Whenever there is suffering, false prophets will use the opportunity to claim that they have some kind of special knowledge that will bring an end to hardship. With this message they will seek to deceive those who follow Jesus Christ and they will appear regularly (see 1 John 2:18; 1 John 4:3). Scripture affirms that Satan and his followers can also perform some miracles to aid their deceptions (Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:13–15; Revelation 16:13–14; Revelation 19:20).1 Acts of power are thus not of the essence when it comes to making a judgment between true and false prophets but fruit of the Spirit is (see further Galatians 5:16–25).2 Whatever signs the false prophets perform, God will see to it that they are not able to deceive those whom he has chosen for salvation.
23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.