The Rise of ‘the King’s Chapel’
America’s religious landscape is changing. For decades, millions of American Christians have been abandoning their faith in God, the Bible and religion. Church attendance today has probably hit its lowest point since before the United States Civil War, when much of the population was isolated on the frontier.
Pew Research’s Religious Landscape Survey questioned more than 35,000 Americans about their religious affiliations. It found that between 2007 and 2024, the share of Americans who identify as Christian dropped from 78 to 63 percent. Some converted to Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or some other non-Christian religion, but most gave up on religion altogether.
Is America doomed to become a post-Christian society? About 28 percent of Americans now check “none” as their religion. Fewer than half of those who check “Christian” attend church services each week.
Yet amid this dechurching, Bible prophecy foretells that a false religious movement will arise in end-time America. Known as “the king’s chapel,” this movement will actually persecute true Christians and send them into exile. You need to understand what the Bible says about this movement.
Religious Polarization
A flight from Christianity is underway, but that is not the full story. Actually, America is simultaneously becoming more secular and more religious.
Most of those leaving Christianity are mainline Protestants from Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. Mainline Protestants are generally more “woke” than evangelical Protestants; many of them are simply giving up the facade that they believe in the Bible. Their ranks have dwindled from 18 percent of U.S. adults two decades ago to 11 percent today. Meanwhile, evangelical Protestants are doing much better at holding on to members. Their ranks have barely dwindled from 26 percent of U.S. adults two decades ago to 23 percent today. This means American Protestantism is becoming more devout and more evangelical as mainstream liberals defect to secularism.
Exit polling data published after the 2024 U.S. presidential elections show 63 percent of Protestant voters cast a ballot for Donald Trump. Roughly 62 percent of mainline Protestants voted for Kamala Harris; yet there are so few mainline Protestants left in America today that they made little difference. The 82 percent of white, evangelical Protestants who voted for Trump vastly overwhelmed the mainline vote.
These statistics show that the Christians most concerned about the secularization of America have been flocking to President Trump as a way to resist the atheistic radical left. It is easy to see why.
President Trump noticed this religious support and promised to defend Christianity from the radical left. “Remember, every Communist regime throughout history has tried to stamp out the churches, just like every fascist regime has tried to co-opt them and control them,” he said a month after his second inauguration. “And in America, the radical left is trying to do both. They want to tear down crosses where they can and cover them up with social justice flags. But no one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration.”
As refreshing as it is to see a president stand up for religious liberty, we need to watch America’s changing religious landscape closely.
Protestantism used to be the common denominator underlying American society, but this is no longer the case. Evangelical Protestantism is now morphing into a political force aligned with the Trump administration against the radical left. The intentions of the Christians in the administration are probably good, but history shows that government entanglement with the church usually corrupts the church.
Counterfeit Churches
In the weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, Hillary Clinton held a considerable lead in the polls. But in a sermon at the time, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry said he thought Mr. Trump would win. Why? Because a prophecy in the book of Amos says that end-time America will be led by a leader like the ancient Israelite King Jeroboam ii. Mr. Flurry identified this leader as Mr. Trump. That is also how he correctly forecast—for four years—that Trump would return to the presidency.
Mr. Flurry emphasized that this “Jeroboam” figure would be supported by “the king’s court” (Amos 7:13), which he has identified as the U.S. Supreme Court. We witnessed that prophecy in action when the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that the president has legal immunity for all official acts. With this July 1, 2024, decision, the Supreme Court helped Mr. Trump and made his ultimate return to the presidency practically inevitable.
But note that this end-time Jeroboam is also supported by the “king’s chapel.” Who or what is the “king’s chapel”?
In verses 12-13, a wicked priest tells God’s true prophet, “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: But prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court.” This is important history, and it is also prophecy for today. That is why it was recorded and canonized for us. To understand the king’s chapel, you have to understand this history.
The Bible tells us that over a century before the time of King Jeroboam ii, the kingdom of Israel split in two. The tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi continued with the dynasty of King David; the northern 10 tribes rebelled and followed King Jeroboam i, who had served as a type of prime minister under King Solomon.
The late Herbert W. Armstrong summarized this history in his most popular book, The United States and Britain in Prophecy. “Jeroboam was afraid lest his subjects, in going once a year to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, should return to Rehoboam and he should lose his new throne,” he wrote. “The introduction of idolatry was to prevent this and to keep the people home. This idolatry with Sabbath-breaking (Ezekiel 20:10-24) was the great national sin which became such a curse to Israel. Generation after generation God pleaded with the house of Israel to turn from tradition—from their fathers’ ways—and to return to keeping God’s commandments. But through nine different dynasties under 19 kings, Israel continued these national sins—sins so great in God’s sight that finally God caused them to become a conquered, captive nation.”
King Jeroboam installed a new priesthood, constructed two golden calves in the cities of Dan and Bethel, and told his followers, “[B]ehold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28).
These calves were not designed to represent pagan deities but the true God. In other words, King Jeroboam set up a counterfeit religion to mimic the religion administered by the Levites of Jerusalem!
Jeroboam’s golden calves were the beginning of what the book of Amos describes as “the king’s chapel.”
King’s Chapel
“[U]nder Jeroboam the 10-tribed nation Israel completely violated God’s laws, particularly the two test commandments,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “Almost the first act of Jeroboam was setting up idols. And he changed God’s autumn festivals from the seventh to the eighth month. There is ample evidence that he also changed God’s Sabbath from the seventh to the ‘eighth’ day …” (ibid).
Leviticus 26:1-2 identify the Second and Fourth Commandments as God’s two test commandments. These commandments are: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” and “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:4, 8).
These commandments test our obedience and loyalty to God. Many man-made religions acknowledge that we should not murder, fornicate, steal, lie or covet. But many people who can see that these actions are wrong cannot see why it is wrong to pray toward a statue of Jesus in a chapel adorned with a cross on Sunday morning. It takes real faith and obedience to reject graven images and to remember the Sabbath.
King Jeroboam broke these two commandments, as well as God’s instructions establishing the Levitical priesthood and the annual holy days. Why? To win support for his political agenda and to keep people away from Jerusalem.
This was an insidious development within God’s nation! Whereas the histories of most other kings are much less detailed, the Bible puts significant focus on this king and his religious system.
In Amos 7, the wicked priest Amaziah who told Amos to stop prophesying against Jeroboam was a priest of Bethel. This means he was one of the priests who led the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calf on Jeroboam’s counterfeit holy days.
This system of mixing the true religion with other beliefs more expedient to his agenda didn’t die with King Jeroboam i. The Bible emphasizes that his successors “walked in the way of Jeroboam” by continuing in the basic twin sins of Jeroboam: idolatry and Sabbath-breaking.
“The Way of Jeroboam”
The history of King Jeroboam I of Israel is recorded in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. (The history of King Jeroboam II, whom Gerald Flurry has identified as a forerunner of President Donald Trump, is recorded in 2 Kings and Amos.) The Bible goes on to emphasize “the way of Jeroboam” and “the sins of Jeroboam” in:
1 Kings 15:34; 16:2-26; 22:52
2 Kings 3:3; 10:29-31; 13:2-11; 14:24; 15:9-28; 17:22
In fact, the vast majority of Christians today use crosses, statues, paintings and other graven images to worship Jesus, and they attend church on what could be called the “eighth day” of the week instead of the seventh, the day in the Bible that God commands to keep.
Before his assassination, Charlie Kirk was one of the few Christians to keep the seventh-day Sabbath. His bestselling book Stop in the Name of God admits that the early Catholic fathers changed their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday a few decades after Jesus Christ died. Yet he refrained from recognizing it as a commandment; he viewed it as a good principle that yielded positive mental health benefits. He never told people the Sabbath is a test commandment proving whether you worship the true God!
These verses do not mean that every Christian who goes to church on Sunday is a member of the king’s chapel. If that were true, 99 percent of all Christians on Earth would be members of the king’s chapel. But these scriptures do show that the king’s chapel will emerge from traditional Christianity, the dominant religion in end-time Israel, which rejects God’s weekly Sabbath and annual sabbaths in favor of pagan traditions and political expediency. This movement is swiftly gaining power in America today.
‘Prophesy Not’
The primary factor distinguishing the “king’s chapel” from the rest of traditional Christianity is its intense loyalty to Jeroboam.
In “Is America’s Supreme Court in Bible Prophecy?”, Mr. Flurry noted that when Amos 7:13 refers to “the king’s court,” the word “king’s” is a different Hebrew word from the word used in the phrase “the king’s chapel.” It is more accurately rendered “the kingdom’s court.” This kingdom’s court is not a religious entity, and it is not following Jeroboam. It helps Jeroboam yet is not personally loyal to him.
The king’s chapel is different. It is not loyal to the kingdom; it is personally loyal to the king.
King Jeroboam i rejected the priesthood God had established and installed a new one among “the lowest of the people.” These new priests owed their sudden and drastic elevation completely to the king and would be debased and possibly executed if the people obeyed God’s law. So they supported Jeroboam above God.
The “way of Jeroboam” was still in force in the kingdom of Israel 12 kings and 117 years later, when King Jeroboam ii was in power. He continued to rely on these false priests, even when they advised him to exile God’s true prophet, Amos, to Judah. Amaziah, a leading false priest, said the reason for the drastic action was that “the land is not able to bear all his words.” He did not like Amos’s message of repentance.
In this regard, President Trump is walking in the way of Jeroboam.
Last year, the president announced the creation of a White House Faith Office. This could have been a good initiative, but whom did he appoint to lead it? Paula White, a televangelist linked to the Pentecostal movement and the prosperity gospel. White has been married three times, has faced serious allegations of marital infidelity, and preaches a nonbiblical message that neglects essential biblical truths about sin, repentance and the pursuit of righteousness.
Many Christians recognize that White’s commercialized “gospel” has little to do with the Bible. In one of her cash-for-blessing schemes, she promised that if you donate $1,000 to her ministry, you would receive “seven supernatural blessings,” including a guardian angel, prosperity, healing and a long life. This is not the type of religious leader who will call the nation to genuine repentance—which is the message of the Bible from beginning to end. She is the type of religious leader who has partnered with Donald Trump for the purpose of gaining power.
Amos 7 tells us that in addition to being personally loyal to King Jeroboam, the king’s chapel is hostile to God’s prophecies. The wicked priest Amaziah accuses Amos of conspiring against the house of Jeroboam (verse 10) before telling Amos to stop prophesying against the house of Israel (verse 16).
This religious movement is convinced that Donald Trump is going to make America great again without the American people needing to repent of their sins. They will persecute true Christians who preach the true message of Jesus Christ and true repentance! In their conceit, they will be utterly uncorrectable.
You cannot afford to ignore what the Bible says about the king’s chapel.
Utter Destruction
In the 2023 edition of his book America Under Attack, Mr. Flurry explains that God would give Donald Trump a second term in office so the American people would be saved from the radical-left takeover and have one last chance to repent of their sins. He writes, “If the American people do not repent and turn back to God during Trump’s second term, then God will allow America to become ‘desolate’ and ‘laid waste.’”
Amos 7:7-9 say, “Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
The word for “high places” in verse 9 refers to places of worship; the word for “sanctuaries” specifically means temples. This prophecy warns of divine chastisement for President Trump and his religious followers if they refuse to repent. Later, Amos says that “Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land” (verse 17), so the correction isn’t just for religious people. The whole nation will be punished! But the final catalyst for the punishment is American Christians rejecting God’s warning message.
“We have been watching this prophecy since June 1990, in the second issue of the Trumpet we ever produced,” Mr. Flurry wrote in “Why I Still Believe Donald Trump Is Coming Back.” “It speaks of a time when God is preparing to measure the destruction of end-time Israel—the United States and Britain—and He says, ‘I will not again pass by them any more’ (verse 8). This is just before severe correction comes on these nations if they don’t repent. They are receiving their final warning. … So the entire context of God saying I will not again pass by them anymore is the time of ‘Jeroboam’—an end-time antitype of King Jeroboam ii of Israel …” (theTrumpet.com/23490).
Now President Trump is back in office, and a movement with the appearance of religiosity and piety is supporting him. Yet this movement will have to make some big changes to spare this country from destruction.
God says, “I will not again pass by them any more.”