One explanation for the stubbornly high approval rating for President Trump among conservative evangelical Christians is that so many preachers and televangelists continue to portray Trump as God’s chosen instrument to save America—and Trump’s opponents as enemies of God and agents of Satan. A recent example comes from John Kilpatrick, who preached on Sunday—the day before Trump was implicated by Michael Cohen’s guilty plea—at Kilpatrick’s Church of His Presence in Daphne, Alabama. A video excerpt of his sermon was distributed on Tuesday by the Elijah List, an electronic newsletter and aggregator of news and commentary from the prophetic world.

While Kilpatrick said twice, unconvincingly, that he was “not being political,” he portrayed the success of Trump’s presidency in stark spiritual terms.

Kilpatrick warned that “what’s happening right now in America is witchcraft’s trying to take this country over.”

“I don’t see how President Trump bears up under it,” he said. “He’s as strong as I’ve ever seen a man be.”

Kilpatrick told his congregation that Trump needed their constant prayers because “Jezebel is getting ready to step out from the shadows.”

Jezebel is a figure from the Hebrew scriptures, a wicked queen who promoted the worship of false gods and persecuted the prophets of Yahweh. In Pentecostal circles, a “Jezebel spirit” can mean anything from sexual immorality to duplicity to false teaching.

Kilpatrick seemed to use Jezebel as a stand in for the “deep state,” on which Trump-supporting “prophets” have urged God to wage war.

God told him to pray for Trump now, said Kilpatrick, because “there’s about to be a shift, and the deep state is about to manifest and it’s going to be a showdown like you can’t believe.”

“So I’m coming to you as a prophet, and as a man of God, and I’m telling you, it’s time to pray for the president,” he said, adding that God warned him that “there’s going to be an attempt to take him out of power.”

Kilpatrick led an extended period of prayer in which he and members of the congregation prayed in tongues, interspersed with him whooping and praying in English: