On Friday morning, shortly before he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump and his family attended a private worship service where they heard a sermon from Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress, an early and ardent supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign.
The Washington Post reported on the sermon, in which Jeffress compared Trump to Nehemiah, who also built a wall and was attacked by “the mainstream media”:
Israel had been in bondage for decades, Jeffress explained, and the infrastructure of the country was in shambles, and God did not choose a politician or a priest but chose a builder instead. The first step of rebuilding the nation, Jeffress said, was the building of a wall around Jerusalem to protect its citizens from enemy attack.
“You see, God is not against building walls,” Jeffress said in his sermon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in D.C.
Nehemiah, according to the biblical account, completed the project in 52 days. Why was Nehemiah so successful in building the wall and rebuilding the nation? Jeffress said that Nehemiah refused to allow his critics to distract him, noting how some people still don’t believe Trump will succeed in his agenda.
Nehemiah, Jeffress said, had two antagonists named Sanballat and Tobiah. “They were the mainstream media of their day,” he said. “They continued to hound and heckle Nehemiah and spread false rumors while he and the Israelites were building the wall.”
He noted that Nehemiah answered his critics by saying: “I’m doing a great work. . . . Why should I stop the work and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3). Trump’s work, he said, “is a work far too important to stop and answer your critics.”
Israel had been in bondage for decades, Jeffress explained, and the infrastructure of the country was in shambles, and God did not choose a politician or a priest but chose a builder instead. The first step of rebuilding the nation, Jeffress said, was the building of a wall around Jerusalem to protect its citizens from enemy attack.
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Jeffress said Trump has assembled an “unbelievably talented group of advisers” and has Vice President-elect Mike Pence by his side, “a great and godly man.” “Mr. President-elect, I don’t believe we have ever had a president with as many natural gifts as you,” he said. But, Jeffress said, “we need God’s supernatural power.”
Discussing his sermon with conservative radio host Mike Gallagher while on his way to the inauguration on Friday, Jeffress said that he “decided to compare President Trump to another great leader God chose 4,500 years ago” because God “told him to build a wall around Jerusalem” and also “granted him great success.”
Like Trump, Jeffress said, Nehemiah “had his own critics” who were “the mainstream media of his day.”
“They ridiculed him, hounded him, spreaded [sic] false rumors about him, but Nehemiah didn’t let him stop him. And I think the same is true for this president,” he said. “He feels like, and he knows, God has called him to a great work, and he’s not going to be stopped by it.”
