They performed real miracles. That was the problem.
📖Based on Matthew 24:24
The miracles were real.
That was the thing that made it dangerous.
Not tricks. Not illusions. Signs and wonders — the kind that required explanation, the kind that left crowds shaking, the kind that spread through networks overnight.
And people gathered around the ones who did them.
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders.
The disciples had asked for the signs of the end. Jesus gave them this one first.
Not the astronomical signs. Not the wars and rumors of wars.
The human signs.
The men who would stand up and perform the supernatural and claim it as their authority.
Insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
If it were possible.
That qualifier mattered. The elect would not ultimately be deceived. But the deception would be close enough that possibility was the word Jesus chose.
Behold, I have told you before.
The warning was the protection.
Knowing in advance that this would happen meant that when it happened, it didn't have to be disorienting.
Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth.
Behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
The false prophet's location: remote, secret, exclusive, accessible only to the initiated.
Always off the main road.
Always requiring you to leave behind what you know to find him.
The return of the real Christ would need no advertising.
As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west.
Visible to everyone. From every direction. All at once.
No one would need to be told where to look.
The flash fills the sky.
Scripture — Matthew 24:24
"For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
Reflection
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The test of a prophet in the end times is not whether their miracles are real. It is whether they point to the real Christ.
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The warning given before the deception is the protection against it.
false prophetsdeceptionMatthew 24miraclesend times