The Worst False Prophet Ever Series

The Worst False Prophet Ever

(This contribution is based on a message preached Sunday evening, 3-30-2025 at the New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO, but is not an exact transcription.)

Introduction: Tonight we’re going to wrap up our study of false prophets. I sure hope the Lord has given all of us—not just me—insight into what false prophets say and do, plus some of the damage these men (not including female false prophetesses as well).

The false prophet we’re going to look at tonight is the last and worst false prophet ever. The good thing is that we as believes won’t be here to see any of this. The sad thing is that we all know people who are headed for the seven-year nightmare of the Great Tribulation unless they repent and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. (NOTE: I and my church believe in the pre-Tribulation Rapture and pre-millennial return of Christ).

Ordinarily I use one passage per message and stay there but tonight’s a little different. We’ll need to look at three different passages, but they’re all in the Book of Revelation, Let’s start by turning to Revelation chapter 13, beginning with verse 11:

1 The False Prophet—His Entry

Text: Revelation 13:11, KJV: 11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

It’s been several years now, but Dr. David Jeremiah produced an audio series about what could take place after the Rapture of the Church. In one such episode, he quoted the man who would soon become the Beast or Antichrist speaking to a religious leader who would soon be known as the False Prophet. The words Dr. Jeremiah used were something like this, after a conversation: “Down deep, you know who I am, and I know just who you are.”

For those left behind after the Rapture, they’re going to become very familiar with these two men, indeed. Now, neither one of them are introduced, formally, until chapter 13 as we see here. I have to confess that there’s some of the text that I don’t really understand but this is the Word of God and I believe it. When He says something is going to happen, count on it, it will happen. The Lord has never lied (in fact, He can’t, see Titus 1:2!) and isn’t going to start anytime soon.

What we can see, and understand, is that the Dragon (Satan) of chapter 12 is going to do his best to destroy Israel and her child, the Messiah. After this, there’s going to a be a “beast (literally, a wild beast, according to Strong’s concordance)” coming out of what seems to be the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. This is, after all, the land of the Bible and the “Med” is a very easily identified landmark or body of water!

This “beast” is the Antichrist and will have about as absolute power as any man could dream of (limited, of course, by the Lord’s boundaries). The first several verses of Revelation 13 give a little more information about him and what’s going to happen to him, but that’s not the focus of the message tonight. We’re going to look at another “beast” who is going to be the “Number 1” or assistant for the antichrist. This verse tells us a tiny bit about his entry into this coming world.

In reality, all we know is that this beast (“wild beast”, as in verse 1) comes “up from the earth”. This could mean this false prophet is from anywhere in the world, while others think he may be an apostate Jew. After all, the Antichrist is going to seem to treat Israel favorably at first (see Daniel 9:27) before he turns on them, so it would make sense to have a Jewish person as an ally, humanly and politically speaking.

There is a possible hint of this in the three accounts of Rabshakeh (Isaiah 36 is one of these), a servant of the king of Assyria, speaking Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem. Looking at some of the Assyrian “alphabet (cuneiform, using a stick to make marks on pieces of clay that were dried later)” and comparing that to the old Hebrew letters, like on the Gezer calendar, I don’t see much in common between these two languages. Thus, some have thought Rabshakeh was an Israelite who became part of the Assyrian propaganda ministry! Who better to create fear, they must have thought, than someone who is fluent in the enemy’s language?

The last thing we know about the entry of this false prophet is that he has two horns like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon. Again, I don’t know what to make of all this, except that he looks harmless, like a lamb, in my opinion, but speaks deadly, like a dragon or large serpent (see notes at https://biblehub.com/greek/1404.htm). Ironic, isn’t it, that a serpent led the first people into sin and many years later, another man speaks with the voice of a “dragon” or large serpent to lead most of the remaining world population into greater sin!