Not long ago, the Sanhedrin authorized the minting of two coins—the “Half Shekel Cyrus Trump Temple Coin,” and shortly thereafter, the “70 Years Israel Redemption Temple Coin,” both of which depict Donald Trump and the ancient Persian King Cyrus (who empowered the building of the Second Temple) on the front side with the Third Temple on the back.

In an article for Breaking Israel News, the reasons for the commemorative coins were tied specifically to the Trump administration as the catalyst for building the Third Temple. In fact, rabbis associated with the effort went so far as to say the success of Trump’s presidency and his next possible election depends on his efforts to initiate the building of the new Solomon-like house of worship.

“In gratitude to US President Donald Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Jerusalem, the nascent Sanhedrin and the Mikdash (Temple) Educational Center are minting a replica of the silver half-shekel Biblically mandated to be donated by every Jewish male to the Temple,” the report stated, before adding, “Rabbi Weiss stressed that Trump’s [US administration] goals will come to fruition only if they are geared towards rebuilding the Jewish Temple” (emphasis added).

“Cyrus and Balfour, non-Jews who played an enormously important role in Jewish history fell short and their political success suffered as a result,” Rabbi Weiss said.

“Trump’s political agenda can only succeed if it is focused on building the Third Temple on the place that God chose: the Temple Mount. He must not advance any two-state solution or this will lead to his downfall.”^[i]

To further stipulate the role that the rabbis see Trump divinely appointed to perform, the following amazing statement is published inside the official Sanhedrin sanctioned “70 Years Israel” Redemption Coin brochure:

President Trump is advancing a prophetic process that will usher in—when the time comes—the rebuilding of the Third Temple. It is as if he is following in the footsteps of King Cyrus who pronounced, after 70 years of Jewish exile, that: Hashem, the Lord of the World, charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem. (bold added)

All of this brings me to another important point involving messianic prophecies, political players, providence, the exact year of Trump’s first election (2016), and the prophetic ramifications of where we may be headed.

Was Zenith 2016 Fulfilled?

In 2009 I released the book, Apollyon Rising, that was later updated and re-released as Zenith 2016 due to important information I came across after the initial publishing of the first version, which many consider my seminal work and magnum opus. I hope with the release of this series to find similar accolades, as I truly believe this to be the most important and timely research I’ve released since.

Besides having a full year in 2009 to travel, interview, and research related topics as well as taking the sabbatical I needed for the actual writing, what made Zenith unusual was the big question about why so many ancients—some from hundreds of years ago and some from much further back—foresaw the year 2016 specifically as the date when the Messiah, or, alternatively, the Antichrist, would manifest on earth, with most believing “his” presence would become known to a select few in 2016 but remain unrecognized by wider populations until slowly “he” is revealed for who and what he actually is at the appropriate time in the immediate years following. Even a major Sunni website set these dates years before Trump’s election after studying the ancient Quran and Hadith, saying: “Based on our numerical analysis…the official beginning of the End of Time and the coming of the Imam Mahdi [their messiah, but for others like Joel Richardson, the antichrist] will most likely be in…2016 and Jesus Christ will come down from Heaven to Earth in 2022.”^[ii]

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO:

FLASHBACK! GARY STEARMAN INTERVIEWS DR. THOMAS HORN ON THE SECRET PLAN TO BUILD THE THIRD TEMPLE!

Of all the most ancient prognosticators that intrigued me in Zenith for whom the year 2016 and the coming Third Temple appeared prophetically significant were as follows:

Prophecy from the Zohar on Messiah’s Arrival

Widely considered the most important work of Jewish Kabbalah, the Zohar is a collection of books written in medieval Aramaic over seven hundred years ago containing mystical commentary on the Pentateuch (five books of Moses, the Torah). In addition to interpreting Scripture, the Vaera section (volume 3, section 34) includes, “The signs heralding Mashiach,” or, “The coming of the Messiah.” The fascinating date for “his” secret presentation to the rabbis in Israel was set in the Zohar for 2012–2013 [given the rejection of Jesus by Orthodox Jews as Messiah, evangelicals would say this seven-hundred-year-old prediction indicates the Antichrist could have arrived circa 2012–2013].

And, sure enough, on the heels of that date some of Israel’s foremost rabbis began behaving as if they know something the rest of the world does not involving the arrival of “Messiah.” In addition to the ones I quoted earlier in this series who believe the Messianic era has started, Chaim Kanievsky, one of Israel’s most prominent rabbis and a leader of the Haredi branch of Judaism and a recognized authority on Jewish law, has recently been warning his students not to leave the Holy Land, because, “The Messiah is already here. He will reveal himself very soon…. Don’t travel.”^[iii]

These same rabbis starting in 2016 used “messianic” and “Third Temple” language around the election of Donald Trump.

The Eight-Hundred-Year-Old Prophecy of Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel

Will the years immediately ahead be prophetically important for Israel and the world? According to an eight-hundred-year-old prophecy, it certainly could. Before he died of cancer, J. R. Church analyzed the ancient predictions of Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel and noted:

Ludwig Schneider, writing for Israel Today (March 2008), said, “Some 800 years ago in Germany, Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel was a top Talmudic scholar with an inclination for the mystical. Before he died in the year 1217, he prophesied that the Ottoman Turks would conquer Jerusalem and rule the Holy City for ‘eight Jubilee Years.’” A biblical Jubilee year consists of 50 years. Fifty multiplied by eight equals 400 years.

Afterwards, according to Ben Samuel, the Ottomans would be driven out of Jerusalem, which would remain a no-man’s land for one Jubilee year. In the tenth Jubilee year [2017]…the Messianic end times would begin.…

Looking back at Ben Samuel’s prediction, we should note that the Ottoman Empire did conquer Jerusalem in 1517, exactly 300 years after the rabbi’s death, and was defeated 400 years later in 1917.

In Israel Today, Ludwig Schneider continues, “This came to pass 300 years after Ben Samuel’s death. He could not have based this prophecy on events that could be foreseen, but only on the results of his study of the Bible.

“According to Leviticus 25, the nation is reunited with its land in the year of Jubilee. Therefore, the Jubilee year plays an important role in Israel’s history. In this case, the Jubilee began with the defeat and conquest of the Mamelukes in Jerusalem by the Ottoman Kingdom in 1517. The Turks reigned over Jerusalem until the British General Edmund Allenby defeated them exactly eight Jubilees later in 1917.

“Ben Samuel’s prophecy was fulfilled precisely because 1517 to 1917 is exactly 400 years. Afterward, Jerusalem was a no-man’s land for 50 years during the time of the British Mandate (1917–1967) and the time of Jordanian rule (1947–1967), another Jubilee year. During the Six Day War in 1967, Israel captured Jerusalem from Jordan and the city returned to the Jewish people after nearly two millennia of exile. After that, the countdown for the Messianic age began.”

Schneider assumes that since Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel’s prediction appears to be fulfilled to date, then 2017 should launch the beginning of the Messianic era.^[iv]

Protestant Reformers and What They Believed Would Start In 2016

Among the turn-of-the-century Protestant reformers, an astonishing number of theologians believed that the False Prophet and Antichrist would assume places of authority in 2016 and shortly thereafter ascend the world stage. The famous preacher Jonathan Edwards was convinced of this possibility and held a postmillennial view based on the 1,260 days the woman is in the wilderness in Revelation 12:6. He interpreted those days as the years that the true Church was to be oppressed by the papists. Clarence Goen writes of this, “Edwards considered that the most likely time for the…reign of Antichrist was 1260 years after AD 756 (the acceding of temporal power to the Pope),”^[v] which would place the (beginning) of Antichrist’s power squarely in 2016. When we were doing research for the book, Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope Is Here, we learned of this belief by Edwards and sought to verify it by examining a collection of his personal voluminous writings. We found confirmation within a series of his sermons, preached at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1739, on how history and prophecy coincide.

As we endeavored to demonstrate in Petrus Romanus, the pope’s rise to temporal power began when Pope Stephen began courting Pepin around 751 and then became a reality in 756 with the expulsion of the Lombards. We wrote how 756 placed the target sometime in 2016. Around that same time during our investigation, we became aware of a sermon collection from the 1800s, titled, “Lectures on the Revelation,” by the Reverend William J. Reid, pastor of First United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which were given over a period ending in March of 1876. Like Jonathan Edwards had over a hundred years earlier, Reid deduced that the False Prophet and Antichrist would arrive sometime around 2016. Soon we uncovered numerous other ancient examples in which the year 2016 was specifically foreseen as when the False Prophet and the Antichrist would be on earth, followed by the destruction of Rome. These included:

• The Theological Dictionary of Princeton University (1830)
• Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament by Lowth and Lowman (1822)
• The American Biblical Repository (1840)
• Notes on the Revelation of St. John by Lowman (1773)
• The Christian Spectator, “The Monthly” (1885)
• Abridgement of Ecclesiastical History (1776)
• The Works of the Rev. P. Doddridge, DD (1804)
• The International Sunday School Lessons Pub (1878)
• Character and Prospects on the Church of Rome in Two Discourses by the Rev. William Mackray (1829)
• The Panoplist and Missionary Magazine (1809)
• Lectures on Romanism by Joseph F. Berg (1840)
• The Congregational Magazine for the Year (1834)
• The Presbyterian Magazine (1858)

The complete list of ancients who believed 2016 pointed to the year when Antichrist would begin making himself known on the global scene and initiate a process ultimately leading to construction of the Third Temple as well as the Great Tribulation period can be found in the book Zenith 2016.

Whether this will turn out to be connected to Donald Trump and the rabbis’ view of him as a modern Cyrus whose arrival heralds the Messianic era during which the Temple will be built is increasingly convincing, as the following entries hopefully convey.

NEXT: Behind the Scenes, Players and a Plan

[i] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, “Sanhedrin Mints Silver Half-Shekel with Images of Trump and Cyrus,” Breaking Israel News, February 15, 2018, https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/102784/sanhedrin-temple-movement-issue-silver-half-shekel-images-trump-cyrus/

[ii] “Islamic ‘Messiah’ al-Mahdi to Return by 2016, Followed By Jesus? Islamic ‘Messiah’ al-Mahdi to Return by 2016, Followed by Jesus?” Israel, Islam and the End Times, May 19, 2015, http://www.israelislamandendtimes.com/islamic-messiah-al-mahdi-to-return-by-2016-followed-by-jesus/. Accessed January 3, 2016.

[iii] MCD Admin, “Prominent Rabbi Warns Friends Not to Leave Israel; ‘Messiah Is Here with Us Already,’” My Christian Daily, http://mychristiandaily.com/mcd/prominent-rabbi-warns-friends-not-to-leave-israel-messiah-is-here-with-us-already/.

[iv] J. R. Church, “The 800-Year-Old Prophecy of Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel,” Prophecy in the News, February 2010, 14.

[v] Clarence Goen, “Jonathan Edwards: A New Departure in Eschatology,” Church History 28, March 1, 1959, 29, 25–40.

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