More Harbinger controversy: it's all about the false hermeneutics* of the critics

Brannon Howse apparently doesn't have any problems with Jimmy DeYoung's "hermeneutics" which insists that we are to apply the Old Testament ONLY to Israel to whom it was originally addressed.* This flies in the face of Christian understanding for 2000 years. Never trust in man, Brannon, the best of friends with the best reputation can be wrong. Do your own research on these things.

So Brannon has DeYoung on his program today as he frequently does, and the subject of the first half is the storm over The Harbinger.

Brannon’s guest is Dr. Jimmy DeYoung. Topic: Dr. DeYoung and Brannon begin this week’s program by discussing a recent radio program by a “discernment ministry” defending the book, The Harbinger. The program included, in a negative manner, a discussion of individuals that have rightfully been concerned with the book The Harbinger.

"Rightfully" only if you accept their erroneous "hermeneutic" that says we can't apply the Old Testament to anything in our own day, As DeYoung said on the program: "It comes down to hermeneutics. It comes down to whether this passage which was written directly to the nation of Israel can be applied to America." Yes, it does come down to that, and it's DeYoung's hermeneutic that is wrong, not Jonathan Cahn's.

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Which hermeneutic is apparently Dispensationalism. By the way, today's radio show by Chris Pinto addresses this topic.
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And they are "rightfully" concerned only if you accept their total misreading of Cahn's book. No, in fact the whole attack on The Harbinger has been done WRONGFULLY. What MIGHT be rightfully criticized about the book doesn't even get addressed, while instead they wrongfully attack it at its core as theologically false.

In addition, the host of this program wrote a WND.com article that Jonathan Cahn, the author of The Harbinger “…got stuck with unraveling a code given to him by God.” As Dr. DeYoung explained, this is a major issue. Today, God is NOT giving anyone code to unravel. God is not giving extra Biblical revelation today. If God is giving an individual a code then that would make that person a prophet and the office of prophet is closed because the cannon [sic] of Scripture is closed.

The person they are talking about, who wrote the article for World Net Daily, is Jan Markell of Understanding the Times, and unfortunately I don't agree with how she describes The Harbinger as a code -- there's no code involved, although possibly she didn't mean by that what she was taken to mean. I want to think about some parts of her article later in this post so I won't say more here, but what she said doesn't give license to DeYoung and Howse once again to muddy things. This is not a personal prophecy by Jonathan Cahn.

This is not a small issue or a side-bar issue or a non-essential issue. This issue is actually at the heart of defending the authority and supremacy of Scripture.

Amazing how he can have a heretical view of scripture himself, that denies that the Old Testament was written to individuals and nations of the future as well as to ancient Israel, and claim he is defending the authority and supremacy of scripture. Where did this false hermeneutic of Dr. DeYoung's come from? Must be fairly recent.

Brannon and Dr. DeYoung believe that some people seem to be about destroying people and not destroying arguments raised up against the Lord. However, respectfully disagreeing with the author of the book, The Harbinger, as men like Dr. DeYoung, T.A. McMahon of the Berean Call, and Pastor Gary Gilley have done is not being cantankerous nor are they being “modern-day Pharisees.”

This pretty much sums up what was said on today's program, but I've got to say you can't characterize Jimmy DeYoung's very first remarks on Worldview Weekend as anything BUT cantankerous as he was nearly beside himself with the false idea that The Harbinger teaches "replacement theology" and denounced it in very angry tones -- without having read it. And he's pretty much still accusing Cahn of replacement theology when he goes on insisting that what was said to Israel by Isaiah can't be applied to America. And you can't characterize T A McMahon's criticism as anything but cantankerous either.

They keep emphasizing "tone" as the problem, but it's not, the problem is the WORDS, the INTERPRETATION. You can be nice as all get out while calling someone a false prophet.

They HAVEN'T been "nice," Brannon, you have been nice, others have been nice, but overall there is nothing nice about any of the attack on Cahn. Getting it as wrong as they do, and making it a matter of theological error as they do, even aside from some of the namecalling that's been done, is not nice at all.

Here is Jan Markell's article at WND:. I wish I could agree with her more completely but my impression is that her way of looking at The Harbinger may only be increasing the mystification about it by putting Cahn in the role of prophet.

By Jan Markell

I need to apologize. I founded and direct an organization that could be called a Christian discernment ministry. We contend for the faith as we are instructed to do in the book of Jude. We’re busy. Doctrine is askew today. False teachers are plentiful. Wolves are slinking around the sheep and devouring them. We try to discern the times, and we even name the names of those who, in our perception, are in error...

So why am I apologizing? Some in the discernment crowd are having a field day over something that may be God’s final warning to America. It may even be a final warning to individuals to get right with God. It’s a wake-up call to the church. I am referring to Jonathan Cahn’s book “The Harbinger” and the related film produced by Joseph Farah, “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment.”

If you haven’t read the book or viewed the DVD, Cahn takes nine warnings to ancient Israel and uses them as a signal to America. Israel was warned. America is being warned. Israel shook a fist at God, and America may follow suit – but some, like Cahn, are trying to stop the train wreck.

So far so good, except that as usual I always want to add that it's not right to attribute any of this to Cahn himself. The "harbingers" simply EXIST in reality, they simply came to Cahn's attention -- BROUGHT to his attention by God, I'm sure -- and he went on to arrange a way to present them to the public. Trying to stop the train wreck is the only thing a Christian can rightly do when confronted with such realities that MUST HAVE come from God.

Must have. The only way you could fault the message of The Harbinger would be by showing how the harbingers DID NOT come from God. I'd like to see someone try. Merely ASSERTING that Cahn invented it all is simply false.

What is it about a warning that stirs controversy? Jonathan Cahn is not marching up and down Main Street wearing a sandwich board that says, “Repent, America.” He has connected some very mysterious dots on a map that started on 9/11. Each dot is a harbinger. They make perfect sense. The Ark door is going to be slammed shut again. God wants none to perish. It says in the book of Daniel that some mysteries would be sealed up until the end and then they would be revealed. Could the “Harbinger” message be one of them? I think so.

Interesting way to look at it although I don't see that the message of the book extends beyond America so that it could reflect the sealed mysteries of Daniel. I don't even see all this as a "mystery," although it is certainly astonishing that God would bring such literal signs to America to tell us that we're under judgment just as ancient Israel was.

But to the hypercritical and some modern-day Pharisees, Cahn’s hermeneutics aren’t quite right. He hasn’t fully dotted every “I” and crossed every “T,” they claim.

But let's be clear here. There's only ONE complaint about his hermeneutics and that is that we aren't allowed to apply to America what God gave His prophets to speak to Israel. That's IT. And it's a false hermeneutic, false in relation to all the teachings of all the churches I've ever been in, and false to the last two millennia of theological understanding. If I'm wrong I'd like to know HOW, but so far all I've heard is this bald assertion that we aren't allowed to apply the OT to anything today.

And again: The "harbingers" were not invented by Cahn, they HAPPENED IN REALITY. Plunk plunk plunk, one after another they simply SHOWED UP IN REALITY starting with 9/11. These complaints about his hermeneutics are complaints about GOD's hermeneutics since God brought about all the harbingers.

Additionally, the message of “The Harbinger” is unique enough that it doesn’t fit into the way God usually does things. Imagine that. God outside of a box! To be honest, I’d prefer God in a box, too, but I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that He just doesn’t always work that way! He is creative.

True, when has there ever been such an appearance of literal elements of an Old Testament prophecy in a later nation? It's staggering to think about.

AGAIN, these literal material harbingers or signs are what the critics have to explain away. Fussing about Cahn's hermeneutics misses the point by light years.

John the Revelator had to deal with this. Imagine the poor guy stuck on an island trying to connect the dots of the vision he was given. It was a classic case of “Lord, choose somebody else!” But there was no Internet back then so that critics could jump on board and accuse John of bad hermeneutics. Lucky for him. They would have had a field day, because to this day they are having a field day over the book of Revelation! For centuries scholarly old men have laughed at the profound words in the last book of the Bible and brushed aside its warnings. Some have said through the ages that it is too complicated, too mysterious. We must leave it alone. We leave it alone at our own peril.

I don't see it Jan. Jonathan Cahn was not given anything to himself alone. What he observed is out there for anyone to verify. It all exists in reality, not merely in the mind/soul/spirit of a prophet. I think by making such a claim you are making it harder to answer the critics.

Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jew, is a 21st century John or Jeremiah but in the right sense! He is not some out-of-order “prophet.” He got stuck with unraveling a code given to him by God. Cahn himself calls it, “mind-blowing.”

It IS mind-blowing, it's amazing. But please let's not liken Cahn to the prophets. And there is no "code" here to "unravel." It's all very straightforward once you simply SEE it. It all exists in reality, and the message to be gleaned from it is unmistakable. There are no apocalyptic symbols or visions involved. The stark reality of the "harbingers" is in itself amazing and dramatic but there is nothing mysterious about them in themselves, nothing cryptic or hard to interpret.

Then Ishmael and Isaac meet as Joseph Farah, of Arab heritage, who enters the scene to produce one of the most brilliant films you will ever see, giving the visual effect to further the “Harbinger” message. Wait! This union just might be of God.

I guess I'm not quite ready to find anything especially symbolic in this union myself, although I admit it's nice.

So I apologize for those “discerning ministries” who have concluded that what just might be a somber final call for individuals and America is out of bounds. They call Cahn’s book and the companion DVD “inane,” “preposterous,” “fallacious,” “blasphemy,” a “lying prophecy,” and much more! One critic denigrates Cahn’s character with a derogatory reference to his Jewish chutzpah.

Wow, I really wish you had named names HERE, Jan. WHO has used these terms? (I don't think they all came from T A McMahon, did they?)

What I’m reading and hearing from these older scholarly wonks is that they don’t get it that this is a Jewish thing for such a time as this.

I'm OK with this idea. IF we are at the brink of the revelation of the Antichrist, and IF the pre-trib rapture people are right and the Church is about to leave this world, and IF the clock of the 70th week is about to start ticking down, and IF world events are about to push national Israel onstage for the Last Act of Planet Earth, then bringing a message of God's judgment through a Messianic Jewish Rabbi/Pastor could have all kinds of interesting implications.

I have one more issue: Not one of these men who are criticizing – and may I say even bashing – made the slightest effort to contact Cahn and dialogue with him. And in that they run in a discernment crowd, Matthew 18 just must be on their mind now and then! How quickly we forget. Shoot first – follow protocol second!

And that’s why what some discernment outfits do is blood sport. For that I apologize. Profusely. I am ashamed. I don’t want to be known more for what I attack than what I build up. This has taught me a lesson for which I am deeply appreciative. As a representative of the “discernment community,” I apologize to Cahn and Farah for what is flying around right now. How, when and why did repentance become controversial? It’s such a simple theme. It’s the theme of the Bible from the opening verse to the last verse.

Forgive us, guys. Some folks are entering the Ark because of your work. Many will be eternally thankful.

All true. I wish the critics would stop and think.

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*The false hermeneutics that to one degree or another apply the OT only to Israel, denying its application to anything today, individuals or nations or whatever, is called Dispensationalism.

Harbinger critic DeYoung may be a false teacher to a very serious degree.

The pastor at Calvary Chapel of Appleton, Wisconsin has written
An Open Letter to the Berean Call
in response to T A McMahon's harsh review of Jonathan Cahn's book, The Harbinger.

Short of reproducing the entire article here I haven't been able to find a particular passage to highlight to get across the gist of the message. He covers a lot of ground. Unless I rethink this, all I can do is recommend that the whole thing be read at the link.

I do have something to say about one tangential point pastor Dwight made, however, about Jimmy DeYoung's theology. I've already been coming to the conclusion that he and David James and probably T A McMahon as well are at least flirting with a cultic point of view that may even be a heresy, in their insistence that the Old Testament not be applied to our own times. But beyond that, this article reveals that DeYoung has actually taught what could rightly be considered a very dangerous heresy, that those who take the Mark of the Beast can repent with impunity:

I would also like to know how Jimmy DeYoung can state in interviews and a local appearance that once a person receives the mark of the beast they can repent and become “unmarked”, because God would understand them wanting to feed their family. This was spoken by him at an event here in our area, and our women’s ministry head heard it. He has also said this on Brannon Howse’s radio program, specifically on September 28, 2011. This completely goes against the clear teaching of Scripture in Revelation 14:9-11, and in my opinion is ignoring the warning for such who do so in Revelation 22:19. He is falsely telling people that they can be saved after they take it, completely naive to what it means eternally to do so. How can this be? Can we agree that DeYoung’s unscriptural position on that is far more dangerous than anything Jonathan has written?

Well, you've got my agreement for what it's worth. This is scary stuff. The Lord is giving a test here -- Will you be faithful to Me or choose to save your own life when push comes to shove in this evil world? To save your own life, as Jesus taught, is to lose it. LOSE it. To choose any kind of comfort in this life over Him is an insult to Him and a sad failure of faith.

Christians down through the centuries have suffered and died rather than betray our Lord. John Bunyan in prison was in the position of abandoning his wife and children if he refused to obey the law [made by the Romanist king Charles II] against preaching outside the Anglican church, when recanting would have allowed him to be released from prison, but he committed his family to the Lord rather than betray Him.

Yet DeYoung would teach this bit of fleshly worldliness that God puts feeding one's family above faithfulness to Him?

Did the prophet Daniel stop his practice of praying to God when King Darius signed a decree that all must petition no-one but himself on pain of death?

For two millennia Christians have been challenged with the choice "Recant or die" -- get burned at the stake or suffer torture at the hands of the Inquisition, "Worship Caesar or die" -- get eaten by lions in the arena or burned as a human torch in Nero's gardens.

Take the Mark of the Beast or die is going to be the last challenge. It's a choice between Christ and Antichrist. Will you trust Him enough to die for Him?

Truly we live in a time of seriously compromised Christianity.

Beginning to suspect that The Harbinger could turn out in some contexts to be a divider of the sheep from the goats. Brannon Howse and others who have been accepting of DeYoung's teachings need to do some serious rethinking.

The Harbinger wars continue

Inevitable I suppose that Howse and DeYoung would answer Joseph Farah. I'm going to agree with them this far, that personal speculations ought to be kept out of such discussions, meaning Farah's speculations about pride and envy as the motivation for Howse and DeYoung's criticisms of The Harbinger, keeping to the theological contentions instead.

Right off the bat Jimmy De Young brings up what is still their central objection to the Harbinger, that

Cahn's fundamental error... is his hermeneutic.

He is quoting from an email sent to his associate David James by Dallas Theological Seminary professor Dr. Roy Zuck, affirming James' criticism which is soon to come out as a book. The email continues, explaining what Dr. Zuck considers to be wrong with Cahn's hermeneutic:

Isaiah 9:10 has nothing to do with the United States. Verses 8 to 11 are all addressed to israel. Having taught hermeneutics for years at Dallas Theological Seminary and havinh written a textook on the subject, I'm greatly bothered to see people like Cahn take a passage totally out of context. These verses don't even apply to the United States. [7:00-8:00]

De Young goes on to say that neither Joseph Farah nor Jonathan Cahn have dealt with this hermeneutical issue, which he and Brannon Howse have been questioning. As a matter of fact Cahn has addressed this allegation about his supposedly faulty hermeneutics many times, and covers it pretty thoroughly in his Response to David James:

D. James claims that The Harbinger departs from a biblical hermeneutic in that Isaiah 9:10 in context concerns Israel, not America. This claim, that he brings up several times in his critique, is based on an underlying confusion – specifically, that the book is claiming that Isaiah 9:10 is a prophecy about America. The problem is The Harbinger does no such thing. It does speak of a connection between America and Israel (not exactly a novel idea) and it does speak of a mystery from the Scriptures which has an amazing application to America. But this is light years removed from claiming that a certain Scripture is prophesying of America.

...Further, the reappearance of such ancient patterns of judgment revealed in a particular Scripture does not in any way affect the original understanding, meaning, or interpretation of that Scripture in its original context - not in any way, shape, or form..

...Further, the book includes quotes from the most respected and classical of Bible commentaries. In The Harbinger, the hermeneutic of Isaiah 9:10 is not taken one inch away from its historical and contextual bearings, nor from its original, proper, and traditionally understood meaning – not an inch, not a millimeter. The critique is groundless – based on an apparent inability to distinguish the realm of Scriptural interpretation from that of Scriptural application. The Harbinger’s hermeneutics remain absolutely sound. [my bolding]

It's been answered again and again: The Harbinger does NOT see America somehow buried in Isaiah 9:10. The Harbinger does nothing more than recognize that God has applied Isaiah 9:10 TO America, as He so often applies His word to us as we read it. In this case He applied it in a way that could make your hair stand on end, but nevertheless it's nothing more than the usual application of scripture outside its original context. The original context REMAINS the original context, God merely making use of it for another purpose, which is STANDARD EVERYDAY BIBLE HERMENEUTICS THAT EVERY BELIEVER EXERCISES WHENEVER WE READ THE BIBLE.

Howse and DeYoung go on to address some side issues that Joseph Farah brought up about DeYoung's end times theology. I've posted on the one allegation Farah mentions that I consider to be a serious error on DeYoung's part, the belief that it's possible to take the Mark of the Beast and then change your mind, but otherwise his dispensational theology isn't the issue in these discussions about The Harbinger. No doubt it explains something about how the criticisms of the book are arrived at, since most of the critics are dispensationalists, but then so are some of the book's defenders.

So I don't want to get more into that part of the discussion because it's mostly highlighting the differences between the theologies of DeYoung and Farah and gets away from the criticism of The Harbinger, but I do have to say it was very funny when De Young finished his lengthy exposition of his own dispensationalist pretrib theology by saying [27:28]

So that is biblical information. I gave no opinion, I gave no interpretation, I simply kept a view to the locations in God's word...

And it's quite true that all he did was refer to various verses of scripture and explain them, but he both chose the verses and explained them completely from within his own interpretive scheme as if there were no other possible way of understanding them, and that IS interpreting them. It was nothing BUT interpretation.

But again, that's a side issue. Then they go on to the issue of Cahn's being interviewed by Glenn Beck, and unfortunately I haven't heard that interview so I can't comment on it. The accusation that Cahn in any way gave the impression that he agrees with Beck's religious views hasn't been demonstrated, but I can't judge it. The idea is that it's OK to appear on a purely secular program because there isn't going to be a religious conflict, but I have to say that by their own standards Brannon's appearing on O'Reilly could be criticized in the same way appearing on Beck could be, since O'Reilly is a Catholic and why wouldn't it look like Brannon was endorsing Catholicism by that appearance? The Catholic God is not the same as the true God either; he's either the Pope or Mary or the wafer since all receive the worship due to God alone.

Then -- glory be! -- It turns out Brannon has finally read the book, or is reading it, so now he brings out some more "concerns" he has based on his reading.

On page 54 [39:47 on the audio counter] he takes issue with The Prophet's asking "Is God not able to speak through such things [meaning a Bible commentary]?" To which Brannon declares, "Dr. DeYoung, the commentaries are not inspired!" Dear Brannon: NEITHER WAS BALAAM'S ASS! Or was she, perhaps, at the moment she spoke? Meaning, God is certainly ABLE to speak through a commentary OR an ass. This is not the same thing as saying that either the commentary or the ass is inspired. Do you really think Cahn is teaching that commentaries are inspired? Do you really think any reader out there is going to get that message from that bit of dialogue? In any case all he means is that a commentary can bring out the true meaning of the scripture, he really doesn't mean any more than that. As usual Brannon and Company are oh so fastidiously straining out gnats.

But it gets worse. It gets positively blockheaded, pun more or less intended as the next complaint is from page 68 [40:00] about the Israelis' vow to rebuild their fallen buildings with hewn stone. "I don't believe that any of the towers that are being rebuilt are being rebuilt with hewn stone, are they, Dr. DeYoung?" No, me bonny lad, they're being built with steel and etc.

Isaiah 9:10 is about the INTENTION of the nation of Israel to rebuild. The intention is what reveals the spirit of defiance as they don't plan to seek God about it, aren't feeling chastened by God's judgment through the Assyrian attack, and aren't anywhere near a repentant spirit. The INTENTION is the point, not the rebuilding itself, and that intention WAS echoed after 9/11 as a twenty-ton block of hewn or quarried stone was brought in to be the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower. Words of defiance meant to express patriotic zeal were spoken over that stone, too, rather than brokenheartedness for the sins that brought about the calamity of 9/11, rather than a call to repentance. And then it turned out they weren't going to use that stone after all so they took it away. Which it seems to me gives the whole thing even MORE of a connection with Isaiah 9:10. God had to have a hewn stone in there whether it was needed or not, so we couldn't miss his clear message that America was defiant of His judgments in exactly the same way Israel was.

Brannon, Dr. DeYoung, with all due respect, maybe, you guys are missing it completely.

Then he takes on the sycamore tree on page 83 [40:45]. "It's a TOTALLY DIFFERENT TREE!" Well, uh, yeah, but they are BOTH called "sycamores" and the American version was named after the Middle Eastern version. Isn't that kind of maybe just a little bit uncanny right there? I mean, the Middle Eastern version simply doesn't grow in America but a tree called a "sycamore" certainly fills the Isaiah 9:10 bill wouldn't you say, considering that God is using it to speak to America and it works beautifully to draw the parallel with Isaiah 9:10? I mean why do we need a lesson in botany to make that connection? It's a "sycamore," the ones in Isaiah 9:10 are "sycamores." They even look similar, growing quite tall with widely spreading branches. How hard do you have to work at missing this simple point anyway?

And of course it's even worse when we get to the "cedars" that in Isaiah 9:10 are the Israelis' choice to replace the downed sycamores. At Ground Zero the sycamore was replaced by a ...a ...a SPRUCE! Hey, that's not a cedar! DeYoung says if it's really from God "it will be fulfilled in absolute detail, not a variance here or there" and Howse adds that Cahn is "stretching things." But this is, as Jonathan Cahn wrote, quoted above, to confuse the exegesis of the passage as it was written to Israel with the application of the passage to the current situation in America. We don't expect such exactness in application, how could we? They seem to be going out of their way to avoid the obvious similarity, which can be simply seen with your own two eyes: conifer trees with needles and cones. And if you do get into botany you'll find that they even belong to the same family, in Hebrew the erez, in Latin the pinaceas or the pine type trees, which include pines, firs, cedars and spruces. Imagine that! Why didn't they replace the sycamore with another sycamore or an oak or some other leafy type tree that grows in that part of the country? Why such a DIFFERENT type tree? Clearly ONLY because it is the same type of tree that was used to replace Israel's sycamores, and who could have made that choice but God Himself?

Really, this should not take all this explanation. The average reader gets it right away, it's the whole point of the book that these harbingers, as Cahn calls them, are such unavoidable pointers back to Isaiah 9:10, which is what God wants us to notice --the attitude of defiance we had about 9/11, the lack of contrition for our sins, the lack of repentance, which was the same attitude described there of Israel. They all point back to Isaiah 9:10. We had the same spirit and God is putting up signposts to to emphasize it by planting all these harbingers, the fallen bricks, the hewn stone, the sycamore, the pine type tree to replace it, all the elements of 9:10. So we'll see that we deserve God's judgment just as Israel did, and that if we don't repent and change our ways we may expect a more devastating judgment just as God brought against ancient Israel. No, He probably won't scatter us throughout the Middle East as He did Israel. Sigh. Really, guys, you do have to be a bit dense to miss this. Or afflicted with some kind of theologically induced myopia. Can't see the forest for ...

Well, I guess at least they did finally address the harbingers themselves. And of course there is no illusion here at all, the harbingers are as uncannily eerily something only God could have brought about as we simple people knew they were from the beginning. The harbingers are the message, all the rest of it is packaging!

There's more but I've got to stop so I'm going to put this much up for now.

Oh brother, and David James' book is going to come out soon and repeat this same kind of nonsense!

Harbinger: A totally unfair criticism from someone who hasn't read it.

Oh brother, just listened to the Brannon Howse March 9th radio broadcast in which he asks Jimmy DeYoung what he thinks of Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger, who completely trashes the book although he says he hasn't read it himself. Moral of the story: READ IT YOURSELF BRANNON!! Or listen to Cahn's talks and interviews. There are some up at YouTube.

I had a feeling that making a novel out of that material was a big big mistake but nevertheless the book does stick to the overall revelation that Cahn gave in his various talks and does not deserve to be accused of "manipulating" the reader. The information, the correspondence between Isaiah 9:10 and events following 9/11 is uncanny and honestly presented, and Cahn is NOT making himself out to be a prophet in this, he is simply reporting on the correspondences he observed between the two events, and DeYoung MISREPRESENTED THOSE CORRESPONDENCES.

I think DeYoung's review is utterly irresponsible. He completely mischaracterizes what Cahn is doing. The idea that this Messianic pastor is pushing "replacement theology" is for starters some kind of huge misreading. All he said was that America was the only other nation that was dedicated to God as was Israel, and he pointed out the dedications that were made of America to God, which is indisputable as far as I can see. And it ought to be said that we don't need to refer to those instances of consecration for the harbingers of Isaiah 9:10 to be echoed in 9/11, it's just that it helps explain why God is going to such lengths to warn us. But in any case, Cahn said nothing to suggest America REPLACED Israel.

Then DeYoung didn't know that rebuilding actually has begun at Ground Zero although that has nothing to do with the revelation anyway. It's about the INTENT to rebuild which was clearly STATED by both Israel and America -- it's that ATTITUDE that is the main correspondence between the two, which is a statement of defiance of God after God sent judgment on both. DeYoung claims he took it out of context. He did not. The context was God's judgment in both cases and the nation's defiance in response.

Also nobody claimed America is rebuilding with hewn stone, nor that groves of sycamores were cut down that were replaced by groves of cedars yet DeYoung claims that's what was said. It was not. The reference is first to a symbolic hewn stone brought in to be the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower; second to a highly symnbolic sycamore tree on the property of Ground Zero that was felled in the event, and third, to a highly symbolic tree of the same basic type of the cedar (which has more similarities in Hebrew but to my mind is similar enough in English) that was put in its place. There was even a symbolic brick entangled in the roots of the felled sycamore tree, though there were also news reports of the wreckage of the twin towers as fallen bricks. The correspondences are symbolic and very telling, things that only God Himself could have brought about.

I hope Brannon Howse soon corrects this horrific misrepresentation.

Oy!

Update July 9, last part of interview discussed below.

This is really distressing. I do not understand how so many reputable Christians can be so wrong while feeling so right about what they are saying about The Harbinger.

How can there be a problem with hermeneutics about one simple verse in Isaiah (9:10) that simply demonstrates that God brought judgment against Israel, in the form of an invasion that destroyed buildings and trees, and that Israel's attitude was defiance?

There is nothing complicated about the verse, and nothing is changed in its interpretation by including the entire context before and after it either.

Yet they continue to treat it as if Jonathan Cahn himself had made up the "harbingers," the events that so uncannily repeat the elements of that verse, and get carried away about his supposedly wrong hermeneutic in applying the verse to modern America. How can they get this SO wrong? Cahn didn't apply anything to America, he DISCOVERED the harbingers existing in REALITY. The harbingers are simply THERE, out there in REALITY.

What is the matter with these people?

As for "mysticism" there is ONE dream toward the end of the book that was the fictional device for introducing the consecration of America to God by George Washington. Jimmy DeYoung actually says this accounts for a "major portion" of the book. Again, this dream occurs at the very end of the book after all the harbingers have been demonstrated to exist and the dream is simply a way to introduce the idea that God does have a special relationship with America. Of course they also refuse to accept the idea of such a relationship no matter what various founders had in mind, both the early Puritan settlers and the federal government of Washington. The problem here is their dispensationalism that denies that God would take such a role toward any nation other than Israel.

Then there is the discovery that Jonathan Cahn quoted the mystical writing The Zohar in a talk he gave, expressing enthusiasm for the fact that the Zohar in its reference to "Golgotha" appears to recognize something yet to come about the crucifixion of the Messiah. Cahn tries to explain this in terms of the testimony of a hostile witness carrying a great deal of weight in a court of law and they can't hear it. To them if he quoted the Zohar that only means he's promoting the Zohar.

Please, this is stupid. These men aren't stupid but this is stupid and most of what they are saying about Jonathan Cahn and The Harbinger is stupid. They even resort to appealing to their training and their credentials as if that can make stupid statements intelligent.

Well, all I'm doing is repeating myself. Same conclusion I came to below.

==============================
This is exhausting. This is insane. Today (July 5) Brannon Howse is replaying some of the interview with Jonathan Cahn from his program on the 3rd, with Jimmy DeYoung there to give his answer to it.

I'll just jump to my conclusion because it would be exhausting and probably futile anyway by now to try to wend my way there through the thicket of bizarre misunderstandings:

Jonathan got put through a theological shredder, drawn into the completely irrelevant theological proccupations of Howse and DeYoung, and I hope at least he now knows he has to avoid this sort of thing in future: stick to the message of The Harbinger, stay off the rabbit trails, which ALL these theological preoccupations are in the context of The Harbinger. There was no way to know this in advance, but it's painfully clear now that no good can come of trying to answer them.

As I keep saying, what the critics MUST account for is the reality of the events called "harbingers" as they appeared in REALITY, in AMERICA, in the wake of 9/11, events which UNCANNILY precisely repeat the elements of Isaiah 9:10. Their reality, the uncanniness of them, needs to be drummed into the heads of these people who keep getting mired in extraneous concerns. They ARE extraneous to the meaning of the book. The book stands completely apart from such theological considerations.

Isaiah 9:10 makes a very simple statement about destruction brought by God to ancient Israel, and Israel's refusal to take this as judgment from God, declaring that they will rebuild the destroyed buildings and replant the destroyed trees. It's SIMPLE.

And then those same events described in Isaiah 9:10 that happened in Israel also happened in America, including the same attitude of defiance toward God, all these same elements showing up in America IN REALITY in connection with 9/11. IT'S SIMPLE.

Amazing, mind-blowing, but SIMPLE.

In this sort of situation all you can do is KEEP IT SIMPLE, even painfully repetitive if necessary.

There is NO need for any discussion of hermeneutics, there is no need to get into differing opinions of eschatological events, there is no need to argue about the gifts for today -- NONE of that matters in the context of the message of The Harbinger. The Harbinger is ALL in the REAL appearance of the events called the "harbingers" that so precisely repeat the events of Isaiah 9:10.

They need to acknowledge this reality and then it's THEIR problem how to fit that reality into their theology and their eschatology. It's not Cahn's responsibility to answer all their questions. But of course, again, this wasn't apparent at first, it only seems right to try to account for your beliefs since they are making so much of them, but it turns out there is nothing constructive in the effort.

THEY NEED TO BE MADE TO ANSWER THE MAIN POINT.

IF you can get across the simple truth of the amazing uncanniness of the harbingers based on Isaiah 9:10 THEN you can try to go on to their further implications such as their appearance at the site of Washington's consecration of America to God, the Buttonwood Agreement and the other Old-Testament-based signs connected with the Shemitah, but with people who are determined to throw out the whole lot based on their own irrelevant preconceptions, the point is to get the simple stuff acknowledged FIRST. Spend a whole hour on the sycamore alone if necessary. If they try to deny that the harbingers ARE precise echoes of Isaiah 9:10 I don't know if there is a cure for that degree of denseness but simple hammering at the facts seems about all that can be done in any case. Again, all those questions are only a distraction from the message of The Harbinger and confuse listeners.

This is just a species of Categorical Thinking, of Howse and DeYoung having such an iron grip on a particular way of construing theology they can't even hear an opposing viewpoint. The mind has hardened to concrete around its categories and there is no point in trying to break through it. You're just beating your head against all the preconceptions. They have the ability to grind to bits any opposing point of view as it comes at them.

Just stick to the simplest simplest simplest possible statement of facts.

They need to acknowledge the reality of the harbingers and then it's THEIR problem how to fit that reality into their theology and their eschatology.

THEY NEED TO BE MADE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS CENTRAL POINT.


Aside from that general assessment, a few words about a couple of the main points that were discussed:

Howse and DeYoung make much of the fact that there is a dream in the story, both of them apparently very confused about the fact that Jonathan says the dream is not real in the context of the statement at the front of the book that the facts are real.

The dream as part of the fictional narrative is the FICTIONAL source of some of the FACTUAL information in the book. Cahn is VERY clear that it's fiction, part of the story but that the FACTS, what is TRUE in the story, which they seem to be so crazily confused about, did not IN REALITY come from a dream. None of the FACTS came IN REALITY from a dream. The dream is a FICTIONAL DEVICE, period.

But because Howse asks what Jonathan thinks about receiving truth from God in dreams he feels obliged to try to answer honestly that he thinks God can speak in that way as well as many other ways these days because he does not believe the theology that says all such ways of God's speaking to His people stopped with the closing of the canon.

So Jimmy DeYoung takes the opportunity to spell out his own theology about how it DID all stop, leaving no room for respectable dissent from his theology -- no, it IS as he says it is and Cahn is a heretic for believing otherwise. Cahn is trying graciously to allow disagreement on these things, but Howse and DeYoung aren't willing to allow disagreement on these points, or even allow a lack of having studied the issue sufficiently to have a clear opinion.

This theology has nothing whatever to do with the message of The Harbinger, which went begging in the interview by Howse and is going begging again today.

Same with the character of The Prophet. The Prophet is part of the STORY, he is not REAL, but what he is leading the protagonist Nouriel to discover IS REAL. DeYoung even insists that if the Prophet's message is real, the Prophet himself must be real too -- or was it, if the Prophet is fiction the message must be fiction too --either case is so absurd I'm speechless. For half a second anyway.

Is all this clear to me only because I heard Jonathan speak on these things without the fictional structure of the book to interfere?

I don't think so because thousands have read the book and not been confused by these things.

What's left here?

Well, there's more that could be addressed, if there's any point.

Otherwise, prayer I guess, a lot of prayer, for wisdom of course, and that God will bring about what He wills from this theological train wreck.

A few answers to DeYoung and David James. Harbinger is God's own message to America

(June 10 update at bottom.)

I thought at first that the comments on The Harbinger by Jimmy DeYoung on Brannon Howse's radio show were most likely impulsive and would probably eventually be retracted. I assumed that his accusation that the book promotes "replacement theology" was just too over-the-top to stand, and could only be considered at all because he hadn't read the book.

Turns out this way of thinking, wrongheaded though it is, is far more entrenched than I had any idea. I wasn't aware at that time of how rigidly held is the belief that the Old Testament was written only to Israel.

I also really didn't know much about Jimmy DeYoung. Still don't, but I'm now aware of his website, Prophecy Today, which apparently focuses on Israel and the Middle East in these end times. Today on his main page you can see that DeYoung has hosted McMahon's review of The Harbinger, which suggests he hasn't changed his mind.

I did listen to the interview DeYoung did with Jonathan Cahn and David James back in April. There's also a long review of The Harbinger by David James there, which I haven't read through yet. (Also for reference, The Calvary Chapel website I linked in the previous post has lengthy articles from Jonathan Cahn, which I'm not going to reproduce on this blog, at least not all of it.)

The interview brings out the concerns of DeYoung and James about the book, such as their impression that America is treated as replacing Israel, even that Isaiah is treated as speaking directly to America, that there is an implication that prophecy continues today as it did in Biblical times, and the like. They accept that Cahn is not himself intentionally promoting such ideas but it may be that they still think the book is doing so in spite of him. That's not completely clear.

I was particularly struck by David James' arguing that Cahn misunderstood Daschle and Edwards' quotation of Isaiah 9:10. He wants to insist that Cahn missed "the intent of the heart" in those instances, and that if you listen to the whole context you see that they are intending to be in tune with God and not defiant of God. David James even said that you "would need a prophetic word from God to show that they were doing the opposite of what they said they were doing." [this is around 50:00]

This so utterly misses the point it makes it painfully clear why the majority of pastors and Christians in this nation not only failed to see 9/11 as judgment from God but were angry with those who did recognize it as judgment. David James is a seminary-trained man. What are they teaching people in those seminaries?

As Cahn goes on to make clear, the words themselves from isaiah 9:10 are the statement of defiance of God; the mere statement of intent to rebuild and replant is the statement of defiance of God. That both Edwards and Daschle quoted it without recognizing this, even thinking they were giving reassurance from God himself, even wanting to say something in tune with God, does not keep it from being a statement of defiance, merely underscores that their defiance was unwitting. Adding "God bless America" to the message only compounds the defiance.

Consciously, by vowing to rebuild and replant they are in defiance of America's enemies, not realizing that this is the same thing as defiance of God. When Governor Pataki affirmed the spirit of defiance against our enemies at the dedication of the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower, he too no doubt had no conscious intention of being in defiance of God, merely defiant of the enemies of America.

Surely the leaders of ancient Israel who originally said the same words had no idea they were in defiance of God either.

I also want to add that although Jonathan Cahn said it wasn't about Daschle and Edwards personally, not a judgment of what was in their hearts personally, this really isn't true. They quoted that passage because that same sentiment WAS in their hearts and recognition of God's hand and the call to repentance WASN'T. This attitude was shared by the majority of Americans at the time.

A vow to rebuild and replant is the opposite of an attitude of humility and repentance. That ought to be obvious.

The popular refrain in response to 9/11, "God Bless America" was itself defiance of God in that context. You don't ask God to bless a nation when He's just brought judgment against the nation. The only right response is repentance.

James also objects to the various signs or harbingers as insufficiently similar to the originals in Isaiah 9:10 to apply. The many bricks that fell in ancient Israel under the attack by the Assyrians were to be replaced by many hewn stones, whereas in America we have only the one large cornerstone brought in; in the original there were many sycomores that were to be replaced by many cedars, and the sycomore of the Middle East is a fig tree not like the sycamores of North America and a cedar is not a Norway Spruce. Etc. etc.

They seem to be straining at gnats here. They do seem to be asking for absolute identity rather than the symbolic correspondences that so effectively show God's hand. Two towers were struck, not an entire city so the fallen bricks become meaningless? One hewn stone is meaningless because many were called for in the original context, one sycamore is meaningless, one conifer is meaningless. But this completely misses the point that in America these are SIGNS that God gave in clear correspondence with the events of Isaiah 9:10 to show us His hand in 9/11, our defiant attitude and the need to repent.

The odds against such precise correspondences occurring at all in a random accidental way must be astronomical. A tree that has the basic shape of the Middle Eastern sycamore and was named after it too, both being called "sycamore," is a pretty close correspondence. A Norway Spruce isn't a cedar, but they are both conifers and the fallen sycamore COULD have been replaced by, oh, another sycamore, or an oak rather than a conifer, AND as Cahn points out, the Hebrew word erez, which is translated "cedar" refers to the whole class of conifers. {Later edit: The Hebrew word erez apparently applies to the specific class of trees with the Latin name pinacea, or pine type trees, a classification which includes the pine and the fir as well as the CEDAR and the SPRUCE.]

Also, the fact that the quarried cornerstone turned out not even to be needed in the building of the new tower at Ground Zero is treated by David James as eliminating any correspondence with Isaiah 9:10, but it ought to be recognized that it's even MORE uncanny this way BECAUSE it isn't needed. It was brought in nevertheless and dedicated to the task with the same attitude of defiance. NO stone whatever, because modern building methods don't require it, would dash the claim of similarity with Isaiah 9:10 but such a hewn stone brought in spite of its not being needed confirms it.

The main correspondence with Isaiah 9:10 is the vow of defiance, the vow of the INTENTION to rebuild. The actual rebuilding is, if not irrelevant, beside the point as far as the signs or harbingers are concerned. ALL THIS IS INTENDED TO BE SYMBOLIC and the correspondences are eerily uncanny for that purpose.

I don't think those who have such objections to The Harbinger are likely to change their minds. They've read the book and they still believe as they do.

As Jonathan Cahn ends up saying, the fact is that Christians including pastors and church leaders from many denominations across the country have recognized the importance of the message; it's had a huge and growing success and is bearing good fruit everywhere in changed lives, recommitments to the Lord, prayers of repentance and the like.

Scripture says there always have to be some dissenters for the truth to be made manifest (I'm not going to say "heretics" here).

Maybe it hasn't been said, or said clearly enough: The Harbinger is as far as I know unique of its kind. I don't know of any other message that has come so clearly from God Himself to any part of the world since Biblical times. This by itself is enough to raise questions about it, of course, but the specifics of the message are what must convince you that this is no man-invented message, this does indeed come from God. For whatever reason, God Himself IS specially blessing America with this message of warning and we'd do well not to miss it.

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June 10, 7 AM: Oh bruuuther. Just went to Jimmy DeYoung's website and found a discussion between him and David James doing their best to further trash the Harbinger as some kind of theological heresy. They are talking about another book that has come out called the Covenant which according to them does treat America as a covenant nation in exactly the same sense as ancient Israel, and they again smear The Harbinger with guilt by association.

First they don't even give the name of the author of The Covenant so it sounds for a while like it was written by Jonathan Cahn. Its author is Timothy Ballard. Then they give the hearsay that the author of The Covenant claims to have had a conversation with Cahn in which Cahn agreed with him about the content of his book. I have to seriously doubt this. There is NOTHING about the Harbinger that goes along with the ridiculous Anglo-Israelism which is apparently what the Covenant is about. If they DID talk and Cahn agreed with him about anything it could only have been with a very limited statement he made.

From the sound of it, if this little bit of information can be trusted, The Covenant IS a heresy and it's probably a heresy in more ways than one as the Google page on it shows that its author has been on Glenn Beck's show pushing the idea that America is a Christian nation along the same lines as David Barton does, who has been shown by Chris Pinto to have been misrepresenting the facts in what could almost be called a near-criminal way. Anglo-Israelism is part of Mormon lore, which would make this book doubly welcome by Beck.

Satan never sleeps. Anything to confuse and bury whatever comes from God. By now Jonathan Cahn must be aware that dozens of accusations can be made up against his book that he could never have dreamed of in a million years. Lord protect him.

What I point out in the post above about DeYoung and James' interview with Cahn ought to demonstrate that they don't know what they are talking about. James utterly misreads the message of the nation's defiance, in a very silly way, committing the same sin himself that Isaiah 9:10 reveals as defiance.

I really don't think this ministry deserves to be followed at all, but apparently they do have some popularity and unfortunately probably do need to be answered.
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Checked out The Covenant at Amazon where I found a review that blows its cover: Thinly Veiled Mormon Drivel: Beware! The author did enough research to uncover Tim Ballard's Mormon background. The reviewer is a bit too favorable toward Glenn Beck it seems to me, but all that's needed here is the revelation that Ballard is Mormon.

JUST ANOTHER BIT OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THE HARBINGER.

Why can't anybody get it right about The Harbinger?

The Harbinger controversy just gets more and more confused and crazy. Brannon Howse did another program on this today, this time alone, without Jimmy DeYoung.

But what did Brannon do? He talked mostly about the publisher of the book, names associated with the publisher, signs-and-wonders people, today's heretical prophets and apostles, trying to slam The Harbinger through guilt by association.

First, I agree with Howse about all those connections. These associations are a blot on The Harbinger and on Jonathan Cahn. And probably the worst association is Cahn's agreement to appear on the Glenn Beck show today and tomorrow. It's doubtful he could be on the show and confront Beck about his Mormonism, so I have to agree that his appearance on the show speaks against him. It puts him in the position of seeming to endorse a false religion.

However, Brannon did not go about this right. Just about the first thing he said was

"I DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ FICTION".

THE MESSAGE OF THE BOOK IS NOT FICTION, BRANNON, AND THE BOOK ITSELF IS ONLY SUPERFICIALLY OR STRUCTURALLY FICTION. AND YOU OUGHT TO KNOW THAT BY NOW.

It is not right for you not to read the book but take the time to research all kinds of things and people around the book. This is a cheap excuse, Brannon.

But now you have a real complaint about the book, and I agree as far as that goes. It bothered me that Cahn was interviewed by Sid Roth, by Jim Bakker, that it was published by Charisma House. The hype has bothered me from the beginning. And his appearing on Glenn Beck is probably going to do him in with me.

BUT, the substance of criticism of the book that Brannon has endorsed up until this point is false and remains false. On this program he quotes an unnamed "well known" evangelical saying about the book that he didn't read it through because:

"IT'S SILLY. WE ARE NOT ISRAEL. GOD HAS NOT MADE A COVENANT WITH AMERICA"

THIS is what is silly. This is the same old wrong take on the book that started the whole controversy. This is false theology, the erroneous Dispensational theology that Jimmy DeYoung has been using against the book. If you're going to pull anything from your show, Brannon, you should pull the dispensationalist criticisms of Harbinger by Jimmy DeYoung.

Besides that, Cahn does not equate America with Israel but does point out that America's earliest founders did make a covenant with God. That's simple historical fact.

Also it is ridiculous to equate the fictional character of the prophet with today's prophecy movement. Since you haven't read the book you are making indefensible accusations. This subject is confused enough without adding to it from a position of total ignorance of what the book actually says.

He's not claiming to have received revelation either as the last caller on the show said he claims.

NOTHING ABOUT THE BOOK IS "EXTRA-BIBLICAL REVELATION"

TO SAY SO IS IRRESPONSIBLE.

So far the criticisms of the book ITSELF, apart from extraneous things like its publisher and so on, ARE SIMPLY WRONG.

HOWEVER, AGAIN, all those associations Cahn has been involved with do bother me too. And if he's on Beck without making any criticism of Beck's Mormonism, if he does not come out now and clearly repudiate Beck and Sid Roth (who actually defended Todd Bentley's demon drama as "revival") then I'm not going to defend him any more either. [Later (July 2) : I believe the facts that he has never said anything that I know of to support any of the views of these people, and has to my knowledge consistently defended the true gospel of salvation, and that his motive is simply to get the message to as many people as possible, are a sufficient defense of appearing on questionable shows, and he would have to do something very clearly in the wrong, like call Glenn Beck a Christian or Bentley's or Joyner's "worship" performances Christian, for me to change my mind. Even then, oddly enough perhaps, none of this affects the content of The Harbinger itself.]

But Brannon, you are wrong not to read the book and think about the message and criticise Cahn ONLY based on these associations.

As I keep saying, the harbingers in the book could not have come about by any other power than by God. No, it can't be coincidence, and yes the equivalence with Isaiah 9:10 is uncanny. If you don't read the book you have no way to fairly assess this claim, let alone answer it, and that's the bottom line.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain those harbingers in any other way. UNTIL THEN EVERYTHING ELSE IN CRITICISM OF THE BOOK IS IRRELEVANT.

Replacement Theology spelled out

Since I've made some comments on "replacement theology" recently I've been taking notice of the different sides of the controversy somewhat more than I usually do.

It was a comment by Jimmy DeYoung on Brannon Howse's radio show that prompted me to write a post a while back objecting to his statement that animal sacrifices would persist through the reign of Christ during the Millennium, which seems to me to be a radical departure from the revelation of scripture and Christian theology throughout history. I argued that the Old Testament sacrifices all foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ, they all represented atonement for sin which He fulfilled perfectly, and therefore if they are reinstated in Israel it would be a blasphemy. Such a blasphemous reinstatement might occur during the reign of Antichrist but couldn't possibly persist after the return of Christ.

Then I did a post saying that I do not believe that national Israel is God's Chosen People. This argument is more in line with the views of what is called Replacement Theology, but I don't agree with them that this means there is no role left in God's plans for national Israel at all.

Brannon Howse had Jimmy DeYoung on his radio program again today, in which the topic was the presence of Christian Research Journal's Hank Hanegraaf at a basically anti-Israel conference, and Hanegraaf's Replacement Theology was addressed.

I think it may help clarify what Replacement Theology is, and my own position, to present Hanegraaf's point of view and respond to it:

Does the Bible Make a Distinction between Israel and the Church?
Hank Hanegraaff

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:28–292).

At the heart of a currently popular end–times theology is the belief that God has two distinct people—one of whom must be raptured before God can continue His plan with the other.

I also have a problem with this division of God's people into two separate peoples, as I don't see scripture supporting this idea. I haven't yet been completely convinced that the Church will be raptured before the very last days begin, but insofar as I entertain this possibility it is with the idea not that there are separate plans for separate Chosen peoples but that there is nevertheless SOME kind of unfinished business God has with Jacob or national Israel, and certainly there is yet the unfinished business of the redemption of the entire Creation to play out. Jesus is to return to claim the entire world as His own in the end, not just His people. The last days are the Day of the Lord which is described throughout scripture as a time of unparalleled suffering. It is a time when Satan gets to run the show, perhaps without interference from the Church. The only glimpse of comfort I see in this whole scenario is that during the "time of Jacob's trouble" God says "he will be saved out of it." None of this is clear to me and probably won't become clear to anyone until it's under way.

Rather than teaching that God has two categories of people, Scripture reveals only one chosen people who form one covenant community, beautifully symbolized by one cultivated olive tree.

I believe what is called the "wave offering" of two loaves of bread that were ceremonially waved before the Lord in various Old Testament ceremonies prophetically shows the essential unity of BELIEVING Jew and Gentile as two peoples composed of the same spiritual stuff. The two olive trees that give their oil to the lampstand pictured in Zechariah are said in the Book of Revelation to be representative of the two witnesses described there, but they also suggest two sources that combine to make one oil which could represent the Church of both Jew and Gentile. Whether this is the case I don't know for sure (that would suggest Enoch the Gentile and Elijah the Israelite as the two witnesses to my mind since both were taken up into heaven without dying, and both witnesses are going to die as they preach in Jerusalem. I don't think one of the witnesses could be Moses because Moses already died once and can't die a second time.), but the point is that there are images in the Old Testament that picture one out of two, but I don't know of any that argue for two ultimately separate people of God.

Hanegraaf later in this article identifies this tree as described in Romans where Paul says the Gentiles were "grafted in" to the root, or the natural olive tree, which represents the Jews.

First, far from communicating a distinction between Israel and the church, the Scriptures from beginning to end reveal that God has only ever had one chosen people purchased “from every tribe and tongue and language and nation” (Rev. 5:9). As Paul explains, the “mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6, emphasis added). Indeed, the precise terminology used to describe the children of Israel in the Old Testament is ascribed to the church in the New Testament. Peter calls them “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9). Ultimately, they are the one chosen people of God, not by virtue of their genealogical relationship to Abraham, but by virtue of their genuine relationship to “the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God” (1 Pet. 2:4).

Furthermore, just as the Old and New Testaments reveal only one chosen people, so too, they reveal only one covenant community. While that one covenant community is physically rooted in the offspring of Abraham—whose number would be like that of “the stars” of heaven (Gen. 15:5) or “the dust of the earth” (Gen. 13:16)—it is spiritually grounded in one singular Seed. Paul makes this explicit in his letter to the Galatians: “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). As Paul goes on to explain: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). The faithful remnant of Old Testament Israel and New Testament Christianity are together the one genuine seed of Abraham and thus heirs according to the promise. This remnant is not chosen on the basis of religion or race but rather on the basis of relationship to the resurrected Redeemer.

Finally, the one chosen people, who form one covenant community, are beautifully symbolized in the book of Romans as one cultivated olive tree (see Rom. 11:11–24). The tree symbolizes Israel; its branches symbolize those who believe; and its root symbolizes Jesus—the root and the offspring of David (Rev. 22:16). Natural branches broken off represent Jews who reject Jesus. Wild branches grafted in represent Gentiles who receive Jesus. Thus says Paul, “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children….In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom. 9:6–8). Jesus is the one genuine seed of Abraham! And all clothed in Christ constitute one congruent chosen covenant community connected by the cross.3

This article first appeared in the Ask Hank column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 31, number 1 (2008). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

I agree with all this, except that he concludes that there is no role left for national Israel whereas I don't, and as I understand it neither did the Protestant Reformers who did envision a role for Israel in the end times but without taking away from the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise in the Church.

What makes the difference here is a confusion between national Israel and spiritual Israel, which occurs on both sides of the dispute. There are not two separate CHOSEN peoples, there are not two separate people of God, but there is still Jew and Gentile OF THE FLESH, as-yet-unredeemed people. National Israel is "Jacob" not the Israel of God but the Israel of the flesh, from which nevertheless scripture promises to draw many Jews into the Israel of God in the end times.

The extreme pro-Israel dispensationalists make the mistake of thinking of national Israel as God's chosen people, and the extreme exponents of Replacement Theology apparently make the same mistake. There will nevertheless be many of them saved out of this Great Tribulation which is to come upon the earth.

Does the Bible make a distinction between Israel and the Church: No, not between spiritual Israel and the Church, they are identical, but national Israel is not spiritual Israel.

No, there cannot be ACCEPTABLE animal sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple after Christ has come

I fairly recently discovered Brannon Howse and most of the time I appreciate his messages, but every now and then he supports a point of view that I decidedly don't agree with and that's happened a couple of times recently, both times a view given by a guest on his radio show.

I blogged a few times recently (below) on the remarks of Jimmy DeYoung on Jonathan Cahn's "Harbinger" which there's no point in repeating here. I'm looking forward to finding out what Brannon has to say after he's done some more research into this -- will he agree with DeYoung or Cahn?

Now today, March 21st, his guest was Dr. John Whitcomb, and I nearly fell off my chair* at what he said about the idea that during the millennium when Christ is reigning on the earth the temple will be reinstated and so will animal sacrifices as they were done in the Old Testament. [*Actually I shouted "EXCA-YOOOZE ME???" so loud I must have shaken up a few neighbors. Sorry, folks.]

I know of John Whitcomb particularly for his being co-author with Henry Morris of the 1961 book The Genesis Flood, which is credited with launching Young Earth Creationism as it is known today, and was probably the main reason I got so interested in the subject too. The only problem I'm aware of having with Whitcomb's views is that he argues for a ten-thousand rather than a six-thousand year old earth, for which I can't find any Biblical justification, and has said so on Howse's program too.

But here's what he said today (this all starts at about 37.20 into the broadcast). This was in answer to a listener's question how there could be a reinstitution of animal sacrifices after Jesus came to die for our sins, and particularly in the context of the Millennium when Jesus would be ruling physically on the earth. (The Millennium is interpreted by some to refer to a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth yet to come, after His Second Coming when His appearance ends the seven-year period of the rule of the Antichrist. The prophecies regarding this period are interpreted to include the reestablishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the main purpose of the Temple in Old Testament times was for animal sacrifice.)

Whitcomb says he studied this question for many years and discovered something about it that "thrills his heart and soul," whidch is basically that the Old Testament animal sacrifices were

"NOT TO TAKE AWAY SIN" but "to protect people from premature destruction when they entered the holy presence of God."

Here's where I woke up any dozing neighbors.

He goes on to explain that when Israel was about to come out of Egypt and God had them paint the blood of a lamb on their door frames, God said

"When I see the blood I will pass over you, NOT "save you." Not "regenerate you" but "pass over you." "I will not destroy you prematurely."

He further says that in the Millennium the sacrifices

will be a teaching aid, a visual aid of the holiness of God. They are not for the purpose of being saved, not to have their sins cleansed away as only the blood of Christ can do that and they will be taught that fact, but only to be a visual aid of the holiness of God, and the need for faith in the finished work of Jesus Messiah to be saved and accepted to God.

It is this sort of twisting of the scripture that is the main thing that keeps me from embracing the end times pre-trib rapture interpretations. They make some very good arguments until they get to the Millennium in which they posit these reinstated sacrifices and try to rationalize them as not the obvious blasphemy they are after the advent of Jesus Christ who IS our sacrifice for sin. It's not that there isn't scripture for such a reinstatement, but there is the problem that they WOULD BE BLASPHEMOUS. And besides, at the midpoint of the seven-year period of the Antichrist's reign scripture is clear (if you accept this interpretive scheme) that this wicked world ruler will put an end to the sacrifices that would have been instituted in the Jerusalem temple sometime in the previous 3-1/2 year period. Since they are blasphemous it makes no sense at all that they would be again instituted after the Lord Jesus returns another three and a half years after that.

What makes them blasphemous? This OUGHT to be unquestionable in the mind of any Bible-believing Christian it seems to me and I have a very hard time understanding how so many these days are trying to rationalize this away.

Jesus prophesied that the temple would be destroyed but He would raise it up in three days. His resurrection from the dead would have been that raising, and all of us who are the Body of Christ are the stones of that temple He raised [I know scripture is needed here so I'll try to get back and supply it]. In 70 AD the physical building that was the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army, fulfilling the Lord's prophecy of its destruction. And now we have the new temple, the living stones of His Body. Nothing could be clearer but that the Old Testament system of sacrifice was ended once and for all in Christ.

We are taught in many parts of the New Testament that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. His death on the cross was the fulfillment of all the previous animal sacrifices that could not atone for sin, though His blood atoned perfectly for all who believe on Him [spelled out particularly in the Letter to the Hebrews]. God's call to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac typified this much-later EFFECTIVE blood sacrifice for sin, and that event just happened to occur on the very ground where Jesus eventually died on the cross too. The Messiah is described in the Old Testament as coming "to save His people from their sins," defining the purpose of sacrifice right there. {Again I'll try to get all the relevant scriptures in place eventually].

The Passover, which Dr. Whitcomb so misrepresents, was also a type of the sacrifice of Christ, who is called "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Whitcomb twists the meaning of the words to suggest that "passing over" the people is something other than salvation, but this flies in the face of orthodox theology for the last 2000 years. God's passing over the people instead of killing their firstborn as He did those of the Egyptians, definitely represents salvation as all the animal sacrifices do. We who believe in Christ have His blood covering our souls just as the lamb's blood on the doorposts protected the people within, so that the wrath of God which abides on all sinners no longer abides on us. THAT's the "passing over" that Jesus accomplished for us and it IS salvation. And there are many other Old Testament practices that foreshadow the same meaning -- the sprinkling of blood on the people by the hyssop branch and so on and so forth.

ANY attempt to reinstate the old temple is already blasphemous in this light, a direct defiance of God's gift of His Son as THE sacrifice for sin. IF the temple is reinstated in Jerusalem and IF animal sacrifices are performed there, it could only be a terrible affront to God, and after the Antichrist removes the sacrifices to set up the Abomination of Desolation in their place I don't see how they could ever be reinstalled again. The Abomination of Desolation can't really be much more of a blasphemy than the reinstated sacrifices now that the Lamb of God has come.

It also seems necessary to say that the Old Testament ought to be enough of a "visual aid" in the Millennium just as it is now, of God's purposes in the sacrifices, especially in the light of New Testament interpretation of the Old. Why should people in the Millennium have any more of a need than we do for such illustrations? The idea is, really, ridiculous, and blasphemous. But it's even worse to suggest that the sacrifices aren't wholly an illustration of what Christ did for us, but a "teaching aid" to more general principles.

The scriptures that support this view are many but here are a couple that show that the purpose of sacrifice was WHOLLY to atone for sin -- NOT to be a "visual aid to the holiness of God":

Jhn 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Even before Moses gave the law to the Israelites, sacrifice was practiced as an atonement for sin:

Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of [their] feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings [according] to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

And here are a couple of commentators who agree that the purpose of the animal sacrifices was to atone for sin:

Matthew Henry on Lev 4:1-12 which describes sacrifices appointed by God [go to Leviticus 4 at Blue Letter Bible and click on the button for Commentaries]:

The laws contained in the first three chapters seem to have been delivered to Moses at one time. Here begin the statutes of another session, another day. From the throne of glory between the cherubim God delivered these orders. And he enters now upon a subject more strictly new than those before. Burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and peace-offerings, it should seem, had been offered before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; those sacrifices the patriarchs had not been altogether unacquainted with (Gen. 8:20; Ex. 20:24), and in them they had respect to sin, to make atonement for it, Job 1:5. But the law being now added because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19), and having entered, that eventually the offence might abound (Rom. 5:20), they were put into a way of making atonement for sin more particularly by sacrifice, which was (more than any of the ceremonial institutions) a shadow of good things to come, but the substance is Christ, and that one offering of himself by which he put away sin and perfected for ever those who are sanctified.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on the same passage also treat all the different sacrifices as for the purpose of atoning for sin [also at Blue Letter Bible Lev 4 Commentaries]:

35. it shall be forgiven him--None of these sacrifices possessed any intrinsic value sufficient to free the conscience of the sinner from the pollution of guilt, or to obtain his pardon from God; but they gave a formal deliverance from a secular penalty ( Hbr 9:13, 14 ); and they were figurative representations of the full and perfect sin offering which was to be made by Christ.

It is this very meaning of the sacrifices as FOR SIN that John Whitcomb so studiously denies, his denial even "thrilling his heart and soul." WHY? Why do so many these days seem to want to whitewash the rebuilding of the temple with its sacrifices? God Himself destroyed it because its true purpose, the Messiah, had come and fulfilled it. Eventually, we know from scripture, great numbers of Jews will recognize this and be saved with us. When that happens THEY aren't going to want to keep the old temple either. What's with all this attempt to justify the Old Testament religion that Christ fulfilled?

Harbinger criticism is totally absurd

June 24, 2013:   I'm rewriting this post because I let myself get carried away too far in the original version. 

The more I see of the attacks on Jonathan Cahn by David James and Jimmy DeYoung and T A McMahon, the more I see people straining hard to find something, anything, to pin on The Harbinger, no matter how ridiculous. While it's always right to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are brothers in Christ, there is something about the absurdity of the attacks on this book that invites at least the suspicion of something less than complete sincerity going on here. It almost borders on the malicious. And this is coming from ministries that generally enjoy a good reputation and a good following among Christians.

Why? What on earth has provoked them to such extremes of denunciation of The Harbinger? It would be one thing if any of their objections made any sense, but unfortunately they seem to be largely reactions to certain words that they are unable to read in the context presented in the book and keep misreading in some preconceived context of their own.

Oh oh oh, he said that the first settlers of America made a covenant with God, yikes that means he thinks America has replaced Israel and God has given up on Israel completely! He said that Washington consecrated the nation to God in prayer, oh oh oh that means he believes America is God's nation now! Oh, and looky look, he even compared Washington's consecration of America with Solomon's consecration of the temple. Oh horror of horrors he thinks that a passage in the Old Testament applies to America today, oh that means he thinks the prophet Isaiah himself knew about America and was writing to us directly. Oh, and he doesn't even MENTION modern-day Israel, that's PROOF that America is the New Israel in his mind.

Jonathan Cahn is a Messianic Jewish rabbi/pastor you would think the ministries that enthusiastically embrace the reestablishment of israel would bend over backwards to appreciate and support. Instead of imagining a few words about America's having a covenant with God into a full-blown accusation of Replacement Theology, you'd think they'd just KNOW that the idea is absurd and try to understand the context in which it was meant.

That brief discussion between DeYoung and James that I posted at the bottom of yesterday's blog does have the flavor of a concerted attempt to destroy The Harbinger. The fact that they linked the book with the claim that it shares the perspective of a Mormon heresy in a new book called The Covenant, based only on a flimsy bit of hearsay that the author of The Covenant claimed that Rabbi Cahn agreed with his views, does not suggest charity toward a brother in Christ. At the very least they seem willing to jump to conclusions and let a terrible accusation stand against Cahn on the slightest excuse. Again, why? 

Every argument that is made against the book is false in every possible way. You'd think they might come up with ONE reasonable criticism, but I haven't seen it if so.

In the absence of any scriptural support, how can it be claimed with any certainty that 9/11 marked the removal of God’s hedge of protection? Furthermore, even if God ever has provided such a hedge of protection around America, is it not possible to also argue that it is still in place? There has not been another terrorist attack since 9/11—even though the motivation, intent and plotting to launch more attacks has continued to the present.

This just doesn't compute.  The "hedge of protection" is a metaphor based on the hedges built around vineyards to protect them from predators. Since up until 9/11 America had been blessed with unusual peace and security on our own soil for over a century -- not counting Pearl Harbor which is outside the main continent of America -- it's perfectly reasonable to attribute that to God's protection, for which the biblical metaphor is a hedge.

And once we have been attacked on our own soil, BY DEFINITION any such hedge of protection that had been in place has been removed. No, it's NOT "still in place" because it was removed or we couldn't have been attacked, and the nation has not made the first step toward the only thing that would bring God's protection back to us -- repentance, that is, acknowledgment and correction of the nation's rejection of Him and violations of His Law.

...in both the book and the documentary by World Net Daily, the author attempts to build the case that America’s leaders were proudly and arrogantly acting in defiance against God when they spoke of rebuilding (even though they didn’t realize it).24 This is very misleading because although standing in defiance of America’s enemies, they were demonstrably not standing in defiance of God.

This one grabs me every time I run across it and I just can't let it go. They WERE "proudly and arrogantly acting in defiance against God when they spoke of rebuilding" because that's what it means to speak of rebuilding and replanting in our own human strength, without acknowledging God's hand in judgment against the nation or calling for repentance for the nation's rejection of Him.

I may have a slightly different take on this than Jonathan Cahn does since he sharply distinguishes their own personalities and motives from the message of Isaiah 9:10. Of course they had no idea what they were doing and if they had they wouldn't have done it, but that fact in itself makes them guilty of defiance, since merely reading the verse as if it weren't an offense to God shows that their motives were defiant in spite of themselves, lacking any sense of God's judgment on the nation, any sense of a need for repentance, only the human will to rebuild.  That right there is the essence of the defiance in Isaiah 9:10 being played out in modern America.

Contrary to the objection of David James, their WANTING to reassure people or even WANTING to be in God's will not only not save them from ACTUALLY defying God in reality, their understanding the verse that way IS defiance. And really, it's a false idea of God they are appealing to, a God they assume would bless America's desire to rebuild and replant WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF REPENTANCE, just as a majority in America at the time apparently did. David James is also appealing to this same false idea of God since he actually tries to defend Daschle and Edwards on the ground that they weren't consciously defying God. I think you could say that about most idolators and it's TYPICAL of today's denatured "bless-me-bless-me" Christianity that we just go about our idolatrous materialistic sinful self-centered lives not expecting God to judge us and not imagining that we need to repent, assuming God is on our side. The God that James and Daschle and Edwards have in mind -- even if they might deny this -- is a God who would not judge America and would not require repentance but would be easily placated by rousing renditions of "God bless America" again, just as a majority in the nation did at the time. This is NOT the God of the Bible, in fact this is idolatry, an appeal to a false God, in defiance of the true God.

Sorry, I know I'm repeating myself on this point to an extreme by now, I just never quite feel I got it said.

Another very weary attempt to get it said about The Harbinger

Here's more of the Worldview Weekend radio show I blogged on in my last post.

This makes me SO tired. I'll just have to say it again:

YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN THE APPEARANCE OF THE HARBINGERS AS COMING FROM ANY SOURCE OTHER THAN GOD. THAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE AS I'VE SAID OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

All Jonathan Cahn's questionable associations are relevant only if the harbingers are not from God or if you can prove that he used mystical or gnostic methods or a wrong hermeneutic in his presentation. He DIDN'T, all that is being wrongly attributed to him.

Brannon Howse says a lot of true things about today's Christian drive to save the nation at the expense of the gospel. He's trying to lump the Harbinger in with this drive and to the extent that some may take it as an important message of judgment that might save the nation and use it as a reason to unite with unbelievers he has a point, but not a point that applies to Jonathan Cahn himself or the motives behind The Harbinger itself. Howse can quote many who actively support the apostate views of the people they are associating with. AS FAR AS I'M AWARE, HE CAN'T DO THAT WITH JONATHAN CAHN WHO REMAINS COMMITTED TO THE TRUE GOSPEL AND THE NEED FOR MORMONS, MUSLIMS, JEWS, NEW AGERS, HINDUS AND SO ON TO COME TO CHRIST FOR SALVATION.

Even if Cahn appears on questionable venues he has never SAID anything that agrees with apostate views.

For myself nothing I've said about The Harbinger is about feeling I have to accept an ecumenical compromise position to ward off the coming disaster, God's judgment on the nation, which Howse has suggested is the motive of those who defend The Harbinger, and I've also given up on any kind of spiritual awakening (except for myself I hope and small pockets of true believers, that could spread in at least a limited way) BECAUSE all the apostates and heretics and antichrists have taken over that hope. AND when it comes to discernment which he wishfully accords to DeYoung, D. James, T. A. McMahon and Christine Pack, I'm afraid this time he's picked the team that lacks it.

I did and do think that if God brought these harbingers about then we have the question what He wants to accomplish with this book. SHOW ME THAT THE HARBINGERS COULD HAVE COME ABOUT FROM ANY OTHER SOURCE THAN GOD HIMSELF. THERE IS NO OTHER REASON FOR THE HARBINGER.

We know without The Harbinger that the nation is coming under judgment, but nevertheless for some reason these harbingers of judgment HAVE APPEARED IN REALITY and NOBODY could have brought this about other than God Himself.

ALL THE CRITICS are addressing everything BUT this one important fact.

They are making up meanings of their own that are not in the book. Jimmy DeYoung criticizes the book from a position I consider to be at least a borderline heresy itself but Brannon Howse takes HIS word for all of it and hasn't read the book. Christine Pack carried on about the definition of gnosticism that has nothing whatever to do with The Harbinger just because of some words like mystery and secret that are also part of gnosticism, but in a context where they have nothing to do with gnosticism or mysticism. As I wrote about in the previous post.

They are PROJECTING the ideas of the apostates onto the book. SO FAR I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS. IT'S THEIR OWN PRECONCEPTIONS THAT THEY ARE IMPOSING ON THE BOOK.

Cahn may lose me, however, on his willingness to appear on Glenn Beck's show and any other nonChristian shows in such a way that makes it appear he endorses false religions.* I'm sure his idea is just that he wants to get this message out to as many as he possibly can, as the watchman would who feels an obligation to warn everyone, and I'll have to take that into account. Since he's never said anything accepting of apostate positions, which the people Howse and others keep trying to stick on him, I may decide this puts him in a different category whether his message gets misused or not. This is going to take prayer and thought. A precedent might be the prophet Jonah's call to warn Nineveh of coming judgment. Who lived in Nineveh but idolators who didn't believe in the true God? And yet they repented when the judgment warning was preached to them.

But of course in our day the Mormons are not likely to hear anything that opposes their Mormonism unless the gospel is preached, and it won't be preached by Jonathan Cahn to the Mormons or he will not be a guest on Beck again. But if he doesn't then they are free to take the Harbinger as from THEIR God. Same with the Muslims, Hindus, whoever. Unless the gospel presentation in the book is used by God to save them, and of course that could happen. But again, this is going to take prayer and thought. I can't link Cahn with the ecumenicists, his motives are entirely different. I could be shown to be wrong, I suppose, but it hasn't happened yet.

All those apostates are probably not going to repent of what the nation NEEDS to repent of, which is the rampant apostasy itself. THIS is why Cahn's appearance on Glenn Beck is a problem, but again HIS motives are different from the ecumenicists so I'm waiting to see.

I NEVERTHELESS STILL CHALLENGE THE CRITICS TO SHOW A SOURCE OF THE HARBINGERS THAT IS NOT GOD. And don't give me that fuzzy stuff about how they don't REALLY fit Isaiah 9:10. Be honest -- they do.

One more remark: Brannon Howse played a clip of Cahn referring to the Zohar, the Jewish mystical book. As I heard it, what Cahn is doing is not teaching that anyone should follow the Zohar but only that it's remarkable that even this Jewish mystical sect RECOGNIZED THE TERM "GOLGOTHA" AS CONNECTED WITH THE MESSIAH, with the redemption of the world. I found something similar some years ago in a book about pre-Christian Jewish beliefs in the Messiah, that showed that the Jews anticipated two Messiahs (because of scripture's portraits of both the Suffering Servant and the Conquering King which they were unable to reconcile in one Messiah), even three in some writings, which without their being aware of it showed an anticipation of what turned out to be two advents of the Messiah first as suffering servant, then finally as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Showing that the Jews had some beliefs that can be reconciled with the New Testament reality of the Messiah is not the same thing as telling Christians to believe what the Jews believed in the Zohar or anywhere else. It shows only that before Jesus came, Jewish commentary was a lot more in line with the reality of the Messiah to come than they were willing to admit after He HAD come. When Jesus came and they rejected Him, it appears that they forgot all their former prophetic wisdom that DID far more closely anticipate the true appearance of the Lord.

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* July 10: I changed my mind about this, soon after I wrote this post as a matter of fact. I think it's going way overboard to worry about how people are going to misconstrue an appearance by a Christian on a nonChristian program as supporting the nonChristian point of view. I'll say more about this eventually.