The end times are at the door, and when they begin, we are going to see God do something that He’s never done before. He’s going to raise up a human prophet to perform many terrifying miracles. This prophet will become a global figure. We’ve never seen God do this sort of thing before. Certainly Moses was big stuff in his day, but Moses’ realm of influence was extremely limited. Jesus was certainly an epic Figure, but He didn’t range beyond the borders of Israel, and that is a very tiny patch of land. Jesus has become world famous now, but He wasn’t even close to getting global coverage when He was walking about in human form. Yet God’s end time prophet will be unique in that the entire globe will be talking about, filming, watching, and obsessing over this person. Will the prophet be a man or a woman? We’ll have to wait to find out. A man would be expected, but then again, God loves to surprise us and the end times will be packed with surprises. For now, let’s assume it will be a man. The question now becomes, why on earth would a God who is so jealous for glory want to work through a prophet instead of just doing things directly? Hasn’t God noticed by now that we humans are quick to worship anyone who we associate with supernatural powers? As God’s end time prophet goes around toppling skyscrapers, leveling cities, killing people, and altering the weather, how is he not going to end up having the whole world falling down at his feet? Surely God wants to be exalted, not replaced, so what’s with all this drama about a prophet?

To put God’s end time prophet in perspective, we need to start by owning up to the fact that both the saved and the unsaved spend far too much time trying to downplay God’s involvement in our lives. What we’re calling the end times is a period of global chaos which will drag out for many years. The point of this period is to drive souls to God. To aid that process, God has come up with a way to force us to start fixating on the question of who.

Right now when a storm ravages a coastline, we’re content to just talk about pressure systems and focus on various satellite images while we act like the whole event is just physical mechanics. But what if we could all see footage of some guy who appeared to be manipulating the elements? What if clouds moved in when he waved them on and stopped when he halted them? What if lightning struck the moment he snapped his fingers and it hit the ground exactly where he was pointing? Suddenly our discussion of the storm would acquire a very different focus, wouldn’t it? Suddenly we’d be acutely interested in the subject of who. Who is this stranger with the hostile look on his face who seems to be able to control the weather? Why is he causing the storm? What does he want? Where did he get such power? Can he be stopped? Can he be contained? Before the human stepped into view, God was creating the storm, and we were totally blowing off the concept that there was a purposeful will at work behind those driving winds. But now that God has set a human down in the midst of His storm, suddenly we’re all forced to recognize that this storm is more than just a series of random phenomena. Well of course it is, because nothing happens at random in this world. But we refuse to acknowledge this until God forces us to recognize some being at work. This is the main purpose of God’s end time prophet: to break us all out of our ridiculous denial about God’s involvement in our lives. Will it work? Of course it will.

Now the idea of a human with supernatural powers is utterly absurd. Even the most rebellious among us will reject the notion that this end time prophet is acting entirely on his own. After all, he’s just another one of us, and we know that we are very limited beings. So obviously this prophet has managed to get connected with some kind of supernatural being. Once again, we will obsess over the question of who. See how effective God’s methods are?

But what about the problem of idolatry? Surely God doesn’t want His prophet becoming some kind of glory hog. He certainly does not, but He also knows how to prevent this from happening. Naturally some people will try to suck up to the prophet at first, but when they receive a brutal response, they’ll quickly abandon all hopes of trying to win this person’s favor. God’s prophet will not be globally admired, but globally hated. Even though he will be serving God faithfully, the Church will go to war against him, and be just as hostile to him as the Pharisees were towards Jesus. The important point for you in all of this is to understand that God knows how to get His agenda done without compromising His standards. God is not about to encourage us all to idolize some mere mortal, and it’s important that you keep a grip on the fact that God’s end time prophet is not going to be controlling God in any way. God does not take orders from us—ever. Happily, God’s prophet is going to be sincerely devoted to God in his own heart, which means he’s not going to be some pompous windbag who goes around flaunting his Divine connections. While we will see God miraculously protecting this person, we’ll also see God arranging for His prophet to get publicly pounded. The prophet will not be untouchable, but he will be unstoppable. Though the world will try to kill this person time and again, they won’t be able to succeed. Even when it seems certain that the prophet has died, he will only show up again somewhere else.

So why is God telling us about this person in advance? Because it’s new. It’s different. And a little heads up gives us all time to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance on this issue. If we’re wise, we’ll be asking God to help us honor Him during the end times. Since this period is rapidly approaching, now is the time to give serious thought as to what kinds of attitudes please God. We don’t want to be stupid about this prophet business by confusing the instrument with God Himself. Moses didn’t part the Red Sea with a wooden stick. Yahweh parted the sea. The only purpose in having Moses hold his hands in the air was to make it very clear to the Israelites that a purposeful will was at work. Did Yahweh really need Moses to toss a handful of ashes into the air before He could begin the plague of boils on Egypt? Did Jesus really need to put His hands on people in order to heal them? Not hardly. Our Gods are infinitely powerful, so let’s not insult Them by suggesting that They ever need our help to get things done. Our Gods do not share Their power with anyone, so when we see Them performing miracles through someone, we need to realize that the human is nothing more than an attention getting device.