The second group of people targeted by false prophets are sincere believers who are faithfully serving God but are in the midst of the storm of affliction and troubles of life. They simply target your vulnerabilities due to the urgency to resolve the problem. They first give you words of encouragement from the scripture to disarm you, while they psychologically profile and assess the depth of your understanding and commitment to the Lord in other to device an effective strategy of deception to capture your soul and money. Let us remember always that false prophets are extremely crafty and manipulative, they quickly adapt to cover their errors when exposed. They may suggest unscriptural solutions that borders on rebellion against the commandments of God. Some are very brazen to suggest sexual defilement as a solution to your problem. The mission of the false prophets is to steal, kill and destroy something that is very precious in your life and family.

They deliberately twist the holy scripture into a psychological weapon to intimidate, gain control and
defraud their followers while building personal empires for themselves and their family in the name of the Lord. They may offer generic imprecise prophecies that is subject to myriads of interpretations which cannot be verified for authenticity. They are spiritual fraudsters who sells you sweet deceptive words in return for your money. They lead you astray from the path of peace, joy, and righteousness. They fabricate and introduce highly destructive false doctrines of their own imaginations and traditional beliefs to the people of God, to rob them of the wonderful blessings of Grace. They undermine the divine plan of salvation and bring reproach to the name of the Lord. They preach the doctrine inspired by demons. They incline men to chase after the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. They preach the doctrine of false prosperity and destroy the souls of men.

There are some notable false teachers mentioned in the holy Scripture that subvert the faith of some believers in the New Testament through their doctrine. Hymenaeus and Philetus taught that the resurrection had already taken place thereby destroying the faith of some. The church history is littered with false predictions of the second coming of Jesus Christ. The sales of indulgences by the Catholic Church that is purported to grant you remission from temporal sins and reduce your punishment in purgatory based on the amount you paid were clearly false.

There is yet another subset of false prophets which are more diabolical than those using psychological manipulation to deceive people for material gain. This group deploy occult spiritual powers to perform signs and wonders to control the mind of people. On the surface they preach and teach using the holy scriptures but they practise witchcraft and sorcery to gain legitimacy. Simon the sorcerer was reputed among the people of Samaria as a man with the great power of God, yet he was using sorcery to perform miracles and signs, until he was exposed by the Apostles of Christ. The false prophet draw attention to themselves and not God, they dwell more on miracles and power and not righteousness. Ironically the messages of the false prophet appeal to the carnal mind and those who are ungrounded in the knowledge of God.

In the midst of all these, the Almighty God whose wisdom transcends all human understanding, knows how to truncate the works of the false prophets and teachers in the life of people. He exposes their operations and lay it bare before the whole world, covering them with shame and humiliation.

“Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God [which He has laid] stands [sure and unshaken despite attacks], bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord stand apart from wickedness and withdraw from wrongdoing.”

Let us test and measure every doctrine and revelations that we encounter with the gold standard of the scriptures according to the instructions of the Apostles. We are instructed to test the truth content of the message of every self-proclaimed teacher and prophet through the lenses of the holy Scripture before we embrace their teachings. Jesus Christ instructed those false prophets and teacher maybe discerned using the moral test of character, attitude, and behaviour. This implies that no matter how clever they are they will fail the test of virtues. They tend to boast in their anointing, brag about their achievements and not Christ, they patronise the name of our Lord Jesus to fleece the flock of God. They monetise miracles.

May the Lord grant us wisdom and understanding to discern false doctrines.

In conclusion we must restrain the temptation to judge the entire church for corruption and deceit, despite the activities of some false prophets and teachers, there are countless multitudes of people serving God in all sincerity and truth.