Former Trump campaign adviser and POTUS Shield founder Frank Amedia hosted a group of “apostles” and “prophets” Wednesday night in an online event to promote “The Return,” a prayer-and-politics rally to be held on the National Mall Sept. 26 and organized by End Times author Jonathan Cahn. Amedia prophesied that “The Return” will be “a pivot point for this election.” Mark Gonzales, another POTUS Shield leader, made explicit what many only implied: “Revival is not coming through the prayer closet; revival’s coming through the ballot box.”
Cahn portrayed the need for revival as “life and death” for the United States, claiming that God is shaking the nation but has also given us a window of time to repent before experiencing greater judgment, which makes “The Return” essential to America’s future and the coming End Times “harvest” of souls.
Harry Jackson, who stood with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Good Friday to deliver an Easter message, affirmed Cahn’s point. Jackson said that “we’re in this amazing storm” but that God is allowing the “plague”—the coronavirus pandemic—to pass over and that the U.S. will come out if it with a “wave of health and healing.” But, he said “we yet have to have the return that will allow a real awakening. And there’s got to be a change in America.”
“We either make this turn all the way fully into the purposes of God or the whirlwind takes us out,” Jackson said.
Cahn said he’s seen prayer change elections and the course of history before. He recounted a prayer gathering at the U.S. Capitol 40 years ago that preceded the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan and other candidates “who were speaking about revival and biblical values.”
“I saw literally God change the history of America and the world through the prayers of his people,” Cahn said. “I believe that can happen again.”
Gonzales, probably the most nuts-and-bolts political organizer on the POTUS Shield team, said, “I believe more than ever before the pulpits of America are going to have to thunder.” Gonzales, a Republican campaign operative, heads the Hispanic Action Network, which works to engage voters from a “biblical worldview.”
“We need the highest offices of the land to be God-fearing individuals,” Gonzales said on the call. Dismissing arguments about whether or not Trump is a Christian, he said, “We need individuals that have the fear of the Lord and that I know he’s got.” Trump “has been a Cyrus-anointed man of God that God has put into this office, and we don’t believe he’s done yet,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales said Trump realizes that it was the church that put him in the White House and that he’s “made room” for the church like no president before. “I’ve never seen another president like him that’s done so much for the church, for the kingdom of God, the issue of life, the Supreme Court and the list—Israel—I mean, the list goes on and on and on and on. OK, religious liberty, religious freedom, we can do what we what we do, because of him,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales said God had told him to use the 30 days of April as a “make or break month” of prayer that could “shift the elections.” April’s prayers are “preparing the stage” for “The Return,” he said, which will be held “right in September, right before the elections.”
Gonzales said that it’s not clear what campaigning and voting are going to look like this year as the country emerges from social distancing restrictions, but he said that churches adopting new communications technologies and social media capabilities during the pandemic is “a divine set-up” churches can use to move people to the polls.
“We’re going to have to shift from the praying church to the voting church,” he said, regardless of what changes in voting processes may be made because of the pandemic. “Just whatever hand we’re dealt, we’re going to take that hand, and we’re going to become the hand of God and the vote of the kingdom of God on the Earth.”
Gonzales talked about the small margins by which Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and noted that Trump is currently down in polling in all three states. “It’s going to be in our hands,” he said:
We’re looking at doing 20 million voter guides in 2020. And you know, and so the point here is, because when we do these things, this is about turning out the church vote, the biblical vote, a biblical worldview vote. And when we do these things, OK, the candidate that’s most aligned with the kingdom and with the Bible, and those values are the ones that we the church can then begin to put in office because here’s the thing: We all want to see revival. And because I want to see revival, I’m going to say this statement and then we can we can move into a—shift this into prayer, is because here’s the thing: Revival is not coming through the prayer closet, revival’s coming through the ballot box.
Kevin Jessip, another POTUS Shield member and Cahn’s partner in planning “The Return,” said it will be “the largest simulcast event in the history of the world as far as I know of,” with links to every home in the U.S. “This is not a glorified prayer meeting. This is not a concert. This is not a performance,” Jessip said, calling the event a “sovereign move of God” in which God’s people repent and seek his mercy in the midst of judgment.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity that we have as a nation, and we have an administration who’s opening the door,” Jessip said, adding that he believes a “wave of salvation” will sweep across the country, “mixed with the fire of God.”
“We’re in a battle for the souls of nations, and God is separating the sheep and goat nations, and America will be a sheep nation,” Jessip said. “We’ll come back. We will return to the Lord. He’s not done with us yet.”
