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?

======Original Post======

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.

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:

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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.

Did Jan Hus hear personally from God? Prophecy, Discernment, spiritual gifts etc.

Was recently watching Chris Pinto's film A Lamp in the Dark again, and noted that Jan Huss, one of the pre-Reformation Reformers, burned at the stake for his commitment to the Bible as the ultimate authority for a believer,* claimed to have had a private revelation from God that sounds to me like it should be called a prophecy. Wondered how that sits with all those Protestants out there who deny that such things have occurred since New Testament times. Jan Huss is one of our heroes, after all, originally a Catholic Priest, as were most of the Reformers, who saw that the Bible contradicted the teachings of Rome. He became a recognized leader in the movement that finally deposed Rome from its dominance of Europe and established the word of God as the "light unto the path" of the believer.

So here's the prophecy: In the film the narrator says:

Before he died he claimed that God had given him a promise. The name "Hus" means "goose" in the Czech language and so the Lord had told him:

They will silence the goose, but in one hundred years I will raise a swan from your ashes that no one will be able to silence. [Source: Jan Hus: The Goose of Bohemia, by William P. Farley --about 32:38 into the film]

So, all you cessationists out there: Do you deny that this was a special revelation, even a prophecy, given to Jan Hus personally by God?

He was prophesying of course of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation which God would bring to Europe a hundred years after Hus's time. One might wonder if calling Luther a "swan" reflects God's sense of humor of course (or if a swan has characteristics that do fit Luther that I'm not aware of.) The Popes don't say much that I agree with but the Pope who referred to Luther as a "wild boar" got it right in my estimation. You could say that we needed a wild boar at the time of course. But anyway, as far as the Reformation goes Luther could be regarded as the beautiful swan that brought it all to fruition.

I haven't particularly thought of what I do with my blogs as a "discernment ministry" but maybe I should, as that does happen to be a big part of it. I have prayed for discernment many times, and in my experience God answers that sort of prayer -- prayers for understanding, prayers for wisdom -- much more readily than other kinds of prayers (such as for healing of my extremely painful bone-on-bone arthritis of the hips.) No, I'm certainly not claiming that my prayers guarantee I'm going to be right in my judgments, of course not, only that I have many times found myself understanding something after prayer that before had been confusing and I thank God for that. Happening to watch this film again and happening to notice that quote from Hus is very likely God's answering a prayer for understanding about the gifts for today although I don't remember a specific recent prayer about this.

I just got another comment on my "Heaven" blog, certainly a discernment issue and the one topic that really brings them in -- most to denounce me for daring to suggest that the heaven experiences are counterfeits.

They often fault me for not having read the books, but they also never succeed in showing that what I've learned from other sources about the books is false. In most cases of course a reviewer should read the book or see the movie or whatever, but there really are cases where that is not necessary, where the public knowledge of their content is sufficient to make a judgment. Remember The Last Temptation of Christ? There was no need to see the movie if your concern was Bible truth because its main story line was well known and clearly in contradiction with the Bible. Same with the DaVinci Code. On the other hand, the book The Harbinger needs to be read because there are many different ideas floating around about what it says and many misunderstandings out there to mislead people about it.

So, you could say that whether or not you always need firsthand knowledge in order to render a judgment is also a matter of discernment.

Discernment implies careful sorting of truth from lies or deception, in the light of the Holy Spirit of course. Discernment is needed first of all in reading the Bible or "rightly dividing" the Word of Truth.

If you believe that God's supernatural gifting of the Church stopped after New Testament times then you'll automatically understand all claims to supernatural experiences today to be false. No discernment is required. But if you believe otherwise then rightly judging a particular case requires you to spend time carefully comparing the Biblical standard with the claim to supernatural experience.

Does the quote from Jan Hus prove anything or not?

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Follow-up thought: It could be argued that cessationist doctrine itself, the doctrine that all supernatural experiences ceased after apostolic times, is a CAUSE of the discernment problems we're encountering so much today, the false signs and wonders, the New Apostolic Reformation and the like. Hidebound intellectualism interferes with true spiritual growth and experience, and interferes with the exercise of true spiritual discernment.

It also promotes a cynical mindset in those who have experienced something they can only call supernatural, leaving its understanding up to their own wildest imaginations. No wonder they fall for fleshly and demonic tricks since they know they are real at least and all the critics do is denounce what they haven't themselves experienced. No wonder if they get the source of such phenomena wrong because true supernatural spiritual discernment is not being encouraged, because it's not considered to be needed any more. In fact discerning of spirits is one of those spiritual gifts that supposedly stopped after the apostolic generation. We're supposed to rely only on intellectual understanding of the Bible, in a time when if we ever needed a God-inspired gift of discernment it's now. Proposition for a future blog topic if nothing else, the Lord willing I should live so long.

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*OK, specifically he was burned at the stake for denying the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation.

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.

Contending for the truth can become arrogant ignorant denunciation of true if errant Christians

Heidi Swander of Olive Tree Ministries wrote this timely article that came in this morning's email from that ministry.

At what point does a fellow Christian deserve to be ostracized for their perceived apostasy? Where do you draw the line regarding Christians you will and will not fellowship with? When has a spiritual leader made a definitive decline into error? Sorry, that's three questions. Well, think about them for a moment. They're important questions to answer.

While you're thinking, I will admit to you that I am weary of the spiritual immaturity of many "discerning" believers. I am tired of the circular firing squads that have been drafted that position Christians to repeatedly fire on each other. I'm worn out from bitter, caustic diatribes toward fellow believers who have not proved to be ambassadors of the enemy at all, but someone we have short-changed by not allowing discourse on their perceived error.

Don't get me wrong: There are plenty of times, in these last days, when we must "contend earnestly for the faith." But the wise man or woman must discern when to contend and when to counsel. Let me explain what God has been teaching me.

You can read the rest of the article at the link.

I say it's timely because I've very recently been pondering much the same problem in "discernment" ministries I keep tabs on, as recently as last night. The problem as she describes it is a lack of spiritual maturity that gives no grace to someone who has committed some infraction of doctrine according to the "discerner's" standards, even someone held in great esteem by much of the church for their Christian teaching and work.

In the last few months I've heard some of the best of the best denounced in terms that brand them as apostates just because of such an error, or even just on the "authority" of some other "ministry" whose facts have not been independently checked.

I cringe when I hear such revered leaders as theologian R C Sproul, pastor and teacher John MacArthur, or Bible teacher Kay Arthur, denounced in such terms for some infraction according to the ignorant "discerner." The list is much longer than those three but those three come to mind. But such greats as Luther and Calvin have also been treated to such denunciations, and the latest volley of imprudent excoriation I heard was blasted against that venerable church father, Augustine. I even prayed that the Lord would make such "discernment" teachers aware of their folly and this email from Olive Tree I regard as answer from the Lord since I have reason to believe it goes out to many of those teachers.

Clearly much of it comes from sheer ignorance. They know just about nothing about the history of the church or the rightful place of any of these names in the regard of the church, they trust in their own uneducated first impressions, they magnify their own sense of the truth and righteousness at the expense of Christians of far greater stature than themselves.

It's one thing to discover and lament a doctrinal flaw in a leader's thinking, it's another to let that discovery or opinion lead you to treat that person as no longer a Christian.

I'm only going to mention what I heard said against Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in the fourth century, although Heidi Swander is really only addressing attitudes toward one another in today's church. The principle is the same. Is Augustine really a Christian or not despite his doctrinal errors? I say he is. I say we'll find him among the Lord's company at the very end.

What I've learned about Augustine over my Christian life has been pretty well balanced, treating him as insightful but flawed. He's held up as a theologian whose teachings had a great deal to do with inspiring the Protestant Reformation, and yet he's also acknowledged to have promoted views that gave support to the later development of Roman Catholic errors.

In other words Protestant leaders have taken what is of value in Augustine and have for the most part not fallen for his errors. But ignorant arrogant "discerners" with no knowledge whatever of Augustine except some quotes they recently heard attributed to him that they disagree with, no sense whatever of the historical place of Augustine, or of the circumstances which shaped his theology, speak of him as of the devil himself. Although I happen to agree that Augustine was very very wrong about, for instance, the identity of the angels who procreated with the daughters of men in Genesis 6 -- in fact I strongly agree with this "discerner" in this case and regard it as a very important point the church should be studying in the last days -- and Augustine's view does happen to be an interpretation is still accepted even among Protestants, and promoted by Calvin as well, sad to say, yet I cringe at the arrogant posturing ignorance of a denouncer of one of the best known fathers of the church as far more offensive than even Augustine's grossest errors. And it's a barrier to getting the teaching about Genesis 6 taken seriously by more Christians too.*

How ironic that he accuses Augustine and Calvin of attitudes that he himself is committing, pride, excessive trust in his own understanding and so on. If he thinks he is above being seduced by his own flesh or the wiles of the devil, above ever teaching anything that might mislead, unaware of the shoulders he himself stands on for his own doctrinal understanding, let him think again. He'd deny he has any such attitudes, but clearly he simply hasn't subjected himself to very rigorous self-examination.

He also falsely accuses those who refer to themselves as "Augustinians" or "Calvinists" of buying into everything said by those men and of "trusting in man instead of in God." He doesn't even have a clue what a person means by identifying as a "Calvinist" for instance, he just freely makes it up as he goes along, it MUST mean we're blindly following a man and not God. He's outraged at a false teaching and he's going to tar everything and everyone who ever got anything good out of the teacher with that error, deserved or not. And I don't think I've ever heard this particular "discerner" recognize, correct or apologize for any error of his own. He just thinks he's being misunderstood or persecuted when anyone objects, just goes into a litany of his good intentions and how no he isn't saying this or that. (Don't know how many times I've heard him say Hey it's not that I think I'm Mr. Perfect and the like, but again, how he acts doesn't quite fit his disclaimer.)

Augustine's writings are so voluminous it's possible nobody has ever read all of them and many Christians know next to nothing about him. Some of us may know about his conversion experience in which God used the voice of a small child playing a game to bring him to Christ, we may have read his Confessions, his autobiography which became the model for autobiographies ever since, we may have read his City of God in which he presents the enduring world of the spirit over the world of the flesh, of which Wikipedia says:

Augustine is the most influential Father of the Church in the West and through Western Christianity The City of God profoundly shaped Western civilization.

All of that is valuable despite his support of Roman Catholic errors, and Augustine's teachings were part of what inspired Luther toward his rejection of those very errors. Calvin too made use of some of Augustine's theology. It was a theology supportive of the Reformation's theology of salvation by grace through faith and dependence on God BEFORE Roman Catholicism had grown into what it later became.

Just because the Roman church has taken possession of him and calls him a good Roman Catholic does NOT mean he was himself a Roman Catholic in the sense someone like Aquinas was. The Roman church also took possession of Ireland's patron saint Patrick, although Patrick himself never had anything to do with Romanism. It's a big mistake to take what Catholic historians have to say about him as if it were THE truth.

Augustine is rightly considered one of the early fathers who belongs to the true church DESPITE the parts of his teachings that veer over to the superstitious errors of Romanism. One of my big problems with Augustine is that he spiritualizes the first part of Genesis. He apparently made plenty of errors of that kind although he ALSO developed enough of a theology of grace to inspire the Protestant Reformation.

Who of us is perfect? We have to be able to tell when a professed Christian has truly gone off into apostasy -- there are plenty of those these days -- oh, PLENTY! -- and one of my own discouraging discoveries has been how many true Christians don't have the discernment to reject them but even embrace them. But there are plenty of true Christians who make some theological errors that are far from the level of apostasy, who should not be denounced the way I've heard so many denounced recently by certain teachers out of profound ignorance, and yes, out of what Heidi Swander calls spiritual immaturity.

I recommend reading Heidi Swander's article all the way through.

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* It is sort of sadly interesting regarding Augustine's interpretation of the events of Genesis 6 that he made the comment I quoted in the previous post about trusting in yourself over God if you don't believe the gospels as written. Perhaps he simply makes an exception in the case of Genesis 6, as the discerner I'm talking about here reports him (or was it Calvin) as saying the idea that angels copulated with human women is simply false due to its own intrinsic absurdity, which certainly is a case of imposing his own prejudice on the scripture rather than accepting it as written.

The "discerner" however went on to accuse him of adding to scripture and deserving the curse of being eliminated from the Book of Life, which is REALLY not fair. Wrong interpretations of scripture are NOT the same thing as adding to scripture.

Save that accusation for the heretics who DID tamper with scripture in the early centuries and produced the Alexandrian Greek texts --or if you are a Westcott and Hort fan, then it is the Textus Receptus that was so altered, and all its manipulators, which according to the logic of W and H's theory involved an entire convention of the greatest names of the early church getting together specifically for that purpose, who are of course all going to hell. Sometimes people just don't think THROUGH their invented scenarios.

Anyway, if everybody who misinterpreted scripture based on his own personal biases were guilty of adding to scripture just about nobody could be saved. It's always disappointing to discover people doing this but I suppose any of us is subject to it and must be very careful for that reason.

I'm aware of some instances off the top of my head: I just happened to hear a discussion on Christian radio about the various views of wine in scripture which included the common idea that Jesus didn't REALLY drink wine, although scripture says He did, and that whenever wine is mentioned in the Bible it REALLY means extremely watered-down wine although there isn't the slightest clue in scripture itself that that is the case -- and these manipulations of scripture come from Fundamentalists who have their own axe to grind against alcohol. Apparently it was one of these fundamentalists who got the entire Christian church to use grape juice instead of wine, within the last hundred years or so. Welch was his name, of Welch's Grape Juice fame.

Are they all going to hell for their refusal to take scripture at its word?

I ran across quite a collection of rather agonized attempts to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion that Paul in 1 Cor 11:2-16 is saying women must put something over their heads during worship, that was extremely disappointing as I saw one otherwise justly highly esteemed preacher after another go to such lengths.

The idea that Paul meant long hair is really just stupid, excuse me but it is, it shows a bizarre inability to read in context and a strange lack of appreciation of the mind of Paul. The average Christian might not deserve to be called stupid for this misreading (though since we all have the Holy Spirit there's something wrong there too) but their leaders should have corrected them as they aren't stupid, but they go ahead and confirm this utterly ridiculous misreading.

The passage has its knotty points to unravel but the overall message is NOT that hard to figure out in itself. There is really no excuse. The early churches got it although many of them also found ways of not quite obeying it completely, according to Tertullian, yet the churches ALL obeyed it more or less down to the middle of the 20th century. NOBODY interpreted it as requiring long hair. The reference to long hair was recognized as the mere example Paul offered as one of his arguments.

Worse than that, however, is the contingent that understands that Paul IS calling for a covering to be put over the head, but, based on absolutely nothing in the text, and certainly based on nothing we could ever suspect of the apostle Paul in general, they decide it's really a culture-bound matter that applied only to Paul's own time and not to us. It REALLY means, according to them, that women are simply to dress in a sex-appropriate way. BALDERDASH! Paul is emphasizing the physical HEAD as the whole point of all his arguments and it takes some kind of self-delusion to ignore his obvious meaning!

(My study of all this is far more temperate, I don't erupt like this there if you'd like to go read my blog Hidden Glory and follow the argument in some detail).

I have to suspect this latter group of being motivated by a fear of the opinions in the church, a sort of feminist backlash. They all show a nervousness about the topic in one way or another and a few of them admit to that nervousness, just as the preacher who discussed the meaning of wine in the Bible also did. Rubbing your congregation the wrong way is NOT a fun experience. But it's sad that so many end up compromising the word for such a reason.

That's at least as bad as Augustine or Calvin's refusal to believe that angels copulated with women, simply on the basis of their idea that such a thing is simply absurd, although scripture unambiguously SAYS that is what happened.

Are they all going to hell for adding to scripture?

Oh and here's another one. Well, it's not exactly a case of misreading the Bible, but it is a case of insisting on a false view of history because you don't like the implications of the true history: This is the case of the King-James-Only people who claim that the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint was actually produced some centuries after Christ, rather than what is generally known about it, that it was produced some centuries BEFORE Christ and is most likely the scripture quoted by Him and His disciples.

May the Lord forgive us all for such indulgences of the carnal nature.