Dr. Robert Jeffress Remarks on Attempted Assassination of President Trump

Sunday, July 14 — from the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Dallas

What happened in Pennsylvania is, first of all, a demonstration of the reality of evil in the world. Evil is very real. It’s very present around us. And by the way, evil is nonpartisan. Evil is everywhere.

But I think what happened in Pennsylvania is also a demonstration of the power of Almighty God. What happened was inexplicable apart from God. And President Trump, a friend of our church, said that only God alone can be credited with what happened.

We have a friend, a doctor who watches Pathway to Victory in another state, that wrote me and said, “By my calculation, from what I can see, a millimeter’s difference in the trajectory of that bullet would have ended up in a fatality.”

It was that close. God did that.

I think about what happened way back in March of 1981. Remember when President Ronald Reagan was shot? A few days later, he voiced the belief that God spared his life for a purpose. And for President Reagan, that purpose was to defeat the Godless Soviet Union. I believe God spared Donald Trump’s life for a purpose. I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or Republican—that’s not what we’re talking about here.

I think Donald Trump has a purpose. My own feeling is God spared him for the purpose of calling our nation back to its Judeo-Christian foundation. Trump has said that very thing. You know, many years ago, I had a conversation with President Trump—then businessman Trump—and we were talking about the role of God in elections.

I said to him that I believed the words of Daniel 2: God establishes kings and He removes kings. Some people don’t believe God has anything to do with elections and with politics and with government. Make no mistake: God has everything to do with government. God cares about what happens in governments around the world.

Benjamin Franklin was a deist most of his life, not a Christian, but he said: “The older I get, the more I’ve come to believe that God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall from heaven without his notice, how can an empire be raised without his aid?”

God is involved in the affairs of the world and in this nation.

Let’s pray for President Trump and his family. And most of all, let’s pray for America that we would return to the God who has given us every blessing under the sun. I think that’s the proper response to what happened.