"As we walk through the wilderness of the world there are two entities that we meet — two adversaries that confront us on every hand — the beast and the false prophet. We first meet them in chapter thirteen of the Revelation. Individually and inwardly, the beast is the bestial nature of the natural man of flesh. Corporately, the beast is the monster out of the sea of humanity with its ten horns and seven heads — the whole bestial world system of man, invented and produced out of the bestial nature of man. This includes all human governments and institutions of every kind, commercial, educational, philosophical, medical, social, military, etc. It is the dragon in man who gives the beast out of the sea of humanity his seat and great authority
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"What is a prophet? We must banish from our minds the popular conception that a prophet is chiefly a person who foretells the future. True, a prophet may also foretell the future, but the prophetic ministry is much broader than that. A prophet is, according to scripture, one who speaks for someone else. Aaron is called the “prophet” of Moses when they two go together before Pharaoh, and Aaron delivers the message to Pharaoh on behalf of Moses the stutterer. And that is why all the prophets of God have prefaced their prophecies with the phrase, “Thus saith the Lord!” They are men who speak for God, delivering His message to the people, appealing to the minds and hearts of men on behalf of God and His purposes. They speak and teach and reveal the will of God and draw men to embrace that which is the mind of the Lord."
"So this second beast is also a prophet! He speaks for someone else. His purpose is to influence the minds of men, to persuade them, to rally them to the cause on behalf of which he speaks. But he is a false prophet! That does not mean that everything he says is a lie — not all that the serpent told mother Eve in the garden was a lie — but it was truth laced with just enough error to deceive, and that deception was deadly!"
"What beast is this that appears as a lamb, but speaks like a dragon? Ah, this refers to the false church, one that outwardly looks like the church of Christ, but His voice is not the voice of the Lamb, but that of the dragon."