False Prophets: 3 Signs You’re Being Deceived by Demonic Demonstrations

Here is the interesting thing about prophets. Sometimes those who have the biggest following or most clout line up closer to the woe that Jesus spoke of.

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets (Luke 6:26).

True prophetic voices will at times have to say the unpopular and hard truth of a matter.

Those who lean back when the Spirit requires them to speak may do so out of a form of self-preservation. A behavior that grieves the Spirit of the Lord. Those genuinely called to the office of the prophet, depending on their grace and position on the prophetic spectrum, may indeed be required by the Lord to declare the accurate truth of a matter—popular or not! True prophets do what the Spirit says regardless of the outcome.

Prophets who are loved by all resemble the status of false prophets whom Jesus referred to in Luke 6. If a prophet desires to be spoken well of over being obedient to the Voice of God and shrinks back as a result, it is wrong. I do not believe shrinking back makes them a false prophet. They may be a disobedient prophet in need of repentance and a change of heart with a side of courage added, but shrinking back doesn’t mean false. However, prophets who only do what is popular and only do what causes others to speak well of them are seriously in danger of becoming a false prophet if they are not already.

False Prophets Operate in Self-Willed Predictions

There is nothing wrong with searching the mind of God through His Word. There is certainly nothing wrong with searching out the will of God and being open to sensing what the future holds. But those who would venture into a place regarding the prediction that the Spirit has not given them are heading for error.

Nowhere in Scripture did a prophet voluntarily have a vision of the future. They could see and say, in a word-of-knowledge fashion, but you never see a prophet leaning into the future at will and telling you what is happening. Can there be those who have many more moments of seeing the future than others? Yes, but never all the time and simply at will.

False Prophets Don’t Let the Bible Get in the Way

In some of these areas of false prophecy, the followers don’t bother letting the Bible get in the way of what they believe! Meaning, when they prefer to have a sensational story over a biblical foundation, they move Scripture to the side and embrace the story. If someone would dare question the validity of the revelation or bring biblical order to it, false prophets will stand opposed and let everyone know they are not to be corrected.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21).

False Prophets Cause Listeners to Wander

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

One definition of the word “deceive” in Greek is to cause to wander. Maybe a false prophet will not completely deceive a person or a group, but they will induce a cycle of wandering in the life of the listeners.

Having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:5-7).

False prophets fit the description of this type of activity within the Church, and as they induce a variety of misguided issues, they will cause those impacted to wander. As verse 7 states, there is a kind of individual who is impacted by those with a form of godliness who deny its power, and the end result is they are always learning. New fantastic knowledge and unique revelation seems to always be with them, yet they never arrive. It would seem these ones are never able to come to the simple knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ, His lordship, and the foundations of the gospel. Rather they are in a perpetual loop of learning. Sadly, false prophets thrive on this type of individual and induce it within the Church.

To break free of the perpetual wandering, there must be a steadfast love of the truth both preached and taught. Without a foundation in the Word, wandering is inevitable for the susceptible.

Pattern-Based Immoral Behavior

For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts (2 Timothy 3:6).

False prophets will often function with a very immoral side, most often kept secret and not seen by the public; there’s typically a hidden side to their life.

It should be said clearly that this is not a reference to leaders and ministers who have made mistakes or even walked into sin willingly at one time in their life. Many ministers and even prophetic voices have fallen and stumbled at various times, but that doesn’t make them false!

It is what they do about it. Do they conceal or decide to repent to the appropriate people and walk in submission following their bad behavior? Or will they choose to carry on with a pattern-based lifestyle that causes them to venture into the arena of a false prophet? Only one avenue is possible for the restoration of anyone who fails, a season of measurable results through accountability.

Galatians 6 deals with how to restore or help a brother caught in such a trespass. However, those who are unwilling to repent or continuously cover over their hidden life, or even worse, attempt to teach that it is okay for them to walk in such a way—are false.

Never throw stones at anyone who has failed and then came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, repented, and corrected their life. Heather’s father, Harold, said, “Never kick a good man when he’s down, because one day he will get up again—especially if his sleeves are rolled up.”

I always liked that saying because there are so many good men and women out there who have been hurt or have failed and simply need someone to believe in them for a time, and they will make it back to the calling God gave them. The good ones, if they make it, are some of the most humble and easy to work with people because they know only the goodness of God keeps them going.

Third Eye Trash

There are several topics like this out there. One that made the rounds a while back and is coming back around is the teaching called “Opening your third eye.”

Since when did Hindu ideology and terminology using the language of the third eye become okay by any means? An example of this type of deception is using scriptures such as Matthew 6:22 which says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light,” and other twisted takes on Scripture. There are teachers who tell people how to open their third eye. As they do so, they will demonstrate with a shocking word of knowledge. Street names, home addresses, and way more detail than that.

Here is what it is when false teachers or false prophets move in a shocking ability.

1. They are circus performers, no different from going to the carnival. They use trickery and showmanship to wow the listener. A game that involves someone being planted in the crowd or gathering data on people before they attend a meeting and a variety of ways in which a con artist would be willing to operate for the desired effect. As horrible as this is, remember, false prophets will do anything to get power, influence, and money to name a few things.

2. The gifting and ability might be real—but it is without the unction and wind of the Holy Spirit. What do I mean? Psychic abilities can be developed to see things without the Holy Spirit, which can involve mentalism, the practice of reading thoughts or injecting thoughts into a person’s mind.

Much of the latter may involve soul-astral projection, which means they have denied the flesh and natural distractions so much and have focused so intensely on seeing into the spirit realm that they can actually cross from the gray area into the dark realm—suddenly able to see and perceive things that they are not permitted by God to access.

Sweat lodges and various other self-deprecating disciplines function along these same lines. It is like taking a narcotic that can open the unseen realm for the purpose of sight. These types of false prophets might ask you to do a disciplined regimen, denying yourself food, sex, and media, allowing for no distractions.

Intense fasting and discipline for days on end might seem like a holy thing to do, but 2 Timothy 3:5 describes it as, “Having a form of godliness but denying its power.” Why? Because it is all about seeking an ability rather than following the Holy Spirit. The Word of God tells us in 1 Corinthians 14 we are to eagerly desire the gifts, but this doesn’t mean we go into a crazy cult-like regimen to open up a third eye!

False Prophets Offer Demonstration Rather Than Transformation

There is a place for prophetic training and wild encounters. I am a major proponent of such things. However, adding Hindu mysticism or any other foreign unbiblical concepts into the prophetic is a doctrine of demons—opening an avenue for the demonic to operate. This is much like the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, where they began to venture into rebellion against God by building a tower that would access heaven, or the spirit realm without His approval. False prophets offer doors and avenues to the unseen realms outside the will of God.

All of these are humanistic non-Holy Spirit-induced access points into the realm of the spirit, going to places the practitioner has not been invited to nor given permission by God. This is rebellion and is unauthorized access to the realm of the spirit—also known as witchcraft!