The Making Of A Counterfeit

The making of a counterfeit believer

Acts 8:15-25

Good morning everyone, Glad you have joined us.

Please turn in your bibles to Acts chapter 8:9-25

As you are turning there, I will test some of your memories- Do you remember years back when they improved the formula for Coke a Cola? The Original Coke classic and the New and improved Coke. Pepsi had gained some ground on Coke and they were still number one but they felt that they had to do something to slow down Pepsi. They came up with a new formula for Coke and truth be told, it was an attempt to be sweeter like Pepsi and it flopped badly. They were receiving over 5000 phone calls a day with customers who were not fooled. April 1985, Coke learned a valuable lesson- Don’t mess with the original brand of something that is working and don’t pretend to be something that you are not.

The text is about Simon and his attempt on deception and his attempt to take what is an original and work it for his own personal use when it is a God thing!

It is about Simon who thought that he was a believer but reverted back to his own ways and was trying to live in both the converted Christian life and the unsaved past before Christ.

Acts 8:9-25 Read from Bible clearly

In the early days of the church, sorcerers and magicians were numerous and influential. They worked wonders, performed healings and exorcisms, and practiced astrology.

Some of their wonders were magic tricks and some were done by satanic empowerment.

Simon had done so many wonders that some believed him to be the Messiah.

Simon’s powers did not come from God.

“Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, this man is the divine power known as the great one.”

Anyone see a problem here? This man Simon had been deceiving people into believing that he had special powers and that He was the great one. His self proclaimed Greatness because he could do some things others could not.

It is not unusual for Missionaries in other countries to fight demonic representation from witchdoctors who have fooled the people into believing that they have special powers.

Illustration- (SermonCentral)

This practice (of using magic to manipulate a religious audience) wasn’t something unique to Simon.

Rod Cameron is now retired from managing Rainbow Christian camp. But when he was a missionary in Africa – one of the ways he would grab the attention of his audience was to pull out his wooden dummy (Gabby), or his snake sock puppet (Oscar) and amaze the Africans that had gathered to hear him by making these puppets talk. He was a ventriloquist.

Part of his presentation included explaining HOW he threw his voice. He would explain that it was not magical, and he’d have them come close and watch as moved his tongue around in his mouth to create the words they heard.

Now, this didn’t entertain everyone… in fact this would absolutely infuriate the tribal witch doctors in the area because they practiced ventriloquism too! But when they did it – they tried to convince their people that these voices were voices from the Spirit world that only they – the witch doctors – could summon forth.

(11) “They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Phillip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Phillip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.”

Peter and John were sent to Samaria to find out whether or not the Samaritans were truly becoming believers.

The Jewish Christians, even the disciples were still not sure whether Gentiles (non Jews) and half Jews could receive the Holy Spirit.

It was not till Acts 10 records Cornelius that the disciples believed that the Holy Spirit was for all people.

Remember it was John who asked Jesus if they should pray that the village of Samaria be burned up because they did not welcome the disciples.

It was a critical moment for the spread of the gospel and for the growth of the church. Peter and John had to go to Samaria to help keep this new group of believers from being separated from the other believers.

Simon the sorcerer became a believer- now we are going to see that as a believer he had the wrong idea of God’s power and the function of the Holy Spirit.