I rarely tread into the political arena in my posts that focus on biblical things, but this is one topic I have heard a lot about from Christians and non Christians alike. I have heard people take bold stances on both sides of the issue and the way they argue their point makes you wonder if they have any tolerance for someone with a differing view.
When I shared with some close friends that I was thinking about tackling this issue in today’s post, I heard everything from, “Great, I can’t wait to read what you write,” to, “This isn’t something you should write on.” I get it. Depending on what you believe the answer is to this question, you may think little good can come from broaching a topic like this and perhaps all that will happen is to fuel the flames best left alone.
I respect that. But this is also a question that our culture is struggling with and people have deep convictions about the answer to the question of whether or not God had anything to do with saving Donald Trump from an assassin’s bullet. There are some important things I think we all need to consider regardless of the side you come down on. So I am taking this opportunity to talk through some important things we all need to consider.
I am sure most people have nuanced beliefs on this question, so it would be futile to try to capture everyone’s belief on this. But those who do not believe Donald Trump was saved by divine intervention cite things like his lack of moral character or why would God exercise His sovereignty to save Trump while letting a good, innocent man die?
Those who believe God did intervene in the assassination to save Donald Trump’s life talk about the unbelievable odds that, to them, show it was a supernatural experience. They cite things like the timing of the shot and how Trump turned his head at the split second needed to live. If he turned his head any further or less, he would have been killed.
There are a lot of other reasons that play into the conclusions people draw about God’s involvement in Trump’s survival, but these are some of the most consistent I have heard from others. But in the end, without a prophet to tell us, there is no way we will ever know for sure what role God played in the survival of Trump. That’s the one thing we can be sure of. No matter how strongly we feel about the conclusions we draw, those conclusions are based on human reasoning we employ to arrive at our belief.
The danger we have to guard against is elevating those beliefs to the level that causes us to say, “God did save Trump,” or “God did not save Trump.” When we do this, we ascribe actions to God that may or may not be true. When we ascribe action to God, we must not be lifted up in pride enough that we claim to be able to speak for the Lord on things we do not know. That is a dangerous thing.
Human reasoning is a wonderful gift, but it cannot tell us what God will do apart from His word. We can draw conclusions and say what we believe, but it is a dangerous thing to speak on behalf of God when our foundation to do so is our human reasoning without inspired confirmation.
I write about this tendency in detail in my book, The Sovereignty of God. It’s the tendency for us to arrive at a well thought out conclusion and then take it to the level of binding it upon people or condemning people for not coming to the same well-reasoned conclusions we have arrived at. Job’s three friends did this when they accused Job of sinning, resulting in the tremendous suffering he was experiencing. They told Job that God was punishing him because of his sins and all he had to do was repent and God would bless him again.
That God rewarded good and punished evil is an easy conclusion to arrive at when we employ our human reasoning. We could all make a convincing argument for it from Scriptures if we applied ourselves. But the problem is that it was the wrong conclusion, no matter how strongly the three friends felt about it. What was God’s response?
“After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7 ESV).
When we use human reasoning that causes us to ascribe things to God that are not true, His anger burns against us. He says, “You have not spoken of me what is right.” At the end of the day, no matter what conclusion we arrive at about God’s involvement in Trump’s survival, it is based on our own human reasoning that we deduce from Scripture. I can make a powerful argument both ways.
I can show you from Scripture how God does not hear the prayers of sinners and how it is not in God’s nature to actively save an immoral man’s life while letting a good, moral man die at the same time. I can talk about God’s justice and fairness. I can go to Scripture after Scripture showing God’s character and how it makes little sense that He would get involved in the schemes of men who are playing a game of thrones.
And I can also tell you how God has often used evil men and nations to accomplish His purposes. I can show you how He time-after-time intervened to save the murderer and adulterer King David. I can spend time in 4 chapters in Daniel talking about how God worked to show the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar what true sovereignty was all about. I can show how he took another pagan king he called by name 150 years before his birth and how He named Cyrus to be the shepherd of His people.
What about these words of Jesus?
“But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land,
and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:25-27 ESV).
I can make the case of how God has shown the propensity to extend kindness to Gentiles and nonbelievers while letting His children suffer the same thing He saved others from. How does this apply to Trump’s survival? I can make the case from Scripture that God can, and has, saved strangers while letting His children suffer. Yes, Trump may be an immoral man, but if God did intervene to save him, we have no clue as to what His motives for doing so are,
Could it be that God wants Donald Trump to learn something about His sovereignty like He did with Nebuchadnezzar or wants to extend His glory to him like He did to Naaman and cause Trump to come to a similar humbling like these two leaders came to?
Perhaps. I can use human reasoning to make a strong case that this is the point. But in the end, that conclusion, though founded in a scriptural context, is a conclusion of my own human reasoning. The person who concludes that God did not save Trump has the same claim to that conclusion as I may have to mine.
What we both have to watch out for is elevating our conclusions to the level where we assign them to God. That is a bold and dangerous game. It is something that can cause God’s anger to burn against us. At best, we can say what we believe happened and leave it there. To get angry because someone does not follow our human reasoning or to vilify them for arriving at a different conclusion puts us on very shaky ground.
This post is not written to settle the issue of was Donald Trump’s assassination survival an act of God or not. It is written to caution all of us to be very careful of what we ascribe to God and to tread lightly on His sovereignty.
If you really want to get into a study like this more, then you might consider reading my book, The Sovereignty of God. It will challenge you to rethink many assumptions you may have now about God and will likely make you feel uncomfortable as you struggle with long-held views you may have of God. But I believe the lessons in that book will help you better deal with questions like did God intervene to save Trump. At least, that is my hope.
Well, if you’ve read this far, perhaps you deserve to hear my personal view on whether or not God intervened to save Donald Trump from an assassin’s bullet. So here it is. While I understand and respect those who may not come to the same conclusion I have come to, my human reasoning makes me believe that yes, God did intervene to save Donald Trump. I hope that President Trump is personally affected by this to do what Nebuchadnezzar learned to do, and that is to honor God for His sovereignty and might.
“At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34-35 ESV).
But this is based on my own human reasoning and I do not ascribe it to God. Perhaps, when I meet God face to face, He will tell me if He saved Trump’s life or not. But I suspect I will have far greater things on my mind on that day.
I am in the book of Matthew in my daily Bible reading. Jesus is preaching about being prepared for the return of the Master. At the beginning of chapter 25, Jesus talks about the ten virgins who are waiting for the bridegroom to return.
We know the story. Five were foolish and ran out of oil. They asked the five prepared virgins to share their oil.
“But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.” (Matthew 25:9 ESV).
While the foolish virgins were out, the wise virgins were invited into the feast, and when they returned, the doors were shut.
What is Jesus teaching? That now is the time to prepare for His return. Once the voice of the Archangel sounds with the blast of the trumpet, it’s too late. There is no more time to get oil for our lamps.
Those who are prepared will be let into the feast while those unprepared will be shut out of the great banquet prepared for us.
Nothing in life is so important that is worth putting off our preparation for the return of the Master. What a heartbreaking thing to see the wedding feast doors shut with us on the outside.
I usually choose one event to write on in my daily Bible reading, but as I finished the book of Matthew, there is another verse that stands out to me. In Matthew 28, we read about an angel rolling back the stone that was sealing Jesus’ tomb. The angel then sat on the stone.
The guards who saw this were terrified and trembled as dead men. What a sight they must have beheld. They then race to report exactly what they witnessed.
“While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.” (Matthew 28:11 ESV).
But the religious leaders concocted a story about the disciples stealing the body and made the soldiers agree to it, promising to keep them out of trouble and paying them off.
How deluded must we be to see the evidence that the Holy Spirit has left and then concoct excuses, dismissing it all just because we do not want to even consider that Jesus is Lord and King and that we must submit to Him?
Today means we are one day closer to seeing King Jesus either in the air at His glorious return or in His presence in Heaven after death.
Are you ready today to meet our Lord?
“My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” (Philippians 1:23b ESV).
I have said it before, and it is worth repeating. When we read this verse,
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18 ESV),
this often conjures up images of the church stoically surviving every attack that hell will throw at it. Hades, death, will not kill the church. It will survive.
We think that way because translators added the word “against” to Jesus’ statement to “help us understand the thought better.”
But in this case, I believe that adding the word “against” does not make the statement clearer, but rather, it weakens the focus of our King’s promise.
Better read, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail it.” Jesus isn’t saying that we will survive the attack of hell. He’s saying that His church will be so powerful, the gates of hell will not be able to prevail it. It will not be able to stand against the church.
Jesus is telling us that the church will be the power that prevails. Light will go into darkness. We will go into enemy territory and the church will continue to grow. How? Because our Leader is undefeated. Our King has already vanquished the foe and the foe knows it.
Satan is lashing out because he knows his freedom is about to come to an end, so in his death throes, he’s lashing out like a wounded animal about to die.
“Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Revelation 12:12 ESV).
My friends, Jesus wasn’t teaching that the church would simply survive the attacks of hell. He was saying that hell will not survive the attack of His righteous army who will take the fight into its territory and be victorious.
The gates of hell will not prevail it.