And so we come to the person called the false prophet (Revelation 16:13). The previous quoted passage of scripture gives us some insight into who this individual is, and what his role will be in the earth in the last days. It is significant that the beast called the false prophet is only manifested in the earth after the Anti-Christ is manifested. What is equally significant is that it seems as if God prohibits the Anti-Christ from displaying any supernatural powers until the false prophet is revealed in the earth, for we see no evidence of any of the Anti-Christ’s supernatural powers displayed until the false prophet is revealed. And in fact scripture only describes the false prophet as the one who performs miraculous signs, even though the scripture attributes the power as coming from the Anti-Christ. And so this answers the question as to why the Anti-Christ only displays himself as god in the earth halfway through his reign of seven years. He does that because he has to wait for the false prophet to be revealed before he is able to display his supernatural power. We have already seen that the false prophet is also a hybrid being, in that he is part angel and part man. But although the false prophet will also be a superior being in the earth, he will not have the same level of supernatural power as the Anti-Christ, for don’t forget that we have seen that Satan will give his power to the Anti-Christ. The reason that I say that the false prophet will not be as powerful as the Anti-Christ, is because the scripture tells us that he is only able to perform certain miracles when in the presence of the Anti-Christ. For the scripture says that, “he deceives those who dwell on the earth, by those signs which he was granted to do, in the sight of the beast”. One of the signs that he will be able to perform, is that he will make fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.
Michael E.B. Maher
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