The First Horseman Blog

Prophecy • Isaiah • Last Days

Gileadi's List of the Servant Is Right. It Just Isn't Finished.

Avraham Gileadi's page lists ten heroes of ancient Israel whose lives foreshadow the latter-day servant. The list is right — but it leaves out Zion, a greater exodus, the temple, and the biggest assignment of all.

Isaiah • Current Events

Why Did Trump Post This Prison Video?

The guards shut off the camera and want him hurt. But he grabs the keys they locked him in with. What Isaiah 45 and 1 Nephi 22 say about the man in the cell.

Prophecy • Revelation • Last Days

The One Thing John Was Given That No One Else Could Write

In 1 Nephi 14, Nephi saw the same vision John saw and was forbidden to write it. Everyone saw the end. John was given the beginning, and it is Revelation 6.

Isaiah • Prophecy

The Leader Isaiah Saw: Donald Trump and the Servant of Isaiah 42

Every ancient copy of Isaiah 42:19 says the servant is blind. Joseph Smith restored what it really says, and it points to Donald Trump.

Donald Trump • Freedom • Current Events

America's Next Great Wave of Innovation

Free enterprise, President Trump's regulatory agenda, and why I believe this November matters for the next generation of American inventors

A flying Roadster, a booster caught by its own tower, and a pipeline from Alaska to Taiwan. Why the freedom to build is on the ballot this November.

Freedom • Agency • Free Enterprise

What Happens When People Are Free to Invent?

Twenty-six American inventions, and the blessings that reached far beyond the people who built them

Twenty-six American inventions blessed millions who never knew the inventors' names. What the scriptures teach about agency, free enterprise, and this choice land.

Donald Trump • Prophecy • Current Events

They Loved Him Until He Ran

Ten Well-Known People Who Praised Donald Trump, Then Turned Against Him

Hillary Clinton sat in the front pew at his wedding. Mitt Romney was honored to have his endorsement. Ten well-known people who praised Donald Trump, then turned on him — in their own dated words.

Faith • Justice • Last Days

Is It Death You Hate, or Justice?

The Pentagon will livestream Nidal Hasan's firing squad execution. A Latter-day Saint look at the outrage, violent entertainment, and the days of Noah.

Prophecy • Revelation • Last Days

Why I Stopped Following Anyone's Second Coming Timeline

Dozens of LDS Second Coming timelines say the end is two or three years away. They all skip the timeline God already gave us in Revelation 6. Here's the one thing to watch for.

Faith and Politics

If Opposition Is the Measure, Trump Is the Greatest Leader in History

If a leader is measured by the opposition he overcomes, nobody comes close to Donald Trump. Look at what he has done.

Faith and Politics

Why the Vandals Fight So Hard

Part Two of The Vandals in the Park

Why the opposition to rebuilding America is so fierce, and what Zion and the New Jerusalem have to do with it.

Faith and Politics

The Vandals in the Park

Part One of Two

Kelly Smith sees a vandalized park as a picture of what is happening to America — and of the rebuilding that has begun.

Faith and Politics

How Iran Is Using the Art of War Against Americans

Kelly Smith examines an Iranian military letter to Americans through ten tactics from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, distinguishing its claims from the evidence.

Biblical Prophecy

All They That Were Incensed Against Thee

Isaiah 41:11 promises that those incensed against God's servant will be ashamed. Kelly Smith considers Cyrus, Trump, and the opposition of former supporters.

Faith and Politics

Before You Call Trump Supporters a Cult, Read This

Calling Trump supporters a cult ends the conversation. Kelly Smith reflects on faith, politics, Ammon, and a better way to change a mind.

Opposition, Hatred and Division

Yet I Will Heal Him

Why the Opposition to Donald Trump Is Not the End of the Story

I thought the marring would stop once he was back in the White House. It got worse. But Christ already told us how this ends, and it is not how his critics think.

Prophecy

The Mountain of the Lord's House: What Isaiah 2 Is Describing, and When

Isaiah 2 says the mountain of the Lord's house is established in the last days. What that mountain is, what is already fulfilled, and what is still ahead.

Prophecy

Nobody Knows Their Names

Secret Combinations, Isaiah 14, and the Men No One Can Identify

Robert Kennedy Jr. described faceless men in lanyards calling the shots and could not name one of them. Scripture explains why no name can be produced, and promises the day every name comes out.

Testimony

The Rats I Never Saw Coming

Why the Worst Attacks Wait Until Your Testimony Bears Fruit

Alma warns about the sun scorching a rootless seedling. There is a second attack he does not describe, and it waits until your testimony is finally bearing fruit.

Testimony

Two Corn Patches, and the Gardener Each One Had

Same season, same seed, two very different harvests

Two gardens, one summer, two very different harvests. Three mistakes the second gardener made, and what each one looks like in a testimony that stops producing.

History • Communism • Prophecy

President Benson Was Right, and the Hindsight Argument Proves It

Why "it never came to pass" is the weakest case anyone can make against a prophet's warning

A popular podcast concluded President Ezra Taft Benson's warnings about communism never came to pass. Here is why that argument gets it backward, with sources.

Trump in Prophecy

Why He Made Them Demand It

A reading of the Epstein files, the art of the deal, and what happens when hidden things are uncovered

He promised the files, then appeared to back away, and the people who trusted him turned on him overnight. I think that was the point. Here is the record, footnoted, and where I believe it fits.

Faith & Testimony

Why People Leave the Church: There Is Only One Real Reason

Members give a million reasons for leaving the Church. Alma 32 gives one.

Most people who leave do not lose a testimony. They talk themselves out of one they already had. What Alma 32 teaches about the tree of faith.

Doctrine • Stewardship • Authority

Who Receives Revelation for Whom

Everyone in this Church receives revelation. Nobody receives it for people outside his own boundary.

Everyone in the Church receives revelation, and everyone receives it inside a boundary. Here is where each boundary falls, and why a gift is not an office.

Personal Testimony

I Prayed for a Healing. I Got Two Words Instead.

How a book I never planned to write came to exist

At four in the morning in November 2022 I fell out of bed and prayed for my heart. What came instead was a name I did not expect. This is the whole story.

Commentary

You Don't Send Ammunition to the Other Side

What some Americans are handing the enemy, and why they're doing it

Retired officers are telling the world our weaknesses while an enemy listens. This isn't free speech. It's a trade, and somebody else pays for it.

Personal Revelation • Opposition

Study It Out in Your Mind

The day two well-known Latter-day Saint voices told me my revelation came from a lying spirit

A stranger wished me dead before breakfast. Two respected podcasters spent the day telling me a lying spirit was behind my book. Neither of them has read it, and neither has anyone else who fights me on this.

Discernment and Doctrine

Another One Bites the Dust

Every one of them follows the same script, and I have watched it happen too many times now to pretend it is a coincidence.

A tuba section once played this song at a beaten opponent. I have now watched the same thing happen to one Latter-day Saint teacher after another, and the script never changes. Here is the pattern, and the one question that stops it.

Preparation

The Wall That Never Got Built

There is always money to fix it. There has never been money to prevent it.

A creek overflows into the same schoolyard year after year. A short wall would end it. Nobody builds it. That failure explains our government, our medicine, and the preparation we are living through right now.

Prophecy • Last Days • Method

How Many Second Coming Prophecies Have Actually Been Fulfilled?

Most lists say ninety percent. Five years of study brought me to the opposite conclusion.

The standard checklists break single prophetic scenes into fragments and mark them fulfilled. Read whole and asked three questions, almost none of them are finished.

Presentation

Sisters of Liberty, Part Two: The Talk and the Questions It Raised

My second presentation to Sisters of Liberty in Lehi, Utah, plus careful answers to the four objections it raised.

Doctrine • Zion • Discernment

What the First Presidency Actually Said About the One Mighty and Strong

Reading the 1905 statement in full, and taking every condition it sets

Eighteen men have claimed this title. I am not one of them. Here is what the 1905 First Presidency statement actually says, including the part almost nobody quotes.

Personal

A Letter From the White House

What it means, what it does not mean, and why none of the credit belongs to me

In June a copy of The First Horseman was placed in the President's hands. On August 5 a letter came back from the White House. Here is what it means, what it does not mean, and why none of the credit belongs to me.

Discernment and Doctrine

When the Laughing Emoji Became the Mocking Emoji

On the division coming to the Church, and the one test that shows which side of it you are standing on

The laughing emoji was invented for jokes. That is not how I see it used anymore. Here is where that gesture leads, and who I am afraid is going to follow it there.

Discernment and Doctrine

How to Avoid Deception

The One Question I Ask Before I Follow Anyone

There have never been more Latter-day Saint voices than there are right now. Here is the single question I ask before I follow any of them, and the story of what happened when I had to answer it myself.

Commentary

A Man With a Full Pardon Just Refused to Answer a Hundred Questions

Fauci Has a Pardon. So Why Did He Plead the Fifth 100 Times?

Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times before the Senate today while holding a full presidential pardon. The diaries released four days earlier are the real story.

Presentation

The War in Heaven Has Not Happened Yet

Why Revelation 12 is not describing the premortal life, and why the woman is not who you were taught she was.

I gave The First Horseman presentation in person for the first time in Lehi, Utah. Watch the full video and see why the seven seals have not run out yet.

Scripture Commentary

The Falling Away Comes First

A Commentary on Second Thessalonians 2

Paul told the Thessalonians the day of Christ could not come until the falling away came first, and then the man of sin was revealed. That order still governs everything. Here is what it means for us right now.

Reflection

They Are Not Fighting Me. They Are Fighting Him.

Why the opposition to this message is really opposition to the servant it points to.

The people fighting me are not really fighting me. They are fighting the servant God is preparing. Here is what I have learned from the years of opposition.

Prophecy • Revelation • Zion

No, We Are Not in the Seven Seals Yet. Relax and Get Ready!

The first seal has not opened. The First Horseman has not yet ridden. Here is what to do while there is still time.

Why the events in the headlines are not the seven seals, why we are still living in good times, and what to actually do to prepare before the First Horseman rides.

Faith • Prophecy • Zion

The Church Was Not Free to Fight. Soon It Will Be.

To everyone who left over the vaccine, and everyone still nursing the wound.

Why President Nelson had no choice, what the vaccine years were really rehearsing, and why the next round will not ask before it takes.

Doctrine • Economics • Zion

Is the Law of Consecration Communism or Socialism?

No, the law of consecration is not communism or socialism. Here is why it is voluntary, built on private property, and closer to capitalism, yet none of the three.

Revelation

The Seven Seals and the Seven Trumpets: How They Fit Together

How the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven vials of Revelation fit together in sequence, how other prophets describe the same vision, and why none has begun.

Revelation

What Happens When Each of the Seven Seals Is Opened?

A walk through all seven seals of Revelation in order: the four horsemen, the martyrs, the cosmic signs, and the silence before the trumpets, and why none has opened yet.

Revelation

The Scroll and the Lamb: Who Is Worthy to Open the Seven Seals?

In Revelation 5, only the Lamb is found worthy to open the sealed scroll. Here is who opens the seven seals, why Christ alone qualifies, and what the sealed book is.

Revelation

The Fifth Seal: Martyrs, White Robes, and the Command to Wait

What the fifth seal of Revelation means: the martyrs under the altar, their cry for justice, the white robes, and why they are told to wait.

Prophecy • Revelation • Seven Seals

The Seven Seals of Revelation: Have Any Been Opened Yet?

A scriptural case that none have opened, and where we actually stand.

None of the seven seals has opened. Not the seventh, not the sixth, not even the first. Here is the scriptural case from Revelation 6 and D&C 77, and where we actually stand.

Covenants • Consecration • Zion

The Covenant Almost No One Is Ready to Live

What We Promised God, and Why Almost None of Us Could Do It Today

People keep asking how I am preparing for what is coming. I give them the answer about food, water, debt, and skills — and all of it matters. But there is one thing almost no one asks about, and it is the only thing that finally decides who is delivered.

Prophecy • Revelation • Last Days

The One Framework That Keeps You From Being Deceived

Why people keep mistaking today's headlines for the end — and the single prophetic sequence that puts every sign in its place.

Every shaking, every Middle East flare-up, sends people scrambling to match scriptures to headlines. There is a better way — and a single framework Revelation hands us to keep us from being deceived.

Last Days • Babylon • Self-Reliance

The Data Centers Are Not About AI

What They Are Not Telling You About the Buildout Across the West

Across Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and the federal land throughout the West, new data centers are being planned and promoted at a rapid pace. The pitch is always the same. We need them. Artificial intelligence is the future, and these facilities are how we build it. But before we welcome them in, we should ask a simple question. What are we actually building, and who benefits when it is finished?

Prophecy • The Gathering

When the Father's Work Commences

The word appears four times in four verses. That is not an accident.

I was reading Third Nephi chapter twenty-one recently, particularly verses twenty-six through twenty-nine, and one word kept jumping off the page at me. The Lord uses the word commence four times in those four verses.…

Isaiah • Last Days • Latter-day Saints

Who Is the Davidic Servant? What Latter-day Saints Need to Know

There is a prophecy sitting in your scriptures that most Latter-day Saints have read dozens of times without fully grasping what it says. Understanding who this servant is may be the most important scriptural question you can ask right now.

Isaiah and Christ both point to a latter-day servant marred more than any man — who he is matters now.

Prophecy • Discernment • Authority

Would God Tell You Before Telling the Prophet?

The objection sounds faithful. But scripture tells a very different story about how warning voices actually work.

It is the most common challenge I face. Someone reads what I have written about Donald Trump and biblical prophecy, and they ask it, sometimes with genuine curiosity and sometimes with open contempt: "If this is true,…

Biblical Patterns • Last Days

Trump as a Modern Moses: Deliverer, Servant, and Sign

Moses was not a polished religious figure. He was a flawed, unlikely instrument in the hands of God. The parallels between his calling and what scripture reveals about Trump's role are impossible to ignore.

Moses was eighty years old when God called him. The parallels between his calling and what scripture reveals about Trump's role are impossible to ignore. What makes it extraordinary is what Jeremiah prophesied about the scope of what the latter-day Moses will accomplish.

Prophecy • Discernment

What You Believe Colors Everything You See

Including the evidence right in front of you.

There is a principle that sits at the foundation of everything I write, everything I teach, and everything I have come to understand about how prophecy is received or rejected in our day. It is simply this: what you…

Prophecy • Last Days • Revelation

This Is Not Armageddon

Every conflict in the Middle East triggers a new wave of end-times predictions. Here is why the prophets give us a very different — and far more specific — picture of what must happen first.

Every conflict in the Middle East brings out the same wave of predictions. Social media fills up overnight with people who have just discovered the book of Revelation, breathless videos promising that this time, this…

Donald Trump • Prophecy • Current Events

Trump the Ultimate Conductor

Sixteen months, fifty-five accomplishments, and an opposing party that cannot lay a finger on him

Ask yourself a simple question. When, in your lifetime, has one man restructured the entire global economy, ended multiple wars, collapsed illegal border crossings to historic lows, and redirected the oil tanker fleets…

Prophecy • Current Events • Isaiah

The Deal Maker That Isaiah Saw Coming

How a 2,700-year-old prophecy described Trump's most famous skill

On Easter Sunday, April 6, 2026, Donald Trump posted a blunt ultimatum to the leadership of Iran on Truth Social. He demanded they open the Strait of Hormuz immediately or face consequences unlike anything the regime…

Prophecy • Economics • Zion

The Problem Nobody Can Solve

Every economic system in history has failed. Communism kills. Capitalism falls short. There have been exactly three societies that solved it — and they all had one thing in common.

Every generation looks at the gap between rich and poor, shakes its head, and concludes that someone needs to do something about it. The anger is completely understandable. When two or three percent of the world's…

Personal Testimony • Biblical Prophecy • The Author's Story

The Question I Couldn't Walk Away From

What began as a curious scriptural puzzle became something I could not stay silent about. This is the story of how that happened.

Kelly Smith's personal story: three years of study, a prompting to publish, counsel from his stake president, and why he could no longer stay silent.

Prophecy • Opposition

They Call Him a Cult Leader. Scripture Predicted That.

Why the mockery of God's chosen servant is not a problem for the prophecy. It is the prophecy.

A note about the image at the top of this article. The figure stands above a pedestal layered in graffiti and torn posters. He is not looking at any of it. He is looking past it, out toward the horizon. That is the…

Isaiah • Prophecy

The Marred Servant: Why a Destroyed Reputation Is Part of the Prophecy

Isaiah 52 describes a servant whose appearance would be marred more than any man in history. Most people think this disqualifies Donald Trump. Scripture says it identifies him.

Isaiah 52 describes a servant whose appearance would be marred more than any man in history. Most people think this disqualifies Donald Trump. Scripture says it identifies him.

Prophecy • Discernment

The Problem of Hatred

If you allow hatred into your soul, Satan gains a foothold that colors everything you see. The truth cannot get through a lens that dark.

There is a short list of names that can instantly produce a physical reaction in people. Say them in the wrong room and watch what happens to faces, voices, and posture. Adolf Hitler. Mao Zedong. Joseph Stalin. Osama…

Prophecy • Discipleship • Last Days

Testimony Is Not Enough

Knowing Christ is required. Doing His will is required. But neither is enough without becoming like Him.

There is a scene in Lehi's vision that I cannot get out of my mind. He sees people press forward through the mists of darkness, hold fast to the iron rod, and reach the tree of life. They taste the fruit. It is real. It…

Book of Mormon • Secret Combinations • Revelation

Secret Combinations: What the Book of Mormon Warned Us About

Moroni didn't write about ancient history. He wrote about right now.

There is a term in the Book of Mormon that has been discussed in Sunday School classes for generations. Most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have heard it. Many have a general sense of what it…

Current Events • Prophecy • Isaiah

That Blasphemous Trump!

How the loudest critics are missing some of the most important events of our time

There are moments in history when you can tell exactly where a person's heart is by what gets their attention. This is one of those moments. While Donald Trump has been reshaping the world on a scale not seen since…

Revelation • Scripture

The Hidden Structure of Revelation That Most Interpreters Have Missed

The Book of Revelation is not a random sequence of disasters. It is organized around a single central verse, and once you see that structure, the entire book opens up in ways that are breathtaking.

The Book of Revelation is organized as a chiasm with a single central verse. Understanding this structure transforms the entire book.

Revelation • Preparation

The Mark of the Beast: Why Preparation Is Not Optional

The mark is not a microchip. It is an economy, and it decides who is permitted to buy food. Scripture describes how it works, and how to be in a position to refuse it.

Revelation 13 describes a global economic control system whose infrastructure is already being built. Here's what scripture actually says — and why preparation cannot wait.

Scripture Study • Book of Mormon • Personal Testimony

My Testimony of the Book of Mormon After Forty Years of Daily Reading

Forty years of daily scripture reading taught me one thing above all others.

I want to talk about something I see all over the internet and it genuinely bothers me — not because the people doing it are bad people, but because they are often very good people who are missing something they do not…

Biblical Prophecy • Last Days

Is Donald Trump the Antichrist?

The accusation is everywhere. Scripture gives us a precise profile of who the Antichrist will be. The comparison may surprise you.

Scripture gives a precise profile of the Antichrist: total economic control, demands of worship, persecution of saints, smooth flattering speech. Donald Trump's fruits point the opposite direction on every marker.

Biblical Prophecy • Last Days

The Rapture Question: What the Scriptures Actually Say

The most comforting doctrine in modern Christianity may also be its most dangerous. Here is what the Bible actually teaches about what happens to believers at the end of the tribulation.

The pre-tribulation rapture is a 19th-century invention with no scriptural foundation. Here is what 1 Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24, and the consistent pattern of God in scripture actually teach.

Biblical Prophecy • Israel • Last Days

Is Netanyahu Pulling Trump's Strings? The Prophetic Reality Behind the Accusation

The claim that Trump is doing Israel's bidding in the Middle East is everywhere. Scripture offers a very different explanation for what is actually happening, one that predates Netanyahu by three thousand years.

The puppet master narrative fails the fruits test. What is actually unfolding in the Middle East traces back to a covenant God made with Abraham four thousand years ago — and Trump is the instrument, not the puppet.

Prophecy • Secret Combinations • Last Days

No Kings? Look Who Is Holding the Crown

The people funding the 'No Kings' protests are the same people who have been running everything for decades. What you are watching is not resistance. It is the system protecting itself.

The "No Kings" protests have been spreading across cities in America. The banners are familiar. The social media posts repeat the same message. Donald Trump is acting like a monarch, dismantling democracy, and must be…

Personal Testimony

Mighty in Word, Not Mighty in Writing

How the book, the articles, the podcast, and the videos actually get made

Twenty-four uploads to Amazon, two four-month floods of inspiration, and an editor who never gets the last word on doctrine. How this work actually gets made.

Prophecy • Revelation • Four Horsemen

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: What Each One Actually Represents

Revelation is not a history book. These riders are still coming.

Few images in all of scripture have captured the human imagination quite like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Painters have depicted them. Filmmakers have borrowed them. Theologians have debated them for centuries.…

Prophecy • Discernment • Belief

I Don't Believe You, Kelly

Scripture prophesied this reaction. We are watching it happen in real time.

I shared a link to one of my articles recently with someone who used to support Donald Trump enthusiastically, voted for him, and has now turned against him completely. I thought the scriptural evidence might open a…

Prophecy • Revelation • Babylon

Babylon the Great: The Economic System Behind the Name

It isn't a city. It's the system that runs the world right now.

When most people hear the name Babylon the Great, they picture something ancient. They think of ruins along the Euphrates River in modern Iraq, or the famous hanging gardens, or Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom that carried…

Prophecy • Gathering of Israel • Last Days

The Gathering of Israel: Timeline, Signs, and What to Watch

The prophets said it would happen. Here is what it looks like when it does.

The gathering of Israel is one of the most consistently repeated promises in all of scripture. Isaiah returns to it again and again. Jeremiah declared it would be so significant that it would eclipse the Exodus from…

Biblical Prophecy • Isaiah • Revelation

Is Donald Trump in Biblical Prophecy? What Scripture Actually Says

The question deserves a genuine answer grounded in what the text actually says. Not enthusiasm. Not eye-rolling. The scriptures themselves.

A grounded scriptural look at whether Donald Trump fits the prophetic patterns described in Isaiah and Revelation.