The Age of False Messiahs
How America’s hunger for certainty makes us vulnerable to false prophets—and why truth and discernment still matter.
There’s a strange paradox to modern American life. We live in a society that prizes autonomy and skepticism, and yet, perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, we’re quick to hand our loyalties over to those who promise clarity in an age of confusion. We distrust institutions, but we lionize personalities. We are suspicious of doctrine, but we cling fiercely to narratives that flatter our biases. In this cultural mood,
Matthew 24:24 feels oddly contemporary: “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
When Jesus warned his disciples of deceptive voices, he wasn’t only describing a far-off apocalypse. He was identifying a permanent feature of human societies—the perennial temptation to substitute spectacle for substance, charisma for character, certainty for truth. In America today, the “false messiahs” rarely arrive in robes or sandals. They come in the form of pundits, influencers, politicians, and yes, sometimes pastors—figures who present themselves as singular saviors of a fractured world. Scripture reminds us of this timeless danger:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).
The cultural conditions for their rise are almost perfect. Our politics has become a theater of personality cults, where loyalty to a figure often matters more than fidelity to principle. Our digital platforms reward outrage and certitude over nuance and humility. And our communities, frayed by loneliness and distrust, are hungry for meaning—so hungry, in fact, that we sometimes mistake the loudest voice for the truest one. It is no wonder Paul warned,
“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3).
In this environment, deception doesn’t require miracles or supernatural signs. It only requires confirmation bias. If a leader echoes our fears or flatters our grievances, we treat their words as gospel. If a movement gives us belonging, we treat its excesses as virtues. What Matthew 24:24 captures is not only the danger of being fooled by external trickery, but the deeper danger of wanting to be fooled—of craving the certainty that makes discernment unnecessary. Jesus had already cautioned in the Sermon on the Mount: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15–16).
This dynamic plays out in both the political right and left. On the right, populist figures promise to “restore” America, casting themselves as indispensable bulwarks against cultural collapse. On the left, cultural prophets emerge who speak with moral urgency but occasionally with the same absolutism that leaves no room for honest doubt. In both cases, the message is the same: Trust us completely, or risk ruin. But the biblical counterpoint remains steady: “Put not your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (Psalm 146:3).
History reminds us that no nation, no community, can be carried forward by one voice alone.
Our better moments have come not from false messiahs but from flawed, ordinary people practicing virtues like humility, restraint, and cooperation. The American story has been shaped less by spectacular signs and more by the patient labor of building trust across difference. As Proverbs wisely observes: “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity” (Proverbs 11:3).
That’s why the verse’s final warning—“to deceive, if possible, even the elect”—is so haunting. It reminds us that even the wise, even the faithful, are not immune to the allure of counterfeit hope. We can all be seduced by the temptation of easy answers in a complicated age.
And yet, that is not where the story ends. Against the flood of falsehoods, there remains the quiet, stubborn power of truth. Discernment requires us to slow down, to test the spirits of our age, to ask whether the voices we follow elevate our moral imagination or diminish it. And hope requires us to believe that despite the chaos, genuine integrity still matters—that truth, however obscured, has a way of breaking through.
Less we forget, Epstein didn’t act alone, and false messiahs don’t either. Most of us are guilty of being complicit in our own demise. In an era crowded with false prophets, the task is not to find a new messiah, but to embrace the true Jesus. From there, we must recover the old virtues: honesty, humility, and fidelity to and before God. They are not spectacular, but they are durable. They may not trend, but they endure. And in them, the Lord our God enables us to find both discernment and hope—the kind that cannot be deceived.