Those Trump Prophecies

In the lead up to the recent U.S. Presidential election, several prominent American Pentecostals issued prophecies declaring that Donald Trump would be re-elected. They included Kat Kerr (a self-described ‘revelator’ who regularly publishes prophecies on The Elijah List), Pastor Kent Christmas (of Regeneration–Nashville Church), Pastor Mike Thompson (of Word of Life Church, Las Vegas), Jeremiah Johnson (of Jeremiah Johnson Ministries), Pastor Kris Vallotton (of Bethel Church, Redding, California) and Christian rap artist, Marcus Rogers.

All of these prominent Pentecostals claimed that the Holy Spirit had revealed to them that Trump would be re-elected to serve another four years in the White House. Subsequently, it seems that most of them are following Trump’s lead and doubling down on their prophecies, claiming that the election isn’t over and that Trump will ultimately win, despite the current vote count clearly showing a Biden victory.

For instance, Kat Kerr, in a livestream on The Elijah List (a prophetic website hub) has stated:

“The rocks are about to move [rocks???] and Trump will be President no matter what you hear. It will start with a phone call and I can tell you, you will be shocked to see how much exposure comes from that, but Trump will win. He will be president of the United States, he will sit in that office for four more years and God will have His way in this country.”

Similarly, Pastor Kent Christmas, in a Saturday update on his YouTube channel, doubled down on his previous prophecy, stating that the apparent Biden victory is not final, that God would eventually have His way and that “this is a war between Heaven and Hell.” He then urged his followers, “You cannot listen to what the Enemy is saying. You cannot allow the indicators that you’re seeing in the natural begin to shape your faith.”

In a similar declaration, Pastor Mike Thompson posted online on Saturday and also spoke in his Sunday sermon, declaring that the Lord had assured him that the prophetic voices were not wrong . He declared that God would place Trump back in the White House to continue to do God’s work and that we must “give Moses a chance to work.” (Wow! Apparently, Trump is to be compared with Moses!)

In a similar prophetic doubling down, Jeremiah Johnson sent an email to his supporters after the Biden victory became apparent, saying, “we are witnessing a diabolical and evil plan unfold to steal the election.” He then proclaimed that God had spoken to him in a dream, showing Trump running a marathon and falling down about 100 yards from the finish. In the dream, two women then came from the crowd and helped Trump to his feet and enabled him to ultimately win the race.

Rap artist, Marcus Rogers has been prolific in his post-election social media posts, continuing to claim that God will bring about a Trump victory despite the current setback, even going so far as to compare Trump with key biblical saints like Abraham, Joseph and Daniel who prevailed in the end. This accords with Jeremiah Johnson’s comparison of Trump to Moses.

What are we to make of all this? Three key points:

Firstly, the simplest and clearest test of a prophecy is whether it comes true. God doesn’t make mistakes. If Donald Trump is not re-elected, then these so-called prophets have not heard from God, but have either heard from a ‘lying spirit’ or have fabricated these prophecies from their own fertile imaginations. Either way, they must be declared to be false prophets if their prophecies do, indeed, end up being false.

Secondly, it looks fairly conclusive that Biden has won. Of course, these Pentecostal prophets, along with many of Trump’s followers, do not concede this, claiming that God will bring about a Trump victory through the legal appeal process that has now been initiated. One has to say, however, that there appears to be very little chance of this succeeding. Various constitutional and legal experts in the United States have, over the last few days, evaluated Trump’s legal challenges and his claims of electoral fraud as being without any legal merit, variously describing Trump’s allegations as “fanciful”, “vexatious”, “baseless”, “groundless” and “bizarre”. Indeed, a large percentage of Trump’s legal challenges have already been thrown out by the courts and it certainly appears that the rest are soon to follow. The problem for Trump is that the postal vote system has been a legally established means of voting in most states for decades and it is subject to the most stringent oversight and control. Current control measures are more than able to weed out any fraudulent postal votes and ensure that only those votes that are legally valid are included in the count. There are simply no valid legal grounds for challenging postal votes that were legitimately cast in this manner.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I am deeply disturbed by the fervour with which biblical status has been attributed to Donald Trump by his most ardent supporters. Comparisons with Moses, Abraham, Joseph and Daniel, together with Trump’s own declaration of himself as “the chosen one” should surely ring alarm bells for any rational, clear-thinking Christian. While Christians are entitled to vote for whichever candidate they prefer (and there appears to have been a strong Christian vote on BOTH sides of this election), it is a step too far to ascribe to Trump biblical-type authority and status. Given Trump’s many obvious moral and personal failings, this kind of biblical rhetoric is surely a case of extreme over-reach.

Certainly, some of President Trump’s policies and particular stances over the last four years have aided the Christian cause in America. His stated defence of religious freedom and his declared opposition to abortion have found favour among many Christian voters (although it has to be said that negligible practical legislation has actually resulted from these presidential declarations). Similarly, Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his involvement in securing the peace treaty in the Middle East were also worthy actions in the eyes of many. But Christians who are keen to enthrone Trump as some kind of 21^st century Moses, seem to completely disregard the negative aspects of his presidency and of his character as a man. These include:

– His many alleged affairs and alleged incidents of sexual misconduct, including the allegation by respected author E. Jean Carroll that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in 1995. In October 2019, the book “All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the Making of a Predator”, by Barry Levine and Monique El-Faizy, was published, containing 43 well-documented allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump.

– His misogyny, as evidenced by his disgusting comments about women in the past and several misogynistic comments during his presidency.

– His unbridled pride, arrogance and narcissism which has been rampant throughout his presidency.

– His constant, blatant compulsive lying. Various ‘fact-checking’ agencies, as well as neutral political analysts and academics, have counted thousands of lies, false claims and misleading information perpetrated by Trump throughout the course of his presidency. Of course, almost all politicians lie, but Trump has taken this artform to a whole new level, often creating his own alternate reality.

– His vitriolic, often puerile verbal abuse of anyone who disagrees with him. In many people’s opinion, this has severely damaged the office of the presidency.

– His abuse and censuring of the media which, in the words of several commentators, is akin to that of a “tinpot despot”.

– His chaotic leadership style where he regularly goes off script and makes unwise, ill-advised policy decisions ‘on the fly’, often leaving his advisers and staff scurrying to limit the damage and tone down or even retract those policy statements.

– His callous indifference and naïve under-estimation of the seriousness of the current pandemic which, it is now widely recognised, has contributed to millions of preventable infections in the United States and many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

– His regular incendiary, irresponsible social media posts which have stirred up division, racism, hatred and violence throughout America, rather than sowing seeds of peace and harmony.

I write this, not as a Democrat or Republican, for I am not even an American voter. This is not about political partisanship. There is a more fundamental issue at stake here. By all means, Christians are entitled to vote for Donald Trump and support his bid for a second term in office. But please, do not attribute to a man with such obvious moral failings and character flaws a lofty biblical status that places him in the company of the biblical Patriarchs. To do so soils the image of those great saints and ignores the many actions and attitudes of Donald Trump that are the very opposite of “Christian”. As a rational, Bible-believing Christian, I base my opinion of a person not on their rhetoric, nor on the quasi-spiritual utterances of self-proclaimed prophets, nor even on a few good things that the person in question may have done. I form my opinion of a person by evaluating their life and character in the light of the Bible’s description of the qualities of godliness. And on that basis, Trump does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Abraham or Moses.

Furthermore, if Trump is not successful in gaining re-election via his current litigious actions, as I suspect will be the case, the bold prophecies of those claiming to speak from God must ultimately be viewed as false and the speakers themselves declared to be false prophets. Sadly, however, I suspect that their false prophecies will be explained away with fluffy spiritual rhetoric, probably involving references to Satanic opposition to God’s kingdom which has temporarily thwarted God’s perfect plan. I also suspect that the fans of these self-declared prophets will continue to follow their utterances, swiftly and conveniently forgetting their false proclamations regarding the outcome of the election.

“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)