A Proclamation

In searching for President Bush’s National Day of Prayer proclamation, I looked at several other recent presidential proclamations. As of April 29, there have been about 30 in 2008. Many presidential proclamations are issued each year, sometimes as many as 100 annually, and some are understandably obscure or even somewhat trite and probably the result of some political pressure to gain legitimacy by presidential attention.

On April 15, President Bush signed an Education and Sharing Day, USA, 2008 proclamation. The high-sounding notation is particularly interesting because the day it honors, according to the proclamation, "pays tribute to the unique efforts of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe helped create numerous education and outreach centers, which continue to provide social service programs and humanitarian aid at home and around the globe."

After his death, the United States Congress awarded the Rebbe the Congressional Gold Medal. His global efforts at education in things Jewish to prepare for the coming of Messiah is known as Chabad. Around the date of the his birthday, Congress and the President issue annual proclamations honoring him. President Bush was convinced of Schneerson’s significant international educational impact to issue another complimentary proclamation on April 15 to honor his accomplishments.

What most will never know is that Schneerson was proclaimed by many Jews as the Messiah. Researchers claimed he could trace his lineage on both sides of the family all the way back to King David. He was the seventh and last (because he had no male heirs) in the Hasidic Lubavitcher spiritual dynasty reaching back into Russia.

When I was in Israel some years ago, huge banners at the Western Wall proclaimed Schneerson as Israel’s redeemer. Trim cards were available at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport also welcoming him as the Jewish Messiah. During his lifetime, some Israeli lawmakers were snookered into routinely signing a birthday card for him that basically announced him as the Jewish Messiah.
Although Schneerson never traveled to Israel, his adherents built him a house on the outskirts of Tel Aviv patterned after his residence in Brooklyn, NY in expectation of his messianic appearance in Israel. I saw highway billboards in New York State that portrayed him as the likely Jewish Messiah. Followers around the world had their beepers activated awaiting his announcement as Messiah.

Schneerson suffered a serious stroke in 1977, and he died of a heart attack in 1994 at age 92. He was buried in Brooklyn, and some followers expected him to rise from the dead. Some believe he can send special messages from beyond the grave. Full-page ads in major publications still imply that his coming was the onset of the Messianic age.

Jewish mysticism, especially regarding messiahs, has historically far outstripped any Christian expectation of Messiah’s return. Large numbers of people are deeply involved with the Kabballa, an occultic search for the meaning of creation and life.

How can so many Jews really believe Schneerson was or still is the Messiah? First, general belief is that Messiah need not be divine but a specially endowed human being.
Second, Jesus Christ, the real Messiah, forecast such deception in John 5:34. "I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive."

The Bible predicts that Antichrist will one day come. Anti is really "ante" meaning a perfect fraud or stand-in. If modern Jews can be so deceived into accepting a stroke-ridden, heart-attack stricken human, think what a real Antichrist will do in working astounding miracles. "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

Consider Revelation 13:13-14. "He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived."

The April 15 proclamation has a happy ending, as do all presidential proclamations. It ends, "In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second" (emphasis mine). Every proclamation is issued "in the year of our Lord" meaning from the birth of Christ. According to the last book of the Bible, our Lord is Jesus Christ who is exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

Dave Virkler