The New Prophetic

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.“ - Matthew 7:15, KJV
 
The prophet was well-dressed and charismatic, as a modern prophet must be. Gone were the days of men like Moses and Elijah, who raved at foliage and still wore the clothes they were buried in, soiled from the gritty resurrection. In an age of electricity and screens of glass, wherein all the information accrued by, and aspirations of, man are stored, nobody listened to the poor and the insane, the men who came down from the rocks and the plywood temples, being turned inside out by a message utterly unique and selfless.  
 
They turned instead to the prophet, well-dressed and charismatic, who rose in a time of deep divisions, promising to cohere the philosophical narrative that had for so long tortured his subjects. He came with a self-professed expert knowledge of technology and commerce, declaring to the masses that his wealth was his charm and that they too could be charming. To show his humanity he appeared on TV in jeans and a sheepskin coat, the attire of his kin from the place he had been brought by God. He had been poor, and lonely, and faithless, and had seen God burning not in a bush but on a computer screen, whereafter he knew that he would be the one to guide men out of Sheol and onto the sunny uplands, where each would have his home, and in his home the doors would open and meals cook on command.
 
To the antichrists, those who alleged discrepancies in his accounts and reports of hard labour in his factories, he said, ‘do you not see the future? Do you not want it?’ “Underpaid” and “overworked” were terms beneath his pedestal, outside his considerations. You do not bother a medical genius with a stubbed toe or a common cold.
 
One day, he walked on stage to the cheering crowd, reached his podium, recited his prophetic speech - recited over and over again in the years before - to the religious ecstasies of a people ripping itself apart in its passion, and smiled. Only after he smiled did anyone realise that their prophet was the Devil.