Dispensationalists are true Christians but misled by Rome

I am aware that major players on both sides of this Harbinger dispute are Dispensationalists, and very likely Jonathan Cahn as well. 

It's one of the areas of disagreement between me and others even on my side of this issue, such as Jan Markell's ministry, and I've posted on some topics where it is a problem I have to mention, but it never is such a problem as it is with David James and the other critics of The Harbinger.  I don't know how to account for this, I can only figure there are some Dispensationalists who are theologically more rigid than others, but I'm now completely convinced that it's the critics' Dispensationalism that is the root of their attack.  

And I should say that I do not regard this as an issue to divide Christians.  Angry though I can be to see how Dispensationalist tenets are being used against The Harbinger, it's not the PEOPLE that are the problem.  I'm not dividing from Christians on this, I consider them all to be brothers and sisters in Christ and good Christians  -- merely in thrall to a truly bad theological and hermeneutical system.  

The first thing they accused The Harbinger of was Replacement Theology.  David James realizes that's not the case but he still applies his Dispensationalist assumptions to the point of claiming that Cahn has put America in the place of Israel in some sense.  This to my mind is utterly absurd and not borne out in the book, although if it were it wouldn't necessarily be an offense to my Reformed views anyway.  It's simply false, absurd.  But David James is a nice guy and a good Christian man from all I can tell, perhaps simply too good an exponent of the Dispensationalist system of hermeneutics and theology.  This is NOT personal.

I don't believe there is such a thing as Replacement Theology, that's a Dispensationalist misrepresentation of the Reformed position.  (I gather the Reformed position is called Covenant Theology but I'm not up enough on all these different categories to know quite what that means yet so I'm simply referring to the whole theological divide as Reformed versus Dispensational.)  

The very term "Replacement Theology" makes one a Dispensationalist because their main tenet is that Israel and the Church are to be regarded as separate entities, so that the Reformed's seeing the promises as all fulfilled in the Church rather than in Israel is to their mind a "replacement" of Israel by the Church.  The Reformed side believe that the Church always WAS Israel from the beginning and is the fulfillment of all the promises, there is no replacement because there never were two separate entities, and the Old Testament is entirely a preparation for the coming of the Messiah Jesus in whom all the promises are fulfilled. 

However, I'm not Reformed ENOUGH according to some of the Reformed I know, who believe that the state of Israel has NO biblical justification whatever.  Pastor Borgman's studies on these things that I recently posted are very very good, but I still end up thinking there HAS to be SOME purpose for the state of Israel in the end times, and it helps to my mind that the Protestant Reformers also had this point of view.  You never know where I'll end up if I keep studying all this but this is where I am now and where I've been for some time. 

I've been particularly influenced by Chris Pinto who gave the information that the Reformers believed there is still to be a role for national Israel, also that the Dispensationalist system of theology is part of the Roman Church's Counter-Reformation as formulated by their Jesuit attack dogs.  Also Arminianism.  They've certainly succeeded in their aim to get the onus off the Vatican as the seat of the Antichrist which was the Reformed position and in fact the position of true Christians back 1500 years or so, also succeeded in undermining formerly solid Protestant theology.  The Futurism of the Dispensationalist camp is a major coup as now everybody is looking for some personality to be the Antichrist who has nothing to do with the Roman Church, though it was the papacy itself, pope after pope after pope, who were recognized as THE Antichrist until all these new theories took over.  Interestingly, Preterism also has the same effect of taking the heat off Rome and is also a new invention by Jesuits.  If they don't get you one way they'll get you the other and the Church falls for it.

Lord willing, and if He tarries, and I live long enough, I want to pursue all these connections, learn more, and be part of the Counter-CounterReformation.

Are the Harbingers merely meaningless Coincidences?

Near the beginning of his book critiquing The Harbinger, David James has a short section on Coincidences, intending to suggest that even the most uncanny coincidences aren't to be taken seriously, of course implying that's also true of the harbingers of judgment, that they are merely the same sort of meaningless coincidences.

He gives two main examples of extremely uncanny coincidences.  The first was the uncanny correspondences between the Presidencies of Lincoln and Kennedy exactly a hundred years apart, including the names of their Vice Presidents, secretaries and details about their assassinations. 

The other was a novel written fourteen years before the Titanic disaster, which describes an almost identical sinking of an almost identical ship and it was called The Wreck of the Titan. 

There is no doubt that those are two examples of extremely uncanny coincidences that are clearly without any useful import.  All you can do is say "Wow, that's amazing" but also "What's the point?"

But the problem in comparing this kind of coincidence with the harbingers, which so uncannily correspond with a verse in the Old Testament, is that these are not meaningless useless coincidences but highly charged with meaning that carries the weight of the Bible and God's warnings of judgment on a nation and even without them the Bible verse clearly describes America after 9/11.  We're clearly being given a warning and the harbingers set it in stone as it were.

The Gazit Stone According to David James

I've already answered this subject in general, the bricks and stones, the sycamore and the conifer.  The objection that for the harbingers in America to BE harbingers they must be more similar than they are to the originals in Isaiah doesn't hold water.  You can't expect as much similarity as is being demanded between cultures and times and climates as far apart as ancient Israel and modern New York City. 

There must be very clear similarities, of course, so that the connection between the contemporary circumstances and the passage of scripture is inescapable, but it is equivalence as defined by the different circumstances that makes for the necessary similarity, and as I argue in a recent post, the harbingers that occurred in America are really perfect in that respect as they are the best 21st Century American equivalent in each case of the event in ancient Israel. 

But James objects to the hewn stone or Gazit Stone on another ground as well. 

He starts with the usual ridiculous requirement that the new skyscraper must be BUILT WITH hewn stones, that the single twenty-ton quarried cornerstone

has the feeling of yet another stretch in the author's attempt to demonstrate a parallel that simply doesn't exist.  In Isaiah's prophecy, it is clear that in place of clay bricks being the primary buiding material, hewn stone would be used.  However, the new Freedom Tower was never to be build with stone any more than the original structures were built with bricks [p. 95].

This is New York City 2001, Mr. James, you aren't going to build skyscrapers with clay bricks or hewn stones.  Does the lack of a correspondence between their methods and ours mean God can't talk to us at all through Isaiah 9:10?  Funny, the attitude expressed in that verse so perfectly describes America's after 9/11 it seems a shame to tell us that we can't heed its so specific description and warning of judgment because skyscrapers aren't built with bricks and stones.

And then too, it is already amazing that the WTC rubble was described as looking like a pile of bricks and that a quarried stone was brought in to be the start of the rebuilding, actually part of the new structure.  Both those facts tie 9/11 to Isaiah 9:10 quite well really, and the wonderful cultural equivalcnce between the trees and the even more wonderful fact of the speeches quoting that verse really seal the deal.

But he even goes on to suggest that the fact that the cornerstone didn't get used after all somehow makes it even less of a harbinger.  Kind of totally misses the point, I'd say, as the mere fact that it was intended for the purpose and dedicated for the purpose -- with a speech said over it and all -- makes it even more of a harbinger than if it had been used, because it shows that God wanted it to be in the picture here, wanted us to notice it, record it. 

And Isaiah 9:10 is not about actually rebulding, it's about the INTENTION to rebuild, that's the attitude of defiance itself right there.  Even if nothing is built at all this defiant intention to do so is the whole point, it's what the harbingers point us back to.  That's the function of the harbingers, to show us our own defiance just as it is described in that verse, and show it to us in an unforgettable way.  

That verse would describe America's attitude even if there were nothing that could have been called a pile of bricks or a hewn stone nor any trees involved at all in the destruction of the WTC, but the fact that there were, and such literal equivalences too, really ought to show God's hand in making this connection to even the most skeptical.  The parallel is there without all the signs and harbingers, but with them it ought to be a really LOUD wake-up call even to the hard-of-hearing.

However, I'll agree with James that Cahn's explanation that the removal of the cornerstone was part of the judgment isn't a very effective answer.  I've given my own which I think is better:  the mere bringing in of the stone is the necessary equivalence with Isaiah 9:10, as it expresses the intention to rebuild as described in the verse, and it's something only God could have done.

Then James goes on to object to Cahn's way of dramatizing the hewn stone as The Gazit Stone with capitals, which he says would lead the average reader to

assume that a "Gazit Stone" was a specially named ceremonial stone that was laid when Israel embarked on a building project [p. 96].

I agree that this way of describing it assigns a special quality to it but I don't see that it does so for Israel, although it does for America, where since it is one gigantic quarried stone it seems to deserve the special designation.  This is just Cahn's love of dramatization taking over here, and I don't see it as a problem myself. 

James says, 

...[A]ncient Israel did not lay a 'Gazit Stone.'  They built or rebuilt with gazit -- it was simply the building material.

True, but nothing he quoted from The Harbinger suggests that Israel used this specially designated stone, only America, and in America where it was a single gigantic symbolic stone it seems appropriate enough to me to give it that special ceremonial title. 

It is simply not a harbinger

says James.

Why, because Cahn gave it a noble title befitting its noble role?  It's a quarried stone.  The parallel with the quarried stones of Isaiah 9:10 sure occurs to some of us, if not David James, and that's what makes it a harbinger.  For some of us at least.  If you spend all your time making the visible invisible and the material nonexistent I guess you'll have to do without the signs from God.

How the deck is stacked against The Harbinger --updated

Just a little sketch off the top of my head of impressions I'm getting from my first read-through of David James' book, The Harbinger, Fact or Fiction?\

[Later: I've carefully read the first half of the book and taken many notes; the last half I've barely skimmed through, so I have to apologize for giving a wrong impression about having read the book through. To respond to this book would take a book in itself. Since I am fascinated with all this, not to mention indignant against what I see as unfair treatment of Jonathan Cahn, I may end up with the equivalent of a book.

So far, through the first half of the book, I find only a few things to make any kind of concession on:

If James is right about the Assyrians, Cahn is seriously in the wrong in connecting them with today's terrorists as he does. James makes a compelling case, that today's Assyrians are Christians, not Muslims. But Jonathan Cahn may be able to answer him from his own research, I don't know. I can't answer it myself so I have to leave it as an error in the book.

Also, I agree with James that it would have been better if Cahn had left out the reference to the Septuagint's rendering of Isaiah 9:10. Apparently he was wowed by the mention of a "tower" there, which adds a neat little confirmation to his theme, although none of today's translations from the Hebrew scriptures mentions a tower. And yes, the whole translation is different. Of course Cahn would not have referred to the whole verse if only because the harbingers all reflect today's translations. This seems to be a case where Cahn let himself be carried away by his love of drama and finding connections.

A third point is not quite as black and white. This is Cahn's attempt to explain the removal of the gigantic quarried stone that had been brought in to be the cornerstone of the planned Freedom Tower: Cahn explains it as the frustration of America's plan in parallel with the frustration of Israel's plan to rebuild, being a second expression of God's judgment, the first being the initial destruction and the intent to rebuild with hewn stone. To my mind this all depends on whether or not this frustration of plans can be demonstrated in Israel's case from the scripture. If it can then I'd probably accept the parallel in America. But my own way of thinking about the removal of the stone is that such a stone simply isn't needed in the modern context of steel skyscraper construction, BUT that the very fact that a hewn stone was brought in AT ALL demonstrates God's hand in showing the parallel between America's attitude of defiance and Israel's as described in Isaiah 9:10.

These things are not failures of biblical hermeneutics or any kind of doctrinal failure at all, they are merely errors of historical research or excessive zeal in making connections, which seems to be Cahn's particular gift, a gift that can get out of hand.

I do believe that the rest of James' objections as he lays them out in the first half of his book can be answered.]

The rest of this post is a brief overview of the MAIN problem with ALL the critics' attacks on the Harbinger: Their strict and exclusivistic adherence to a rigid version of Dispensational Theology:

=============================================
Discernment ministries usually work to identify serious failures of Christian doctrine, such as a denial of the Deity of Christ, which is the essential problem with denial of the Trinity; or advocacy of extrabiblical revelation (anything that is taken as authoritative outside the Bible, such as the traditions of Catholicism or the Book of Mormon), prophecies that contradict scripture, imputation of works of the flesh or the devil to the Holy Spirit and vice versa.

So it's rather strange to see these ministries going after Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger with such zeal, considering that they can't identify any such violations of the orthodox faith without indulging in tortuous reasoning (which I know I'll have to demonstrate when I can get to it).

What these particular discerners find against the book is predominantly a failure to adhere to their own strict version of dispensationalist theology.

Some of the ways the critics treat Cahn remind me of a kafkaesque nightmare in which nothing makes sense, you are found guilty of violating bizarre laws you never heard of before, and anything you say on your own behalf is used against you.

Cahn denies that he considers himself a prophet. But other people refer to him as a prophet and he doesn't correct them. He considers the message of the Harbinger to be prophetic, therefore what does that make him but a prophet? MY ANSWER: I think he's denying that he's a prophet in the biblical sense, since he claims no spiritual impartation from God, but doesn't object to a more casual use of the term since after all he is the one who discovered the harbingers which establish the prophetic message.

Cahn denies any sort of belief in replacement theology, by which national Israel is replaced, in this case by America. But the book gives the definite impression that America has replaced Israel. MY ANSWER: It would only give such an impression to a zealous dispensationalist who will not allow that the Old Testament could EVER apply to ANYTHING other than Israel.

Cahn denies that he finds America in Isaiah 9:10. But the book gives the definite impression that there is such a connection between America and Isaiah 9:10. MY ANSWER: All Cahn is denying is that somehow America is implicit in the verse, not that there is a connection between the verse and America. The connection does not exist in the verse itself but occurred in America, where the same spirit of Isaiah 9:10 has been expressed in many different ways, including by those uncanny harbingers.

Cahn denies that he believes that America is in covenant with God the same way Israel was, but the book gives the definite impression that such a covenant does exist. MY ANSWER: Seeing that America has been in a special relationship with God because of our godly Puritan and Pilgrim forefathers, a relationship that was even regarded as a covenant by some of them, is NOT the same thing as claiming identity with Israel, whose covenant was initiated BY God.

Cahn should have written a different book, and a major way it should have been different is that it should have dealt with end times themes, the rapture, the restoration of Israel, the return of Christ, the final judgment. These are all dispensationalist preoccupations at the present time, which apparently absolutely preclude a book that's only about America. MY ANSWER: Cahn's book is about AMERICA.

The book James thinks Cahn SHOULD have written is a book that a deep-dyed dispensationalist would have written. In fact James suggests an interesting plot for a novel that he himself should write.

It's just not the book Cahn wrote or wanted to write. The book Cahn wrote is about America, it is not about the end times, it is not about Israel etc. etc. etc.

The dispensationalist presupposition won't let him write such a book, it must be a different book, it must be about Israel and the Antichrist and the coming new world order, it simply cannot be about America because that doesn't fit with dispensationalist expectations.

The Harbinger again. Or why I am defending it.

Been listening to Brannon Howse's latest radio shows on The Harbinger, in which he's interviewing David James, whose book critical of The Harbinger has just come out (I'm waiting for it to arrive), and T. A. McMahon who published James' critique. It's all more of the same, but the book should be the definitive treatment of the critics' views so I'm looking forward to it in an odd sort of way.

On the morning of 9/11 I had a dream about being in the back seat of a small plane and demanding to be let out because I had a forboding about ... something. The pilot was a little girl and some time before 9/11 there had been a big story in the news about a father who let his eight-year-old daughter fly his plane alone. Sadly she crashed the plane and died. At the very least in my dream I assume she would have represented the threat of a crash. There was a man in the front passenger/co-pilot seat, however, who supposedly could have saved us, but I still wanted out. He shook his head disapprovingly at me. I was on the ground watching them fly away when I woke up to the news that the first WTC building had been hit. I was watching the TV when the other was hit.

I'm not going to say that was a prophetic dream but it's sure suggestive of something in that direction.

It has nothing to do with the dream as far as I know, but I recognized that 9/11 was God's judgment when it happened. I don't know how others could fail to recognize it. Or I've more or less figured out how, but it's still astonishing to me. Getting others to take it seriously was just about impossible. I'd talk about it on political internet forums and even conservative blogs and get denounced for it. By people who consider themselves Christians as much as by anyone else. Some Christians still aren't sure that was God's judgment or that America is under God's judgment at all. David James for one according to some things he's said.

I remember a "humorous" picture being sent around the conservative circuits of a supposed plan for a rebuilt World Trade Center, with five buildings side by side, the buildings on the ends the shortest the two next to them a bit taller and the one in the middle quite tall. All intended to show defiance to our enemies but I knew it really meant "giving the finger" to God, not just our enemies. Which is exactly the same attitude that the harbingers of Isaiah 9:10 are all about. Did anybody want to hear that? Few then for sure, I wonder how many now.

What happened to the America whose leaders would on occasions of crisis or threat call for a national time of fasting and prayer for God's forgiveness and protection? Long gone. We couldn't muster a National Christian Anything any more. If Christians these days are going to act on behalf of the nation it's going to be in spite of the nation's leadership -- though no doubt with an exception here and there in the lower ranks. We certainly don't need all the ecumenical stuff that includes the false religions, the Mormons, the Muslims, the Catholics. (Yes, the Catholics.) The crew that Glenn Beck is trying to pull together on behalf of his Mormon view of America. Much the same motley crew that Bush assembled in the National Cathedral to pray for the nation after 9/11. That set off my alarm bells for sure. That's like ASKING for further judgment against us.

At the time my impression was that a huge majority of American preachers were refusing to accept that 9/11 was God's judgment. Remember how the very few who did know it was judgment got hooted down? Like Robertson and Falwell. Wilkerson preached on it too, though as far as I recall I don't think he got attacked for it. None of these guys are among my own Christian favorites, and I have some specific theological problems with a couple of them too, but they knew what ALL the preachers in the nation should have known and didn't.

When I first learned about the Harbinger at the beginning of this year, it occurred to me that this could be God's way of making Christians notice that 9/11 was His judgment after all. It seems to be making quite a bit of headway in that direction, but it's also stirred up quite a hornet's nest among some ministries against it, not for its message of judgment though it has the effect of derailing that message anyway. For no good reason either, as I've been arguing here. Of course they think their reasons are damning and I'm not going to say they're not sincere, I'm sure they are quite convinced they are right.

Again the message of judgment comes from an outpost of the Church that wouldn't be among my favorites, but God didn't ask me. If David Wilkerson were still alive he'd no doubt recognize the truth of The Harbinger. Jerry Falwell might too. Pat Robertson has recognized it. There are some conservative evangelicals who are recognizing it as well.

God often doesn't do things the way we think He should.

God's will be done.

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!

Sneaky Mormon pretense to be Christian

Because of the clip I've linked a few times now of Jimmy DeYoung and David James accusing The Harbinger of promoting the Mormon heresy of another book called The Covenant, I listened to a Glenn Beck interview of The Covenant's author, Tim Ballard, to see what I could find out about that book. Not much really.

What struck me most is how the two of them try to sound so much like mainstream evangelical Christians. No wonder there are so many Christians out there who are confused or think Mormons ARE Christians. It's sickening to listen to them when you know what Mormons actually believe and teach: about the nature of God for instance --merely a man who "became" God and now lives on another planet begetting "spirit children" who come to populate Earth, and that all Mormons are supposed to become gods just as he did. Then their idea of Jesus Christ is that he was the human son of the human God and his brother is Lucifer. The atonement of Christ in their system wasn't His death on the Cross but when he sweat blood in Gethsemane. That's why they don't acknowledge the cross as Christians do. No cross on their temple, that's a statue of the "angel Moroni" up there, who supposedly spoke to Joseph Smith and gave him the Mormon religion. They also believe that the American Indians are descendants of Jews who came to America centuries ago.

Beyond that I'm afraid I couldn't make much out of the discussion about the supposed American covenant the book is about, other than that they seemed to treat it as something individuals such as George Washington would depend on in some sort of literal way that doesn't fit with anything Jonathan Cahn wrote.

They are claiming to be Christian, though Mormons are not Christian, and they are claiming that the American Founders such as George Washington were Christian, along the same lines David Barton has been promoting for decades, which Chris Pinto has shown is false. They referred to Washington's calling for fasting and prayer for instance, which is the kind of thing that David Barton would use to convince us that he was a Christian, although at least one contemporary of his called him a Deist, and now a book has come out about the Founders that proposes classifying some of them as "theistic rationalists." They believed in a God of providence, so they prayed to him, but they generally completely denied the gospel of Jesus Christ as God Himself who died on the cross to pay for our sins.

Jonathan Cahn certainly doesn't share any of that heresy. I hope he'll answer the accusation that he agreed with Tim Ballard about the views in his book.

Harbinger critic David James totally misses the point of the defiance of God in Isaiah 9:10

Did finally start reading David James' review of The Harbinger which is pretty much an expanded version of his comments in the interview of Jonathan Cahn I reported on in the last post. I don't know how far I will get into this, but I thought I'd at least highlight his comments about Daschle and Edwards' quoting of Isaiah 9:10 again. Sorry to keep repeating myself but this seems to need to be soundly trounced. If he so completely missed that point certainly he's missed others, and maybe I'll eventually get to some of the others as well.

Israel knew that the Assyrian attacks were a judgment they had brought upon themselves. When they declared that they would rebuild, they were shaking their fists in defiance of both their enemies and their God.

I don't know, were they? israel was often in defiance of God's will with their idols and violations of the Law, but sometimes they simply rationalized it all away, not thinking much of it. Matthew Henry says they were "willingly ignorant" of God's threat of judgment, and David Guzik says they trivialized the threat, treated it as something they could overcome. Both suggest they were conscious of the threat but also denying it. But I don't think it's crucial to know for sure.

This is not what happened in the wake of 9/11. Yet, 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).22This is very misleading because although standing in defiance of America’s enemies, they were demonstrably not standing in defiance of God.

This is at least incredibly naive. Simply quoting Isaiah 9:10 in a positive way is "demonstrably standing in defiance of God." Whether America was more or less intentionally and consciously defiant of God than Israel was is not that easy to determine, but Isaiah 9:10 is a statement of defiance, period. And defiant we were. All Daschle and Edwards really did was echo the nation's feelings that we were hearing every day, and Isaiah 9:10 spoke for those feelings only too well.

The defiance was very clear at the time to some of us, not many but some. The choruses of "God bless America" were to my ear clear statements of this defiance, though this was unrecognized by most, and David James in this review has exactly that same attitude himself, not recognizing the defiance but in fact insisting it wasn't defiance. America seemed to think she was acting as a godly nation by calling for God to bless us. Terrible misunderstanding. Since so many were calling on God and thought they were standing only in defiance of our enemies, to their mind as to James' mind this means they were not in defiance of God.

This is a major way we fail to recognize God's hand in events, by seeing only the human hand in them -- or the hand of Nature as it may be. But our enemies cannot act independently of God, even Satan can't act independently of God, Nature also can't act independently of God, but Christians have been so badly taught Biblical theology that this basic fact of God's sovereignty escapes the majority.

For months and years after 9/11 patriotic macho-toned cries of defiance against our enemies were raised. When I would try to point out that 9/11 was God's judgment of the nation I was hooted down and sometimes accused of siding with our enemies. Or they'd accuse me of lack of sympathy with the victims. The main objection always was that God "wouldn't do such a thing." "Our God is a good God." Always the focus is on the human side, God is ignored. I answered with references to God's judgments against ancient Israel and other peoples of that time. I quoted Amos 3:6:

If there is calamity in a city, will not God have done it?

David James no doubt also failed to see God's hand of judgment at the time, and now his blindness keeps him from getting the most basic message of The Harbinger.

The explanation of the ninth harbinger seems even more misleading. In the book, Cahn gives the impression that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle concluded a speech on 9/12/2001 by quotingIsaiah 9:10.23 But, that was not the end of the speech. In the documentary by World Net Daily, Cahn specifically states that Daschle closes the speech with, “That is what we will do and we will rebuild, and we will recover.”24 However, this is not how the speech ended. There were two more sentences not shown in the documentary:

The people of America will stand together because the people of America have always stood together, and those of us who are privileged to serve this great nation will stand with you. God bless the people of America.25

By invoking God and thinking he was comforting Americans by using the Bible (albeit wrongly), his intent was clearly not defiance against God—it was exactly the opposite. To fail to include or mention his last two sentences is very misleading.

It's very odd, it seems to me, that James thinks the inclusion of the last sentences changes anything about the message. It was already clear from the quote itself that Daschle's intent was to give a message of hope and reassurance, and ending with a compliment to the people for standing together is really just another statement of defiance against God in spite of his intentions and and in spite of James' take on it.

The emphasis on the virtues of the people, what the people can do, or in Biblical terminology, what "the arm of flesh" can do, is always a way of describing human reliance on self rather than on God. That's what the whole message of Isaiah 9:10 is about. WE will rebuild with stronger materials, WE will replant with stronger trees, WE will do this in our own strength... WE will stand together. WE are a great nation and a great people, they can't keep US down. In other words, James seems not to get what could even be described as THE most basic message in the Bible -- human reliance on human strength instead of reliance on God, and that IS the message of defiance of God. We don't need God, we can do it ourselves.

And this is all of a piece with complete blindness to the fact that God is working in ALL events ALL the time, to bless or to curse, and that we CAN'T ignore Him except at our peril. This is how we miss the most obvious act of God's judgment on the nation.

This spiritual obtuseness of His people could be a way to explain why God decided to bring these literal material tokens of His judgment into our midst, these signs or harbingers. The idea here is that if we are spiritually blinded maybe we will notice such a gracious and merciful accommodation to our weakness. Kind of how the Lord so graciously condescended to show Thomas His wounds after Thomas had refused to believe the witnesses who had told of His having risen from the dead. Sometimes the Lord will accommodate our weaknesses like this. And obviously many have understood the message in the signs or harbingers, but there are still some whose eyes aren't opened.

On September 11, 2004, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards was speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast. Cahn attempts to frame his speech as another unwitting act of defiance against God. However, an honest reading of the speech26 shows that defiance of God was the furthest thing from his mind.

Uh, that's what makes the defiance "unwitting" Mr. James.

However, he explains that both Daschle and Edwards were defying God without realizing it. In spite of their intentions, Cahn postulates that God was inspiring them to unknowingly pronounce judgment upon America.27

He isn't "postulating" this, he's pointing it out as something as plain as day to anyone who knows the God of the Bible. That Mr. James doesn't see it only underscores how far today's Christians are from a real understanding of the character and attributes of God.

We KNOW that Isaiah 9:10 is a statement of defiance of God. That's what the leaders of Israel were saying, this is acknowledged in all the commentaries as the tenor of that verse, and it can only be the same for anyone who quotes it today as well. It IS a statement of defiance. And again, although one might want to claim that the "heart" of the speaker is not with that attitude of defiance, in fact simply to embrace it is to have that attitude because it IS defiance. The only alternative is recognition of God's hand in 9/11 as judgment on the nation, calling for repentance. That's what NONdefiance would be, and that was the substance of pastor David Wilkerson's preaching of this very same message. He pointed out that this defiant attitude is America's attitude, and the remedy for it is repentance. THAT is the Christian take on Isaiah 9:10.

ISAIAH 9:10 IS A STATEMENT OF DEFIANCE OF GOD. It just IS. We WILL rebuild is a statement of defiance of God. It's not a matter of interpretation, there is no subtlety to it. It ignores God's hand in the attack, has no inkling of the nation's being under God's judgment, no thought about why God would have done such a thing or what we need to do to respond properly to it. It's just a bald statement of intention to come back better and stronger than ever.

Since Daschle and Edwards quoted it straight, as a simple statement of the intention of America to rebuild, they pronounced the attitude of defiance on behalf of the nation in their official capacity as representatives of the people. Unwittingly.

But how does he know that God is inspiring America’s leaders to prophecy? Unfortunately, he presents his speculation as fact. This is undoubtedly not part of the fictional storyline.

This degree of spiritual blindness is really sad. There is no "speculation" going on here at all. If America's leaders pronounce a message of defiance of God in the exercise of their elected office, while thinking that they are saying something reassuring and inspiring instead, then this is God's own doing. It's open and shut. With all the other signs or harbingers of God's doing already having been accumulated and recognized, these speeches of what is KNOWN to be a message of defiance are just further aspects of the same message GOD HIMSELF IS BRINGING TO US.

The author attempts to defend his theory by referencing Caiaphas, who unwittingly prophesied concerning the death of Christ (John 11:49-52) Cahn concludes that Daschle and Edwards intended to say one thing, but their words carried a far different meaning. However, that is not what happened with Caiaphas. His words were inspired to mean exactly what he intended. He just didn’t know how right he actually was. Once again, the author’s exposition of the biblical text does not stand up to scrutiny and the supposed parallel is simply not there.

But Caiaphas is an excellent comparison to make the point, not an exact parallel, no, but a case of a man's unwitting declaration of God's intention. His motives were NOT God's motives as he meant to murder the miscreant and take him out of the way -- he certainly didn't intend the WAY Jesus would "die for the people" saving them from their sins -- but his actual words described God's intention and stood as true prophecy. Daschle and Edwards' conscious motives were to bless the nation but God had them speak words of defiance that seal His intention of judging the nation.

Unless we repent.

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.