SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/2/2015
9:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Power of the False Prophet
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
13:12-14
Message of the
verses: “12 He exercises all the
authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those
who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. 13 He
performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the
earth in the presence of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the
signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling
those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of
the sword and has come to life.”
I suppose that this will come up a bit later but I want
to focus in on the part of having the fatal wound of the Antichrist healed and
as some believe was brought back to life again.
I know we have been over this before, but I believe that my opinion has changed
a bit and one of the reasons that it has changed is that we read in verse
fourteen that “he deceives those who dwell on the earth.” Deception is one of Satan’s main ploys, and
so it will also be what the Antichrist and the False Prophet will use and what
better deception would there be than to fake a resurrection from the dead of
the Antichrist. Another thing that has
caused me to change my mind is that Satan brings about death, for he has from
the beginning of human history. God told
Adam and Eve that if they would eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil that they would die but Satan deceived them into eating from that tree
and they died spiritually which caused all of their offspring to also die
spiritually, and eventually they died physically, and all of this was because
of Satan deceiving them which caused death.
Now on the other hand our Lord Jesus Christ is life as John writes in
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to
the Father but through Me.” When a
person trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins He
gives them spiritual life which is eternal life so Christ gives life and Satan
gives death so unless the Lord allows Satan to resurrect the Antichrist I don’t
believe that he actually dies.
Now in verse twelve we see that although it seems that
the false prophet is a bit tamer than the Antichrist we read that “He exercises
all the authority of the first beast in his presence.” MacArthur writes “What is being said here is
that the false prophet will exercise the same kind of demonic power and
authority as the Antichrist does, since both are empowered by the same hellish
source. That he ‘exercises’ his
authority in Antichrist’s ‘presence’ implies that Antichrist will have
delegated that ‘authority’ to him. The
false prophet’s mission will be to use all the means available to him from the
Antichrist to cause ‘the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first
beast.’ He will lead the worldwide cult
of Antichrist worship.”
We have already discussed what goes on at the end of
verse twelve which states “whose fatal wound was healed.”
Now at this point I want to look at a portion of what I
wrote on the 20th of August of 2005 when I studied verses 12-13 of
Revelation chapter thirteen: “This
second beast, the false prophet, will have the authority of the first beast,
the antichrist. He is going to be like a
puppet to the first beast. One of his
jobs will be to cause the “earth dwellers” to worship the first beast and one
of the ways to get their attention will be to perform signs so that these earth
dwellers will believe that these two beasts have actually come from God or in
fact are god. As stated before these two
are a part of the unholy trinity, with the Devil making up the third part, and
that the false prophet was going to imitate the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does His work to glorify the
Lord Jesus Christ and in a sense this is what this false prophet is doing for
antichrist. Satan is not original, but
has always wanted to be like God Himself.
“When Jesus was upon the earth the Pharisees would ask
Him on more than one occasion to perform a sign to prove who He was and He
would not do it. This false prophet will
perform signs to show the world who the antichrist and he are and the world
will follow them all the way into hell.
2Thessolonians 2:9-12 gives more insight into the signs the false
prophet will perform: “9 This evil man
will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and
miracles. 10 He will use every kind of
wicked deception to fool those who are on their way to destruction because they
refuse to believe the truth that would save them. 11 So God will send great deception upon
them, and they will believe all these lies.
12 Then they will be condemned for not believing the truth and for
enjoying the evil they do.”
Now as far as Satan being able to perform these signs we
only have to go back to the book of Exodus and see how Satan used two of
Pharaoh’s magicians to cause a rod to turn into a snake, but in the end the
staff of Moses also turned into a snake and swallowed up the snake of these
false prophets. 2 Timothy 3:8-9 says “8
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth,
men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for
their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was
also.” It is believed that Paul is
naming the two men Pharaoh used in the incident with the rod and the snake.
We have recently studied the two witnesses from
Revelation chapter eleven and it is possible that the false prophet is
imitation these two wittiness for we read in chapter 11:5 “And if anyone wants
to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if
anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.” Now verse 13:13 says of the false prophet “He
performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the
earth in the presence of men.” John
MacArthur writes “The present tense of poieo
(makes) suggests that he will repeatedly perform this supernatural act ‘in the
presence of men’ to impress them with his power. God has often demonstrated His supernatural
power by sending fire from heaven (cf. 11:5; Gen. 19:24; Lev. 10:1-2; 1 Kings
18:38; 2 Kings 1:9-12; 1 Chron. 21:26; 2 Chron. 7:1). Satan’s henchman will perform a similar sign,
but his will be one of the ‘false wonders’ (2 Thess. 2:9) that will lure
unbelievers to their doom.”
Let us look at a couple of verses from the gospels to
show that Jesus said that this kind of thing would happen: Matt. 24:5, 11, and 24 “5 “For many will come
in My name, saying, ’I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many.” “11 "Many false prophets will arise and
will mislead many.” “24 "For false Christs and false prophets
will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if
possible, even the elect.” Now we will
look at Mark 13:6 “6 “Many will come in My name, saying, ’I am He!’ and will
mislead many.” John MacArthur writes the
following on the word deceives: “Deceives
is from planao, and means ‘to wander.’ It forms the root of the English word planet, since the planets appear to
wander through the heavens. The world
will be utterly vulnerable to his deception during the Tribulation. There will be unparalleled disasters and
unimaginable horrors, leaving people desperate for answers. Having rejected the true gospel and blasphemed
the true God (cf. 16:9, 11), the unbelieving world will be eager to believe the
deceiving lies propagated by the false prophet.” ( I think that many people in our country are
believing a pack of lies at this time as well.)
Now we have looked at the phrase “those who dwell on the
earth” and it appears seven times in the book of Revelation, and we have
discussed that this means unbelievers so those who are being deceived are
unbelievers. Mark 13:22 states “for
false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders,
in order to lead astray, if
possible, the elect.” True
believers will not be deceived by what the false prophet is doing.
As we see the power of the Antichrist and now the false
prophet grow we will then see that the world will be ready to worship the
Antichrist as being god, and this is what Satan has always wanted to be
worshiped. MacArthur concludes “The
world will engage in the most shocking, blatant idolatry ever seen. Like Nebuchadnezzar before him (Dan. 3), but
on a global scale, Antichrist, aided by the false prophet, will set up a statue
of himself as a symbol of his deity and worldwide worship. This blasphemous image will probably be set
up on the temple grounds in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Thess. 2:4) and will be connected
with the abomination of desolation (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Matt. 24:15). It will be a tribute to the awesome power of Antichrist,
‘who had the wound of the sword and has come to life’ (cf. vv. 3, 12), to
seemingly conquer death.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is good to
know the truth of what is going to happen in the end times as the Bible has laid
out for us in the book of Revelation and other books as well, but we as
believers need to share this truth with those God brings into out path,
especially in the times we are living in today in the USA.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To continue to trust the Lord as we go
through these difficult times in our country, and to continue to pray for our
country, and continue to tell others the truth found in the pages of Scripture.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Lighting.”
Today’s Bible question: “Who said ‘Lord, how often shall my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him’?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/2/2015 9:58 AM
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