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The Approaching Inflection Point

A nation’s leaders never reflect the heart of every citizen, but God uses government leaders to embody, magnify, and expose the prevailing spiritual condition of the people.

King Saul

The clearest example is Israel’s demand for Saul. In 1 Samuel 8:5 the people tell the prophet, “Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.”

God told Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:7, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them.”

Saul therefore reflected Israel’s heart. The people wanted visible strength, military security, and conformity to surrounding nations. God gave them a king who looked impressive—“taller than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:2)—but whose government eventually manifested their underlying fear, impatience, and disobedience.

Hosea 13:11 later interprets that event: “I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath.”

Too Much Flesh to Eat

Just because God answers prayer does not mean that He approves of their request. God’s answers to prayer can also be God’s way of judging the people. We see this also in Numbers 11:18, where the people complained to Moses: “Oh that someone would give us meat to eat!” They loathed the manna, which represented the body of Christ (John 6:41). God’s answer was that He would give them their carnal desire, “not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you” (Numbers 11:18-20).

Here we see that God’s motive in answering their carnal prayer was not to bless them but to make it “loathsome.” It would teach them not to pray for the wrong things. The answer may also be the judgment. We do have the right to make our requests known to God, but it is advisable first to pray to discern the mind of God so that His desire becomes ours. Unfortunately, too many people try to twist God’s arm until He agrees with us.

King Saul was what the people requested and also an instrument through whom God exposed and judged their heart condition.

Jeremiah 5:31 states the reciprocal relationship even more directly: “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it this way!”

The corrupt leaders were not operating entirely against public sentiment. The people preferred the system because its falsehoods accommodated their own desires. The leadership exposed what the public was willing to support.

Hosea 4:9 expresses a similar principle: “And it will be, like people, like priest.”

Although this concerns priests, the principle applies readily to political leadership: leaders and people tend to mirror and reinforce one another.

Isaiah 3:4–5, 12 also describes disorderly leadership as a judgment upon a disorderly society. When the people cast off proper order, God allows immature and oppressive rulers to arise. Thus the people’s collective heart helps produce or tolerate certain leaders; those leaders institutionalize and magnify the people’s values; God uses the resulting government to reveal and judge the nation’s spiritual condition; and the suffering produced by that government either brings the people to repentance or lays the groundwork for their destruction.

Israel’s history in Judges follows this cycle repeatedly. The people turn away from God, oppressive government follows, the people groan, and finally, God raises a deliverer. The oppressor never seems to resemble every individual Israelite, but his rule reveals the nation’s collective covenantal condition.

There are important qualifications. Scripture does not teach that every individual endorses the ruler. Elijah did not share Ahab’s heart, and the faithful remnant did not share the nation’s apostasy. Some rulers seize power through violence or deception. Yet even then, their ability to govern may reveal what a society has embraced, feared, tolerated, or failed to resist.

In biblical terms, an oppressive ruler reflects the heart idolatry of the people. Sometimes such oppression foments a revolution—almost always without true repentance. The result is that the power simply shifts from one form of oppression to another. The only way to avoid this is to repent and return to God’s Covenant. If men return to the Old Covenant, it would be a temporary respite because it is based on man’s ability to comply with God’s law. If men return to the New Covenant, it would be good change—and permanent—because it is based on God’s vow to write His laws on our hearts.

Biden and Trump

The authority of the beast empires ended in 2017, as I have explained many times. Since then, God has given America two different presidents, each according to the desire of the people. Biden reflected the hearts of those who desired the right to practice immorality. Trump reflects the heart of the church which desires to support Edom’s claim to be “chosen.”

Like Saul, who persecuted David, the church (collectively) has feared and even hated the New Covenant truth presented by the overcomers. This is because the New Covenant is the root principle behind the restoration of all things, a truth that they fear and hate. The church gives lip service to the New Covenant while practicing the principles of the Old Covenant. This has led to their support of Esau’s claim to the birthright and his desire to “return” to build a nation in the old land (Malachi 1:4). In another manner of speaking, the church has supported the bondwoman’s claim on behalf of her son, the child of the flesh, which Paul discusses clearly in Galatians 4:22-30.

President Trump thus represents the collective heart of the church by turning the reins of government into the hands of the Zionists. His actions do not represent the heart of the overcomers who adhere to the New Covenant and are the true inheritors of the Kingdom. The church desires a Jewish Kingdom, hoping to add Jesus to an Old Covenant system. The overcomers desire a New Covenant Kingdom headed by the Mediator of the New Covenant.

The Coming Climax

I cannot say for sure, but evidence is mounting that the conflict may reach its apex in the coming months. Trump suggests it will happen after the elections in early November. He has been hinting at a nuclear strike against Iran to destroy the entire nation. That would make Mr. Netanyahu ecstatic.

But these national leaders, along with the church that they represent, do not realize that they are fighting the “kings from the east” (Revelation 16:12), which the angel of God released in preparation for the fall of Mystery Babylon.

The church as a whole has been blinded to the meaning of the prophecy, because it never seems to connect these “kings” to Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian (Iran), who dried up the Euphrates to overthrow Babylon (Daniel 5). Instead, Bible teachers tend to treat those kings as God’s enemies, when, in fact, Cyrus was a type of Christ (Isaiah 45:1). Hence, these kings have been raised up by God to bring judgment upon Babylon and set people free.

Yet the misunderstanding of prophecy in the church itself is being reflected in US government policy itself, particularly in the Trump administration. I do not expect Trump to understand the Scriptures, of course, since he has no biblical background. It is the church that is the problem, and his spiritual advisor, Paula White Cain, is the focal point of that problem. Trump is only reflecting the heart of the church, which is his main political base of support.

Therefore, if God allows Trump to make good on his nuclear threats against Persia (Iran), it will be comparable to God giving the Israelites flesh to eat, which then becomes their judgment. I am, however, hopeful that God will intervene, simply because a nuclear strike would affect the entire world, to say nothing of making America the greatest pariah state after the Zionist state itself.

I look back to the pattern of how Cyrus was successful in taking Babylon without destroying the city. He took the city without firing a shot, and only the king, it seems, was killed. If that pattern is repeated in our day (as I expect), we will see a change of management over the current beast empire, which is the successor to Babylon itself (Daniel 7). That is what I pray for, because I believe that reflects the mind of God.