on that cross took my sin and your sin and the sin of billions. All that have lived and will ever live the sin of the world was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus who had never sinned became sin. And Jesus who had been the object of the Father's greatest delight became the object of the Father's loathing. And God the Father had to look upon God the Son as God the Father would look upon you or me at the final judgment without our sin atoned for. And God the Father had to turn His back upon God the Son, and God the Son cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Let me tell you something. If there were ever a time when God would have been tempted to have been lenient on sin, it would have been when that sin was resting upon His darling Son. Isn't that true? But the Bible says that God would not spare Him. Romans 8 verse 32, God spared not His own Son. Now listen to me, you're intelligent people. If God spared not Jesus when sin was laid upon Jesus, do you think that God will spare you when your sin is still on you?

No, He won't do it. God spared not the angels that sinned. God spared not the old world. God spared not Sodom and Gomorrah in judgment. God spared not His own Son in redemption, and God will not spare you. But there's a blessed truth there. He that spared not His own Son shall He not also freely with Him give us all things.

What does that mean? I have two sons. Well, I have three, a little boy in heaven. But if you were to say to me, Adrian, can I have one of your sons? Can I have your firstborn son, Steve?

What do you want to do with Steve? Lie about him and abuse him? We want to beat him? We want to humiliate him? We want to lacerate his back? We want to cut him to ribbons?

Then we want to hang him up on a cross that he might die in agony and blood? Will you give me your son? I would say no. I wouldn't give you my son.

I wouldn't even begin to think about it. But suppose for some strange reason there was a need that you would have my son that my son might die on your behalf. Suppose you could talk me into loving you that much and I gave you my precious boy, Steve. And then you said to me, now that you've given me Steve, can I have his football? I'd say sure. Can I have his blue jeans? Of course. Can I have his library?

Of course. I mean if I loved you enough to give you my son, certainly I'd give you anything else. Now here's what Paul says in Romans 8.

I want you to see this. He that spared not his own son, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? If God loved us enough to give Jesus, what would He withhold?

You see. Now what's He saying? He's saying listen, don't get caught up in a counterfeit Christianity. God is the unsparing God. He will not spare sin. He will not spare the sinner.

But He did not spare His son, the Lord Jesus, that you and I might be saved, that you and I might have eternal life. The world is full of counterfeits. Make sure you have the real thing. One last word. There are some counterfeit dollar bills out there, so I've got some good advice for you.

Get rid of all of your money. Say, pastor, that's stupid. You're right. And there's some counterfeit Christians, but don't you let that keep you away from the Lord Jesus Christ.

I mean be reasonable. The counterfeit only proves the worthwhileness and the validity of the real. Every counterfeit piece of currency is a tribute to the worthwhileness of the real. And every counterfeit Christian is but a tribute to what we have and the value of it.

Don't let a counterfeit keep you out of Heaven. I want to tell you that Jesus is real. Salvation is real. And you can be real if you repent of your sin and trust Him. Jesus is real and His forgiveness is real.

Repent and trust in Him today. And if you have questions about who Jesus is or what He means to you, how to place your full faith and trust in Him, you can go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio. There you'll find resources and materials that will answer questions you may have about placing your faith fully in Jesus Christ. Again, go to lwf.org slash radio and click Discover Jesus. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message in its entirety, call us at 1-877-LOV-GOD. Mention the title How to Spot a Counterfeit. This message is also part of the insightful Sharing the Good News series. For the complete collection, all six powerful messages, call 877-LOV-GOD or go online to lwf.org slash radio. Or you can write us to order at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Well thanks for studying in God's word with us today. Remember this advice from Adrian Rogers, the world is full of counterfeits. Make sure you have the real thing.

There's some counterfeit Christians, but don't let that keep you away from Jesus. We hope you'll tune in next time for more timeless truth, right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener recently reached out on Facebook to share this brief word of encouragement.

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