"Clever Facsimiles"

1st John 5.20c-21
“The Message”

“This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.”

Do you know when the first “fax” machine was invented? Take a multiple choice guess.

• 1843
• 1920
• 1962
• 1986

If you selected 1843 you’d be correct. In that year Alexander Bain, a Scottish mechanic and amateur watch maker, received a British patent for the earliest version of modern “fax” technology. Bain’s machine evolved from Samuel Morse’s telegraph and combined watch parts with telegraph code to transmit an image from a metal surface.  

Nearly one hundred and fifty years later (around 1990) while on a sales call in southern Washington my customer introduced me to (what I thought was) a brand new concept. She offered to “fax the order.” I soon learned about scanners that converted physical documents into digital images and modems that transferred data through phone lines to printers in other locations where duplicate images of the original document were created. Amazing!  

Today, the Internet, e-fax, and web-based computing have made fax machines obsolete. I can now obtain electronic signatures and create fully executed, long distance contracts via email without the use of a fax machine. No more email attachments, printing, signing, and faxing. Just a few points and clicks and presto... a fully signed document.  

Fax technology was pretty cool while it lasted. But cool or not, one fact was always evident… the recipient of a “fax” was never in possession of the original document. A facimile or “fax” in its etymological Latin roots means ‘to make fact (fac) similar (simile).’ A fax may appear to be the real thing, but its not.  

I am daily inundated with spiritual copies of the real thing. Countless nearly perfect duplicates of the original Gospel message compete for my allegiance. Counterfeit options to Biblical truth abound. I am routinely assaulted with reams of meaningless religious facsimiles vying for my full devotion. I mustn’t be fooled. Jesus alone is the real thing.

“This Jesus is both True God and Real Life.
Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.”