"He causeth the earth, and those that dwell in it," (does that refer to the foul spirits who dwell in that awful under-world, from which we believe the Anti-Christ, as Judas re-incarnated came, or does it refer only to dwellers on the earth? It may well mean both!)—"To worship the first beast."
As well as his co-associate, Apleon—The Anti-christ, the false Prophet not only claimed the power to work miracles, but he did work them, showing a baleful but powerful supernatural control over the forces of nature. "And he doeth great miracles … And he deceiveth those that dwell ON the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to work in the presence of the Beast." In Egypt, three thousand four hundred or more years ago, it was demonstrated by Jannes and Jambres that there is a supernaturalism of the Devil, as well as of God, against, as well as for God.
Both Anti-christ and his subaltern, the false prophet, dealt largely in the miracle of fire. The two witnesses, who had testified that they had come from God, had consumed their persecutors, again and again by fire, and the Hell-born imposters felt the necessity of showing that they, too, could command fire.
Utterly destroyed by the ten kings, the world was without an organized religion, and was ready for the fouler, fuller rule of Satan—the worship of Anti-christ, and his image.
As God had ever had a Trinity of personality and power in Himself, so Satan in his damnable, deceivable counterfeiting has now his trinity. Himself (Satan) the embodiment of evil, the suggester, creator, energizer, he makes a mock Christ—Apleon, the Anti-christ, answers to the second Person of the divine Trinity. While Apleon's chaplain, the false prophet, answers to the third person of the divine Trinity.
Energized by Satan, even as Anti-christ himself is, the false Prophet becomes a mighty force among the world's peoples, persuading them that Apleon really is God, and worthy of worship. The whole world has seen and heard of the marvellous miracles of "The Prophet," as he is called.
The infatuation of all the world for the Man of Sin, Lucien Apleon, was almost absolute and complete. He ruled the world, every department of it—social, political, commercial, religious. He blasphemed God. He blasphemed the translated Church that occupied the Heavenlies with her Lord.
Day by day, week by week, month by month he grew bolder, more impious, more cruel, more persecuting to the saints that were then living to God.
And through all this time Enoch and Elijah continued their "witness" for their Lord. As judgment prophets, they had been sent in this age of judgment, to resist the awful, the gigantic blasphemies of Anti-christ, and to give to the poor, vain, deluded world its last awful warning. For bad as had been the apostate Church, so recently destroyed, the worship of Anti-christ himself, would be infamously more impious.
The world hated them, yet feared the two witnesses. More than once when blatant blasphemers, agents of Apleon, had openly opposed them, and cursed them and their witnessing, these witnesses of Jesus Christ, "the faithful and true witness," had sent forth fire from themselves and consumed their enemies. And the world had learned to fear them, though they ignored their warnings.