2 Peter 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

Scripture warns us over and over again, that there would be an infection in the church of false teachers and frauds. By ignoring this warning, you will be subject to these frauds who will various play mind tricks on you, and the religious play-acting as a Christian church complete with smoke, incense, pomp and circumstance and organ music as to indoctrinate you into their false teaching which leads only to hell.

There is ONE disinfectant that the Almighty God graced the church with, it is called Scripture. No fraudulent teacher can get past its detection. And granted, some will try incessantly to stave off any detection by using a little truth here and there as to avoid being exposed. Or they will be the kindest, gregarious, and helpful people you will meet, again to avoid any testing of their false doctrines.

The fraudulent gospel will always flunk Scripture’s authority. The fraud will either add to or omit certain key aspects of the actual Gospel so that the sinner becomes enamored and dependent on the teacher or church. When they get a sinner on the hook, guilt will then be used. They may use a sinner’s testimony of sin against that sinner for example in an extortion like game. The sinner then becoming slowly brainwashed submits to the fraud and then promotes the fraud as well. The guilt being that the fraud will teach the sinner that they, not Jesus Christ, hold the keys to their salvation. It will be basically “believe ONLY us and what we teach you, not Scripture and what you see as the Gospel, or you will go to hell for sure”. They attempt to supplant the Holy Spirit as the source for any personal enlightenment to God’s truth.

Who is behind these frauds, the main influencer? The devil, the serpent from the Garden who roams about seeking to devour wayward sinners while using the frauds to do so. The devil knows that a little bit of truth combined with a false teaching and false gospel is enough to convince many sinners. The devil studies human behavior, he understands completely what our fallen nature lusts for as he is the father of all lies and a grand deceiver beyond our intelligent comprehension and cunning beyond any human deceiver.

If you are NOT grounded in Scripture as your ultimate source for truth, beware that the devil is lurking with the frauds working for him and his end of destruction. The devil would like to see as many wayward sinners thrown in the lake of fire as possible with him. He knows his end, do you know yours? Many sinners on Judgment Day will be at a loss when Jesus says “I never knew you!” All these religious things they did, all those good things by a subjective worldly standard, and Jesus will call them “workers of lawlessness”.

The fraud will teach that the Jesus Christ is not the only way to salvation and the Gospel does not hold the power unto it. They teach that one can be saved by the law, subjective commandment keeping. They will teach that saving faith is self-generated by self-righting will-power. They will teach one can lose their salvation, so you need to work harder to keep it. They teach Jesus’ death on the Cross was just a demonstration, not an atonement. That sinners still end up in hell with having their sins atoned for, in essence Jesus Christ’s atonement was NOT sufficient to save just one soul.

By the devil’s prompt they will greatly pervert James 2 and Matt 25 into saying that a sinner must WORK for their justification from God. They will teach that there is no direct relationship with God through Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin, that the sinner is bound by the church and a religious ritual THEY totally control to make this contact with Him. They will teach that Scripture is NOT sufficient, things are left out of those promises and that Scripture is also in error. They will attempt by idolatry to replace Jesus by Mary, a pope, a priest, by a religious ritual, by superstition and other religious nonsense all in the effort to stave off any direct faith alone in Him for the forgiveness of sin.

Counterfeits must be discerned carefully. They look like a church, they claim to be “holy” and “good” and religious and of Jesus Christ from the beginning, but the counterfeit hides the fact they are teaching a false gospel. A counterfeit also will claim a history, that this history suffices as legitimate again even with a false gospel. The counterfeits will be money and lust driven, and will never teach on the holiness of God and the sinfulness of sin in full truth. The analogy would be counterfeit money, a counterfeit $100 bill printed out can look exactly like a real $100 bill, but a careful eye will be able to discern things like a missing water mark or an added mark. You must also discern the counterfeit gospels very carefully in the same respect, something will be missing or and addition will be made which Scripture will expose.

More importantly IF you are involved with a counterfeit, your own testimony and witness in Jesus Christ will be empty and void when challenged to come up with one. You may have been part of that counterfeit for decades and cannot come up with any truth of any repentance of sin in your life for example. It is a life of repeated cycle of emptiness and sin while you sit in the pew by guilt thinking God will need to accept your religiosity and reciting of a creed if anything while the fraud continues to say “follow us” instead of placing your faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior.

If you are following a fraud and counterfeit, and are unwilling to discern, the onus will be on you on Judgment Day. God won’t listen to your excuses and the blame game because it is YOU who rejected the Gospel for the fraud.