Since sin entered the world through Adam, God has repeatedly warned His people against false prophets and teachers. Many times in the New Testament, we are warned that false prophets and teachers will abound more in the last days. Wherever there is truth abounding, the father of lies, the devil, is inspiring falsehood to destroy people’s lives.
Coming out of the worldwide pandemic, false teachers and prophets have multiplied at an alarming rate. Drawing people after themselves with fanciful predictions, wrong insights, and juicy but weird Bible interpretations, they are gaining a growing following. So many are abandoning the truth and embracing a lie, following hard after false teachers instead of following hard after the Lord. The sad part is that the people of God would have it that way.
2 Timothy 4:2–5 (NKJV) “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Consider these ten biblical signs of a false prophet and false teacher:
1. What they say does not line up with God’s Word.
God’s word is the final and only authority on matters related to life and godliness. If God inspires someone to speak on His behalf, then what is revealed will never contradict God’s established written Word.
1 Timothy 6:20–21 (NKJV) “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge—by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.”
2. What they say does not line up with the facts.
If God inspires someone to speak on His behalf, then what is revealed will be factual.
Nehemiah 6:8 (NKJV) “Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your own heart.”
John 8:44 (NKJV) “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
3. What they say does not line up with the truth.
If God inspires someone to speak on His behalf, then what is revealed will be factual.
John 14:6 (NKJV) “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through Me.”
4. What they say does not honor Jesus Christ and they are drawing you after themselves not Jesus.
If God inspires someone to speak on His behalf, then what is revealed will be honoring of Jesus Christ. If a person urges you to live contrary to Jesus or follow them, drawing attention to themselves, then reject them.
2 Corinthians 11:2–4 (NKJV) “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!”
5. What they say doesn’t make any biblical sense.
Many false teachers have no understanding of the Bible, let alone the character and nature of God. They are filled with pride and arrogance. Avoid them.
1 Timothy 1:4–7 (NKJV) “nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm.”
6. What they say is filled with appeals for your money.
False teachers are in it for your money, as much as they can get. They are misusing the Bible and taking advantage of your sincerity to take your money.
1 Peter 5:2–4 (NKJV) “Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.”
7. What they say on behalf of God is just plain WRONG.
This is an important one. If they say they are prophesying on behalf of God, “Thus sayeth the Lord,” and they are wrong, and it didn’t come to pass, they are FALSE PROPHETS. Reject them.
Deuteronomy 18:20–22 (NKJV) “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”
8. What they say and do does not reflect the words of Jesus.
A false prophet and teacher is a person who says they speak for God yet live a very ungodly life.
1 Timothy 6:3–5 (NKJV) “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”
9. They claim to go to hell and heaven many times, like they have a key, and come back with weird unverifiable information.
A false prophet loves to use grandiose false claims about going to heaven or hell (why would anyone go to hell) and seeing things that no one else gets to see, only them. If you listen to them though they will tell you. The descriptions they come back with are pure nonsense. Not even Paul, the apostle, was allowed to share what he saw in heaven, and he only saw it once.
2 Corinthians 12:1–6 (NKJV) “It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.”
10. Theirs lives produce rotten, bad fruit.
Their lives represent the true revelation of their heart. This can be hard to see because many popular false prophets and false teachers are followed on YouTube or television from a distance. The value of being in your local church, under the teaching and authority of your pastors and elders, is essential.
Matthew 7:15–20 (NKJV) “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
We are living in the last days. Many false prophets surround us. Please, be careful and prayerful about who you listen to and who you choose to follow. Listen carefully for the unmistakable voice of the Lord.
1 John 4:1–3 (NKJV) “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world.”
BONUS: What they say, as if sent from God, about the elections, various conspiracy theories, and pop culture rhetoric is either vague, or 100% did not come to pass. They are false teachers.
Very resourceful and helpful information