While none of the above could get a job as associste pastor of your church, they were all "chosen" by God.
Jesus never went to bible college, was way too blunt in his speech, and too antagonistic. Not teachable.
Moses had serious anger issues.
David had too much of an eye for the ladies, and his family was a mess.
And so on.
The author is correct that the apocalyptic talk is foolish, and may lead to much unnecessary evil.
I have generally avoided attempts to understand the prophetic scriptures in terms of present or future events. My observation is that those who have occupied themselves with that task have not profited by it.
So help people find their way to Jesus. That is profitable.
Personally, I was aware that Trump would "win" in 2016. As the Lord said to Jeremiah, "Do I, the Lord, do anything without first telling my servants the prophets?".
However, I didn't vote for him for that reason, but only because his core policies aligned with my own views.
If God were to include Trump on the list with Nebuchadnezzar, Moses, Ehud, Samson, Moses, Jesus, under all of the other men he has raised up to accomplish some purpose he would kind of fit right in. Easy to picture him making a giant gold image of himself and commanding everyone to bow down to it.
Only God knows the future. And perhaps only that of the future he chooses to know, else he would be a fatalistic prisoner of his foreknowledge without even the illusion of freedom to act transcendently.
Interesting last line. I'm inclined to believe it, as I have sometimes pondered that myself.
As for your list of names, I'll note there is only one that I can see as aligning with Trump. All the names you quoted were biblical heroes, except for Nebuchadnezzar, and all of them, except maybe Samson, were generally described as people who, at least, sought to live as God wanted, albeit imperfectly as is the case with all of us.
The only one that aligns quite well with Trump is the one who is not a hero of the Bible, but an evil emperor who destroyed Israel, who like Trump, did become fascinated with the God of the Bible and who, like Trump loved gold and idolized himself. Like Trump he was also total narcissist, who looked over all the buildings he had developed and boasted, "look at all that I have made." So, you've opened the door to sharing something I wrote when the "prophets" of our time were proclaiming Trump would win the 2020 election, and I did not:
"[Trump is] as arrogant and ungodly in lifestyle as King Nebuchadnezzar. CAN God use such a man? Sure. God used Nebuchadnezzar to DESTROY Israel. [In a like role, I've said Trump is more likely God's wrecking ball for America than one who is going to Make America Great Again.] The imperial Nebuchadnezzar was a true narcissist like Trump who loved to boast widely of his great accomplishments. Using a true figurative dream, God revealed he was going to humble Nebuchadnezzar by casting him out of power and into poverty and driving him insane until he humbled himself and confessed openly to the world that God is God over ALL, and GOD establishes rulers.... (Daniel 4:24-33)."
Kind of seems like Trump's journey: First, he was cast out of power in 2020. Then he lost some of his choice buildings, some of them modern-day palaces that he lived in as well as billions of dollars in law suits. Like Nebuchadnezzar, he had all of this restored, and he has actually said several times that God establishes or appoints rulers, but from the vain perspective where he wears it as a badge that God has chosen him because he is so great. However, different than Nebuchadnezzar, it seems the insanity part is happening now, after he was restored to power, rather than before. History never repeats exactly. It rhymes.
I encourage people to read all of Daniel 4 about King Nebuchadnezzar and the prophet Daniel, and think about how it compares to the present situation. It took seven years for King Nebuchadnezzar to get the extreme arrogance pounded out of him by God taking him low enough to eat grass with the animals for long enough to make him see the light. Donald J. Trump seems to have a ways to go, though that is not mine to declare.
You have certainly brok en this down and highlighted very important aspects of the prophecy. Yes, too many of us try to make it about us as though God annointed us to bring his prophecies into fulfillment. Woe to the hypocrites.
Probably the most enlightening article I've read in a long time. Haven't finished because about half way thru it just became too sad and scary to take in during a single read. At 80, I had always felt that the Vietnam era was the scariest of my lifetime. That has all changed. Today's world is the scariest ever and being run by so called leaders that seem bent on destruction.
Thank you, Tom. Like you, I feel this is an extremely serious concern. The fact that you found it that difficult to make it through the article in a single read--not because it was long, but because of how concerning such thinking within the Pentagon is--tells me the subject is as concerning for others as it was for me. (No readers have ever told me they couldn't finish reading an article in one setting because of how deeply disturbing it was.)
To think that our government, and particularly the Pentagon with all of its MASSIVE power beyond any military anyone has ever seen, is driven by and controlled fanatical, apocalyptic beliefs on par with the mullahs of Iran is a mind-twisting reality! Even with this understanding of biblical prophecy THAT I LAID OUT MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO, I never thought for a moment I'd see this dynamic emerge so TRANSPARENTLY, so OUTSPOKENLY, and, of all places, first in the United States.
I felt it is the most important article I've written, and I had no idea a week ago it was coming! If others feel differently, though, I ENCOURAGE them to let me know because I am certainly interested in seeing how people respond to this, especially if it is not something they are normally interested in. So, thank your for your candid concerns.
P.S. The concerns of this article became even more poignant for me when, immediately after posting it, I looked at the latest headlines and saw "Donald Trump invokes HOLY WAR as he gives final Easter Monday ultimatum to Iran," the title of an article in which Trump announced "all hell" will rain down on Iran if they don't open the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, and then he signed off on that with "Glory be to GOD!"
And, then, this morning, after reading your comment, I see the top headline on Drudge is "TRUMP EASTER: 'PRAISE BE TO ALLAH'." The actual headline of the article they link to is "Trump drops F-bomb and says ‘Praise to Allah’ in wildest social media post yet."
Any question left that our own government is as fanatical as the mullahs of Iran right now???
And I am not inclined at this late junction in the destruction of the American (and global) economy to give him the benefit of the charitable doubt ; )
We had inflation come back on hard last year due to the tariffs. I don't know if you were around here--sounds like maybe not, but I explained early in the summer why it would take several months for the tariff inflation to show up at the retail level, putting it out to the holiday season. The main reason was the extent to which companies overstocked to front-run the tariffs. They would not, I said last summer, start to raise prices until all the stock that they bought at normal prices was sold out because they would lose customers; and companies have been complaining the tariffs are hitting them hard as they try to absorb them for that reason.
Along the way, I pointed out how inflation was showing up at the manufacturing and wholesale level, but not being passed along because price increases to retailers don't usually rise until those products hit the shelves. There was plenty of stuff working its way to warehouses that was higher priced; but that's not in CPI until it prices through to retail.
I thought the consumer price increases would hit about October. In fact, however, some companies reported this January that they overstocked so much to front-run the tariffs as soon as they knew they would be coming (and whenever Trump temporarily flashed them back off) that their overstock lasted until January, and they said they would now have to start passing along the higher prices they had been paying for restocking (in their warehouses) under the tariffs. So, that passthrough just got started this year.
The result was that prices started going up a little in November and December because not all companies had overstocked to that extent, but those price rises were hidden by the government shut down. I quoted an economist I respect who pointed out how some of the most significant missed data during the shutdown never got put back into the consumer price index, leaving a lower benchmark for the prices to follow. So, inflation has been understated and, on a year-on-year basis, will remain understated until the time of the shutdown loops back around.
That means actual inflation is far from having been taken out of the raw GDP numbers to get down to REAL GDP. If it was, real GDP growth for the fourth quarter would be about zero by my estimation and barely positive by the estimation of the economist I mention. (As in below 1%) So, I told my readers we have to estimate what is happening in the economy by what is happening in jobs, and there the numbers took a cliff dive.
Of course, government reporting on jobs is hideously off track, too, for the same reason. All the same, given the wreckage we've been seeing in jobs through the last half year of reporting, which has been getting worse since last summer, it's clear the economy is not performing well. It's also clear that even the government's under-reported inflation numbers are coming in hotter than inflation was prior to Trump's first term, in spite of how all the errors were to the effect of lowering inflation.
Now we have the war, which will add huge inflationary pressures because, as I wrote today, this oil damage isn't going away like the OPEC crisis in the seventies, even if the war stops tonight. You can look to today's article for the explanation. So, we are about to go into a world of hurt that will show up even in the badly flawed government reports (which were never too good before Trump but became worse with all these months of shutdown and all of the DOGE firings).
The war damage will take another month to start to show up in inflation reports, just because of the normal lag in reporting, and will build from there. At first, it will be small because most nations had a lot of stockpiled fuel, but as that runs out, the prices of oil will keep rising, and the price of everyting will rise because oil is in everything you buy--as an ingredient, a component of chemical ingredients, the energy to manufacture things, the energy to run retail outlets, and all the shipping that happens from ingredients to final product. That will take several months to be fully pricing through as people use materials and parts they bought before the war; so expect a long run of inflation increases that are already baked in, but will take time to pass through.
It's so good to hear that because I put a lot of time and thought into it, and was concerned about it being too religious for an audience mostly interested in economics (and it could turn out that it is), but I thought it important to show that Hegseth's way of reading the prophecies is not the only way these prophecies can be read. It comes from his own inclinations toward violence and power.
Even prophecies which have apparently been fulfilled can be read in many different ways. Look at Isaiah 53. Much of Daniel.
Basing any action on your understanding of how it fits into the written prophecies is foolishness bordering on madness.
Using your understanding of how your actions fit in the context of (in your opinion) yet to be fulfilled prophecies to justify your actions and incite others to share your zeal is manipulative at best.
Interesting.
Trump is not Jesus.
Not Moses.
Not David.
Not even Paul.
He is probably closest to Samson.
While none of the above could get a job as associste pastor of your church, they were all "chosen" by God.
Jesus never went to bible college, was way too blunt in his speech, and too antagonistic. Not teachable.
Moses had serious anger issues.
David had too much of an eye for the ladies, and his family was a mess.
And so on.
The author is correct that the apocalyptic talk is foolish, and may lead to much unnecessary evil.
I have generally avoided attempts to understand the prophetic scriptures in terms of present or future events. My observation is that those who have occupied themselves with that task have not profited by it.
So help people find their way to Jesus. That is profitable.
Personally, I was aware that Trump would "win" in 2016. As the Lord said to Jeremiah, "Do I, the Lord, do anything without first telling my servants the prophets?".
However, I didn't vote for him for that reason, but only because his core policies aligned with my own views.
If God were to include Trump on the list with Nebuchadnezzar, Moses, Ehud, Samson, Moses, Jesus, under all of the other men he has raised up to accomplish some purpose he would kind of fit right in. Easy to picture him making a giant gold image of himself and commanding everyone to bow down to it.
Only God knows the future. And perhaps only that of the future he chooses to know, else he would be a fatalistic prisoner of his foreknowledge without even the illusion of freedom to act transcendently.
Interesting last line. I'm inclined to believe it, as I have sometimes pondered that myself.
As for your list of names, I'll note there is only one that I can see as aligning with Trump. All the names you quoted were biblical heroes, except for Nebuchadnezzar, and all of them, except maybe Samson, were generally described as people who, at least, sought to live as God wanted, albeit imperfectly as is the case with all of us.
The only one that aligns quite well with Trump is the one who is not a hero of the Bible, but an evil emperor who destroyed Israel, who like Trump, did become fascinated with the God of the Bible and who, like Trump loved gold and idolized himself. Like Trump he was also total narcissist, who looked over all the buildings he had developed and boasted, "look at all that I have made." So, you've opened the door to sharing something I wrote when the "prophets" of our time were proclaiming Trump would win the 2020 election, and I did not:
"[Trump is] as arrogant and ungodly in lifestyle as King Nebuchadnezzar. CAN God use such a man? Sure. God used Nebuchadnezzar to DESTROY Israel. [In a like role, I've said Trump is more likely God's wrecking ball for America than one who is going to Make America Great Again.] The imperial Nebuchadnezzar was a true narcissist like Trump who loved to boast widely of his great accomplishments. Using a true figurative dream, God revealed he was going to humble Nebuchadnezzar by casting him out of power and into poverty and driving him insane until he humbled himself and confessed openly to the world that God is God over ALL, and GOD establishes rulers.... (Daniel 4:24-33)."
Kind of seems like Trump's journey: First, he was cast out of power in 2020. Then he lost some of his choice buildings, some of them modern-day palaces that he lived in as well as billions of dollars in law suits. Like Nebuchadnezzar, he had all of this restored, and he has actually said several times that God establishes or appoints rulers, but from the vain perspective where he wears it as a badge that God has chosen him because he is so great. However, different than Nebuchadnezzar, it seems the insanity part is happening now, after he was restored to power, rather than before. History never repeats exactly. It rhymes.
I encourage people to read all of Daniel 4 about King Nebuchadnezzar and the prophet Daniel, and think about how it compares to the present situation. It took seven years for King Nebuchadnezzar to get the extreme arrogance pounded out of him by God taking him low enough to eat grass with the animals for long enough to make him see the light. Donald J. Trump seems to have a ways to go, though that is not mine to declare.
In the second list I included Moses twice and somehow improperly added Jesus.
Trump does not belong on a list with Jesus. No one belongs on that list.
Please forgive my accidental irreverence.
I figured out how that happened.
I typed Jehu meaning Jehu the son of Nimshi. But autocorrect changed it.
Autocorrect is a tool of the devil!
You have certainly brok en this down and highlighted very important aspects of the prophecy. Yes, too many of us try to make it about us as though God annointed us to bring his prophecies into fulfillment. Woe to the hypocrites.
SOS ever ending END,,all unknowingly unknowing!!
Probably the most enlightening article I've read in a long time. Haven't finished because about half way thru it just became too sad and scary to take in during a single read. At 80, I had always felt that the Vietnam era was the scariest of my lifetime. That has all changed. Today's world is the scariest ever and being run by so called leaders that seem bent on destruction.
Thank you, Tom. Like you, I feel this is an extremely serious concern. The fact that you found it that difficult to make it through the article in a single read--not because it was long, but because of how concerning such thinking within the Pentagon is--tells me the subject is as concerning for others as it was for me. (No readers have ever told me they couldn't finish reading an article in one setting because of how deeply disturbing it was.)
To think that our government, and particularly the Pentagon with all of its MASSIVE power beyond any military anyone has ever seen, is driven by and controlled fanatical, apocalyptic beliefs on par with the mullahs of Iran is a mind-twisting reality! Even with this understanding of biblical prophecy THAT I LAID OUT MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS AGO, I never thought for a moment I'd see this dynamic emerge so TRANSPARENTLY, so OUTSPOKENLY, and, of all places, first in the United States.
I felt it is the most important article I've written, and I had no idea a week ago it was coming! If others feel differently, though, I ENCOURAGE them to let me know because I am certainly interested in seeing how people respond to this, especially if it is not something they are normally interested in. So, thank your for your candid concerns.
P.S. The concerns of this article became even more poignant for me when, immediately after posting it, I looked at the latest headlines and saw "Donald Trump invokes HOLY WAR as he gives final Easter Monday ultimatum to Iran," the title of an article in which Trump announced "all hell" will rain down on Iran if they don't open the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, and then he signed off on that with "Glory be to GOD!"
The full statement:
"Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. [sic] Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP" (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-trump-holy-war-iran-36969424)
And, then, this morning, after reading your comment, I see the top headline on Drudge is "TRUMP EASTER: 'PRAISE BE TO ALLAH'." The actual headline of the article they link to is "Trump drops F-bomb and says ‘Praise to Allah’ in wildest social media post yet."
Any question left that our own government is as fanatical as the mullahs of Iran right now???
"The US President posted on Truth Social: ‘Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****’ Strait, you crazy b******s, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP’." (https://metro.co.uk/2026/04/05/trump-drops-f-bomb-says-praise-allah-wildest-social-media-post-yet-27862527/)
A more charitable understanding would be that he is speaking in terms his adversaries (and some others listening) understand.
I am not entirely willing to credit him with the sophistication needed to do that, however.
And I am not inclined at this late junction in the destruction of the American (and global) economy to give him the benefit of the charitable doubt ; )
Interesting.
It appears we have different views on the effects of the current administration's economic policies.
As nearly as I can tell they have been generally quite positive for the USA, somewhat less so for our global adversaries.
We had inflation come back on hard last year due to the tariffs. I don't know if you were around here--sounds like maybe not, but I explained early in the summer why it would take several months for the tariff inflation to show up at the retail level, putting it out to the holiday season. The main reason was the extent to which companies overstocked to front-run the tariffs. They would not, I said last summer, start to raise prices until all the stock that they bought at normal prices was sold out because they would lose customers; and companies have been complaining the tariffs are hitting them hard as they try to absorb them for that reason.
Along the way, I pointed out how inflation was showing up at the manufacturing and wholesale level, but not being passed along because price increases to retailers don't usually rise until those products hit the shelves. There was plenty of stuff working its way to warehouses that was higher priced; but that's not in CPI until it prices through to retail.
I thought the consumer price increases would hit about October. In fact, however, some companies reported this January that they overstocked so much to front-run the tariffs as soon as they knew they would be coming (and whenever Trump temporarily flashed them back off) that their overstock lasted until January, and they said they would now have to start passing along the higher prices they had been paying for restocking (in their warehouses) under the tariffs. So, that passthrough just got started this year.
The result was that prices started going up a little in November and December because not all companies had overstocked to that extent, but those price rises were hidden by the government shut down. I quoted an economist I respect who pointed out how some of the most significant missed data during the shutdown never got put back into the consumer price index, leaving a lower benchmark for the prices to follow. So, inflation has been understated and, on a year-on-year basis, will remain understated until the time of the shutdown loops back around.
That means actual inflation is far from having been taken out of the raw GDP numbers to get down to REAL GDP. If it was, real GDP growth for the fourth quarter would be about zero by my estimation and barely positive by the estimation of the economist I mention. (As in below 1%) So, I told my readers we have to estimate what is happening in the economy by what is happening in jobs, and there the numbers took a cliff dive.
Of course, government reporting on jobs is hideously off track, too, for the same reason. All the same, given the wreckage we've been seeing in jobs through the last half year of reporting, which has been getting worse since last summer, it's clear the economy is not performing well. It's also clear that even the government's under-reported inflation numbers are coming in hotter than inflation was prior to Trump's first term, in spite of how all the errors were to the effect of lowering inflation.
Now we have the war, which will add huge inflationary pressures because, as I wrote today, this oil damage isn't going away like the OPEC crisis in the seventies, even if the war stops tonight. You can look to today's article for the explanation. So, we are about to go into a world of hurt that will show up even in the badly flawed government reports (which were never too good before Trump but became worse with all these months of shutdown and all of the DOGE firings).
The war damage will take another month to start to show up in inflation reports, just because of the normal lag in reporting, and will build from there. At first, it will be small because most nations had a lot of stockpiled fuel, but as that runs out, the prices of oil will keep rising, and the price of everyting will rise because oil is in everything you buy--as an ingredient, a component of chemical ingredients, the energy to manufacture things, the energy to run retail outlets, and all the shipping that happens from ingredients to final product. That will take several months to be fully pricing through as people use materials and parts they bought before the war; so expect a long run of inflation increases that are already baked in, but will take time to pass through.
Thanks for even more scary detail. Reminds me once again of the song from the Vietnam era "Eve of Destruction".
What an amazing article
It's so good to hear that because I put a lot of time and thought into it, and was concerned about it being too religious for an audience mostly interested in economics (and it could turn out that it is), but I thought it important to show that Hegseth's way of reading the prophecies is not the only way these prophecies can be read. It comes from his own inclinations toward violence and power.
Even prophecies which have apparently been fulfilled can be read in many different ways. Look at Isaiah 53. Much of Daniel.
Basing any action on your understanding of how it fits into the written prophecies is foolishness bordering on madness.
Using your understanding of how your actions fit in the context of (in your opinion) yet to be fulfilled prophecies to justify your actions and incite others to share your zeal is manipulative at best.
For sure. We all now live not far from the madding crowd.