Is God Using Donald Trump to Wake Up the Nation?

The recent rise of Donald Trump in the media and political landscape has taken many by surprise. Why would America embrace this eccentric, narcissistic billionaire businessman who cares little about whom he offends?

I believe part of this is that God is using him to uncover the veil of the current political leadership and culture in America to show us the corrupt nature of what is under that veil.

Trump is articulating what we all felt was under that veil—deception, lying, lack of accountability and pandering to what is politically correct. Trump is seeking to represent something that is the exact opposite.

A few years ago, Henry Blackaby said he did not see leadership emerging from anywhere except the marketplace. He did not see it in the political realm or even from church leaders.

There have been recent examples in the last 24 months. Hobby Lobby took a stand against the government for being required to fund abortions through Obamacare. They took their cause all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

Chick-fil-A took a stand on the gay rights issue. Instead of being penalized for that stand, they were rewarded with the largest single day sale in their history when conservatives turned the tables on the gay movement by standing with Chick-fil-A in a tangible “Support Chick-fil-A Day” that made a powerful statement.

Duck Dynasty’s patriarch Phil Robertson took a stand against the gay agenda when he shared what he believed the Bible said about the gay lifestyle. At the risk of losing the show, he stood his ground and the A&E network folded to the pressure of losing millions of dollars by not having the show on the air.

We are now seeing the public reject one culture for a new culture they have not embraced until now, perhaps because they were not ready or we simply had no one courageous enough to cast a new vision. It is taking an arrogant, narcissistic billionaire to get the nation’s attention.

Here are the characteristics and attributes of the current political culture compared to what the Trump marketplace focused culture is espousing.

Current Political Culture Attributes

• Pander to an audience by saying what they think the public wants to hear. (Obama and Hillary Clinton changed their positions on gay marriage when it became politically expedient).

• Be politically correct even at the expense of moral behavior. (The Planned Parenthood selling of baby parts is the most recent example of this. Instead of seeing the moral issue, they want to shift the moral degradation of killing and marketing baby parts to creating fear in women that their rights will be violated). The violation of law does not appear to be important enough for our justice department to investigate. The Republican Senate has decided to look past this huge moral wickedness.

• Live without accountability and deceive the public because laws don’t apply to me—Hillary Clinton wants us to believe that Benghazi was due to a video from extremists and that she has a right to have a private server in her home that had no national security emails hosted on that server. How long will the public be willing to be deceived?

These are just a few of the faces of the political environment we find ourselves.

Now, along comes Donald Trump. He is espousing a new way of operating because he is sounding a trumpet to the nation that our nation is broken and needs to be fixed. He is becoming a new prophetic voice, albeit not necessarily spiritual, but certainly based on truth. What are those values?

Marketplace Culture Attributes

Stop pandering—start solving problems. The first problem he is speaking out about and committed to fixing is our failed immigration policy. He is calling out all the politicians who refuse to recognize the problem that our open borders have created and they have been unwilling to do anything about. Trump is proposing specific action steps that involve accountability from Mexico.

Fix our economic issue—Trump understands that there must be accountability in our economic system of government and trade with other nations. He realizes America has lost its leadership position and wants to fix it. As a businessman, he knows one cannot borrow more money  than one can pay. The marketplace has a built-in accountability that must also be in government. If we looked at government the way we are required to look at business we would make decisions very differently.

No longer politically correct—Trump is not a people-pleaser. This is probably the one attribute the public seems to be resonating with the most. He speaks his mind because much of what he says is logical to many Americans. Sure, he has gone too far on making blanket statements on certain issues, but American’s seem to let some of his indiscretions pass because they like the brash boldness of speaking his mind. People are looking for a real leader who will be courageous in doing what is needed and right at this time in our nation.

Kim Clement, a notable prophetic voice in our nation, recently said, “Time magazine will have no choice but to say what I want them to say. Newsweek, what I want to say. The View, what I want to say. Trump shall become a trumpet, says the Lord!”

Fox News has become a prophetic mouthpiece to call the nation back to some sense of moral behavior. They are bringing attention to issues that the anti-God liberal press refuses to own up to.  

Recently Fox News exposed things like the flood of dangerous immigrants into so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” giving proven murderers sanctuary.

They are sounding the moral outrage over Planned Parenthood’s selling of body parts. God seems to be using Fox News to bring light to moral injustices. Yet, they are a minority voice in the world of media.

I do not know how God is going to use Donald Trump in the nation. Will He use him as He used Cyrus in the Old Testament? He was a secular king, but ruled righteously. King Cyrus was an extremely important person, because God destroyed the Babylonian empire through him, and brought a close to a 70-year punishment of the Jews that God imposed on them for their rebellion against him.

Will God use a secular businessman like Donald Trump to bring the nation back to some semblance of sanity? Can this be done without a spiritual awakening in its people? Only God knows the answer to that. However, one thing is for sure, he is stirring up the political establishment and may, at a minimum, infuse some accountability from the political leadership in this nation.

Os Hillman is president of Marketplace Leaders and author of Change Agent and TGIF Today God Is First daily devotional.