When Political Prophecies Don’t Come to Pass

Author - Umn ministry

November 11, 2020

The Bible includes false prophets and true prophets whose words turn out to be false.

Prophecy is saying what God says, which is more often about forthtelling than about foretelling.

Sometimes, however, prophecies do predict the future. In late October, Pat Robertson declared that he had heard from the Lord: “Without question, Trump is going to win the election.” To Robertson’s credit, Trump did far better than expected. With Donald Trump’s 70 million votes, reportedly the second-highest total in US history, we might think that Robertson indeed heard something. But did he get the whole story?

In some elections, prophecies are more than 50/50 guesses. In 2016, Jeremiah Johnson, a pastor and prophet in Kentucky, accurately predicted Trump’s first term even before he emerged as a leader in the Republican primaries. Robertson was not alone in seeing another victory for the president in 2020. Most public prophecies, including those by Johnson, sided with Trump, sometimes mentioning a disputed election.

But even some who voted for Trump felt like God was saying that Biden would win this time. Ron Cantor, a Messianic leader based in Israel, said he twice heard from God that Biden would win because of the church’s idolization of Trump. He told followers, “Even if a miracle happened and [Trump] was, in fact, reelected, which seems less likely with each passing hour, proving the other prophets true, the warning here remains the same.”

If the election results hold despite recounts and court challenges, were all those others who predicted Trump’s victory false prophets?

Mistakes in prophecy do not make everyone who’s mistaken a false prophet, any more than mistakes in teaching make everyone who’s mistaken a false teacher. But false prophets exist—even ...