The False Prophet
11 I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon.
Rev 13:11
two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon – he looks “Christ-like” but his message is full of the destructive power of Satan. He distorts the Gospel and leads people away from the power of salvation.
12 He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.
Rev 13:12
all the authority of the first beast in his presence – God allowed the performance of lying signs and wonders to testify to false teachings, because “they did not receive the love of the truth” (2Thes 2:10).
Paul wrote:
“The Coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders…” 2 Thessalonians 2:9
The power of Satan came through the spirit of the Montanists, which Tertullian received. Tertullian, was the “father of Latin Christianity.” He was apparently the first writer to state that baptism in living water had no significance and propose the Trinity doctrine. He also called the Sabbath, “a temporary commandment.”1
The Bible gives us three measures of doctrine that must be adhered to, in order to be saved. All of these were broken by Tertullian’s preaching.
- We must “know…the one true God” (John 17:3).
- We must “obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). This includes the need to be baptized and remember Christ’s death “in like manner” to Christ, and the Apostles.
- We must do the will of God, and keep His commandments (Matthew 7:21).
Montanism, was a false experience of speaking in tongues and prophecy, which lasted from 180 until the 6th century. Scholars debate the exact beginning of it, but Eusebius, the Bishop of Constantine in 324, in his Church History, placed the whole controversy of it after 180. He began his account of Montanism in Book 5, Chapter 14. The mainstream Church considered it to be a cult. The early Church believed that the Montanists were possessed by evil spirits. Its founders, Montanus and Maximillia, were each said to have “died a different death, a mind-destroying spirit, driving each to a separate suicide.” 2
Tertullian, being possessed by the spirit of Montanism, said the Bible was full of “heretical subtleties” and there was no way to refute the teachings of those he thought were heretics because the Bible itself supported them. But, he believed that the holy spirit was now correcting the explanation of the mystery through “the New Prophecy.” Tertullian wrote:
“He (the holy spirit) has accordingly now dispersed all the perplexities of the past, and their self-chosen allegories and parables, by the open and perspicuous explanation of the entire mystery, through the new prophecy, which descends in copious streams from the Paraclete.”3
He makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed – Tertullian was possessed by the evil spirit of the Montanists and boasted of their miracles, while he leavened all three measures of the kingdom of heaven. But the Church was not persuaded by the false miracles of the Montanists. Here, we can see that John has the time of the Pope in mind, and the deception of false miracles that gave the Pope his power with the Ten States of Europe.