There really is an uncannily precise correspondence between the words of Isaiah 9:10 and the events in America of September 11th, 2001 --and afterward. Just as a matter of fact, the verse obviously applies to 9/11 even without the uncanny correspondences, but they seal the deal in a way that ought to convince the most adamantly skeptical.
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedarsIsaiah 9:10 really is about the defiance of a nation against God's judgment and the next verse is about the inevitable continuing judgment that will follow. All the commentaries on this passage give this understanding of it.
American leaders really did quote Isaiah 9:10 after 9/11, mistaking it for an encouraging word of promise that the nation would rebuild, rather than the act of defiance against God it is. The verse refers to fallen bricks or buildings and the cutting down of sycamore trees as God's act of judgment against the idolatrous nation, really his warning of judgment as it was light compared to what could have been, just as 9/11 was light compared to what could have been. Instead of repenting the nation of Israel simply vowed to rebuild and replant bigger and better. And so did America.
After 9/11 some reporters described fallen bricks in the devastation, but the simple fact of fallen buildings is enough to tie the event to the Isaiah passage. A stone was quarried from the New York mountains to be the cornerstone of the projected "Freedom Tower" which was to replace the WTC, and ceremonially installed with words of defiance echoing the attitude of Isaiah 9:10. That's the hewn stone that Isaiah 9:10 pictures as the act of defiance.
There was also a western version of the sycamore tree that was uprooted by a falling piece of one of the towers. The sycamore became an icon in people's minds. Its roots were put on display to commemorate 9/11 and later a bronze replica of those roots was installed beside the church to which the sycamore had belonged. You can find pictures of this on the internet. The address where it is located also happens to be Wall Street.
The fallen sycamore really was replaced by a conifer of the same family as the cedar, and that tree also became an icon, dubbed the Tree of Hope.
This is all highly ironic since the Isaiah passage these things are so closely following without anyone's intention is all about defiance of God and the determination to do things our own way. This was the predominant sentiment about 9/11 by everybody involved, and is to this day. Anybody hear any calls to repentance for the sins that brought about God's warning judgment? The very few who even called it God's judgment were vilified.
The harbingers don't stop there. It turns out that the sycamore tree was planted in the churchyard of the very chapel where George Washington and his first governing body prayed after his inauguration as our first President. The capital city of the nation at that time was New York City, not Washington D.C.
Oh and there's more than that too, involving Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange, also involving the very property of the World Trade Center. Go listen to Jonathan Cahn's talk I've posted two or three times in recent posts below, or get Jonathan Cahn's book "Harbinger." He fictionalized the story of how the correspondence with Isaiah 9:10 was discovered, using fictional characters, alas, but all the true facts are there.
I do have to report that I finally read Cahn's book, took me a while to get to it but I read it over the weekend and finished it this morning. I can't say I'm happy that he chose to put it in fictional form, and I can only hope that it won't be a problem for many figuring out what parts are fiction and what parts reality, but overall for me it didn't detract from the message itself so I've finally accepted his decision to do it that way. At least it gave him the opportunity to present the material in a measured way so that we have time to digest each part before being hit with the next. There are a LOT of parts to this revelation, each as uncanny as the previous, and anything that makes it easier to assimilate has to be welcomed. As characters in the book say: "The point is to get the message out to as many people as possible (p. 248)." If the fiction mode accomplishes that I have to be all for it.
Later: It occurred to me that maybe this could be considered a literary form for the orderly presentation of a complex subject rather than a novel. A teaching device. Seems to me something like this has been done in history, though I have to admit I don't know where or by whom or what it would be called.
In the book he gets to the subject of the church's responsibility, and here's what he says about what believers need to repent of:
From their apathy, from their complacency ... their compromises with darkness ... their omissions ... their serving of other gods ... their sins committed in secret ...their withholding of life ... and their failure to fulfill their call (p. 224).The job of unpacking that statement would bring out every category of sin we need to face.
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I'm certainly no supporter of the charismatic movement, or of televangelists either, so it does put me in an uncomfortable position to be so strongly convinced of Jonathan Cahn's revelation of the meaning of 9/11 as God's judgment on America, because those are the contexts in which his message is being promoted, while the rest of the churches apparently either don't know about him, or, perhaps, reject what he has to say. I really don't know how he is being received outside those contexts, though, it could be simply that they aren't hearing his message at all. I just know that my own attempts to get his message out to others have mostly been met with silence.
I didn't even know that Jim Bakker was on television again, or that he had a second wife, that's how out of touch with the world of televangelism I've been. But his program aired a series of interviews with Jonathan Cahn just last month, and Bakker says he was one of the few who recognized early on that 9/11 was God's judgment on America and took a lot of criticism for it.
The interviews are rather choppy, frequently interrupted, and at times repetitive but pretty much all the material does get covered by the end, and it's more up-to-date than the Messianic conference speech I keep linking. The Biblical connections concerning judgment on the economy are staggeringly uncanny, but much too detailed for an economically-challenged person like me to keep track of. You just have to hear it for yourself.
Here are the Bakker interviews, again with the warning that they may be frustrating to watch: Part #1 Part #2 Part #3 Part #4 Part #5 Part #6
Getting the message out to as many as possible is Bakker's desire and that makes me very happy as it's my own desire too. I've been experiencing much resistance but he's gained a large audience for it, praise the Lord. There do seem to be obstacles to getting it out in general, though, which is to be expected about such a message. At first I thought this message is so just plain IRREFUTABLE it should spread like wildfire through the churches and we'll all be humbled and turn from our wicked ways, a great revival will engulf the nation and America will be saved. Turns out that as usual that's ridiculously optimistic and in reality we have a spiritual battle on our hands if we want God's kingdom to advance in this world. Rabbi Cahn describes various ways he's been in spiritual battle over this in these interviews.
This message needs to break down all the walls and get to EVERYBODY.
