Listening to the devil

I recently watched a video by “The Friendly Atheist” about several so-called prophets who were guaranteeing a second term for President Donald Trump. After the election happened and Joe Biden was declared the winner, Kenneth Copeland, known in some cases for his false teaching anyway, laughed — and led a congregation in laughter — at the results, and Trump “spiritual adviser” Paula White, in the midst of an incantation, called upon spirits in Africa and South America to overturn the result. I’m sure they believed, and told anyone listening, that they had heard from God Himself.

The problem, however, was not that they and others weren’t listening to God, though they weren’t. It’s that they were hearing the wrong voice and thus got off-track.

What they heard instead was the voice of Satan, who has only one goal: To keep people from recognizing God as He is.

Now, that’s not a charge I or anyone should make frivolously, that anyone could, should or would mistake the siren song of the devil for the voice of God. But the True and Living God won’t prophesy victory for the sake of giving His people a leg up politically, culturally or socially — indeed, He often predicts hard times for His followers despite, and in some cases because of, their faithfulness.

According to The New York Times, even before he officially announced his run for 2016, Trump was already making campaign stops promising largely-Christian audiences that “Christianity will have power” — which I immediately recognized as a temptation because when Christianity does gain power it almost always loses its purpose. Remember, the Gospel of Jesus Christ ultimately is about reconciliation, first between God and people and, then, people to one another — something you would never hear from these so-called ministries who mistake hype and spectacle for His Holy Word and Spirit. And that’s the real reason why, after over 40 years of activism and billions of dollars for advocacy groups in centers of political power, the “religious right” has so little influence.

Now these so-called prophets are being exposed as the charlatans they always were, and I hope their ministries collapse as a result. One thing about “prophecy” not often mentioned is that if a prophet got even one thing wrong in ancient Israel he or she would be put to death, not simply because of the particular thing about which he or she was prophesying but also misunderstanding the underlying issues that caused it. And in our nation today such underlying issues included economic disparity, racial injustice and poor political leadership, which are alluded to in the Scripture but none of which Trump or many Christians had any interest in addressing — and, also, the reason he lost.

I would say that it’s high time for many of us to admit that we were seduced by the temptation of “being No. 1,” something that God just doesn’t promise. Basically, we followed the devil into a rabbit hole and, as a result, got “caught up” in a program that diverted us from a true spiritual path of righteousness and justice. I hope the election will wake us up to our need for repentance.