The other day I had my car MOT done. Sitting in the office at the garage I noticed a twenty pound note pinned to a pinboard in the office. That's odd, I thought, anyone could come and take it. But then I noticed what was written on it in red ink: "FAKE". So that was why it was there, it was a counterfeit, and therefore worthless.
There are spiritual counterfeits. Paul warns of "Another gospel which is no gospel at all." The real Gospel, the real good news, is that Jesus Christ died for our sins. We sing in our Thursday club a little chorus that goes, in part, like this:
Good news, good news, Christ died for me;
Good news, good news, if I believe;
Good news, good news, I'm saved eternally.
That is the Gospel. And if anyone comes saying that something else is the gospel, that it's that Christ died so that we can work our way to heaven (Watchtower cult) or that we can become gods (Mormonism), then they are offering something as worthless as that banknote on the wall at the garage!
Now, probably (hopefully!) everyone reading this knows that the JWs and the Mormons are not Christians, despite the fact that they say they are, but they are not the only ones offering a fake gospel. The Roman Catholics have one, the liberals have one - and so do some people who say they are evangelicals.
Well, how can you tell? When they train bank tellers to recognise forgeries, they don't train them up on forgeries - because fakes come in all sorts, and the flaws they have differ one from another. No, the bank trains tellers on the real thing, so that the teller can recognise real money by touch - and then the fake sticks out like a sore thumb. So it is with Christians, we should all be so familiar with the Biblical gospel that we can recognise counterfeits and we don't get scammed. |
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