Is it not strange that nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to fol­low spe­cial prophets from God that are to rise in the last days? Rather we are given sev­eral warn­ings to do just the opposite. 

In Matthew 24:11 Jesus sounds a clear warn­ing per­tain­ing to false prophets that are to come on the scene in the last days; “Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many”. In II Tim­o­thy 3:13 Paul also warns that “Evil men and seduc­ers shall wax worse and worse, deceiv­ing and being deceived”.  

These self-appointed and self-exalted “super­stars” come on the scene like comets across the sky, fly high for a while, then sink into oblivion. I would dare say we can all think of at least one exam­ple: A self-proclaimed prophet boldly enters the scene pos­si­bly through TV or radio, only to even­tu­ally become exposed and dis­cred­ited, per­haps dies and igno­min­ious death leav­ing their fol­low­ers scat­tered to the four winds, dis­il­lu­sioned and dis­gusted with religion. 

 Jesus warns us that as time pro­gresses it will become increas­ingly dif­fi­cult for some to rec­og­nize them. They will dis­guise them­selves com­ing meek and mild in sheep’s cloth­ing, but “inwardly they are raven­ing wolves” (Matthew 7:15) . Jesus also warns that these false prophets will even go as far as to dis­play signs and won­ders “imposters will come claim­ing to be the mes­siah or prophets, dis­play­ing won­der­ful signs and prodi­gies to mis­lead God’s cho­sen, if such a thing were pos­si­ble” (Matthew 24:24). In II Corinthi­ans Paul explains that we are not to be taken by sur­prise when false prophets dis­guise them­selves as apos­tles of Christ or even Christ him­self; “For Satan him­self is trans­formed into an angel of light. There­fore it is no great thing if his min­is­ters also be trans­formed as the min­is­ters of right­eous­ness; whose end shall be accord­ing to their works”.

So the ques­tion remains how do we dis­tin­guish between false prophets from real men of God? The answer is simple-by the doc­trine they preach. In Gala­tians 1:8 Paul said “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed”. Regard­less of the mir­a­cles they may per­form, and the thou­sands that claim to get saved under their teach­ings, the bot­tom line is that if they do not preach the truth they are accursed and not of God.

We must at all times be on guard against false prophets that will become more and more preva­lent as we near the Lord’s coming.It is dan­ger­ous to be a per­son­al­ity fol­lower, to be car­ried away by some indi­vid­ual claim­ing some super-duper gift that like all oth­ers before him will be brought down to noth­ing. God will not be mocked; nei­ther will he give his glory to another. To fol­low a miracle-working false prophet today is sim­ply get­ting the peo­ple ready to fol­low the miracle-working Antichrist when he appears on the scene.

Taken from Ques­tions Pen­te­costals Ask by David F. Gray, 1987. Word Aflame Press: Hazel­wood, MO.