and many false prophets shall arise and shall mislead many;
This chapter is the Lord's own sketch of what lies between His rejection and His return. Among the wars, famines and betrayals He names a danger dressed as religion: prophets who lead crowds astray. Who are they? When do they come? And why do so many people believe them?
Who the warning was spoken to
These false prophets belong to a run of trials with a fixed start and a fixed end, marked out for one particular people.
So the Lord prepares the Jewish disciples, the faithful remnant, for their special trials. This was partly true after His own departure, until Jerusalem was destroyed. It will be more fully proved before Jerusalem is owned again, after the destruction of the Antichrist… There would be false profession and hatred of the true, even among themselves — not only troubles from outside… So there is a defined period of endurance. An end will come as surely as there was a beginning of sorrows.
Why Matthew records this and Luke does not
Matthew and Luke record different parts of this prophecy, and the difference shows who this warning is for.
Here false prophets and their deceptions stand out. Luke does not mention them, for there the warning is meant for believers before the siege of Jerusalem. But for the Jews waiting for Christ's return, the danger from this source will be very great. So the warning carries special emphasis, and it foretells how far the deception will spread.
What makes a false prophet attractive
Why do people believe them?
False prophets are attractive because they always predict things that fit men's desires and seem perfectly reasonable. We must be on our watch, for false prophets are everywhere today in the pulpits of Christendom. The devil knows that if he can deceive men about Christ, he can deceive them in everything else. To be rooted in our knowledge of the true Christ makes us proof against the attractions of the false ones.
Their message always flatters the world.
This Scripture prophesies of false prophets. They prophesy false things — the reverse of God's judgment of the world. They will speak of the world's abilities and its greatness, of man being made perfect, and of the world's institutions becoming his noble state. And the world listens to them.
The soil deception grows in
Deception does not land in a vacuum. Trust and love among the people have already broken down.
Minds in such a condition welcome the words of the false prophet. Those words turn many aside from the truth and deceive them.
False prophets, false teachers
Commentators differ on how far the verse reaches into our own time. Some hold that the title "false prophet" marks the age, and that more than human error is at work in these men.
False prophets will arise, misleading many. The Jewish age has false prophets; the Christian age has false teachers. "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies" (2 Peter 2:1). Evil spirits will possess these false prophets who come at the end of the Jewish age. The same thing happened in Israel's great falling away under King Ahab. The Lord then allowed a lying spirit to take control of the false prophets, as the prophet Micaiah revealed (2 Chronicles 18:18-22).
Others see the same words already at work. The end is the full harvest of something long under way.
False prophets also have arisen during this age, as they will at the end. "As you have heard that antichrist is coming… so now many antichrists have come" (1 John 2:18), and they have deceived many.
How the Lord guards His people
The Lord protects by telling. He warns His people in advance, and He expects them to know what He said.
In tender concern for our weakness, then, the Lord, through His servants, has warned us in advance of what we have to expect among His professing people. Two important things follow. First, only in the light of the Scriptures can we read the state of professing Christianity correctly. Second, if we do not know the teaching of the Word of God, we are open to disappointments and deceptions of every possible kind.
Summary
- Many. Many false prophets rise, and many are led astray. Numbers are never the test of truth.
- Deception follows breakdown. False profession and hatred spread first. Minds in that state take in the deceiver's words without resistance.
- Comfort, not correction. False prophets forecast man's greatness and the world's improvement. That is the reverse of God's judgment on the world, and the world listens gladly.
- Which age? Commentators differ. Some tie the false prophets to the Jewish remnant at the end, with false teachers as their match in the Christian era. Others see them at work already, with the end as the full harvest.
- Forewarned is forearmed. The Lord tells His people what is coming before it comes. Scripture is the only light that shows religious profession for what it is.