Generalize safe cast functions in Java

I have a Java class that does nothing else than safely cast a number of objects to their expected classes, and returns a descriptive error message if the cast fails. They all look like this:

	public static RequirementId castToRequirementID(Object value) throws WrongObjectTypeException {
		Class<?> expectedClass = RequirementId.class;
		Class<?> actualClass = value.getClass();
		if(actualClass == expectedClass) {
			RequirementId requirementID = (RequirementId) value;
    		return requirementID;
		}
		String errorMessage = "Value was of wrong type";
		throw new WrongObjectTypeException(errorMessage, expectedClass, actualClass);
	}

	public static RequirementProjectInformation castToRequirementProjectInformation(Object value) throws WrongObjectTypeException {
		Class<?> expectedClass = RequirementProjectInformation.class;
		Class<?> actualClass = value.getClass();
		if(actualClass == expectedClass) {
			RequirementProjectInformation requirementProjectInformation = (RequirementProjectInformation) value;
    		return requirementProjectInformation;
		}
		String errorMessage = "Value was of wrong type";
		throw new WrongObjectTypeException(errorMessage, expectedClass, actualClass);
	}

As you can see, these functions are mostly identical, except for the fact that I need to change the expectedClass in the first line of each function, and the cast in the fourth line of each function. That makes me want to generalize this in some way, for example:

	public static MongoDB_ObjectAddress safelyCast(Object value, Class<?> expectedClass) throws WrongObjectTypeException {
		Class<?> actualClass = value.getClass();
		if(actualClass == expectedClass) {
			expectedClass castedObject = (expectedClass) value;
    		return castedObject;
		}
		String errorMessage = "Value was of wrong type";
		throw new WrongObjectTypeException(errorMessage, expectedClass, actualClass);
	}

However, the above statement does not work since I can't use expectedClass in place of the actual class name in the declaration and the cast.

Is there some clever way to do this? Or is this simply impossible in Java?

You can use the Class.cast method:

public static <T> T safelyCast(Object value, Class<T> expectedClass) throws WrongObjectTypeException {
    if (expectedClass.isInstance(value)) {
        return expectedClass.cast(value);
    } else {
        String errorMessage = "Value was of wrong type";
        throw new WrongObjectTypeException(errorMessage, expectedClass, value.getClass());
    }
}

I must say I don't see much point in this WrongObjectTypeException, it doesn't give you more information than the ClassCastException you would get normally.