Four years after predicting that the Bible forecasted a Mitt Romney presidency, WorldNetDaily is now promoting a rabbi’s claim that Donald Trump is a messiah who will save America and defend Israel.
WND, which named Trump its “Man of the Year” last year and has worked with the GOP nominee to promote the birther conspiracy theory, reported yesterday that New York-based Rabbi Mendel Kessin is arguing that Trump is “a messiah.”
Trump is a messiah, Kessin argues in a video clip posted by WND, because a messiah “turns a nation, basically that’s going awry, it’s collapsing with the evil and immorality, and turns it around”: “He’s going to really be a tremendous president of the United States, tremendous,” he said of Trump. Kessin said that while Adolf Hitler was “a messiah of evil,” Trump will be a messiah for good who will “be fabulous with the Jewish people.”
The conservative publication also interviewed Carl Gallups, a far-right preacher who delivered the opening prayer at a Trump rally in January, who agreed that “Yahweh might be in the process of using Donald Trump to bring about some much-needed biblical reformation to the United States and, thus, the world.”
Trump, Gallups said, has characteristics of a messiah, just as President Obama has “‘antichrist’ characteristics.”
Donald Trump has been called a lot of things. “Messiah” probably isn’t one of them.
A Jewish rabbi from New Jersey, however, is making that claim, making clear in the process that he doesn’t see the GOP presidential nominee as the Messiah but rather a messiah.
Rabbi Mendel Kessin, during a lecture shared in late August, said Trump will play the role of a “messiah-like figure” leading America, which he sees as leader of Western Christianity, into its role as the rehabilitated biblical Esau – a righteous nation that repents of its past sins and becomes a helper of Israel.
Trump, the GOP nominee for president, will be a factor in the end of days in America by reflecting the “rehabilitation of biblical Esau,” said Kessin.
The rabbi’s lecture, which took place in Lakewood, New Jersey, begins with Esav, also called Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, who is portrayed in the Old Testament as a persecutor of the Jews.
Yet Kessin, speaking about the spiritual underpinnings of the 21st century, suggests that, at the last days, the biblical Esav [Western Christianity] will be rehabilitated with the United States leading the way.
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“What I believe is that the one who is going to switch from [Esav persecuting the Jews] to [Esav serving the Jews] is Donald Trump,” he says. “He’s going to purify Edom.”
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“I think the main thrust of Rabbi Kessin’s message is that, somehow, Yahweh might be in the process of using Donald Trump to bring about some much-needed biblical reformation to the United States and, thus, the world,” Gallups said.
“I think he is also hoping and praying, along with much of the Jewish and Christian world, that Trump might be used of God to restore the United States to being a great friend and protector of Israel. This is especially true as we see the miraculously returned Israel now surrounded with nations on every side that are plotting its ultimate demise.”
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“He’s looking at it in the same way that a number of Christians and even biblical scholars have examined Obama’s journey, candidacy, and eight-year presidential legacy and point out his clearly ‘antichrist’ characteristics without ever believing him to be, or declaring him to be, the actual antichrist,” Gallups said. “I don’t think there is anything unbiblical about examining the times in which we live, and the world-impacting leaders of our times, and noting the biblical characteristics of those that Yahweh may be using for His ultimate purposes in our highly prophetic era.”
