Have you ever purchased an item: a
watch, a piece of jewelry, a painting, a designer bag, or some other type of
item, that you thought was the genuine thing, only to find out later it was a FAKE? That can not only be financially draining,
but it can be extremely disheartening.
This has not been a recently created event, but has happened at various
times in history and to different degrees of importance.
Arguably one of the most significant
events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th
century was the discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley, California
area in early 1848. This event sparked
the great “gold rush.” Quickly the news
spread and thousands of prospective gold miners came to San Francisco by means
of traveling over land and sea. So much
so was the influx of people during this period that the population of the area
grew by the end of 1849 to some 100,000 or an increase of about 100 times the
pre-1848 population. During this period
of time an estimated value of $2 billion worth of gold had been removed from
the area.
Many individuals (mostly men) in the
United States saw their opportunity to “make their fortunes.” So they borrowed money, mortgaged their
property or spent their life savings to make the very difficult journey to
California. In seeking the kind of
wealth they had never dreamed of, they left their families and hometowns to
pursue this great new opportunity!
To accommodate the needs of these
‘49ers (as they were called) gold mining towns sprung up all over the region,
complete with shops, saloons, brothels and other businesses seeking to make
their own fortunes. The overcrowded
chaos of the mining camps and towns grew ever more lawless, including rampant
banditry, gambling, prostitution, and violence.
Within just a few short years the
surface gold in California largely disappeared, the digging for gold began to
become more important. Mining had always
been a difficult and dangerous labor, and striking it rich required good luck as
much as skill and hard work. The average
daily take for an independent miner working with his pick and shovel had by
1850 sharply decreased from what it had been in 1848. And for some it was even worse! They spent all their funds and labored for
days or months and the ore they took into the essayer’s office turned out to be
iron pyrite, also known as “fool’s gold!”
This mineral’s metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue gives it a
superficial resemblance to gold.
Although having many uses, this fool’s gold was worthless to the hard
working miners of the mid-1800s.
So, although having a resemblance to
gold and with a strong desire from the miners themselves to have found gold, their
ore proved to be NOT genuine. When it was
taken to the assayer’s office it did not pass the test to be accepted as the
“genuine” thing, and had NO
pay-off for the miners.
Also, consider counterfeit
money. This has been around for nearly
as long as the real deals. When the
first coins were minted several thousand years ago, the value of the coin was
based on the intrinsic value of the metal from which it was made. Counterfeiters would scrape off small amounts
of the precious metal from legitimate coins and then, using this, cover a cheap
base metal and pass it off as a higher value coin. Since that time, counterfeit money has
evolved into a huge black market, with an estimate of over $200 million
circulating within the U.S. at any time.
You may not realize it, but here are
some interesting facts surrounding counterfeit money today:
(1) Twenties
and Hundreds are the MOST counterfeited American bills. According to a 2013 Reuters report, $20 bills
are the most common counterfeited bills in the United States, but
internationally, it’s all about the Benjamin ($100) due to the bills broad circulation.
(2) You can get them from your bank!
You might imagine that a bank employee would be the best person at
spotting “fake” money, but on occasion, even they pass on counterfeit bills.
(3) Technology is helping counterfeiters make more believable
fake bills. It’s tempting to think that fake bills are no
longer an issue thanks to advances in security features and detection
technology, but it’s actually the other way around. Now, with the ability to buy inkjet printers
for a few hundred dollars, more people are making counterfeits than they were
just a few years ago.
(4) Frank Bourassa is the biggest money counterfeiter in history.
Canadian Frank Bourassa’s counterfeit money operation was not
a newspaper-and-inkjet scheme: He
convinced a Swiss paper company to sell him authentic rag paper, complete with
security thread and a watermark, and bought printing presses and embossers to
make his fake cash. He spent $300,000,
made $250 million in fake U.S. money, and, in the end, got only SIX WEEKS
in jail!
(5) Coins have ridges in part to prevent them from being
counterfeited. To prevent enterprising criminals from
shaving off a little part of the coins precious metal and selling it and then
the coins separately for a nice profit, reeds (the technical name for the
ridges) were added to make it obvious when a coin was “clipped,” but had a side
effect of making the coin harder to counterfeit.
So instead of embossing an image on both sides of the coin,
counterfeiters had to add a vertical design to the coin as well.
(6) Counterfeit money can be a problem when traveling.
While counterfeit coins rarely make the news in the United States
(although it does happen); this isn’t the case in the rest of the world. So, just as you should examine money before
leaving an American bank, check out money you’re handed while traveling outside
the country.
(7) The Secret Service was created to suppress counterfeit money.
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln signed legislation that would allow
for the creation of the Secret Service – not to serve as presidential
bodyguards but to help suppress money counterfeiting. To this day, the Secret Service plays a role
in creating new methods to fight against counterfeit bills, including training
law enforcement operations to catch counterfeiters
Every effort
is made to keep counterfeit money out of circulation. The truth comes down to the fact that such
counterfeit bills are FAKE
money: they ARE NOT GENUINE! And
they are therefore not accepted as legal tender for payment of goods or
services. While only about one or two
bills in 10,000 are counterfeit, if you ever end up with that rare fake, you
will lose your hard-earned money.
Counterfeit bills CANNOT be
turned in for genuine ones, and knowingly passing along a counterfeit bill IS ILLEGAL!
Although the
two areas we discussed above could result in a financial loss, there is an area
that could turn out to be more disastrous than that. This area involves our very lives! And it involves our eternal life for the
future.
If you
consider a very plain scriptural point from Matthew, chapter 7, verses
21-23: “Not everyone saying to me,
‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one
doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform
many powerful works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never
knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’” (New World
Translation of the Holy Scriptures)
Before you
start claiming: You’re only quoting from
YOUR translation so it will say what YOU want it to say! Please check out any of the following bible
translations: New International Version,
King James Version, New Living Translation, English Standard Version, Berean
Study Bible, New American Standard Bible, Holman Christian Standard Bible,
International Standard Version, NET Bible, New Heart English Bible, Aramaic
Bible in Plain English, God’s Words Translation, NASB 1977, Jubilee Bible 2000,
Bouay-Rhains Bible, Young’s Literal Translation, The New Jerusalem Bible,
Revised Standard Version—Catholic Edition and many others.
What I’m
trying to show you is that like the iron pyrite or the counterfeit bills there
are those who claim to be Christians who are way off the mark of the genuine
item. Matthew added in his writings of
Jesus’ words at chapter 15, and verses 7-9: “You hypocrites, Isaiah aptly
prophesied about you when he said: ‘This people honor me with their lips, but
their hearts are far removed from me. It
is in vain that they keep worshipping me, for they teach commands of men as
doctrines.’”
A sincere
effort must be made in our spiritual lives to find and know that we have the
genuine understanding of God’s word and are making practical application of it
in our lives. We can’t have what we THINK is gold, or what we THINK is genuine money: We must KNOW we have the REAL thing! And that is the same with CALLING ourselves Christians and
actually BEING Christians. And this
doesn’t mean in just the “big” things. For
Jesus also said (recorded at Luke 16:10) “The person faithful in what is least is faithful
also in much…”
Belief is not
enough! James 2:19 states: “the demons believe
and shudder.” We need to work hard to
bring our lives in harmony with the truth of God’s word. Failure to do so results in our losing out on
the wonderful promises in the future for those who are faithful!
THOUGHTFUL GEM
"Sometimes it's hard to see what is right in front of your face.
Try looking HARDER!"
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