Many False Prophets Will Appear and Deceive Many People

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As we continue our look at the prophecies Jesus gave in Matthew 24 of what our world would be like in the end times, He said:

…And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people (Matthew 24:11).

We have already talked about false prophets in several posts in this blog. To find them, you can go to the list of Labels in the right sidebar and click on the label "false prophets" and a list of all the posts labeled with that tag will come up.

Today, we need to carefully think about what false prophets might look like in our age. (Tweet that!) For me, I can think of two kinds of false prophets right away (Tweet that!):

• leaders of false religions. A false religion is any religion that is not based on the truth of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. 
• And false prophets or leaders who claim to be within the true religion of Christianity but are not teaching truth.

Frankly I see many of each of these today.

In the United States, this once-Christian nation was founded on Christian principles by men and women of the Christian faith. Yes, I said the Christian faith (not "deists" like some try to claim today). Our freedom of religion allowed all faiths to be represented, but also allowed us to talk about our faith and, through reasoning and peaceful conversation, we could convince others of the truths of our faith. (Tweet that!) Today, however, Christians are hushed and bullied while other faiths are promoted and protected.

Also, I see many within the Christian church teaching and promoting principles that are not in line with true Christianity. (Tweet that!) For example, homosexuality is wrong, however many churches are not only accepting homosexuality as another "life style" but are ordaining church leaders who are openly homosexuals! God will not allow this for long.

However this is nothing new. And homosexuality is not the only sin God abhors, of course. The apostle Paul wrote about sin his letter to the Romans. Notice the list of different sins toward the end of the passage. Also notice the spiral downward with the three-time repeated phrase that "God abandoned them…":

18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. 

24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. 

28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents.31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy.32 They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too (Romans 1:18-32).

In the United States homosexuality and same-sex marriage has been "normalized" and is now promoted as good and right. Those of us who speak out against it are slammed and bullied into silence. This can only happen because so many people are deceived.

These are only a couple of examples of how many false prophets are appearing and deceiving many people.