The Greatest Con Man

“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. And on that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness. And if anyone again prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the LORD.’ And his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies. On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies. He will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive, but he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a worker of the soil, for a man sold me in my youth.’ And if one asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your back?’ he will say, ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’” (Zechariah 13:1-6 ESV).

“Count” Victor Lustig, 46 years old at the time of this picture, was America’s most dangerous con man. In a lengthy criminal career, his sleight-of-hand tricks and get-rich-quick schemes had rocked Jazz-Era America and the rest of the world. In Paris, he had sold the Eiffel Tower in an audacious confidence game, not once, but twice. Finally, in 1935, Lustig was captured after masterminding a counterfeit banknote operation so vast that it threatened to shake confidence in the American economy. A judge in New York sentenced him to 20 years on Alcatraz. In our reading today, Zechariah foresees a day when all religious “con-men,” false prophets, are swept away and God’s truth is revealed without ambiguity or spin. So confident is Zechariah that he imagines even the parents and friends of these false prophets rejecting them completely. In a day when our culture’s leadership has developed “the spin” to a fine art, this will be a welcome change for those who value truth. We will not need to “fact check” our leaders in that day. Zechariah’s violent image underscores the refusal of God’s people to accept phonies and hypocrites any longer. The great damage done by false teachers is finally ended. I know that we should be slow to accuse a leader of falsehood. Suspicion spreads like a virus. Young adults grow easily cynical about Christian ministry, when a measure of charity would check our tendency to judge. We tend to accuse and label other people as hypocrites quickly, before we hear their side; however, false prophets do infiltrate churches. Gullible Christians can be led down a path to huge spiritual and financial losses. I encourage you to keep your eyes open, but your heart pure, especially in the coming days.