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Educated and ignorant, king and pauper, male and female, Jew and Gentile, strong and weak, young and old, black and white--all are deceived by him. All the world's high-sounding philosophies, conceived ever so brilliantly by profound thinkers--whether pragmatism, idealism, gnosticism, determinism, hedonism, materialism, transcendentalism, existentialism, deism, or any of countless others, and regardless of the eminence of the geniuses with whose names they are associated--Aristotelianism, Platonism, Hegelianism, Marxism, Maoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Kantianism, Freudianism--all are man-originated, man-centered, and man-honoring, rather than God-originated, God-centered, and God-honoring [Col. [[2:8-9|bible.72.2.8-72.2.9]]].3
His ultimate deceiving tool at the time of the end is the False Prophet who performs great signs to deceive those who dwell on the earth (Rev. [[13:13-14|bible.87.13.13-87.13.14]]+), those who receive the mark of the beast and worship his image (Rev. [[19:20|bible.87.19.20]]+). See commentary on Revelation 13:11. Satan empowers both the Beast and the False Prophet as two mighty deceivers. In a similar way that God gives power to the two witnesses who testify of God (Rev. [[11:3|bible.87.11.3]]+), these two are empowered by Satan as master deceivers during a time when deception will be the rule rather than the exception. The deception will be so strong that only by the power of the Holy Spirit will the regenerate avoid succumbing to the signs and lying wonders:The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2Th. [[2:9-12|bible.74.2.9-74.2.12]])
The False Prophet is the ultimate from among those Jesus warned of: "false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive" (Mtt. [[24:24|bible.61.24.24]]a.).At the Second Coming of Christ, Satan is bound in the abyss so as to halt his deceiving ministry for the duration of the Millennium (Rev. [[20:3|bible.87.20.3]]+), but at the end he will be released to deceive the nations one final time (Rev. [[20:8-10|bible.87.20.8-87.20.10]]+).Notes
1 Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22 (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995), 12:9.
2 Frederick William Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 561.
3 Henry Morris, The Revelation Record (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983), Rev. 12:9.
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