Even in the early church, there were false apostles. Notice that the counterfeit did not make the genuine any less genuine.  And there are false apostles today, but the counterfeit does not make the genuine any less genuine.  This is written because some use the false apostles as an excuse for man-made church orders that cannot be found in the Bible.

2Corinthians 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

2Corinthians 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

There is false doctrine and there are false ministries.  There will be False Teachers, False Prophets, False Pators, False Evangelists, and False Apostles.  False salvation is everywhere and takes many forms.  There will be false tongues and false miracles.  There will be false gifts of the Spirit and false methods for receiving gifts of the Spirit and false methods for receiving salvation and every other gift that God wants to give us.  False pseudo-faith abounds as does false pseudo-grace.  There are false visions and false dreams.  There are false Bibles and other false "holy books." Real faith is solid and not like the blind, baseless, pseudo-faith of the ungodly.

There are even some demagogues who seek to draw people after themselves by attacking everyone else.  They usually either claim that none of the wonderful gifts of God to the church do not exist at all or else they claim that they are that gift without meeting the criteria of the gift.  The demagogue proposes that each person should go to God independently... but in the process, the demagogue sets himself or herself up as the ONE to follow.  

Let God be true and every man a liar.

Apostles are given the responsibility of protecting the entire flock of God from the attack of the enemy, but with so many voices in the world, each one claiming to be the one that should be listened to, how can you know?  You are responsible to be close enough to God so that you can tell the difference between false apostles and real apostles.

Read the complete definition of "Apostle."