A Couple of Timely Shows from Jan Markell's Ministry

Here are a couple of recent radio shows from Jan Markell on the subjects that are her forte: current events, politics and spiritual breakdown in the Church.

On the program Entertaining Spirits Unaware Jan and guests discuss some attempts to domesticate the occult even in the Church or at least through a recent issue of Christianity Today.  Eric Barger, who writes on the occult, and Jill Martin Rische, daughter of the late Walter Martin, also a writer on the occult, are her guests.

I didn't know the occult was becoming a sort of fad in the Church. A real head-shaker. Some people really do sell their souls to Satan in exchange for worldly success. The version that is accepted in the Church, however, is more like a gullible blind acceptance of things like Harry Potter. 

And Christianity Today has been off the rails on a lot of subjects for a long time. I guess it makes sense this is where a deviation in direction would end up, in an inability to see the antichristian nature of ghosts and horror stories and magic etc.

The other show is about the government's invasion of privacy of citizens, and about the current situation concerning Iran: Deliver Us From Evil

Some Warnings Against the Bogus Bibles, Against the Bogus "health care plan," and Against the Bogus "Palestinian cause" plus Update on Jesuits

11/20 UPDATE:

Chris Pinto's radio show today is about Jesuit influence, particularly in Scotland. He quotes from J A Wylie's book on the history of Protestantism (It's listed at my Catholicism blog).   In passing he mentions a book about Vatican influence in Nazi Germany.  The book is available but so is this video Interview with John Cornwell about his book, Hitler's Pope.

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THE GREAT BIBLE HOAX:

After writing yesterday's post for the Bible Hoax blog I went back and listened again to Chris Pinto's radio show The Burning of the Bibles, which I'd linked in the previous post at that blog, because I remembered that it gives support to some of the claims I was making about Westcott and Hort's Bible revision of 1881.  It does, and it's an excellent outline of the whole Bible debacle that was hatched in the 19th century and has been creating chaos ever since, causing the English Bible to be brought into doubt.  Yes we're talking conspiracy.  The revision of 1881 was more of an attempt to destroy the King James Bible by people under the influence of the Vatican than it was any kind of legitimate revision.  This is what Chris Pinto has been repeatedly documenting for some time, and this particular radio show does a very nice job of outlining the whole story.

I started that blog based on the writings of John Burgon, a contemporary of Westcott and Hort's who saw their revision as an indefensible undermining of the Bible, which he called "poisoning the river of life," and wrote a series of critiques of the revision that became the monumental book The Revision Revised.   Although Burgon's name has been used by a King-James-Only organization, The Dean Burgon Society,  Burgon did not give King-James-Only arguments.  His effort was entirely to show the scholarly deficiencies of the 1881 revision, both in their substitution of corrupted Greek manuscripts for those underlying the King James, and in their mangling of the English translation itself by thousands of unnecessary changes, both against the instructions that had been given to the revising committee. 

What Chris Pinto does is show that there were very likely ulterior motives to their mutilation of the King James Bible, specifically in the use of the corrupted Greek manuscripts, and that these motives were most likely fostered under the influence of the Vatican.  The Vatican of course had, and still has, strong motives to bring down the Reformation, which had deposed it from its former power in Europe, of which the King James Bible was the crown jewel.

This particular radio show was inspired by an incident in which Catholic priests in America burned the King James Bible in the year 1834, as reported by the Protestant writer John Dowling, but Pinto doesn't get to that incident until late in the show because he gets sidetracked by the fact that the criticisms of the King James used by Catholic apologists as reported by Dowling are the same as those unwittingly given by supposedly Protestant Bible textual critics today.

The title of Dowling's book is The Burning of the Bibles:  Defense of the Protestant Version of the Scriptures Against the Attacks of Popish Apologists for the Champlain Bible Burners,  and Pinto says that the arguments Dowling describes as those of the Catholic apologists for the burning of the Bibles

...are arguments that are nearly identical to your textual critics in modern times, who don't realize that many of their arguments come from the Roman Catholic Church ...  even though these guys are professing Protestant evangelical, sometimes neo-Reformed...  the arguments they make about the Bible and its history...come from Roman Catholic apologists, and Jesuits and rationalists...who have made these arguments for hundreds of years.  And of course I believe that because Higher Criticism gained the upper hand in the 19th century, largely as a result of events surrounding the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus, and because of the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus, this is what led to the full-blown exploitation of unbelieving Higher Criticism in our colleges and universities...  and as a direct result of the Higher Critical arguments gaining the upper hand, what immediately happened after was the beginning of modern-day ecumenism...

This gets him into a discussion of how the revising committee of 1881 introduced the corrupted Greek manuscripts, but especially how their arguments came to dominate today's Bible scholarship. He says we have to understand that

...Westcott, Hort, Scrivener, all of these guys, were Anglo-Catholics... That's why they invited Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was the leader of the Oxford Movement, to come and sit on the committee with them.... Cardinal Newman, his entire purpose was to reclaim England for Rome.

The plot goes on thickening from there, through the work of Phillip Schaff who did the American version of the English revision, how Schaff kissed the feet of the Pope and how he was a keynote speaker at the ecumenical Parliament of World Religions of 1893 which included Buddhists and the satanic Theosophists Blavatsky and Annie Besant among the bogus "Christians" and so on and so forth. This is all within the first six minutes of the radio show, and it goes on from there until he finally gets back to Dowling's book in the middle of the second half of the show.   Listen and weep.  That's what happens to me when I hear this stuff.

What can I say.  I pray and hope that Chris Pinto's work might change the minds of some of those Protestant Christian spokesmen today who are committed to the modern Bible versions.  I pray for James White and Daniel Wallace and John MacArthur who are very influential Reformed Christian leaders who are unwittingly supporting these Vatican-inspired Bibles that are contributing to the destruction of Protestant Christendom.  Why?  Because they have put their trust in Bible scholars, some of whom were unbelievers, such as Bruce Metzger, and Jesuits.  If there is a lesson here from the Bible itself, it must be the many warnings to us to avoid the "wisdom of this world."  It's just another of the devil's strongholds we are to bring down through the spiritual weapons we have been given in the Word itself.

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So I wanted to point back to that radio show today, hoping hoping hoping my voice joined with Chris Pinto's and others who are saying the same things might help turn the tide against the Antichrist Vatican's plots -- if it might by God's providence reach some open ears.

But Protestant Christendom is so far gone these days, so completely under God's judgment, so mutilated and dying, I wonder how much hope is there that the Lord might have mercy on us at this late hour.

There are so many fronts on which we need that mercy these days, the Bible versions are just one of them. 

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THE PLANNED OBAMACARE TRAIN WRECK

I just heard a radio show Jan Markell hosted on Saturday, on two separate topics, Obamacare and Israel that constitute two such fronts, that was something like being punched twice in the stomach:  one, the second, was on The Planned Train Wreck of Obamacare, which suggests that this was never a legitimate health care plan, which many of us knew anyway, but a designed attack on American capitalism.

There's a whole lot that needs to be said about how capitalism is a specifically PROTESTANT system, that brought about the unprecedented prosperity of Protestant America, and how socialism is the economic system of the Vatican, whose work can be seen in the miserable poverty of Catholic nations.  This wasn't part of Jan Markell's show, but it's necessary background.  All this stuff was new to me over the last year, and I've hardly even touched on it in my blogs.  All I'm going to do here is say this much and hope others who are still in the dark about these things, as I was, will do the research.  I've listed many sources on such things at my Catholicism blog.  Check out the book Ecclesiastical Megalomania, which is available at The Trinity Foundation for some eye-opening revelations about Catholic economics.

THE EVANGELICAL POLITICAL ABANDONMENT OF ISRAEL

The second punch in the stomach from Jan Markell's weekend radio show was on the fact that the growth of Reformed theology in American churches has contributed to the political abandonment of Israel in evangelical circles, in favor of supporting the "Palestinian" cause against Israel.  This is apparently due to the Reformed theology that says the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan, which I've discussed here before as in my opinion a misunderstanding of what scripture teaches.  I believe the Church is the fulfillment of God's plan that He began with believing Israel, not a replacement but a fulfillment, a continuation.  It isn't the result of God's rejection of Israel but the completion of His plan through the coming of the promised Messiah, which goes back to Eden.  Apparently some Reformed or Covenant theology sees it as a substitution instead of a fulfillment.  In either case it is true that earthly Israel is no longer God's people as only BELIEVING Israel is God's people and that's the Church. 

HOWEVER, we're also talking about spiritual Israel versus earthly Israel (or "Jacob") as I've looked at it -- and I could be wrong about this way of looking at it but it makes sense of some things for me.   Looking at it this way, there is no "replacement" of Israel at all.  Earthly Israel today is the playing out of Old Testament teaching as misunderstood by unbelieving Jews, but it makes no sense to me to take the Reformed view that God has utterly abandoned them, let alone to treat them as some kind of specially evil earthly nation.  God hasn't abandoned a single earthly nation on this planet, why would He abandon the Jews who represent His firstborn chosen people?  If only for the honor of His name among the peoples God is not going to abandon even apostate earthly Israel. 

We know from scripture that a time will come when a huge number of Jews will recognize their true Messiah, and we also know that Jesus is going to return to the Mount of Olives.  God hasn't abandoned that piece of real estate or the Jewish people even in their apostate condition.  And how can it be denied that they are THERE, on that land that God originally gave Abraham?  That couldn't happen without God's willing it.  Yes, that land was a type of a heavenly Promised Land that Abraham himself looked to, as so much of the Old Testament gives us types that point to Christ and our redemption through Him, but in earthly terms it still represents that promise God gave to him. 

AND historically speaking God has clearly supported the nation of Israel miraculously against many of the attacks by her Arab neighbors since she became a nation in 1948.  There is no doubt in my mind that Israel, for all her unbelief, is still under God's protection and still figures in God's plan for the finale of Planet Earth.  AT THE SAME TIME there is also no doubt in my mind that earthly Israel is under God's judgment for their apostasy and rejection of their Messiah, which can certainly be seen in their being surrounded by implacable enemies.  Only God could juggle these two facts but that's what He's doing.

Theologically it makes no sense to treat Israel as if it doesn't exist or isn't in fact back on that particular piece of land given to them, but it's also political and historical blindness to take up the "Palestinian" cause against Israel.  Surely the Palestinians are a miserable people we need to pray for, but they are the pawns of their Israel-hating leaders who invented the whole idea of a "Palestinian people" in the first place to be a thorn in the side of Israel. 

There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.  The area known as Palestine was almost barren of population when the Jews began to settle it.  It had no official name, it had no government, it had no "people."  Mark Twain wrote a description of the land as a wilderness on his visit there in the late 19th century.  The accusation that the Jews stole the land from a "Palestinian people" is just bogus.  They bought whatever land was owned by the few who owned it, but the over five million people who today take the name of "Palestinians" are the descendants of citizens of all the surrounding Arab nations who originally came to the area to work for the Jews as their nation was being built up.  When the first Arab attack on Israel was planned, the Arabs living in Israel were warned to flee the country to protect themselves.  They became the "Palestinian" refugees whose refugee status was then blamed on Israel although it came about through the Arab warning of the imminent attack.

Over the decades attempts to bring peace to the region between Israel and the "Palestinians" have included many generous concessions by Israel to form a Palestinian State, that were nevertheless rejected by the "Palestinians," over and over and over, and yet the reason for this continues to go unrecognized by most of the world:  the refusal to accept any compromise whatever with the nation the Arabs want not to exist at all, and which their maps show as not existing at all.  There is NO peace plan that will ever work for this reason.   America has been right all these decades to support Israel, but the ridiculous "peace plans" we've tried to foist on the region show a basic blindness to the true political situation.

The "Palestinian" cause has been invented entirely as a ruse to give Israel a bad reputation in the eyes of the world and ultimately to eliminate the nation from the planet altogether as many Arab leaders have so often made clear is their desire.   There is a book which details this plot through historical facts and quotes that is available at Amazon,  Philistine: The Great Deception, by Ramon Bennett, which I got from the ministry of The Berean Call back before 9/11. 

Whatever your theology, the historical facts ought to tell you that supporting the "Palestinian cause" which is founded on devious Arab plots against Israel, is not the side to be on.

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We need a new Protestant Reformation.    

Brannon Howse's attack on another discernment ministry: Just how should we think of a state's legalization of gay marriage?

UPDATE June 11.  Really more of a P.S.

Forgot to note that one of Howse's jibes at Jan Markell was against her apparent expectation of a dramatic sort of judgment from God for Minnesota's legalizing of same-sex marriage, which he characterized as on the order of expecting a tornado although I don't recall her saying that.  His answer was that weather is cyclical, meaning of course unrelated to God's judgments.  Can he really mean such a statement, is he thinking?  Is there any such thing as something that escapes God's sovereignty? 

Whether tornados or any other weather phenomenon is a particular judgment for a particular offense is difficult if not impossible to know, but to deny that weather is one of God's instruments of judgment is a denial of God's sovereignty over all things.   Some Christians may claim to know more specific reasons for a particular weather pattern than it's possible to know, but the basic idea can't be wrong.  God's judgments come in many forms and that is surely one of them.  For just one scripture reference, consider the famine in Elijah's day, the withholding of rain for the idolatries of Israel.

This was one of the errors made by the critics of Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger too.  All the harbingers he identifies the critics dismiss as meaningless coincidences.  Is there really such a thing as a meaningless coincidence?  I find all kinds of small and apparently meaningless coincidences in my own life and others have had the same experience, odd patterns of names or birthdates among family and friends and that sort of thing.  They are truly meaningless as far as I can tell, but this is God's universe and He probably has a reason even for those little strangenesses.  But when it comes to the harbingers that so CLEARLY reflect the scripture verse Isaiah 9:10, how can they be dismissed as meaningless?  How can Christians even believe in meaningless coincidences in a universe ruled by God?

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When I got back from my enforced vacation due to computer problems I had some emails waiting for me related at least tangentially to Jonathan Cahn's book. 

Brannon Howse on his May 22 radio show specifically targeted some recent comments made by Jan Markell suggesting that Minnesota's legalizing of gay marriage invites God's judgment on that state.  Brannon seems to go out of his way to target Jan, and it must be at least partly due to her support of Jonathan Cahn's book The Harbinger, which he sums up in this radio broadcast as "promoting mysticism." 

I didn't want to listen to his show but found myself obliged to.  I didn't hear both parts, however, only the first part.

Apparently Jan said that many Christians are now worried about Minnesota's coming under judgment for the legalization of same sex marriage, and Brannon quotes her saying "Now with homosexual marriage as a reality many Christians, solid pro-family type people -- we don't know where to run to."  And Brannon felt some need to criticize her for that, something that is really a common feeling many Christians have these days as we see the nation around us, and indeed the whole world, coming under judgment.  "We don't know where to run to."  Brannon felt some need to say that this isn't what Christians are called to, we're to expect persecution and tribulation in this world and so on and so forth. 

Well, he's right about that of course, but is he right to pillory Jan Markell for merely expressing something that so many of us are feeling these days?  I might point out a couple things that contradict his view: one, that God did allow the Waldensians to escape persecution for long periods by hiding away in the valleys of the Alps, and two, there is a proverb that says the prudent man foresees calamity and hides himself.  God also promises to hide the faithful from His wrath.  Sure, maybe in this case, in these last days, it may simply be impossible to find any earthly place to hide, but that's another subject.  We may be approaching a time when all we have is God Himself as our hiding place and that has to be a good thing for our spiritual health and growth.  Yet as we see judgment coming great numbers of Christians these days quite naturally cast about for a place to be safe from it, and it seems to me a lack of charity and grace to take a person to task for such a feeling. 

The main point Brannon keeps hammering away at, again specifically targeting Jan Markell but also "the religious right" in general, is the specific focus on gay marriage itself.  He is at pains to argue that homosexuality is only one of many sins that God judges, and that America is under judgment for a whole slew of sins, also that homosexuality itself IS God's judgment.  And again, he's right about all that, but I'd say he's also wrong in spirit in his focus on Jan Markell.  For one thing I seriously doubt she isn't aware of all the other sins the nation is being judged for, and I know she is aware of the sins of the church in particular because many of her own radio broadcasts focus on those.  Brannon's needling refrain about "discernment ministries that don't discern" is again, a lack of charity and grace toward another Christian, utterly undeserved that I can see.   There isn't any Christian or discernment ministry that we can expect to be perfect, we are all going to have our own blind spots and make mistakes to one degree or another, and there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with each other on such points that I can see, in fact it's necessary.  But Brannon has gone over the line here.

Beyond charity, Brannon is just wrong in his judgments of this issue.  Seems to me the reason so many of us focus on the gay marriage issue is that it IS the last offense on that list in Romans 1 that Brannon makes so much of, it's kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.  For two reasons:  one because it is the end result of the list of sins mentioned in that scripture, showing we've reached a sort of state of perfection of sin as it were, and two, because in this particular case it is an OFFICIAL sin, a sin officially committed by the State of Minnesota itself.   In this it compares with the nation's legalization of abortion, for which we've been under judgment for years.  The fact that there are many practicing homosexuals in the state or the nation does not necessarily amount to the level of God's judgment on the state or nation, but when it is LEGALLY legitimized by the State itself THEN I think we are quite right to see that as an invitation to God's judgment in a more direct and immediate way than any accumulation of the sins of the people themselves at least up to a certain level.  I have to suppose this is what Jan is responding to.  It's not, as Brannon keeps putting, it, uh oh homosexuality is in itself some special sin that invites judgment, as if we're ignoring all the other sins of the nation or state, but uh oh now we've gone and OFFICIALLY waved this violation of God's law in God's face and He's not going to be able to overlook that for long. 

Oh yes, America is under God's judgment, has been for years, and the growth of support for homosexuality as per Romans 1 clearly demonstrates that we've reached the end of the trail of judgments from God, and oh yes, homosexuality is in itself God's judgment, as is the proliferation of sins of all kinds.  But because it IS the end of the trail of an accumulation of sins and judgments over years, and because it is now officially endorsed by the State of Minnesota, discerning Christians have very good reason to expect a more dramatic expression of God's judgment.  There is nothing wrong with such an expectation. 

Brannon's broadcast is a good compendium of the sins for which we can expect judgment, it has that virtue, but I have to say that it comes off as some sort of nitpicking vendetta against Jan Markell and that is reprehensible. 

He also slams her in passing for her support of Jonathan Cahn's book, The Harbinger, which is probably the main reason for attacking her as he does, but I'm planning another post on that subject so I'll leave that for now.

New radio show on The Harbinger by Jan Markell's ministry

Had the privilege of getting to hear Jan Markell's upcoming weekend broadcast in advance, to be aired next Saturday the 14th, and am happy to report the program does a great job of covering the issues concerning The Harbinger that have been giving some of us headaches for a while now.

Jonathan Cahn gets a generous chance to defend his point of view, other participants have solid support to offer, Eric Barger gives a statement on behalf of Olive Tree Ministries, and there is a long clip of Joseph Farah of World Net Daily describing how he got involved with The Harbinger and came to make his film about it, The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment.

These are the SANE people when it comes to The Harbinger. It did me good to hear it, felt kinks unwinding just listening to them. Yeah I've been collecting some Harbinger kinks as it were for a while now.

It's so hard to understand the frame of mind of those who have been attacking this book, their self-righteous denunciations that for the most part completely misrepresent it.

My own immediate take on the book was very much like Joseph Farah's as he reports it on this broadcast: even from just a few statements heard in an interview of Jonathan Cahn it is apparent that there is something amazing here that needs to be followed up. I followed up by listening to everything I could find by Cahn on the internet and started blogging on this amazing story as soon as possible; and Farah contacted him and made a film about the harbingers.

Others, however, seem to respond instead to superficial impressions based on preconceptions that have nothing to do with The Harbinger, that lead them to outrageously wrong conclusions.

Should also mention here that I've changed my mind about a former position I took against Cahn's choice to appear on Glenn Beck's show or other shows with a questionable point of view. This was discussed on the program. I'm convinced now that it would be wrong to restrict Christians from appearing among nonChristians in the effort to make their case.

It's a good show that gets into all the important questions involving The Harbinger.

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.

Yes, The Harbinger IS a "matter of critical discernment" Pt. 2

Preamble: It seems to me that the critics of The Harbinger are responding to peripheral or accidental issues and not to the message itself, that is, they are responding to their own preconceptions rather than the book. For instance, the idea persists that this is a "Thus saith the Lord" sort of prophecy from Jonathan Cahn himself, although Cahn has made no such claim.

This can only be because the book is about a prophetic message, and it's probably wrongly imputed to Cahn as its source because these days there are many false prophets in the Christian arena. We've got the charismatic type self-appointed prophets who have lately coalesced into something called the New Apostolic Reformation, out of earlier groups such as the Toronto Blessing and the Kansas City Prophets and "Joel's Army" and others. The same names I remember from those earlier groups are showing up in the NAR.

It's understandable that the discernment or watchman ministries are on alert against this kind of false teaching, but that doesn't excuse them from failure to recognize that Cahn's message is not a prophecy that he claims to have come through himself the way these other "prophets" do.

The critics are also imputing guilt by association, it seems to me. The book was published by Charisma House, which is connected with Charisma magazine, which is the organ of the charismatic movement, and that associates Cahn with the false prophets in their minds. Now, Cahn's Messianic Jewish frame of reference IS at least on the fringe of the charismatic movement, they DO have a prophetic bent among them, they do take visions seriously and so on. That no doubt would predispose Cahn to be alert to the harbingers he talks about, but nevertheless these are things he OBSERVED, they are not anything he invented or imputes to God's speaking through him or anything of the sort.

He also reported in a couple of interviews the experience of being approached by a man in an airport right after he'd prayed for God's leading as to how to publicize his book, and the man gave him the "prophetic word" that he was going to publish an important book and as they talked it came out that he had connections to a publisher that might be interested and put him in touch with Charisma House. Now, am I to impute that prophecy to the devil or what? I believe it came from God just as I believe the message Cahn gives us came from God. I do believe that God SOMETIMES interacts with His people this way even these days and I see no reason to doubt Cahn's report of this incident in the airport. The prophetic MOVEMENT is something else, their doctrine is far from biblical and there are many ways of recognizing them as NOT from God. We DO need discernment these days, to tell the difference between something like Cahn's experience and the false prophets. It takes a little work and the caution to avoid knee-jerk accusations based on nothing but preconception.

I'd also mention that Cahn's earliest publicity came through ministries that don't exactly inspire confidence, such as Sid Roth's It's Supernatural and Jim Bakker's program. I have to admit that those associations made me cringe too. The spooky type of hype alone from Roth's program makes me cringe. Bakker may have reformed and should be accepted as a brother in Christ but it's hard to forget his past and not regard an appearance on his show as somewhat suspect. Pat Robertson's 700 Club is also regarded as rather fringey by many. And Jan Markell mentions the public success of the Harbinger as in a class with that of Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth and the Left Behind series, which doesn't particularly speak well for the book to my mind -- unless popularity is all you want for it.

Most of these associations are somewhat fringey venues to today's discernment ministries and to a large segment of the Church.

But it's nevertheless a mistake to let that fact determine how you understand the message of Cahn's book. You still have the obligation to read carefully and think carefully about what Cahn is ACTUALLY saying.

I don't think McMahon did that, as Jimmy DeYoung didn't, as Gary Gilley didn't.

Anyway, back to the McMahon review:

The central contemporary event related to the harbingers is the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. As the fictional story unfolds, it is revealed that the harbingers of warning and judgment are directly related to a prophecy found in the Book of Isaiah. Here is where the major thesis of the book fails the Prophet Isaiah’s own challenge of Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.: the author, Jonathan Cahn, has spoken “not according to [God’s] word” but has misapplied the scriptures in an attempt to support his own ideas throughout The Harbinger.

How sad. Cahn has done no such thing.

Cahn gleans nearly all of his correlations connecting America with a prophecy made to Israel from one verse—Isaiah:9:10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.. To begin with, this verse applies only to the tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, who, along with the Southern Kingdom of Judah, comprise God’s covenant people. All the way through TH , the United States is presented implicitly as a nation in covenant with God. No, God has only one covenant nation—the nation of Israel. This is a critical error of the book. Although that may be overlooked by someone eager to recognize the U.S. in Isaiah’s prophecy, one must read the entire context, which begins with verse 8 and runs through verse 21 of chapter 9.

Again, Mc Mahon, like the other critics, has the cart before the horse. Cahn did not start out with any notions of his own about America's relation to God, the implication that there is some sort of special relationship with God comes from the harbingers themselves. If God brought about these signs, planted them on American soil, planted them in peculiarly significant locations in relation to the founding of America yet, THEN the conclusion comes naturally that God Himself is saying something about His relation to America, and Cahn himself kept being astonished at what he was discovering. The main harbingers occur on the very location of the church where George Washington prayed for the nation at his inauguration, which turns out to be on the same land on which the twin towers were built, the church having owned that land originally. Cahn didn't know this in advance, he discovered it as he was looking into the various signs that so uncannily echo Isaiah 9:10.

The signs or harbingers all clearly connect to the Isaiah 9:10 verse -- though McMahon disputes this connection, which I'll get to -- and it also needs to be said that Isaiah 9:10 is not a prophecy, it is merely a description of the attitude of the leaders of Israel after God had brought judgment against them in the form of a destructive invasion by Assyria. This is then FOLLOWED by a prophecy of further judgment from God. Here's the passage:

Isaiah 9:10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars. 11 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; 12 The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. 13 For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.

Mc Mahon, along with some other critics, disputes that the harbingers Cahn points to have anything to do with Isaiah 9:10, but at least from Cahn's point of view he kept DISCOVERING what seemed to him to be uncanny correspondences, and I agree, and I'll spell this out when I come to it.

Cahn flip-flops between God’s judgment and God’s warning, giving the latter more emphasis as he promotes the idea that if the U.S. will heed the warning and repent of its evil ways and turn back to God, restoration and blessing will follow. Although that principle is true for every individual who turns to Him, Cahn picked the wrong passage of Scripture as a hopeful warning for America. In fact, the entire context of Isaiah:9:8-21 [8] The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel.

First of all, Cahn did not PICK this passage of Scripture, he NOTICED it while seeking God for understanding of the 9/11 event; he NOTICED that it was pregnant with meaning related to September 11th. This is how the Holy Spirit operates in all God's people, to bring His word that bears on a particular circumstance to our attention.

Second, apparently a big part of McMahon's objection, as it was for Jimmy DeYoung, is in the fact that Isaiah was talking specifically to Israel, as if Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jewish pastor, could have overlooked that obvious fact. This adamant insistence that the passage can have no other reference EXCEPT to ancient Israel seems to blind those holding it to how God Himself used it in reference to 9/11.

Cahn wasn't the only one to see the connection between the verse and 9/11. Pastor David Wilkerson of New York's Times Square Church felt God gave him this same verse for his message on the Sunday after 9/11 -- which message is available at You Tube. Some of the "harbingers" that Cahn identifies are speeches that were given by American political leaders that quote this very verse in relation to 9/11. It's absurd and misleading to say that Cahn somehow CHOSE this verse from which to hang a tale of his own invention.

McMahon apparently thinks that his point will become clearer if he quotes the entire passage from Isaiah:

[9] And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, [10] The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. [11] Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; [12] The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. [13] For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. [14] Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. [15] The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. [16] For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. [17] Therefore the LORD shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows: for every one is an hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. [18] For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. [19] Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. [20] And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm: [21] Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

is a prophecy of judgment of the most devastating kind. God declares that He will send Israel’s enemies to “devour” them (v. 12), destroying her corrupt leaders and lying prophets (vv. 15-16), and “for all this,” His anger would not subside, and in His wrath He would not show them mercy. The carnage would result in civil wars among the tribes of Israel—brother against brother—with utter destruction, starvation, cannibalism (vv. 19-20), and finally captivity by her enemy. Even so, “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out [against Israel] still” (v. 21).

No “warning” is even hinted at in these verses.

NO WARNING? This is Isaiah telling Israel that because of their attitude of defiance toward God's first bringing of the Assyrians against them, His anger is not turned away and more judgment is coming. That's not a warning? Surely we can say from other passages of scripture that IF the Israelites repented of the evil doings described then God would relent of His intention to destroy them, a destruction which is prophesied in great detail here. This all later DID happen to Israel BECAUSE they ignored the warning, terrible consequences as he points out.

But even if it isn't a warning to Israel, but a simple prophecy that all these judgments WILL come upon her, if the same attitude of defiance that Israel had is also demonstrably true of America in response to 9/11, WHICH IT IS, are we to say that America is not being warned EITHER and that all we have to look forward to is the same kind of destruction? Is that what McMahon is saying? He could be right, if so, since there doesn't seem to be much of a move in the direction of repentance in the country even now, but that doesn't change the fact that there are uncanny correspondences between Isaiah 9:10 and America's response to 9/11, and at the very least those who do see the correspondences can take warning from them:

Isa 26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

The context of THAT verse is God's judgment of the entire world, which can't be far off now and of which His judgment on America is no doubt to be a small part.

To be continued in next post.

The Harbinger under attack again

I received a note from a friend yesterday saying that a certain ministry is going to be coming out with their response to Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger in their June Newsletter. The friend had written to them to ask their opinion of the book and got this information. They also told her that they have some misgivings about how Jonathan Cahn "handled" Isaiah 9:10. That way of putting it reminded me of another review of the book that I blasted in a blog post as extremely unfair to Cahn, and made me suspect that this ministry is going to say something just as unfair.

Today I got my Understanding the Times newsletter from Jan Markell in which it sounds like she knows of this same ministry's intention to review Cahn's book and apparently in a very critical light:

Why Is This Message Controversial?
By Jan Markell
Note from Jan: In a few days a prominent "discernment ministry" is going to release their review of Jonathan Cahn's, "The Harbinger" and companion film, "Isaiah 9:10 Judgment." I have been proud to work with this ministry over the years. But if "discernment" is now tearing down a person's character and throwing a message of repentance into, "The Shack" category, then I guess I'll have to re-think whether I remain such a ministry. I guess it's true: Christians not only shoot their own, they also watch them die a death of agony. In today's world of deception, we do need ministries who tell the truth, but not in the tone of the review that will come out shortly.

This implies that what this other ministry is going to say IS the truth, just that the tone is wrong. Since she isn't naming them I won't either but it will be out soon enough, but my own suspicion is that anything that questions how Jonathan Cahn handled Isaiah 9:10 is not going to be the truth. He didn't read that passage in any unusual way, he read it according to all the main commentaries on it, which he himself quotes in all his talks and the book as well. There is NO problem with Isaiah 9:10.

There IS a problem with some people who don't read carefully and don't think. You can fault the Harbinger for a few things if you have a mind to, such as the choice to put it in fictional form, or the hyped-up advertising that has accompanied it, but if you really READ it and THINK ABOUT it the only honest conclusion you can come to is that Cahn simply RECOGNIZED SOMETHING GOD DID AND REPORTED ON IT. GOD HIMSELF used Isaiah 9:10 for HIS message to America, and Cahn was His willing servant to bring His message to our attention.

Jewish Christians, Pt. 3, Suspicion and Disunity in the Church: Look to the Machinations of Rome

HMore to say on the interview with Shelly and Scott Volk on Understanding the Times radio from last weekend:

After the clip was played of the traditionalist Catholic denouncing the Jews, first Shelly Volk offers the usual wrong defensive attempt to take the burden of guilt off the Jews for the death of Christ in terms of how we all killed Christ and how He chose to die and wasn't really killed anyway, and then Scott Volk quotes early church father Chrysostom who also waxed vehement against the Jews, and says he got it from a book titled The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism by Malcolm Hay.

Having been alerted to the possibility of Jesuit deception by Chris Pinto I went looking on the internet for some clue to the frame of reference of this book and its author. I couldn't find much at first but finally I found a reviewer of the book at Amazon saying the author is Catholic and I found out it was written in 1913. As Chris Pinto has pointed out, the earlier the book the more trustworthy a history it's likely to be, especially before the 20th century and especially books purporting to expose "Christian" errors, or the devious ways of the Jesuits and Rome in general.

Scott Volk's reaction alone is enough anyway to raise a suspicion in my mind about the author's agenda in writing such a book. If it is a Jesuitical production purporting to reveal the roots of "Christian" Anti-Semitism it's most likely going to be geared to SEEM to put some of the blame on the Catholic Church by admitting at least the well-known facts about the Inquisition --and in any book written around WWII, their complicity in the Holocaust -- while nevertheless managing to shift the burden of blame to OTHER Christians or at least keep the terms vague enough that the reader isn't going to be able to make a clear distinction. Well, you know, the Protestants were just as bad really.

So Scott Volk reads this book, reads the quote from Chrysostom, and concludes that "this is the nature of what is going on in the 21st century church." Not "the ROMAN Church" where it IS true, but "the church," the true Church where it really isn't true -- not to anywhere near the extent he thinks anyway, and certainly not if the proof of anti-Semitism is the misleading "replacement theology."

But I would expect a Jesuit-inspired book to try to get him to blame the nonCatholic churches or anybody nonCatholic. I'm afraid I can only guess in relation to this book, but there's obviously something askew when "the church" or "Christianity" gets blamed for what the Roman monstrosity did to the Jews -- and for that matter did to far more of the true Christians than to the Jews. Scott Volk seems to have picked up that attitude of blame from this book, or at least allowed the book to confirm what he was already feeling.

But of course perhaps not all of the disunity in the church between Jew and Gentile these days is fomented by Rome. The annoyance I felt in listening to the Volks on the Understanding the Times broadcast I explained in the previous post as

1) about their accusation that "the church" doesn't seriously enough recognize the Hebrew foundations of the New Testament

• which as I show in that post is far from describing my own observations of the PROTESTANT church (not Rome), as I was treated to a great deal of good teaching on the prophetic meaning of the Hebrew scriptures in the tabernacle and the rituals and the feasts and so on, and on the role of Israel in the last days;
• and I go on to show as well that Jesus was most probably NOT called "Yeshua" in His day because Hebrew was most probably NOT the common language of the Jews at that time, but koine Greek.

2) about an apparent false equation they make between "Christian" or "church" and "Gentile" which misreads history, especially Acts 11:26; if they are accepting Roman Catholicism as Christian, of course, then there is a lot that needs sorting out here, Romanism being the great pagan counterfeit of Christianity.

3) and about their objection to "replacement theology" which to my mind misrepresents the position of the TRUE churches that hold the view that the Church is the inheritor of the Abrahamic promise. That's the BIBLICAL view.

Not the ROMAN Church of course, the Roman Church isn't a church at all, but a monstrosity of blasphemy, fakery and presumption.

It isn't just Jewish believers, there are plenty of nonJewish Christians who are taking this position as well these days -- contrary to the idea that the church is denying the Hebrew foundations it seems to me that way too many are going too far in that direction.

Clearly the Church is made up of "the Elect," which means "the Chosen" -- how can they deny this? After Christ has come and His Church is being formed, FULFILLING the promises of the Hebrew scriptures, how can UNSAVED Israel be in any sense God's Chosen People? Yet the Volks call them that.

At one point [around 20:40] Shelly Volk gives false history to support his view: He says it's the Gentiles who came to outnumber the Jews in the Church who came to believe that since the Jews had failed, "therefore they have become the New Israel of God." Going on to say "And this of course is called Replacement Theology and it's taken on a Greco-Roman mentality rather than the Hebrew mentality."

This is simply false. Except for the unbiblical part about God having no future plans for national Israel and the Jewish people, what is misleadingly being called Replacement Theology is BIBLICAL! Paul himself called the Church the Israel of God. Paul described the Church as the Temple of God being built of living stones. Paul spelled out the inheritance of the Abrahamic Covenant by the Church, not as replacement but as fulfillment! NOT the Gentiles, but the Church, the Church that is Jew and Gentile in "one new man."

Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of hundreds of the Old Testament prophecies. He Himself is the New Israel and the Church is the new Temple of God. All this is New Testament scripture. To deny it as the Volks and others seem to be doing these days is very wrong. Shelly Volk at one point says "the ultimate end is, What does the word of God say?" [17:42 on the audio counter] But he's just misrepresented scripture by effectively denying what the word of God clearly says, that the Jews took the curse of the death of Jesus upon themselves, and both he and his son Scott go on to misrepresent the word by denying that the Church is the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption of souls and the Elect.

There is no replacement here. The Church is the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures, not the replacement of Israel but the true Israel of God. It isn't as if the Jews stopped being the Chosen and the Church took over their role, the Church is what all the scriptures were aiming for from the beginning. It has always been the REMNANT that were God's, not the whole people of Israel. It is the REDEEMED, the FAITHFUL, who are God's. "Not all Israel is Israel." The Church is NOT Gentile, it's JEW AND GENTILE, it's the UNIVERSAL CHURCH, it's the saved out of all lands and all peoples. The Church goes back THROUGH ancient Israel through Job and Noah and all the PRE-Jewish people who put their faith in God.

NEVERTHELESS it is clear that God has continuing plans for national Israel as well and great numbers of Jews are to be saved at the very end.

Clearly there is a fear of the growing anti-Semitism in the world that is partly fueling this exaggerated Jewish emphasis in the Church these days but it is a big big mistake to hang that as a blanket judgment on the Church as that book by Malcolm Hay apparently succeeds in doing judging from Scott Volk's take on it.

As it always has, it is most likely that the majority of the true Anti-Semitism is coming from the Roman Monstrosity, and from Islam, the two legs of the soon-to-be-revived Roman Empire, the Beast that is soon to come back to life and trample down everything on this earth.

However, there is no shortage of anti-Semitism in the world, and probably the Church too. There is a spiritual mystery involved with anti-Semitism I think, it's a way God's judgment against the Jews for the curse they took upon themselves gets expressed in the world, and yet anyone who would persecute the Jews comes under God's judgment as well. We're all under God's judgment -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" -- until we're saved in Christ, and that's what we must hope for all the sinners on this planet. God loves mercy over judgment. Vengeance is His, not ours.

In any case it's not right to equate anti-Semitism with true Biblical doctrine as even these Jewish Christians the Volks are doing whether they want to recognize that or not. Scripture says the Jews took the curse of Jesus' death on themselves, scripture says that the Church is the inheritor of the promises to Abraham, scripture says the Church is the Israel of God. This is fact, not anti-Semitism. It can of course be USED for anti-Semitic purposes, but the point is that this whole subject calls for careful distinctions and not the broad statements that came from this radio talk show. Names need to be named so that exactly who is being accused of what can be figured out. A Roman Catholic preaching vehemently even from true scripture against the "accursed Jews" is PROBABLY preaching anti-Semitism, but we need to know he's a Roman Catholic and withholding that information while implying the source is "Christian" contributes to the false equation of Rome the Antichrist with the true church of Christ. This whole subject is a powder keg, it has to be approached carefully and not with broad accusations.

Again, I believe there is definitely to be a role for Israel to play as the end times drama unfolds and huge numbers of Jews will be saved out of it and join the Church which IS the Israel of God.

===================

Apparently it's always necessary to make the effort to avoid any implication of accusing individual Catholics of supporting the horrors of the Inquisition or the Holocaust and so on. I certainly don't have rank and file Catholics in mind when I'm talking about the evils of the Roman Church. Individuals may or may not share the mentality of the Church governors, and any individuals who don't share it or can be brought to see its anti-Biblical and anti-Christian nature, need to obey the Bible and leave the RCC. Catholic authors of books on anti-Semitism or the Holocaust or the Jesuits or whatnot COULD be seeing through the errors of their Church. The reason I suspect that Malcolm May is probably a jesuitical type defender of the Church instead is that Scott Volk seems to have arrived at the conclusion from this book that "the church," including Protestants as well as the Catholics, all equally promote anti-Semitism, which is not exactly your fair-and-balanced perspective on the history of these things. If the book really did expose the truth it should drive a wedge between the Roman and Protestant churches. That's my thought anyway.

Jewish Christians, Israel, Replacement Theology, Anti-Semitism, Catholic connection

Heard last weekend's radio program at Jan Markell's website, Understanding the Times, titled The Church's Missing Agenda, with the show's executive producer Larry Kutzler sitting in for Jan, and I've got to say this was one confusing -- and annoying -- theological experience. I had to listen more than once to try to figure it out.

The guests on the show were Shelly and Scott Volk, father and son, Jewish pastors of churches, Shelly's in Arizona, Scott's in North Carolina. I knew of Shelly Volk because of his earlier association with Art Katz, whose books and tapes I absorbed avidly years ago. Art Katz was an inspiring preacher and he never annoyed me, so I was surprised to have such a reaction to this interview with the Volks.

Let me see if I can sum up my annoyance: They seem to be saying that the "Church" has a "Gentile" flavor to it that denies the essential Hebrewness of the scriptures, which deprives us of a necessary perspective, especially on Israel. Much of the time their way of speaking seems to set themselves outside the Church as in "we" versus "them" although they are believers in Christ and certainly know that scripture tells us "there is no more Jew or Gentile ... but all are one in Christ Jesus." They do emphasize at times that they identify with the Church, but often their language suggests a sense of distance from it nevertheless.

For instance, they refer to the mention in the Book of Acts [Acts 11:26] of the point at which the Church started to be called "Christians" and clearly imply that they think this described a switch from a predominantly Jewish to a Gentile Church, which makes the name "Christian" pretty much synonymous in their minds with "Gentile." But the Church at Antioch was just as much Jewish in those days as all the churches were. Paul and the apostles always went to the Jews first, to the synagogues, wherever they took the gospel. The first believers were ALL "Christians", both Jew and Gentile. This kind of thinking that makes the Church Gentile simply must come from the modern Jewish mentality and not from early church history.

In fact, Matthew Henry makes the point that the name "Christian" would have been a unifier of Jew and Gentile, rather than the divisive Gentile designation the Volks are trying to make of it:

Thus those who before their conversion had been distinguished by the names of Jews and Gentiles might after their conversion be called by one and the same name, which would help them to forget their former dividing names, and prevent their bringing their former marks of distinction, and with them the seeds of contention, into the church. Let not one say, "I was a Jew;’’ nor the other, "I was a Gentile;’’ when both the one and the other must now say, "I am a Christian." [Matthew Henry commentary at Blue Letter Bible for Acts 11:26]

This quote gets at what annoyed me so much about the interview with the Volks. All this emphasis on their Jewishness and the Jewishness of the scriptures and the supposed Gentileness of the Church and so on IS divisive and does bring "seeds of contention into the church." And after you spend some time sorting it out and finding that they are wrong about most of this, wrong about this supposed denial of the relevant Hebrew context of the scriptures and the gospel, which I went on to do and report on below, it is more clearly shown that this IS merely a contentiousness that shouldn't be made so much of.

They don't quote anyone so that we might know who, or what segment of the Church, they are referring to when they speak of "Christians" having a deficient appreciation of the Hebrew background of the scriptures, or what that looks like in action. This is made all the more mystifying in the context of the use of audio clips concerning anti-Semitism, in which the speakers --both pro and con anti-Semitic positions-- are also not identified, but the implication is that "Christians" are somehow the "anti-Semites." We are left having to figure out how to connect these vague accusations with some notion that the Church is rather too "Gentile" and doesn't appreciate the Hebrew scriptures.

A host of objections floods my mind as I try to grapple with this.

First, the Reformers, as I've been most particularly learning from Chris Pinto recently, DID see a role for Israel in the last days, contrary to the accusation that the "Church" has left Israel out of their reckoning. Have contemporary Reformed churches done so? They need to be specific.

Second, I remember a discussion of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible as taking care to preserve the Hebrew forms and rhythms of its language even in the New Testament Greek -- wish I knew where to find that comment now. Certainly the newer translations haven't bothered with such niceties but I don't think this is what the Volks are objecting to.

Third, my own experience since I became a believer in the late 80s has been of a veritable inundation with the Hebrew context of the gospel. Who hasn't learned the "scarlet thread of redemption" that can be traced from Eden to Christ? Who has missed out on a study of the Book of Daniel's direct prophecy of the timing of the coming of Christ, or the prophecies of the world situation of the last days in that and other Old and New Testament books as well, prophecies we are seeing unfolding before our eyes? I had years of Bible study with Kay Arthur's materials for instance, who is strongly pro-Israel. I got this in both a Presbyterian church and a charismatic church. The same pro-Israel position is also true of John MacArthur whose books and tapes I avidly learned from. And Chuck Missler did very interesting in-depth studies of the meaning of the ceremonies and feasts of Israel as depicting Christ. I got from Kay Arthur's studies the analysis of the tabernacle as showing Christ, and that's the sort of teaching Missler also did. Jews for Jesus made the rounds of the churches too in those days with similar teachings; maybe they still do but it's been a while since I got to see them.

Perhaps my experience was not the norm? But if not, then what is needed is a clear reference to the experience of the majority of the churches about which I apparently know nothing, as I would have thought such teaching, at least of the building of the New Testament on the Old, to be essential and unavoidable.

So, I need to ask WHICH part of the "Church" is supposedly deprived of this sort of teaching?

Some of the complaint from the Volks seems to have to do with "replacement theology," which has been the subject of a few recent posts of mine, but it's not clear exactly how that fits in either. WHICH part of the Church teaches this theology anyway? And exactly WHAT IS this theology in their minds? Surely they can't deny that the Church IS the Israel of God, spiritual Zion, the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant by faith, SCRIPTURE SAYS SO. But they DO seem to deny this and get it all confused with the notion that "therefore" there is no longer a role for national Israel. The latter does not necessarily follow from the former but they seem to put it all together as one package. I've discussed my own view of this in more detail in earlier posts.

SOME PART OF THIS HAS TO BE ROMAN CATHOLIC, AND PLEASE LET'S STOP CALLING ROMAN CATHOLICISM "CHRISTIAN."

Is it perhaps the CATHOLIC "church" that most strongly holds the "replacement theology" that is so objected to? This needs to be made clear.

One clue to this particular confusion did come up in this broadcast as an audio clip was played of a man very aggressively denouncing the Jews as "the accursed Jews" -- without identifying the speaker but implying that he somehow represents something "Christian." It wasn't hard to google "accursed Jews" and trace the clip to a video at You Tube in which a Catholic [identified as Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi] standing in front of a table full of Roman Catholic paraphernalia, a crucifix with a dead Christ pinned to it, pictures of Christ with a Catholic flavor, a picture of the face on the shroud of Turin, a statue of Mary, candles and so on, goes on ranting against the Jews. The film was made by a group called "Mary's Little Remnant" --Mary, not Christ, Mary the true god of Roman Catholicism.

From his first few minutes on the subject it's clear he's a traditionalist Catholic who rejects the council of Vatican II as apostasy, and some of his objection is that that council said Jews should not be accused of the blood of Christ. Of course his own views are apostate as well, just judging from the table behind him, although he's right that the Jews did take the curse of Jesus' death upon themselves and Vatican II is wrong.

So are the Volks who deny the special culpability of the Jews, and the rest of us who have tried to take the heat off the Jews for this, as I also used to do. Shelly Volk gives the typical defensive denial {17:06]:

I would just say this: Jews for centuries have been called Christ-killers, and you know what, in a sense we even see that written in the New Covenant [so far so good, yes we do], but the reality of it is [could "the reality of it" be something different from what the New Covenant says? Careful here.] that the Roman Centurions killed Him, the Jews killed Him, we all killed Him by sin, but the fact of the matter is, the crucifixion of the Messiah was in the heart of God. In other words ... He wasn't killed, He gave up His life voluntarily to fulfill the will of God and that's what we have to go for. The ultimate end is, What does the word of God say? {17:42]

This is what a lot of us do when we discover the role of the Jews in the Bible, try to get them off the hook. But we have to rewrite scripture to do that. The Jewish leaders brought the charges against Jesus, the Jewish people supported that action with their cheers for the release of Barabbas rather than Jesus, then they took the curse of the death of Jesus on themselves and their posterity:

Matthew 27:22-25 Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? [They] all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but [that] rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed [his] hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye [to it]. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood [be] on us, and on our children.

Scripture is very clear that they did this, it can't be avoided. Yes, in a sense we're all guilty of the blood of Christ, but it was the Jewish leaders who brought the charges against Him while Pilate tried to get out of prosecuting Him, and only the Jews specifically agreed to be cursed for His death.

It's sad, really, they had no idea what they were doing, as Jesus said from the cross, but the curse has followed them down the centuries nevertheless. What should our response be? Pity I think.

I do agree with the Volks about the Catholic guy's ATTITUDE, it is arrogant and boasting against the Jews and you can see how violence could come out of it. I only heard the first few minutes of his talk and it would need a lot of careful thought to sort out the true from the false and all the implications, but acknowledging that the Jews are under a curse for the blood of Christ [until they receive Him as Savior] no way justifies the Roman Church's anti-Jewish pogroms and the tortures and murders of the Inquisition. Jesus rejected all violence against His enemies and the Romanist perpetrators are going to get worse than the Inquisition at the judgment seat, PRAISE THE LORD!

One thing needs to be made clear in these last days: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT CHRISTIAN. Pre-Vatican II or post-Vatican II it's all still the Antichrist system and the Great Apostasy. This is one of the biggest errors being made by the true churches these days, to treat Romanism as just another denomination of Christianity. It is NOT CHRISTIAN AT ALL! If there IS a Rapture of the Church soon, before the last days come to their full expression of horror and evil, the main representative of "Christianity" left on earth is going to be the apostate Antichrist Roman Catholic Church, the Harlot Church, and the Great Tribulation of those days is very likely to look like the Inquisition and the Holocaust (which also had Roman Catholic roots -- go hear Chris Pinto) rolled into one and magnified to unimaginable heights.

It was not right for the Roman identity of this denouncer of the Jews to have been left out of the discussion with the Volks. This is a rant that could have come from Mel Gibson, who was apparently raised in this form of Catholic anti-Semitism.

Also, at the very beginning of the Understanding the Times radio broadcast an audio clip was played of a man with a British accent who is also not identified, who was going on about how anti-Semitism in Europe has been increasing in recent years "as a consequence of pandering to the bigotry of Muslims," referring to the huge increase in the European Muslim population, who then went on to say "not that Europe has ever needed much encouragement in that direction." And here again it occurred to me to ask, WHICH PART OF EUROPE? Catholic Europe perhaps? The Inquisition killed over 50 million people, most of them TRUE CHRISTIANS. It was the ROMAN Church that set itself to exterminate the Jews, along with all the true Christians, along with sundry Muslims, witches and whomever else they felt like torturing and murdering. If there was SOME Protestant or other source of anti-Semitism, this has to be made clear. And try to avoid histories of such things that have a hidden Jesuit connection in them too. The history of the Holocaust often traces it back to Luther's Lies of the Jews, but the predominant role was really the Catholic church. Pinto proves this.

God's Warning Harbingers to America Are Getting Recognition and Packing Salvation Power

I'm so happy! So why am I sobbing? Tears of joy. SO good to hear Jan Markell's interview of Jonathan Cahn that aired yesterday that I just got around to listening to this afternoon. This was one of her programs she felt needed to be extended so there is also a Web Bonus to listen to.

I'm so glad that she gets it. She marinated in it for days, she says, in order to fully grasp the message. She understands it, she appreciates it, she knows it's from God and very far from an invention of Jonathan Cahn's, so she was able to conduct the interview with insight and clarity.

But also I was SO glad to hear about how the information is being received. Not only did the book Harbinger get onto the New York Times best seller list but reports have been coming back of people being saved through it.

That's how it first hit me, as a tool to bring people to the Lord. I sent it to friends and family for that reason. I found, however, that I had to be a bit of a bully to get them to think it through so its message could be appreciated, although even after they saw how uncanny and God-wrought it had to be they still balked at stepping past that recognition into belief. Nevertheless, the hope I felt when I first heard about it is now rekindled.

This IS God's work. Everything about it is God's work and that above all has me crying tears of joy. God is doing all of this.

Jonathan Cahn is simply God's chosen vessel for this work. The story itself is about physical omens and signs in the real world that uncannily reflect a Bible verse that relates on many levels to the attack on 9/11. These omens or harbingers point to God's will for America, the judgment He's going to bring if we don't heed His warning, but also the hope He must have for us that He would give us such a direct intervention as this one.

These are signs, omens or harbingers that only God could have brought about, but God also saw to it that the book got published, Jonathan Cahn doing nothing at all to promote it. I'd heard the story before about how God sent a man for that purpose, but this implication of it came through more clearly in this interview than before. This is the story of Cahn's being in an airport and praying to God that since this is His work He must make it known to people, and immediately after praying a man sitting near him strikes up a conversation and tells him that he's going to publish this important book and points him to a publisher. This got described in the Web Bonus part of the interview.

THAT IS HOW PROPHECY DOES HAPPEN THESE DAYS. This is a TRUE prophecy. God DOES still talk to us through prophecy. Those who dismiss out of hand the possibility of such communications from God have closed themselves off from one way God relates to His people even today. Yes, there are all kinds of abuse of claims of prophecy. If an "angel" appears onstage with the "prophet" or is invoked by the "prophet" y0u can be sure he's not hearing from God but from an evil spirit. And people who have experienced true prophetic words may have an unfortunate tendency to fall into the flesh and try to MAKE it happen and mistake their own daydreams for God's speakings.

Yes, that happens, but the TRUE direct communications from God ALSO happen. We just have to stay alert and true to God's word and pray for more discernment.

It was also good to understand how Cahn came to write the book as a novel. He understood from scripture that it is wise to present knowledge in an attractive form and that changed him from his first writing of it as a straight description to creating a fictional structure as its vehicle, and he said that from that point the writing flowed easily.

This too had to have come from God, and this choice is no doubt why it made the best seller lists and why UNbelievers as well as believers are reading and appreciating it. I'm SO happy.

THIS IS ALL GOD'S WORK. God Himself wrought the signs of America's judgment that Jonathan Cahn is telling about, God directed Cahn to the best method of presenting it, God sent a prophet to direct him to a publisher, and God got it onto the best seller list and into mainstream stores rather than just Christian stores.

THANK YOU, LORD. May this revelation you have so mercifully sent to us through Jonathan Cahn save many people. (Even America too, for a while yet, please?).

Are Christians Selling Their Soul for Patriotism? Jan Markell on the Beck problem

Watched a little Glenn Beck today. Yeah, I like him, he tells important truths. If only he wasn't a Mormon. If only a Christian would do what he's doing. His rally was a great thing. If only it didn't have a spiritual snare at the heart of it.

Then I got an email this morning forwarding me something from Olive Tree Views, a ministry I'm not familiar with, but they're saying much the same thing I've been saying: Have We Anointed an Unworthy Shepherd?

By Jan Markell
www.olivetreeviews.org
August 31, 2010

Could we say that the church has failed to wake up very many people so, by default, a Mormon -- Glenn Beck -- has made quite a stir and has become an official spiritual leader? He rallied hundreds of thousands last weekend with themes of faith and love of our country. Americans are desperate and fearful of what is coming upon this land so they look to a Mormon for leadership. I am glad his Saturday event was successful for just some of these reasons:

* Americans came to celebrate America after the highest leaders in our land have trashed her around the world.

* They focused on what was right in America and they also honored our military.

* Faith and patriotism were lifted up -- two items that the Left despises.

* Attendees were passionate -- traveling thousands of miles and, once arriving in D.C., walking for miles, even if handicapped.

* Conservative Americans must gather together to fortify one another. Such events strengthen one another and offer hope. Finding kindred spirits in a depressing age is essential.

* Whether the Left heard or not, the attendees sent a message that they are fed up. November is around the corner and they had better look out.

In light of the positive aspects of the honoring America weekend, could there possibly be a down side?

I'm glad she starts with the positive, because that's what drew so many of us to the event, it's what we need in America. But of course then she goes on to describe the down side so read on. It got her some hate mail but nothing to the extent it's been getting me for mentioning it elsewhere.

She refers us to her own radio program where this was discussed a couple days before the event, and I'm going to put her title in large print because it says exactly what the problem is (click on the title to go to the radio broadcast page):

ARE AMERICAN CHRISTIANS SELLING THEIR SOUL FOR PATRIOTISM?

That IS the problem. That IS the question. That's what we're risking by letting a Mormon lead us. Here's her description of the radio show.

Listen to this broadcast. She does a great job of describing just why we love Glenn Beck before going on to discuss the problems for Christians in the fact that he's a Mormon.

Jan's guests include Brannon Howse, Eric Barger, and Ed Decker. The issue is Glenn Beck. Over two hours, the ultimate question is: are Christians selling their soul for patriotism? Most conservatives love Glenn Beck. He exposes evil and he loves America. He hates what is happening to this nation. But Glenn has another agenda as the panel proves over two hours: The subtle promotion of Mormonism. Listen and learn what is happening, why it is happening, and who are the Christians participating. While many suggest he is a "saved Mormon," the panel says that is not possible. About a dozen sound bytes are played that are revealing. The Mormons want to "save America" because it is the "promised land." God has a covenant with America. Not so. We urge you all to pray for Glenn Beck.

This is a GREAT discussion, everyone should listen to it. One thing that may recommend it is that the speakers are a lot more cool-headed than I am so you'll just LIKE them more. But also they assume that most Christians don't know anything about Mormonism so they go into great detail about what Mormonism is, in such detail that any Christian should recognize why it's a false religion. I tend to assume that Christians must know at least a little about these things because I know them, but apparently the ministries that teach against false religions aren't as accessible to Christians as they were ten or twenty years ago, and for some reason this information isn't available in local churches either. So this broadcast is a GREAT RESOURCE.

She also reports that even on Saturday Beck called the Indians the "chosen people" -- Mormon doctrine there -- and that people applauded. I'm just noting this now because I'm listening to the radio broadcast but I want to come back and link this later.