The Antichrist will rule in close association with the false prophet, and that alliance will emphasise the strong mystical nature of his leadership position. This major prophet will be instrumental in deceiving humanity, he will convince people of all faiths to accept the Antichrist as their common saviour and world messiah, ultimate force them to accept his number and to worship him as God. The Bible says the following about the revelation of the false prophet:
“Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men” (Rev. 13:11-13).
The false prophet will be another beast in the same kingdom from which the first beast comes. He will simply be another of the same type as the first. He will look like a lamb but speak like a dragon. He will have the innocent appearance of a religious leader whose sole objective will be to unite the world and lead humanity into an era of peace and harmony. But when he speaks it will become evident that he is possessed to the extreme with the supernatural power and spirit of deception which is from the dragon, the devil. One of the most astonishing miracles he will perform will be to revive the Antichrist after he has been mortally wounded in the middle of the tribulation period (Rev. 13:3, 12).
The false prophet will be totally intolerant of the kingdom of God and of true Christians and he will speak blasphemously about them. He will glorify the Antichrist at the expense of Christ and astonish the world with his signs and wonders. Through his cunning he will cause deceit to prosper. The minds of people will be blinded by the god of this world (Satan); consequently they will be unable to discern between good and evil but will believe a lie (2 Cor. 4:4).
According to Revelation 13, the false prophet will be the right-hand man of the Antichrist. Satan knows that two are better than one. The false prophet will praise and magnify the beast, causing multitudes of people to accept, follow and worship him. The mass media, such as radio, television, the press, and the Internet, will be utilised to their full potential by the false prophet, who will be the chief propagandist and public relations mastermind for the Antichrist. He will spare no effort in deceiving and influencing people. All human brainpower and knowledge, including the educational systems and the entertainment world, will be mobilised in the service of the Antichrist.
In his hands, false religions, including compromised ecumenical Christianity, will be wielded as important weapons in establishing an inclusive alliance of all faiths. The false prophet will by no means forbid religion; instead, he will use it as a powerful tool to deceive the masses. However, evangelical Christianity will be forbidden because of its exclusive and non-ecumenical nature.
The evil spirit of Satan will possess both the Antichrist and the false prophet. The false prophet will imitate and oppose the work of the Holy Spirit in the following ten ways, in a concerted effort to draw all people into his false world religion:
· In the same way that the Holy Spirit introduces us to Jesus and teaches us to worship Him, the false prophet will introduce the Antichrist to humanity and teach them to worship him.
· The Holy Spirit calls and purifies a bride for Christ, which is the only true church. Through deception and apostasy the false prophet calls together a spiritually unchaste bride (the Mother of Harlots) for the Antichrist, which will include all the false religions.
· The Spirit of God is the Spirit of holiness who convicts us of sin. The false prophet has a wicked spirit through which people will be encouraged to live in sin.
· The Holy Spirit proclaims the pure words of God to us so that we may be drawn to Him with cords of love. From the mouth of the false prophet an unclean spirit will come, speaking unclean words that will seduce the nations to enter into a covenant with Satan’s king.
· The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who guides us into all truth. The false prophet will lie to the people of the world and trick them in order to make them captives of the spirit of error.
· The Holy Spirit gives us faith in God and His Son. The false prophet will mislead people to believe in Lucifer (Satan) and in the Antichrist.
· The Holy Spirit comforts us, and also encourages and empowers Christians to act righteously. The false prophet will frighten and oppress people, and also incite and empower them to act unrighteously.
· The Holy Spirit gives divine gifts to people to enable them to better serve the Lord. The false prophet will give demonic gifts to people to enable them to perform signs and wonders to deceive others.
· The Holy Spirit teaches us to worship God and to become partakers of His eternal life. The false prophet will force people to worship the image of the beast, thereby condemning themselves to eternal death.
· The Holy Spirit seals everyone who belongs to Christ as a child of God. The false prophet will induce people to be sealed with the mark of the Antichrist, thereby selling their souls to the devil.
The false prophet will undertake the ideological and religious brainwashing of humanity on behalf of the Antichrist. He will either emerge from the global alliance of false religions, or possibly from outside that alliance, but will gain full control over them within a short space of time. The religions of the world will then be exploited and engaged in making their followers subservient to the Antichrist and also to worship him. Revelation 13:14-18 clearly states that the false prophet will deceive the world into worshipping the beast and receiving his mark and number on their right hands and foreheads. This will result in the world being united in the political, religious and economic spheres under the leadership of the Antichrist.
The prevailing mindset in the kingdoms of God and Satan should be clearly distinguished from one another in order to clearly understand the state of mind which Satan’s spirit of error has created throughout the ages to induce people to believe in his lies. The false prophet will enforce this depraved mindset to bring about its global manifestation.
The way of thinking that will be fundamental to the world empire of the Antichrist is monism –everything is one. The false prophet will apply this ideology of “everything is one” to all spheres of life in order to promote the emergence of cosmic holism. That means that all faiths will be one, that there will only be one Messiah for the whole world (the Bible calls him the Antichrist) and that there will be no counter-reality of a devil and a hell. During this time, Lucifer will be portrayed as an angel of light and pretends to be God.
A Christian worldview is diametrically opposed to the monistic philosophy of the Antichrist. The Bible does not teach monism but dualism – everything is two. Humanity is confronted by two big and incompatible realties, i.e. the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. These two kingdoms are completely polarised and irreconcilable as God is opposed by Satan, Christ by the Antichrist, and the Holy Spirit by Satan’s spirit of error. The two poles represent opposite characteristics such as light and darkness, heaven and hell, truth and lies, the narrow way and the broad way, salvation and damnation, and also the only true religion which stands in opposition to all the false religions.
In the kingdom of God the way of thinking is antithetical, leading to the drawing of boundaries in order to make a conceptual distinction between things. Thinking in opposites enables one to clearly discern between right and wrong. In the kingdom of Satan, the way of thinking is synthetic, or integrative, leading to the removal of boundaries to the point that everything is united into an all-embracing cosmic whole. In this kingdom there is no distinction between right and wrong because everything is permissible – all lifestyles, e.g. homosexuality, as well as all religions, are acceptable. The boundary between the natural and supernatural realms is not recognised in Satan’s empire, with the result that miracles, the use of occult powers such as witchcraft, self-healing, Eastern meditation, the summoning up of spirits, as well as cosmic wisdom for divination, are encouraged and practised as everyday phenomena. This category of powers is clearly occult and satanic in nature.
Like the Antichrist, the false prophet’s coming will be “according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish” (2 Thess. 2:9-10). He will use his satanic powers to seduce people to worship the Antichrist as God, and also to accept his number on their right hand or forehead. John says:
“And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666” (Rev. 13:12-18).
Like never before, the world will be exposed to religious deception with a view to accepting the Antichrist’s new world order and to eventually ensure that Satan and the Antichrist are worshipped as God. The forerunners of the false prophet are already actively busy with spiritual deception and brainwashing of this nature. In South Africa, there are various theologians who are completely caught up in Satan’s monistic and synthetic way of thinking. They can no longer discern between concepts such as heaven and hell, and for that reason they tend to deny the existence of both. No longer do they have the ability to discern between the only true religion and all the false religions, which explains why they become involved with ecumenical and interfaith activities in which they associate with all faiths. Neither can they discern between Christ and the Antichrist; consequently, they deny prophecies on the coming of the Antichrist and will therefore accept him as Christ when he does come.
According to the Bible, the monistic ideology of “everything is one” will be propagated and enforced on all levels of society after the coming of the Antichrist. It will be regarded as the only basis for morally correct values and a disposition of compromise by way of social, cultural, and religious converging and unification among all nations on earth. There will be no room provided for exclusive group rights – least of all for the highly exclusive Christian faith. In the traditionally Christian world, the Christian faith is also losing its status as the only true religion in society.
Right from the start of the tribulation period, those who take a stand for the true Christ and against the Antichrist, will have to distance themselves from the merging neo-Babylonian global society, its culture, ideology, values and mystical religious practices. They should not do that only for the sake of their own survival. They should accept it as their duty to proclaim the antithetic (contrasting) biblical principles and values among the confused and deceived victims of the Antichrist, the false prophet and their new world order. Even though the risk may be high, there will be no other honourable course of action.
Like never before, human lives will be at stake, and people will have to be urgently warned against spiritual deception, the conclusion of a covenant with the devil by accepting the mark of the Antichrist, and also against eternal condemnation which follows. Satan first tries to blind people’s minds through deception (2 Cor. 4:4), and subsequently uses them to do his dirty work by deceiving millions of other people. Their only reward for this work will be everlasting perdition.
Once the false prophet has seduced millions of people into becoming followers of the Antichrist by means of spiritual deception, those who continue to stubbornly refuse to bow down before the Antichrist will be summarily executed. Biblical Christianity is absolutely exclusive and cannot associate or merge with any other religion. This exclusivity is the main reason for the false religions always having been, and still are, resentful and vindictive towards Christianity. In the tribulation period, under the guidance of the false prophet, followers of false religions will gain the right and the power to give full expression to their age-old campaign of hatred against evangelical Christianity.
In collaboration with the false prophet, the Antichrist will eradicate all spiritual opposition. Revelation 13:7 says: “It was granted him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.” After this, unclean spirits that do signs and wonders will proceed from the dragon (Satan), the Antichrist and the false prophet to deceive the kings of the earth into mobilising their armies for a great war against Israel (Rev. 16:13-14). Although they will also be intent on destroying the remnant of Israel, their main target will be the coming Messiah – the Holy One of Israel. This futile exercise will be aimed at dethroning Jesus Christ and destroying the remnants of Christianity and Israel.
When Jesus comes from heaven, descending to place His feet on the Mount of Olives, there will not be an extended battle or any conversation with the satanic rulers. They will immediately be captured alive and cast into the lake of fire: “Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Rev. 19:20).
The days of the satanic triumvirate are numbered, and their final destination will be the lake of fire. At the end of the great tribulation, only the Antichrist and false prophet will be cast into the lake of fire, as Satan will be bound in a bottomless pit where he will be incarcerated for the full duration of Christ’s thousand-year reign. According to Revelation 20:7-10, subsequent to the thousand-year period, Satan will be released for a short time to launch his final rebellion on earth. That will be a test to the people on earth, as Satan’s work of deception will reveal who truly belong to Jesus Christ, and who do not.
Those who are not born again, will immediately fall under Satan’s power and join him in revolting against Christ. Their eternal destiny, together with the satanic triumvirate and their great following of demons, will be in the lake of fire: “And the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).
The lost people of all the ages will then appear before the great white throne and, because of their unsaved state and all their evil works, they will be condemned to the same lake of fire: “And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15).
The end of the way of sin and rebellion against God is death. But God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and for that reason they should be called to repentance now, before it is too late (Ezek. 33:11). Once you are before the great white throne, it will be too late to settle your case with the Lord. There the wicked will hear only the following words of condemnation: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).