Why are there so many fake Christians?

The converse is true. People are “converted” to religions by indoctrination, coercion or attraction. They are radicalised by the efforts of others or they make up their own minds in self-will. Of course, some become “Christians” in this way. But a distinctive feature of true Christianity is that a believer is born again. There is such a thing as a “professing” Christian as contrasted with a true Christian. But there is no such thing as a professing Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc, as contrasted to a “real” one. What is fundamentally characteristic of Christianity—distinct from all forms of man-made religion—is that the true Christian has received a new birth.

It may be traced to more causes than one. Perhaps it is due in no small measure to the fact that in many quarters conversion is no longer looked upon as a necessity. Sermons are delivered without mentioning it in any way. People are exhorted to "follow Christ" and "walk in His steps" without being told that in order to do so they must begin by being converted.

This was not so necessary in the earliest days. Then the Spirit of God came down in power. There was novelty in it, and a seriousness for man to break off all his old associations and to come together in the name of the Lord Jesus. And the danger was such that, as a rule, men would not come unless they were truly led of God. When there was some person with penetration but without conscience who saw the power that might be turned to his own selfish purposes he might come on false ground. I refer now to Simon Magus; yet, as a rule, I repeat, people did not come unless they were real. But in these days it is not so, and we know well that people deceive themselves — that people may not know what it is really to be converted to God — what it is to be members of Christ's body. They have been wrongly taught: they have been brought up in an unhealthy and corrupting atmosphere; and, therefore, it is necessary, I repeat, that we should require that the genealogy should be proved; that is that there should be full evidence that they really are Christ's in the true and proper sense of the word — that they are brought to God.

I. The Church is the body of Christ, formed by the Holy Ghost sent down to dwell on earth. — As such it consists only of true believers, real members of Christ's body. Such is God's institution; but what is the Church, as man has made it? Throughout a large part of Christendom, the so-called Church, instead of being the assembly of the saved, is held forth as the means of salvation. Unconverted persons are urged to come into it, and are told that deliverance from wrath and judgment is to be obtained by its offices. In other cases the Church is a political institution, and every citizen, without respect to his conversion or non-conversion, is entitled to its communion and its privileges. There are considerable exceptions, no doubt, but in one or other of these two classes the enormous preponderance of nominal Christians are included. To the great mass, therefore, of that which bears the name, and is the responsible witness, for Christ on earth, the solemn words of the Judge may be addressed — "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Rev. 3:1). The professing Church, instead of consisting only of living members of Christ, has merely a name to live, and is dead — "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5). How needful, then, that where there is true life, the solemn warning should be heeded — "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God (Rev. 3:2).

All systems Jewish in character mix them up of necessity. Where all are probationers together, it is not possible to do otherwise. All systems in which the church is made a means to salvation, instead of the company of the saved, necessarily do so. When people join churches in order to be saved, as is the terrible fashion of the day, these churches become of course the common receptacle of sinners and saints alike. And wherever assurance of salvation is not maintained, the same thing must needs result.

All systems Jewish in character mix them up of necessity. Where all are probationers together it is not possible to do otherwise. All systems in which the Church is made a means to salvation, instead of the company of the saved, necessarily do so. When people join churches in order to be saved, as is the terrible fashion of the day, these churches become, of course, the common receptacle of sinners and saints alike. And wherever assurance of salvation is not maintained, the same thing must needs result.

The Lord declares solemnly, "I know thy works, that thou has a name that thou livest, and art dead." How sad and solemn the indictment! One might well ask in amazement, How can such things be after the blessing and revival of Reformation days? But when we remember that the State-churches were, from the first, intended to include all the population of a given country, who were supposed to be made members of the church and kingdom of Christ by baptism in infancy, one can readily understand why such churches, though, possibly, strictly orthodox, may yet be largely composed of persons still dead in trespasses and in sins. Nothing can be much sadder than vast congregations of people, baptized, banded together as Christians, "taking the sacrament" of the Lord's Supper, zealous for church and Christianity, and yet largely devoid of personal, saving faith in Christ -- trusting rather in forms and ceremonies, and what some have called "birth-right membership," than in new birth through the Word and Spirit of God.

The Apostle's words have, surely, a special warning for us in these last days, when this judaising teaching, which was such a danger to the primitive church, has developed into Christendom becoming a corrupt mixture of Judaism and Christianity. The result is that a vast profession has arisen in which forms and ceremonies have taken the place of worship by the Spirit; in which the works of men according to the law have set aside the work of Christ according to the gospel; and which appeals to man in the flesh, while raising no question of new birth or personal faith in Christ. Having formed itself after the Jewish pattern, Christendom has become an imitation Jewish camp, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof. From this corruption, the Apostle, in his other epistles, warns us to "turn away", and to go forth to Christ "without the camp, bearing His reproach" (2 Tim. 3:5; Heb. 13:13).

(19) “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. Thus in the closing days of Christendom the professing mass will be found abandoning themselves to every form of evil, while seeking to cover their wickedness with the cloak of sanctity. Thus nominal Christians become more wicked than pagans, for, while indulging in all the evils of paganism, they add to their wickedness by seeking to hide it under the form of Christianity, though utterly devoid of its spiritual power. What can be more desperately wicked than the effort to use the Name of Christ as a cloak for evil? It is this cloak of sanctity that constitutes the last days' “difficult times”, for the show of piety at times deceives even true Christians.

"Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead," is the exact moral description, as it is the plain condemnation of nationalism. Of more this, no doubt, but still of this. It is not the idea of the Church of God at all, but a Christianized world, with Christians scattered through it: a place so defiling, that but few indeed can keep their garments undefiled. Connected with the truth, as popery is not, such a system betrays the truth which it professedly upholds. The character of the last days is developed by it: "Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud, blas. phemers," the retaining all that is natural to them under the garb of Christianity; "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The direct command is, "From such, turn away." This is the effect of popularized truth, - popularized as God never meant His truth to be. Of course this is to be distinguished from the preaching of His truth, than which nothing assuredly is more in accordance with His mind. His gospel is to go forth to every creature, and the blessings of an open Bible we could scarcely exaggerate. But by "popularized truth" is meant, what we have already been speaking of, truth made into a party badge, so as to be accepted by those with whom Christ is not; for He was never really popular, and still is not. Popularized truth means, truth that has lost its power. It may be that for which martyrs died, and which when first given of God, or when afresh given, was full of quickening power. Popularized, it is so far lifeless. No exercise of soul in receiving it; no cross in professing it; men have got from their fathers what their fathers got from God: to their fathers it was shame, to them it is honour. There is nothing to test conscience, nothing to make them ask, Dare I take this without human sanction to commend - nay, in the face of all human discountenance? Yet only thus have we got it truly from God. The martyrs they talk of took it thus and suffered for it: they take it from their fathers - a principle which would have condemned the martyrs; and they take it without the slightest thought of being martyrs. Truth is proclaimed as powerless by the unholy lives of its professors, while unholiness is recommended by the practice of those who are orthodox as to truth. And thus truth tends to die out of itself, as valueless, remaining all the while in the national creed, embalmed as a memorial of the past. "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God." This has been long experienced with regard to all national systems too manifestly to need more than a bare allusion. It is a system designedly adapted to worldly minds, and to be worked by political machinery. The Word of God is no necessity to it, except, it may be, to furnish a table of lessons; for the authoritative standard is the creed. The Spirit of God is not necessary to it; for colleges can manufacture preachers, and ecclesiastics ordain and send them forth apart from this. Christians are not necessary to it; they are too uncertain as a constituent part of a nation or its government to be capable of being reckoned on; nor is there any means of certainly determining who they are. A sacrament, - baptism or the Lord's supper, - takes here the place of less manageable tests. And the grieved and insulted Spirit may be besought to breathe upon the lifeless mass, and fill the sails of the ship of state. But He must keep within the bounds prescribed by ritual, hierarchy, and parliament, or He will be treated as schismatical. And it must be remarked how often in this case a schism springs out of a large and manifest revival. Souls brought near to God, and made to feel the value of His Word, are not made thereby the more docile servants of a state-religion. The new wine will not be held in the old bottles. Statesmen are not thus favourable to such fresh enthusiasm, and no wonder: it divides the house which it is to their interest to keep as one. But is not here the history of the churches of the Reformation - of Protestantism, in fact, - during the three centuries of its existence? Is not this the true account of its divisions, for which it is reproached? The Spirit of God is not, indeed, the author of confusion, but of peace, - of unity, and not disunion. But when people talk of schism, they should remember to what that term applies. As found in Scripture, it is "schism in the body" that is reprobated, and the body of Christ is not a national church. When men have joined together the living and the dead, - when they have subjugated consciences to formularies instead of Scripture, - to hierarchies instead of God, or to hierarchies in the name of God, what have they forced the blessed Spirit to do but to draw afresh the line they have obliterated between the living and the dead, between man's word and God's, between human authority and divine?