It is also noticeable that the term “infidel” has, within a generation, disappeared from common usage, and that manner of open denial of the truth has been almost wholly abandoned.  Yet the real Church has by no means lost her foes, for they are now even more numerous, subtle, and terrible than ever before.  These present enemies, however, like the unclean birds in the mustard tree, have taken shelter under her branches, and, like the leaven in the pure meal, they are penetrating and appropriating her most sacred altars and institutions.  These vultures are fed by a multitude, both in the Church and out, who, in Satanic blindness, are committed to the furtherance of any project or the acceptance of any theory that promises good to the world or is apparently based upon Scripture; little realizing that they are often really supporting the enemy of God.

A counterfeit is Satan’s most natural method of resisting the purpose of God, since by it he can realize to that extent his desire to be like the Most High.  Every material is now at hand, as never before, for the construction of those conditions that are predicted to appear only in the very end of the age.  In II Tim. 3:1-5 one of these predictions may be found:  “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of them that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:  from such turn away.”

Every word of this prophecy is worthy of most careful study in the light of the present tendency of society.  The fifth verse is especially important in connection with the subject of counterfeits to the truth:  “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:  from such turn away.”  Here it is stated that in these last days forms of godliness shall appear which, however, deny the power of God; and from these leaders the believer is warned to turn away.  The important element in the true faith which is to be omitted in these “forms” is carefully defined elsewhere in Scripture:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:  for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom.  I:16).  “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (I Cor.  I:23, 24).  Therefore, that which is omitted so carefully from these forms is the salvation which is in Christ.  This is most suggestive, for “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” and it is by salvation alone that any deliverance can be had from the power of darkness.  Without this salvation Satan can still claim all his own.  It is perhaps necessary to add that, judging from all his writings, this salvation, of which Paul confesses he was not ashamed, was no less an undertaking than regeneration by the Spirit; and whatever other theories may be advanced, this is the teaching of the Spirit through the Apostle Paul.