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This morning I watched two different videos about Donald Trump in the aftermath of the assassination attempt that came within millimeters of ending his life. Such an experience would sober the hardest of self-made men. Trump experienced the proof of the reality of personal mortality and the razor line between alternate fates.

The first video I might have ignored, but for the source. Capturing Christianity is a YouTuber who manages a thoughtful and circumspect apologetic presence online. He interviews good people and engages in civil conversation with people who disagree with him. I am attracted to people like that.

The video purported to be about a prophecy predicting the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I don’t run after so-called prophecies. I am immediately skeptical when I see anyone claiming to be a prophet or to have some message from God.

With that said, I do not completely dismiss the idea that God could speak to or through anyone. If we believe anything in the Bible, we have to accept that God has spoken to and through people in the past. I also don’t see anything in the Bible that indicates God can no longer do that if He chooses to speak to or through people in the present.

I believe that skepticism is the right posture from which to consider any claimed prophecy, but I believe we also have to acknowledge and respect Paul’s admonition:

“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good.”

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 (ESV)

The title of the video is, Viral Trump Prophet Now Admits THIS. I don’t like clickbait headlines either, though I admit to being persuaded to click on them sometimes. When I do, my Spidey senses are always tingling, expecting to be disappointed by another bait and switch or overblown story that has little to no factual support, is (likely) full of misinformation and disinformation, and (maybe) even outright misleading information. I have seen it too many times.

I respected the source, however, so I clicked.

The 15-minute video walks through a purported prophecy published by one, Brandon Biggs, four days before the assassination attempt. Mr. Biggs seems very sincere and forthright, but many people can be sincerely and forthrightly wrong. I will let you discern for yourself:

The gist of the Capturing Christianity take is that Biggs got some things wrong, though he accurately predicted the assassination attempt.

Of course, anyone could predict an assassination attempt. I have personally heard people speculate that such an attempt might be made, given the current, polarized and tensely emotional political climate.

The video commentary includes clips of what Mr. Biggs claims he saw in a vision and his interpretation of it. Some of what he saw and reported days before the incident are generally accurate to the events that occurred. In particular, he saw a bullet whiz past Trump’s right ear. He saw blood coming from Trump’s right ear, and he saw Trump down on his knees.

As the commentary points out, anyone might predict an assassination attempt, but the details of this vision are remarkably close to what actually happened. The bullet didn’t whiz past the left ear. It didn’t whiz past the top of the head, or chin, or cheeks, or neck or chest. It whizzed past Trump’s right ear.

Biggs added that Trump’s eardrum was ruptured and that he was “radically born again”. This is where the reality differs. Donald Trump’s eardrum was not ruptured. We also have no way of knowing what happened in Donald Trump’s mind or heart.

The central point of the commentary focused on Mr. Biggs’s “admission” that he added to what he saw in the vision. Biggs says that he didn’t see the bullet pierce Trump’s ear, but he saw the blood coming from the ear. He also mentioned seeing sonic waves behind the bullet, as in the movie, Matrix.

(I am reminded in this comment that prophets are people who perceive things in the context of their culture, experience, and understanding. Food for thought as we read the Old Testament prophets – not that Brandon Biggs should be compared to an Old Testament prophet.)

Briggs admits that he assumed the bullet somehow caused Trump’s eardrum to burst. He added that part, because it seemed like be a logical conclusion to him from what he believed he saw. What he saw, and what he assumed are two different things.

I believe Biggs was sincere and forthright, as I said above, and he was humble in explaining these things. He wasn’t defensive. He didn’t seem intent on defending himself. In fact, he was apologetic and called himself “immature” in not recognizing the difference between what he saw and what he assumed.

So much for these basic facts. They aren’t what I want to focus on here.

As I stated just three days ago, the original prophecy about Trump being President (in 2011) and the miraculous escape from death this week (even if we admit God’s hand in the prophecies and the saving of Trump’s life) do not mean that Trump is God’s man and that Christians should uncritically support him in whatever he says and does.

Paul said we need to “test everything” (1 Thess. 5), so I think that is exactly what we should do. Some people may say that I am vacillating, but I am not. I am keeping an open mind in taking a closer look.

Neither Biggs nor the host of Capturing Christianity mentioned the possibility that Biggs could have also assumed things about Trump being on his knees. Trump hit the ground after the bullet whizzed past his right ear, and secret service agents piled on top. Trump was on his knees because of what happened.

He wasn’t getting on his knees to acknowledge God. He was ducking down because of the bullet. It’s possible that he thought of God on his knees. He might have even prayed, but he didn’t drop to his knees in prayer. He dropped to his knees because of the bullet that grazed him.

Though he may have looked initially shaken, he quickly recovered the familiar Trump bravado, defiance, and penchant for a photo op. He also insisted that the secret service, who were whisking him off the stage, wait while he held up his fist and said, “Fight!” He is nothing if not always ready for a good camera shot.

Trump’s defiant response to the assassination attempt suggests that nothing radical happened in Trump’s heart that day but for the momentary (and uncharacteristic) dazed and shaken look. Who wouldn’t be shaken?! Yet, he was wasn’t shaken enough to become someone other than who he is. The defiant fist for the camera is proof of that.

Still, the thought has lingered with me: what if something happened (or does happen) in Trump resulting from being millimeters from death and realizing how he does not control his own fate. What if God has His hand on Trump – not like King Saul (who rebelled against God and did not carry out God’s instruction), but like King David (who was a man after God’s own heart). Or even something in between.

All analogies break down, so we should not push them farther than they go.

With those thought simmering on the back burner, I began to read the NY times headlines today and an article that promised a recap of “A Tumultuous Day”. The articles included comments on Trump’s acceptance speech for the Republican nomination, speculation on how Trump may govern, increasing rumors of Biden dropping out of the race, and what that might mean for the Democratic nomination.

I saw a link to a break down of the Trump speech in a short video. I like short videos, so clicked on Maggie Haberman’s summary: Donald Trump Concludes R.N.C. With Mixed Message. I did not tune in to the acceptance speech, so I was curious.

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“At odds with his usual rhetoric?” Hmmm. What does that mean? Does this mean Biggs was right after all? Was Trump radically born again and radically changed?

Her next statement, however, belied such a hope, as the apparent softening of Donald Trump that she saw was at odds with things he went on to say: he referenced “Crazy Nancy Pelosi”, implicitly joked about Biden, and fanned the flames of the division he decried earlier in his speech. It seems he slipped comfortably back into his old self for the rest of the speech.

Other NY Times writers called Trump’s acceptance speech a “politically cunning transformation,” assuming that his apparent softening was just a ploy. They were not moved when Trump said:

“As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together — or we fall apart.”

They focused, instead, on the other “handful of exaggerations and personal attacks on Democrats.” Another group of NY times correspondents agreed that most of the long speech included “the kinds of exaggerations about his record and attacks on Democrats that have become familiar to voters from Mr. Trump’s previous two campaigns and presidency.”

They quoted independent voters on their opinions of the speech, which include the following:

“He tried, I think, to be much more unifying at the beginning. But then he got on his high horse there at the end.”

Sharon Reed, 77, a retired teacher-turned-farmer in rural Pennsylvania

Arnel Ramos, 21, a food service worker living in Milwaukee, hoped to hear Trump “talk about his belief systems.” Instead, she was unsettled by “the connections Mr. Trump drew between immigration and crime, destruction and even disease” and his “aggressive tone on foreign policy and his description of being on the brink of ‘World War III.'”. She came away feeling “uncomfortable”.

Another independent, Kristen Morris, 60, a nursing student in a suburb outside Charlotte, N.C., said she could not vote for Biden. She also said she could not vote for Trump, after “his hyperbolic — and at times, confusing and incendiary — rhetoric, particularly around immigration.” She added, though:

“’I’m going to be watching to see if this was really a life-changing, life-altering moment, which it very well could have.'”

What Undecided Voters Thought of Trump’s Speech: Mostly, Not Much, NY Times, July 19, 2024

Clearly, more than just modern prophets are thinking about the possibility that the near miss with death might trigger a change in Donald Trump. Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

In my mind, Donald Trump needs more than a change; he needs a radical transformation! He needs to be “radically born again”.

Perhaps, it will happen. Maybe it has happened (if that part of the prophecy described by Brandon Biggs is more than his added assumption of what it meant that Trump was down on his knees.)

Test everything. Christians need to be wise as serpents, as Jesus said, while maintaining the character of Christ. Wisdom suggest that time will tell, as the saying goes.

We need to be mindful that Jesus warned about false prophets. False prophets do not come from outside the tent. They come from the inside the tent, and that is why they are so dangerous.

I am not saying that Brendon Biggs is a false prophet. Even if the vision he had was from God, and even if God providentially protected and saved Donald Trump from death, and even if God in his sovereignty causes him to be elected for a second term, we need to be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusions.

We serve and follow the Lamb of God who came to sacrifice himself for the salvation of the world. We follow in the way Jesus instructed us, by picking up our own crosses daily. The world will know us by our love for one another, and the sheep will be separated from the goats on the basis of how we treat others – the hungry, the immigrant, the prisoners, and other vulnerable people.

At the end of the day (as of today anyway), I am not vacillating. I still maintain that Christians should not only be “mindful of the times”, but we should be critical in the way we discern them. (See The Trump Assassination Attempt: Knowing the Times) We need to be faithful to God, and to God alone. I will be watching, though, for signs of a change in Donald Trump.