10. (a) What is the “false prophet” in the battle lineup of the kings of the earth, and what does it prophesy? (b) What is the “image of the wild beast” the making of which it proposes?

¹⁰ Revelation 19:20 mentions also as being with the “kings of the earth and their armies” what is called “the false prophet that performed in front of [the wild beast] the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image.” This is not a religious prophet belonging to religious Babylon the Great, but is a political prophet. It is the same political organization that is pictured in Revelation 13:11-17. There it appears as the two-horned wild beast that proposed the making of the image of the wild beast and then gave breath to that image so that it spoke authoritatively. That two-horned wild beast is the dual world power of Britain and America, or the Seventh World Power, and the political “image” of the seven-headed wild beast is today the organization for world peace and security, the United Nations. The whole world knows today that this Seventh World Power of Britain and the United States of America endeavors to dictate to the world of mankind and makes impressive prophecies concerning the future of mankind. But it is not the prophet of Jehovah God, inspired by Him. It is “false.”

And the wild beast was caught, and along with it the false prophet that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image. While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur.

The “false prophet” is also a part of that visible planetary system, for it is the dual world power of Britain and America, the dominant part of the whole visible organization of this world. The whole world system is not wily enough to elude the execution of divine judgment for all its ungodly deeds and the way it has preyed upon the people. The symbolic wild beast, along with its false prophet, is “caught,” yes, caught while committing its last misdeeds against the faithful worshipers of Jehovah God. The King of kings, Jesus Christ, is the one who runs down this ferocious wild beast. Like a maneater, it is destroyed.

14. What does the hurling of the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” signify for them?

¹⁴ Never again will this beastly world system of political rule, along with its political “false prophet,” victimize mankind. Not as dead, nonfunctioning political institutions, but, as Revelation 19:20 states, “while still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” Never will they come out of this “fiery lake” alive, for their death in battle is not due to the death that the sinner Adam brought upon all his human offspring. The “fiery lake” symbolizes another kind of death, an endless death from which there is no resurrection. Revelation itself (Re 20:14) explains it, saying: “This means the second death, the lake of fire.” All human efforts in patriotically fighting to perpetuate this political system for running human affairs will fail!

But there are also human survivors on earth after the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” This is not shown here directly in this battle account. Yet this must be so! Why? Because not all the inhabitants of the earth at the time of the battle will be misled by the “false prophet.” There will be exceptions, though comparatively few, to “those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image.” (Revelation 19:20) What about the “great crowd,” whom the apostle John saw earlier in the vision and who were seen standing before God’s throne and before the Lamb Jesus Christ? They are not among those fighting against God’s Messianic kingdom at Har–Magedon.