Judging Prophetic Words with Discernment

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Nov 11th/16 Edit: I wrote the post below about 15 months ago, and admit I now need to wipe the egg off of my face. Please don’t throw stones in the comments. Here’s a thoughtful follow-up post affirming Jeremiah Johnson’s original prophecy. I want to do the very thing I challenge prophets to do in this post — admit I got it wrong and deal with it.

“Trump shall become My trumpet to the American people, for he possesses qualities that are even hard to find in My people these days.”

Whatever that means.

Source: Prophecy: Donald Trump Shall Become the Trumpet — Charisma Magazine

Yep, that line was actually said by a contributor to Charisma Magazine. I am not making this up or getting confused with The Onion magazine, which at least in its satire is well aware that it’s in on the joke. And after reading Benjamin Corey’s blog, as well as reading the comments at Charisma, apparently, I wasn’t the only person who asked that aloud if I was reading satire.

I need to preface this post by saying this: I rarely use my blog or podcast for taking shots at other people, just ideas, especially when they’re popular ideas or common enough that you don’t have to worry about trying to figure out who I’m talking about in my examples.

I’m not even really focusing this post on Donald Trump himself even, other than the fact the prophecy is about him. But since Charisma Magazine has a reputation of being basically the go-to source for these kinds of things, if I didn’t mention them by name, you’d know I’m talking about them anyway and I’d just look stupid for not coming out and admitting it.

I also have no beef with the article’s author, nor am I familiar with him, so this isn’t questioning whether he hears from God or receives prophetic words or not. In fact, I appreciated the statement he made on his Facebook page to address the article nearly 24 hours after posting it due to the flack he received. It’s my wish that everything I say in this post not be read as an attack on other members of the Body of Christ. It’s for this reason, I’m trying to keep my sarcasm and snark to a minimum.

I realize I’m a Canadian and I don’t actually vote in American elections — heck, apparently I am no longer allowed to even vote in Canadian elections — but I appeal as a member of the larger global Body of Christ we all belong to, and not as a fellow American or a US citizen. But the fact I’m speaking from the outside looking in should not be used as a reason to invalidate what I’m going suggest plead for.

Have We Not Learned from Our Past Embarrassments?

Let’s try remembering how well marrying major prophecies with politics has worked out for us. I will use pronouns such as “we” and “us” interchangeably where appropriate because, again, I’m not talking about politics or citizenship specifically, but our mission as kingdom agents on this earth and how gullible my charismatic brethren can be sometimes.

Especially when it comes to major prophetic declarations that come around election time and when discussing the future direction of nations, particularly the United States of America, one of the only two nations on the planet that matter (the other being Israel, of course).

I remember in the 2008 election cycle having friends on BOTH sides of the political aisle posting their stuff on Facebook (back then it was called “their wall” instead of their “timeline”) about how their candidate was the one God was raising up as His instrument. Admittedly I had a larger majority of Republican friends than Democrats and I didn’t even know what a Libertarian was in those days. But one thing that a lot of people all over the spectrum were sharing was one prophet bending over backward to be an apologist for Barack Obama and trying to convince everybody to give him a chance and take at face-value presidential nominee Obama’s claims to be a Christian.

Incidentally, this particular prophet has since admitted disillusionment with the president that he prophesied was God’s man for this season of America’s history. But what is interesting is that this same man prophesied that California would have a big earthquake six months after Japan’s earthquake in 2011. Since the internet already had several field days with that one, I’ll move on.

One slightly amusing question does emerge about Christians prophesying over opposing candidates: how can God be saying the opposite thing to two different people if He’s really speaking to them both?

Is one of them wrong and the other right?

Are they both getting it wrong?

How do we sort this stuff out?

And another question in particular: does it bother anybody else that there’s no clear prophetic voice(s) in the Body of Christ these days? Instead, we have different factions and circles of believers who have different takes on things.

We’re still far from united in these matters.

Anyway, many Christians rallied behind Sarah Palin, who was running as the Vice President, because of some video that went viral of her Assemblies of God pastor praying and prophesying over her in front of the congregation, but nobody seemed to be concerned that she had a scant two years of experience governing a state, and serving as mayor of a town with a population of 7,000. Can God raise people up out of the unlikeliest of places? Of course! That’s not the point I’m making.

We remember how that election turned out, don’t we?

Next came 2012, and it seemed that more of the Republican candidates had caught on to the need for playing the God card than ever before, and almost all of them were claiming “God told me to run for president” early on, begging the question — did God tell all of them they’d be president, or none of them, since, you know, none of them went on to become president anyway in 2012, and so far to date? But that’s for another post.

The American Church by and large threw their support behind Mitt Romney, or as a growing number of my friends did, voted Libertarian. I kept reading articles people posted on social media of how Romney was said to be a possible fulfillment of Mormon prophecy about one of their own occupying the White House. This didn’t matter to Christians at the time. Perhaps because of a desperation to see Barack Obama not continue as president, we mixed prophetic declarations with desires and well-meaning intentions.

I really don’t know.

But as you may have heard unless you were in a coma for the last three years or staying away from Facebook (practically the same thing), the prophetic declarations didn’t pan out either. The “prophetic movement” got that one wrong, too, wiped their hands, tidied up, and moved on seemingly with collective amnesia. Their candidate largely left the spotlight for a year or two, and the dreaded Obama commenced a second term.

I’ve written elsewhere of this Texas sharp-shooter prophesying that conveniently gets swept under the rug it seems all too easily about other things besides just elections, and I worry it’s a problem that’s not going to go away any time soon.

The Prophecy Itself

So let’s take a moment and look at what the prophecy actually says.

I want to look at this respectfully because people like NorthWest Prophetic are helping me a great deal with not throwing the body out with the bathwater, and how to handle conflicting prophecies, vague prophecies that you can’t tell whether they came to pass or not, and other such stuff that’s helpful for these kinds of discussions.

The author claims that God spoke to him recently, and God told him he is going to speak to America through Trump himself. I don’t disbelieve in God speaking directly about major events. But I also believe we need the discernment to know whether to take such words seriously or not.

Here’s the entire Word that was published:

“I was in a time of prayer several weeks ago when God began to speak to me concerning the destiny of Donald Trump in America. The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Trump shall become My trumpet to the American people, for he possesses qualities that are even hard to find in My people these days. Trump does not fear man nor will he allow deception and lies to go unnoticed. I am going to use him to expose darkness and perversion in America like never before, but you must understand that he is like a bull in a china closet. Many will want to throw him away because he will disturb their sense of peace and tranquility, but you must listen through the bantering to discover the truth that I will speak through him. I will use the wealth that I have given him to expose and launch investigations searching for the truth. Just as I raised up Cyrus to fulfill My purposes and plans, so have I raised up Trump to fulfill my purposes and plans prior to the 2016 election. You must listen to the trumpet very closely for he will sound the alarm and many will be blessed because of his compassion and mercy. Though many see the outward pride and arrogance, I have given him the tender heart of a father that wants to lend a helping hand to the poor and the needy, to the foreigner and the stranger.”

Now, a lot of questions arise from this. Such as the word “trumpet”. Is this supposed to be a trumpet to herald something? Like, the way a whistleblower brings attention to something that was hidden, no matter the consequence?

Also, does “I raised up Trump to fulfill my purposes and plans prior to the 2016 election” mean this prophet is not claiming Trump will be the next president, or even make it to the election, but instead serves some other purpose?

Twenty-four hours later Jeremiah Johnson posted this on his Facebook page, and at the end claims to he will publicly repent if his prophecy does not come to pass:

I want to applaud Johnson for being willing to stand by his own words and offer to repent if they don’t come to pass. Far too few men of God are willing to do that, and instead, find ways to change the goalposts after the fact or pretend nothing ever happened.

But my remaining concern is with such “imperative” prophecies like this is . . . they’re vague. Sure they may say a lot of words and sentences and sound like a lot, but substance-wise, they don’t give much to go on. They don’t give some kind of specific quantitative thing you can pinpoint that the author is claiming will happen. He will be a trumpet? What does that mean? Just make noise? Get a lot of attention?

When the 2016 election is finally down to the months and then weeks of the debates and then the voting, will we be able to look at prophecies like this and say “he nailed it” or “he got it wrong?”

With this prophecy, I struggle to see it as being right or wrong, but just more trumpet sounding, ironically enough.

And for that reason, my charismatic friends, please take these things with a grain of salt. Paul gives us instructions in 1 Corinthians 14:29 about judging prophetic words as we hear them, not just later on if and when they come to pass. We are elsewhere told to test the spirits.

Also, don’t forget politicians want you to vote for them. While it’s true that Donald doesn’t need the money and can fund his own campaign, one thing his money can’t buy is your vote. He’s got to win you over, and Charisma mag and their prophets are all too eager to jump at that opportunity.

Vote for him or don’t. But please keep your head clear of such lofty and unverifiable prophetic words and make your vote based on who you feel would be best to lead, not because someone prophesied your guy is the one to vote for.

For the love of God and your country.

Check out a recent relevant episode of the Fire On Your Head Podcast where we tackled whether prophets need to always be 100% accurate or not in the New Testament:

Also worth watching:

Judging Prophetic Words – Kris Vallotton