Another "Heaven" Lie

Yikes, more of this out-of-body stuff that supposedly proves the reality of "heaven."  This is one from Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who had such an experience and of course wrote a book on it, Proof of Heaven.  It's not out yet but Amazon has a page on it started.

http://www.amazon.com/Proof-Heaven-Neurosurgeons-Journey-Afterlife/dp/1451695195/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349964774&sr=1-1&keywords=proof+of+heaven

The demons are working awfully hard promoting this particular deception these days. 
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If you know and believe the Bible you should be able to spot these reports as false, but those who reject the Bible may fall for them.

Notice that they NEVER give the gospel of Jesus Christ, that He is God incarnate who died for our sins. They give an otherworldly experience and often a false idea of God and Jesus -- that is, false according to the Bible.

As a Bible-believer I know these stories are deceptions.  I believe they are real, however, in the sense that they are actual experiences of a real spiritual realm these people are having, and not hallucinations or tricks of the mind. But Heaven isn't the only spiritual realm, and demons are very clever at deceiving people.

Jesus died for your sins and ONLY those who are saved by believing in Him, saved by the blood He shed on the cross to pay for our sins, saved by faith alone in Christ alone through grace alone, can expect to see Heaven or the new earth.

These illusions are all designed to deceive unbelievers into thinking they, and everybody else, will go to heaven. It's an evil lie concocted by the demons, or fallen angels.   Unfortunately some Christians believe this stuff too and contribute to the deception.  Really depressing. 

A teaching on Hermeneutics from the Reformed perspective, specifically opposing Dispensationalism

Since I've identified Dispensationalism as the source of so much of the craziness the critics of The Harbinger are bringing against it, in an effort to get a better grip on the theological issues I've been listening to a series on hermeneutics from a Reformed perspective and skipped to the two parts that clearly apply to this question. 

This is a series by a local pastor, in fact the pastor of the church I'd be attending if I were attending church, and I have to give lots of caveats here because he doesn't agree with me about some things so I don't want to make it appear that there's some kind of accord that doesn't exist.  I simply strongly appreciate this particular teaching and am learning from it.   I'm already basically Reformed in my thinking, but this particular teaching deepens that perspective a great deal.

As for The Harbinger I have no idea what Pastor Borgman thinks of it, if he even knows about it, and it could well be that he would have many objections to it.  

I'm also aware that a Reformed perspective probably doesn't accord with Jonathan Cahn's theology either, which I've felt all along even as I've been defending his book.  But this isn't a problem with The Harbinger's interpretation of Isaiah 9:10, which is pretty simple and straightforward.  The only reason Dispensationalism is an issue is that it is apparently the basis for some of the objections of this particular camp of critics that I've been arguing against, who fault Cahn's interpretation for supposedly denying the state of Israel its biblical preeminence according to their theological system. 

This elevation of Israel as the main object of the Old Testament is precisely what the talk linked below answers.

Hoping that covers all necessary caveats, I want to recommend listening to these talks at the links, the first one titled

Hermeneutics: Apostolic Exegesis - How the NT interprets the OT

Toward the end of the talk [about 1:07:40], he says this: 

So what do you have [referring to Luke 24]?  You have Jesus interpreting the Old Testament in a way that pointed to ... Israel? 

To who?  To Himself!

You should be really thankful that I'm completely out of time because this is a soapbox issue for me.  To read the Old Testament as if it points us to the nation Israel, either in the past, the present or the future, is to miss the divinely appointed purposes of the Old Testament.  Jesus said the whole thing was about Him.  It all points to Him.

And here's the following talk that continues the same theme:

Hermeneutics: How do Jesus & the Apostles Interpret the Old Testament

Pastor Borgman did a series on Isaiah some years ago, and this is the sermon on Isaiah 9

Why this discussion cannot be cordial

I'm realizing the Harbinger critics are dangerous.  They are branding Cahn as pretty much a heretic -- everything from false prophet to mystic -- based mostly on their own false Dispensationalist assumptions, and anyone who defends him comes under the same suspicion.  There is no way to have a theological discussion with respect on both sides because failure to meet their standards brands you a heretic.  If by their standards you are supporting "extrabiblical revelation" although their judgment of what this amounts to is false, you won't be able to escape being convicted of that charge, and the charge of violating Sola Scriptura along with it.  Their arguments are NONSENSE but they are far from seeing their error and they have a fair amount of influence.  Listen to the call-ins on Brannon Howse's show, go read the comments at Dave James' site.  Their fans just ape their conclusions and accuse their opponents of all manner of serious doctrinal deviations without justification.

 The divide between the supporters of The Harbinger and its critics is astonishing to say the least.  Just about every single point James makes that he thinks shows serious doctrinal issues in The Harbinger hits me for one as an outrageous twisting of truth, an absurdity, a piece of insanity.  Yet, again, I keep realizing these guys BELIEVE what they are saying.  I'd never have guessed it was possible to have such adamantly entrenched positions among Christians on both sides of an argument like this.

As I discovered some time ago, much of the difference is due to the critics' Dispensationalism.  How much I haven't quite figured out yet, but the major argument that Harbinger doesn't give the right weight to Israel and the Old Testament comes from that theological camp.  I don't know what theology Cahn follows, but I consider my own to be basically Reformed and nothing in his book is a problem for me theologically. 

Maybe the most offensive attitude of the critics is that they pronounce judgment from the standard of their own system as if it is THE biblical system and there is no other.  THAT is REALLY offensive.  Cahn just IS commiting hermeneutical error, period, although there are conservative biblical hermeneutical systems other than theirs that wouldn't judge his as error.  There is something rotten to the core about that way of dealing with a fellow Christian who is following another theology.

Supernatural Manifestations met with a Skepticism gone too far?

Let's try to be clear about this:  The Harbinger makes an extremely unusual claim, something unprecedented as far as I know, a claim that God Himself has acted to bring about certain signs or harbingers in America, that carry the message of judgment to come unless the nation repents. 

This is a claim of supernatural intervention that simply does not happen in this world according to our usual expectations.  As I say, I don't think something like this has happened before.  We have to acknowledge that this is extremely unusual.  Therefore it would only make sense if people are skeptical of such a claim.

Yet as the facts are presented I also don't see how they can be denied.  The efforts to deny them by the critics come across as trumped-up to my mind.  They are trying to MAKE the facts fit their theology, and it is apparently a theology that denies the possibility of such a supernatural intervention by God in our world.  At least since apostolic times.  If it isn't that then I don't know how to explain their determination to interpret the harbingers in such a way that they become illusions, mere meaningless coincidences.

This is beyond cessationism.  Cessationism says that the gifts of the Spirit to individuals are no longer in operation.  It doesn't necessarily deny that God may intervene in this world supernaturally, or even that individuals may on occasion receive a supernatural power.  I posted a quote here some time back by the early Protestant reformer Jan Hus saying that God had told him that in a hundred years' time He would raise up a "swan" who could not be silenced as he, Hus, "the goose" was silenced in his day.  This was clearly a prophecy of the future Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and I don't see how even a cessationist could deny that Hus did in fact hear from God in this way.

Let's be clear about this too while we're at it:  There is NOTHING in The Harbinger that attributes supernatural powers or acts of any kind whatever to any human being.  "The Prophet" does not prophesy anything, he simply passes on information about Isaiah 9 and its relation to America in our time, bringing the biblical message and its manifestation in real events in America to the attention of Nouriel the journalist and therefore to the reader of the book.  He's called a prophet but he doesn't DO what prophets do, and for the critics to take him as some kind of apologetic for the gift of prophecy today is to be peculiarly blind to what is actually going on in this book. 

As for the harbingers, there is no way any human agent could have planned to bring them about, so there is no apologetic there either for any of the supernatural gifts.  If you believe that God is sovereign over all things, that nothing happens without Him then you MUST believe that He brought about these harbingers. 

What's the alternative?  Chance?  Then you don't believe in an all-sovereign God.  Satan?  He'd have had to scramble mightily in order to deploy his armies to bring about all these harbingers but I suppose it's possible.  But if it's Satan, 1) he can't act unless God allows it, which means God is in charge here too; or 2)  what would Satan accomplish by assembling all these harbingers to prove that America is under God's judgment?  I wouldn't put it past him if it would serve his purposes but I can't think what purposes it could serve.

Certainly, God's planting a collection of visible documentable signs in our world that clearly reflect an Old Testament verse IS a very unusual occurrence in our time.  Of course if they are merely illusions that's something else and the critics have worked quite strenuously to prove that this is all they are,  that the signs or harbingers don't even really exist, it's all a mirage. 

I've worked through these arguments and keep coming back to their undeniable material reality myself.  One problem is that even if some of it is an illusion the fact is that Isaiah 9:10 only too perfectly describes America's attitude of defiance instead of repentance, just as it describes that of ancient Israel in similar circumstances, AND American political leaders actually quoted that verse, all of which along with the bricks and stones and trees amount to a mutually-confirming set of events.  If some of it's illusion the rest of it isn't, but since some of it is undeniable that to my mind supports the whole picture, all of it coming together as a whole.

But the critics try to minimize all this.  It's all "coincidence."  Or the verse was ONLY to Israel, they say.  Or it doesn't apply because our leaders weren't intentionally being defiant and so on (however, they were defiant in exactly the sense meant in Isaiah 9:10, as were the leaders of Israel). 

Well, I've answered all this and will probably go on answering it, but I did want to acknowledge that we're talking about something supernatural here and skepticism has to be expected.

Sometimes it seems that the critics are like the anti-Christian skeptics who simply refuse to consider for a moment that supernatural claims could have any reality whatever, and they are very adept at multiplying arguments to "prove" that they don't. 

The Gazit Stone According to David James

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James says, 

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

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

It is simply not a harbinger

says James.

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

Cahn's Message Brings Many to Salvation

Got a report this morning from someone who was at Jan Markell's Understanding the Times Conference this weekend, that Jonathan Cahn's talk on Saturday was a great success and that possibly as many as a hundred came to salvation through it. 

I'm reporting this because my source is credible and respected but I do have to add that I don't generally trust reports of "altar call" conversions either in church or at conferences.  You can't tell from a show of hands or people going forward what their motives are, whether they are Christians in a state of doubt desiring a renewal of their faith, nonChristians getting the message for the first time, people with a temporary pang of conscience that won't last long, people with a wrong idea of the gospel or what. 

While it is always the ultimate aim to bring people to Christ, Christians have many secondary callings such as to be salt and light in the culture and The Harbinger is that sort of message more than it is an evangelical message.  Restraining evil in our world by calls to national repentance for the sins that are destroying the nation would no doubt bring many to conversion but if it merely stirs up people's consciences so that they turn against the sins of the nation that's the work of God too. 

Did the repentance of Nineveh mean mass conversion to the God of Israel?  I don't get that message, I get the message that God had mercy on them in a temporal way as the city repented for their idolatries and other sins.  This kind of work in the world shouldn't be denigrated even if salvation is the ultimate most desirable outcome.  Improving the moral climate of a nation in this fallen world and therefore the peace and wellbeing of that nation is not something to be despised.

The Isaiah 9:10 Effect According to David James, Part 3

James goes on to what he calls "a historical problem" if there "really is such a thing as the Isaiah 9:10 Effect": 

What if "the breach" and "the terrorist" had been observed in 1812 or 1861 ot 1941?  In theory, could sojmeone have discovered the 'hidden ancient mystery' of Isaiah 9:10 in 1949?  And if it had been claimed that Pearl Harbor was a breach by an enemy who persistently used terrorist tactics throughout the war in the Pacific (which the Japanese did), then could it not be argued that God's hedge of protection had been withdrawn prior to December 7, 1941?  And if the hedge of protection had been removed long before 9/11, had God put yet another hedge of protection in place since WWII?  The questions are truly endless. 

This is not an attempt to mock the author.  This is a very serious issue because  if he is correct about the Isaiah 9:10 Effect, then it could have happened at any time in the past or it could happen again at any time in the future.  On the other hand, if it could only have happened one time on September 11, 2001, then there is no such thing as the Isaiah 9:10 Effect as a principle [p. 130].

Well, there is no such thing as James' straw-man version of The Isaiah 9:10 Effect which he persists in making into a general biblical principle apart from its application to 9/11, that's true, but that's not what Cahn means by it.  Even in its own specific context as a description of Israel at that particular time you can say that the attitude of defiance DID set in motion further judgment so that it's right enough to speak of an Isaiah 9:?10 Effect in that context alone. 

Beyond that it functions as an effect BECAUSE of its application in America.  IF it had applied to America at an earlier time then one has to assume that it would have been a principle and an effect at that time just as it is now, but it DIDN'T apply then.  God sovereignly disposes these things, the events, the discovery of the events, in this case by Cahn, and so on.  In His will it applies NOW and it is in its applying now that it becomes a principle and an effect from which further events can be expected to follow, just as they followed for Israel.

This is the usual problem the critics have of getting the cart before the horse and imputing their mistake to Cahn.   Isaiah 9:10 is a principle and an effect AFTER we see that it is being repeated in America.  As it concerned ancient Israel alone it is simply a description of what happened to Israel, with of course the obvious message to the reader that it's not a good thing to ignore God's judgments. 

But once we see that the message to Israel in all its parts also applies here, even to the manifestations of the harbingers that so uncannily echo Isaiah 9:10, then we can expect that the implication of further judgment to Israel also applies to America.

But James finds more problems to bring up:

If Cahn is right about the Isaiah 9:10 Effect, this raises another very important question:  Are there any other prophetic passages in the Old Testament that also function like the Isaiah 9:10 Effect?  How many other prophecies that were directed to israel can also be correlated to historical events in the United States?

Short answer:  Only those that APPLY to the United States. 

And again we have the situation of the cart before the horse.  The critics keep locating the effect, the principle and now the prophetic import of Isaiah 9:10, along with America itself, back in Isaiah, when none of these things become effect, principle or prophecy UNTIL they apply to America. 

He asks if there is

also a Genesis 12:2 Effect?:  I will make you a great nation;  I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.

Or a Joshua 1:2 Effect?: 

Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you , as I said to Moses. 

Are there dozens of others?  Or is Isaiah 9:10 the only such passage in the entire Bible?  If the Isaiah 9:10 Effect really exists, then it seems remarkably unlikely that it would be the only such principle in the entire Old Testament.  But if not from the context, how could it possibly be known whether any given passage is supposed to functon in this way:?  And yet there is nothing whatsoever in the context of Isaiah 9:10 that would suggest the existence of such an effect.

Quite true.  The Effect is not IN Isaiah 9:10 or its context.  James keeps making the Effect INHERENT in the verse, but Cahn does not make it inherent in the verse, same as he doesn't treat America as inherent in the verse as the critics so persistently and mistakenly do.  Again, the Effect BECOMES the Effect in its application to America. 

There is no way that I can see that Genesis 12:2 or Joshua 1:2 would or could ever apply outside their specific immediate context,* and there also don't seem to be any implications of those verses that could become a general principle anyway.  But Isaiah 9:10 embodies, even in its context as a message to Israel alone, a principle that we can also take as a warning to us: that God does not overlook defiance of His judgment but "His hand is stretched out still" in further jugment.

Then beyond that, we can see that it clearly and specifically applies to America's response to 9/11 as it describes America's own defiance of the attack on the WTC as God's judgment, and then beyond that we have Cahn's revelations of the appearance of all those harbingers or signs that SHOULD tell anyone with any biblical sense at all that America is on the same course to much more severe judgment that Israel was on as described in that passage in Isaiah.

James has missed it entirely, got it all as wrong as it can be got, and yet he's so sure of his analysis of the situation he concludes the chapter with this: 

If a proposed theological or spiritual idea is not found in the Bible, or if it cannot at least be supported by the text in some way, then someone made it up.  This is exactly the nature of the Isaiah 9:10 Effect -- someone made it up [THFOF p. 131].

Well, somebody sure did make up a whole lot of stuff about The Isaiah 9:10 Effect that completely turns the meaning backwards, stuff that's certainly unsupported by the text to say the least, and it wasn't Jonathan Cahn. 

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* Except as "Israel" MIGHT refer to the Church as it often does in the OT, but I'm not arguing that one here one way or the other.