In the latter months of World War II, as the Allies were closing in on Germany, the Nazis developed a ruse that worked well for a while.
They would find German soldiers who spoke English well and dress them as Americans. They would arrange for them to be “lost” and to rejoin the Allied forces as they moved forward. Their task: to infiltrate the American troops and assassinate Generals Eisenhower and Patton.
In time, the good guys developed some tests for exposing the fakes. One German was cut down by the Americans when they saw how he was walking. He was ramrod straight whereas all our troops slouched when they walked.
Another group learned to address the soldier using “pig Latin.” If he was stymied by that, he was exposed.
And they developed questions. Two, I recall, were: Who is Betty Grable? and What position did Lou Gehrig play?
The answers were: movie star/pinup girl and first base for the Yankees. It was understood that every GI in the world would know this.
If you have been in the warfare against the forces of righteousness and the enemies of all that is good and holy for any period of time, you have come up against counterfeits and pretenders, fakes and shams.
The question is, how do you tell? And what should we do about them?
Across the world, untold millions of Christians cannot afford a Bible and have trouble feeding their families. And yet, here in this country, some preach that following Jesus is the road to great wealth. They drive expensive automobiles, live in million-dollar homes, and think nothing of investing a small fortune in clothing and jewelry. They give a pittance to missions overseas and when confronted, will drag out a few children they have assisted to silence critics.
Are they fakes? Absolutely.
Are they unsaved? Not for me to say.
It is a fact that there are serial adulterers and child abusers in the ministry. There are priests and preachers who use their positions of influence to satisfy the lusts of the flesh. Fakes? Absolutely.
I have known of ministers deciding to become well-known and build large congregations by whatever gimmicks it took in order to gain the perks that notoriety brings. They did this, and I know personally of some whose ministry did not end well.
That, plus they must stand before the Master of the universe and give account.
Jesus said of the religious leaders of His day, Beware of the scribes, who go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplace, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation (Mark 12:38-40).
On the phrase “devour widows’ houses,” John MacArthur writes, “Scribes often served as estate planners for widows, which gave them the opportunity to convince distraught widows that they would be serving God by supporting the temple or the scribe’s own holy work. In either case, the scribe benefited monetarily and effectively robbed the widow of her husband’s legacy to her.”
Ministers sometimes identify “fakes” and “counterfeits” as the ungodly, carnal people in the pews who try to work their church membership to financial or other advantage. There is that, of course.
But even more pervasive and deadly are the preachers who fleece the sheep in the name of the Lord.
There are two groups of fakers and charlatans, counterfeits and shams, we have to deal with.
There is the obvious kind and there is the subtle, more insidious kind.
The obvious are those who brag about their ungodly ways and clearly violate the teachings of Jesus without apology.
The insidious are the less obvious ones who work undercover and are known only to God.
The first, we should take on and speak out against.
The second, we leave to the Lord.
The parable of the tares in Matthew 13 applies here.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn’” (Matthew 13:24-30).
If the person’s apostasy is clear and overt, then we should address it.
If the character of the impostor is not so clear and if attacking him would hurt large numbers of believers, leave him for the Lord to deal with in His own good time.
Two scriptures come to mind to assist God’s people in identifying the fakes and shams….
—By their fruits you shall know them (Matthew 7:20).
—They went out from us because they were not of us (1 John 2:19).
What kind of fruit are they bearing in their own personal life and in the lives of those who sit under their ministries?
And, do they persevere?
The inimitable Tony Campolo, right about so many of the issues he addresses from pulpits and through his books but brutal in some of his assessments, says no Christian should drive a BMW. Obviously, he means expensive automobiles of any make. And the point of that is that God’s people should not spend money foolishly on themselves just because they have it. The Father gives in order that we might be generous.
A friend in a mega-church told me his pastor makes in the neighborhood of a million dollars a year salary. Big church, huge staff to administer, affluent neighborhood, I suppose some think he deserves such a salary.
It’s all relative, I suppose. The home I live in, humble by most standards, would be a mansion to many across the globe. The car I drive may as well be a Lear jet to millions of believers for whom a bicycle or their bare feet is their mode of transportation.
Many years ago, as I left a high-profile pastorate for a church that had been severely wounded and was just trying to keep its head above the waters, I made the Lord three vows: I would live simply, give generously, and encourage pastors.
To what extent I have kept those vows and am still keeping them, we will leave to the Lord. They still loom large in my mind.
Character, they say, is what you are in the dark. When no one is looking and only God sees, that’s who we are.
God help you and me to be genuine, the real thing.
(Editor's Note: This blog was posted first on Dr. McKeever's blog site HERE.)
