All the President’s Prophets

They believe Jesus was the Son of God. They believe the Holy Spirit gives them the power to speak the tongues of angels. They believe God uses apostles and prophets today. They believe America is under attack from demonic forces. They believe God is using Donald Trump to save America. They believe Jesus will not return until the end of a 1,000-year golden age. They believe that Christians have a responsibility to bring about this golden age by establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth. And they know their way around the White House.

Ever since President Donald Trump first took office in 2017, a group of Pentecostals known as the New Apostolic Reformation has been rising to prominence. Paula White-Cain, President Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, has introduced him to many key figures in the New Apostolic Reformation and now leads a West Wing-based, cabinet-level White House Faith Office that makes religious policy recommendations.

Under the influence of the New Apostolic Reformation, President Trump is moving to rededicate America to God. At a National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, he invited Americans from across the country to gather on May 17 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to give thanks for 250 years of blessings and rededicate the U.S. as “one nation under God.” This move has many religious leaders excited about America’s new direction.

“I can say without hesitation that no president in modern history, or perhaps all of history, has done more structurally, substantially and sincerely to elevate and protect religious liberty,” White-Cain said.

Yet not all Christians share White-Cain’s enthusiasm. In fact, many fear that a small, well-organized group of “false prophets” is trying to hijack the Make America Great Again movement by flattering the president.

What is the New Apostolic Reformation? Who is part of it? Who is being influenced by it? Is it teaching from the Bible? Is it right? These are all important questions to answer. The radical left has been destroying America’s Judeo-Christian foundations for decades, so America definitely needs to be rededicated to God.

Yet the Bible also prophesies that a false religious movement will gain political influence in end-time America.

This movement will reject God’s warning message, persecute true Christians and send them into exile. It is crucial that you understand what the Bible says about “the king’s chapel.”

False Gospel

The term “New Apostolic Reformation” was coined in the 1990s by C. Peter Wagner, and it has become one of the fastest-growing movements in evangelical Protestantism. The movement teaches that the Christian Church has entered a new “apostolic age” and therefore should be led by apostles and prophets. Paula White-Cain considers herself one of these prophets and has introduced President Trump to others: Bill Johnson, Ché Ahn, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, Dutch Sheets, Greg Locke, Lance Wallnau, Lou Engle and Wayne T. Jackson.

Mr. Trump first saw the Paula White Today program in 2002, about a decade before Paula White-Cain publicly identified herself as an apostolic leader associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. After watching her program, Trump invited her to Atlantic City (where he owned three casinos) on multiple occasions for Bible studies and prayer sessions. Her “prosperity gospel” message, which aligns faith and positive thinking with financial success, resonated with Trump’s own world view and desire for success.

White-Cain’s cash-for-blessing schemes has many worried about her influence over the president. Last year, she promised that if you donate $1,000 or more to her ministry before Easter, you would receive “supernatural blessings,” including a guardian angel, healing, a long life and prosperity.

This is superstitious nonsense. It has nothing to do with Americans repenting and rededicating their nation to God. Yet cash-for-blessing schemes are not unique to White-Cain’s preaching. They are part of the larger New Apostolic Reformation movement.

Bill Johnson, the leader of Bethel Church in Redding, California, also promotes the prosperity gospel, teaching that God desires to bless believers with wealth to advance His Kingdom on Earth. He does not promote cash-for-blessing schemes like White-Cain, but his teachings about the Kingdom of God are deeply flawed.

New Apostolic Reformation doctrine is correct that God’s Church is led by apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11). But Jesus called His followers out of this world (John 15:19) and instructed them to wait for His Second Coming (Matthew 24:42-44; Hebrews 9:28). The Bible is clear that the saints will live and reign with Christ for 1,000 years after He returns and they have been resurrected as spirit beings (Revelation 20:6), yet it grants God’s apostles no civil authority until then. The relationship the New Apostolic Reformation is trying to establish with President Trump is similar to the relationship the Catholic Church established with Constantine in a.d. 325—a relationship the Bible condemns as harlotry (Revelation 17:5).

The New Apostolic Reformation ignores most of what the Bible says about being separate from the world, however. It uses Genesis 1:28 to argue that Christians are called by God to exercise “dominion” over every aspect of society and culture, reclaiming the authority Adam supposedly lost to Satan in Eden.

Some civil rights groups consider the New Apostolic Reformation to be a threat to democracy. America was founded on the idea that the “garden of the church” should be “separated from the wilderness of the world,” yet many of the president closest religious advisers want America to be ruled by influential apostles and prophets.

Political Power

New Apostolic Reformation member Lance Wallnau, together with Bill Johnson, authored a 2013 book titled Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate, which teaches that the seven mountains in Revelation 17:9 represent seven aspects of society controlled by the secular left: business, education, entertainment, family, government, media and religion. The authors call on Christians to seize control of these mountains in order to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

The seven mountains in that prophecy have nothing to do with American society. The Apostle John was prophesying about the Holy Roman Empire, comparing it to seven mountains. Just as valleys separate mountains, there have been lulls in the power and activity of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire that distinguish these seven peaks, or resurrections.

After publishing this book, Wallnau rose to prominence in the New Apostolic Reformation due to a “prophecy” he made in 2016 about Mr. Trump being elected president. Wallnau compared Trump to King Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to rebuild the temple. He taught that while Donald Trump was not a devoutly religious man himself, God was using him to give Christians a foothold in the U.S. government.

The New Apostolic Reformation teaches postmillennialism, a doctrine that says Jesus will not return until after Christians have established and ruled the Kingdom of God for 1,000 years. Therefore, religious leaders like Paula White-Cain, Bill Johnson and Lance Wallnau are not waiting for Jesus to return; they are trying to make America Christian now, largely by lobbying for influence within the Trump administration.

Another prominent figure in the New Apostolic Reformation is Ché Ahn, the founder of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, California.

The Trumpet has particular interest in Ahn, Harvest Rock and Pasadena. This magazine carries on the Bible prophecy-based warning work God established through Herbert W. Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong founded the Worldwide Church of God; presented the World Tomorrow program; wrote hundreds of articles, books and booklets, including Mystery of the Ages; founded Ambassador College, the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation and other initiatives; and built Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena. After he died in 1986, his successors intentionally destroyed the Church from within, from the top—much like radical liberals have worked to intentionally destroy America from within, from the top. They shut down the tv program, took the magazines and books out of print, closed the college, and sold Ambassador Auditorium.

Ahn bought it, uses it for his church and launched his political campaign for governor of California there. He takes the Seven Mountain mandate further than other Pentecostal leaders by advocating for the direct involvement of apostles and prophets in government to “transform” society and bring about a religious “revival.”

During a rally on Oct. 12, 2024, at the National Mall, Ahn compared Trump to the biblical King Jehu, who cast down the wicked Queen Jezebel and purged Baal worship from the nation. He compared Kamala Harris to Jezebel and predicted Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, issuing a “decree” that “Trump will win … and Kamala Harris will be cast out.”

On the surface, Ahn’s forecast sounds like a prophecy Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry made in 2016 that Donald Trump would be elected president because he is an end-time type of King Jehu’s great-grandson, King Jeroboam ii. Yet the key difference is that Ahn says God is using President Trump to help usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth, while Mr. Flurry teaches that God is using President Trump to temporarily spare America to give people one last chance to repent of their sins before the Great Tribulation and the return of Jesus Christ to personally establish the Kingdom of God. This is a crucial distinction. Only one is biblical, and you can prove which one.

The New Apostolic Reformation is pursuing power over business, education, entertainment, family, government, media and religion to establish a 1,000-year golden age for America under their own might. Mr. Flurry is warning about a nuclear apocalypse if America doesn’t wake up and start relying on God.

King’s Chapel

Ché Ahn’s “prophecy” about King Jehu is noteworthy primarily because the relationship his New Apostolic Reformation is developing with President Trump is similar to the relationship an ancient religious movement called the “king’s chapel” had with King Jehu and his successors, including Jeroboam ii.

Because of the role Jehu played in purging Israel of Baal worship, God promised: “Thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation” (2 Kings 15:12). Yet the fact that Jehu fought against Baal worship does not mean he was a righteous king who worshiped the true God. In fact, 2 Kings 10:29 says, “However Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin, that is, from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan” (New King James Version). In other words, Jehu replaced the foreign Baal-worshiping cult established by Jezebel with the counterfeit religion of King Jeroboam i.

Jehu’s son Jehoahaz also refused to turn away from the sins of Jeroboam i, as did his grandson Jehoash and his great-grandson Jeroboam ii. The main reason these kings “took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel” (verse 31) was because they were listening to false prophets at Bethel and Dan. So in the days of King Jeroboam ii, God sent His true prophet to warn Israel about the impending Assyrian invasion, a punishment for sin. Yet the false prophets rejected the Prophet Amos’s message and advised Jeroboam to ignore and exile him to Judah.

“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, 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” (Amos 7:10-13).

Like the prophets in the New Apostolic Reformation, the prophets of Bethel and Dan thought Israel was about to enter a prolonged “golden age.” They hated Amos for preaching that “Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land” unless they repented, so they exiled him. Like the people who heard the preaching of Isaiah decades later, these religious leaders wanted to hear only smooth things (Isaiah 30:10).

Amos 7:10-13 is not mere history; it is prophecy for today. Gerald Flurry is delivering an Amos-like message that will bring him into conflict with the modern-day “king’s chapel” advising Jeroboam. Specifically, it will bring him into conflict with an evil priest called “Amaziah,” a man who infiltrated God’s own Church. (Read our booklet The Lion Has Roared for more information about this Amaziah figure.) He is not on the political scene yet, but he will soon align himself with the “king’s chapel” forming around President Trump.

In the 2023 edition of America Under Attack, Mr. Flurry forecast that God would give President Trump a second term so the American people would be saved from the radical-left takeover and have a chance to repent before Christ returns. 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.’”

It’s easy to see why the New Apostolic Reformation would dislike such a message. Yet there is something important about the true nature of the Kingdom of God that this movement needs to learn.

God’s Kingdom

America’s founders separated church and state because they understood that human nature is evil and that God has not given humans “dominion” over other humans. Genesis 1:28 grants humans dominion over animals.

“What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 51. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

History is full of examples of human religious leaders trying to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. But in every case, these religious leaders fail to overcome their own human nature and thus become theocratic tyrants.

America’s Founding Fathers tried to prevent this by crafting an elaborate system of checks and balances that restrained politicians’ human nature by using the human nature of other politicians. But Herbert Armstrong understood that the only lasting solution was the abolition of human nature.

In Mystery of the Ages, Mr. Armstrong explained the Bible’s teachings about the Kingdom of God. Chapter 7 explains that Jesus will return to set up a literal world-ruling Kingdom. The saints who will be given positions of authority in that Kingdom will not be carnal human beings. Rather, they will have become perfect spirit beings, working under Jesus Christ’s authority.

“No human will be given any government office,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages. “All in government service will then be divine Spirit beings, in the Kingdom of God—the God Family. All officials will be appointed—and by the divine Christ, who reads and knows men’s hearts, their inner character, and abilities or lack of ability. … There will then be two kinds of beings on Earth—humans, being ruled by those made divine.”

This astonishing statement is backed up by Revelation 20:4-6, which describe the saints ruling over the Kingdom of God as spirit beings who live and reign alongside Jesus Christ for a 1,000-year period. Only true religion can successfully unite church and state.

These prophecies show us that Jesus is about to return, whether or not Pentecostals gain control of parts of American society and government. God does not need Donald Trump to give Christian nationalists a foothold in U.S. government. God is using that man to save America temporarily—long enough to give people a chance to repent of the sins that are dooming this nation and the other modern nations of Israel. Unlike the message Trump gets from his religious advisers, God is also calling him to repentance. If people take advantage of this opportunity, they can be spared the horrors of World War iii. If they refuse it, they will have to be humbled by enslavement before they are ready to accept Jesus Christ’s literal rule on Earth.

This is what makes the king’s chapel dangerous. By preaching that Trump has been sent to help usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth, they convince people that they do not need to repent of their own wicked human nature and so doom their nation to a time of intense suffering that could be avoided.