James takes on Harbinger Nine, The Prophecy

IT TAKES A BIBLICALLY INFORMED EAR TO RECOGNIZE THE DEFIANCE OF GOD

Then James goes on to Harbinger Nine, The Prophecy, which is Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's speech given the day after 9/11, in which he too quoted Isaiah 9:10, which James so studiously denies is of any import, just as he claims none of the harbingers are really harbingers. Daschle quotes it with the same lack of understanding as Edwards would three years later, intending it to be "inspiration" for comfort.

He makes much of the fact that Cahn only quoted as far as Daschle's reading through of the verse and then his emphasizing the intent to rebuild and recover, but left out this last statement:

[Daschle] The people of America will stand together because the peoople of America have always stood together, and those of us who are privileged to serve this great nation will stand with you. God bless the people of America.[THFOF, p. 116]

James italicized the last sentence as I show. And then he goes on to give this objection:

By invoking God with the intent to comfort Americans and by using the Bible (albeit wrongly), Daschle's intention was clearly not defiance of God -- it was exactly the opposite. The decision to edit out the last two sentences of the Senate majority leader's speech and the failure to at least mention them is very misleading, if not worse.

How many times, and I've quoted some of them in previous posts, did God severely upbraid His people for coming to Him with prayers and sacrifices and other observances supposedly intended to honor Him while they were practicing idolatries and other sins? He denounced them for this "lip service" because they were ignoring their idolatries and sins and even God's acts of judgment against them. Surely their INTENTION was to honor God, surely they didn't INTEND to be defiant. This is a theme over and over in the Old Testament. If the Israelites' intention to honor God was not accepted by God how is it that James thinks a few words invoking God by Daschle and Edwards should be regarded as honoring God? God treated the ceremonies and sacrifices of His people pretty much as contempt of Him because of their lack of obedience. Yet James thinks a few sentimental words tossed to God by Daschle and Edwards proves they didn't have the defiant spirit of Isaiah 9:10? Again, this shows a biblical deaf ear, a complete lack of a biblical way of thinking.

Remember this is in the context of the attack on 9/11. Many want to deny that attack was God's judgment, but what explanation does that leave? Either the devil is in charge and has more power over such events than God Himself does, or it was simply the work of the terrorists and God has no power over them either. Same with natural disasters, if God isn't in charge who is? Either Nature itself or the devil, either having more power than God in that case. THAT is a REALLY dangerous world it seems to me, but that's the world you get if you deny that God is sovereign over ALL things. We can appeal to God, we can repent before God, not something we can do with either Nature or the devil.

Satan cannot do one thing without God's permission, and that is demonstrated in more than one place in scripture. Neither can Nature, neither can terrorists. There is no such thing as pure accident. We may not know the reason for a particular event but we should know that God is in control and that nothing happens without Him.

In which case there is really no other explanation for 9/11 than that God was completely in control of it and He had his reasons. He doesn't do things whimsically, He was saying something to America: We are out of His will. As God's judgments go, 9/11 was extremely mild, barely a love tap. It WAS judgment, but just a warning tap. We ignored it, so what does that mean? What choice does God have but to send MORE judgment against us? Is there another message He could have been giving?

And don't we Christians KNOW we are out of His will anyway? Why is it then that so many Christians and pastors denied that God had anything to do with 9/11? This can only be the result of some really really bad theology being taught in the churches and seminaries of this nation.

The fatuous ceremonies by that completely apostate Trinity Wall Street Church at Ground Zero are unfortunately not all that far from the mindset of true Christians across the country. What a sad thought THAT is. Their sentimental fawning over the sycamore tree root and the "Tree of Hope" they planted, as if they were symbols of better things to come for the nation, which in reality are symbols of God's judgment to anyone with a biblical sense, are all of a piece with the biblical obtuseness of Edwards and Daschle -- and yes, David James who sees it all exactly as they saw it, without the slightest sense of the true biblical meaning of it all.

IT ALSO TAKES A BIBLICAL MINDSET TO KNOW THAT EDWARDS AND DASCHLE WERE SPEAKING PROPHETICALLY
(to be continued)

James takes on Harbinger Eight, Part 2, The Vow

A BIBLICAL VOW?

The utterance as a biblical vow
Cahn brings yet another concept into his argument that lacks both biblical and historical support when he refers to Isaiah 9:10 and Edwards's words as a vow. The idea that both include vows is a crucial part of Cahn's theory -- so much so that he uses the word 100 times in the book.

As with his other ideas, concepts and theories, Cahn presents this one in such a way that most readers will probably never give a second thought as to whether or not the author has used the term vow biblically. He has not. And because of this, he has wrongly concluded that Isaiah 9:10 and John Edwards's speech both contain a vow. They do not.

...In English, vow can be used as a synonym for any type of oath or promise.

I don't see any need to go into this in depth. First I want to object to James' frequent reference to Cahn's "theory." This shows just how far he is from getting what The Harbinger is about. There is no theory involved, this is all a matter of Cahn's having made observations of events in the present and recognized their uncanny reflection of a verse in the Old Testament, in the context of that verse's happening to describe the attitude of America just as it described Israel's 1500 years ago. This is all observation and biblical application, this is not "theory."

Beyond that, what is going on here is that James claims that Cahn is using the word vow in the biblical sense of a formal vow taken before God, but in fact he isn't and there is nothing to suggest that he is except something in James' own mind. Isaiah 9:10 is a vow in the sense that it is a declared intention to rebuild, it is not a biblical vow taken in God's sight for some religious purpose. Since it is a statement of defiance against God Himself it is very odd that there could be any question about its being such a vow anyway. How do you vow before God to defy God? James is simply once again rigidly insisting on one particular meaning of a word, and in this case it doesn't even fit the context.

Neither is Edwards' that sort of vow. James makes much of Edwards' not even talking about literally rebuilding but about how people were coping with their losses since 9/11 as if that means he wasn't making a vow at all. Missing the point that simply reading Isaiah 9:10 as a statement meant to bring comfort to the nation by a promise to rebuid is a statement of the vow whether he elaborated on that promise or not. A promise, a statement of intent, a nonformal sort of vow.

James takes on Harbinger Eight, The Utterance, and Utterly Misses the Point:

DOES CAHN FIND WASHINGTON D.C. IN ISAIAH?

The evidence continues to mount that [Cahn] believes that in some way Isaiah 9:10 was not only to Israel but was also to, about, and for the United States. Cahn useds the idea that "Somehow Isaiah 9:10 has to be connected to Washington DC" to set up his theory concerning the eighth harbinger.

David James seems to be a nice guy, a sincere guy, he's probably a good Christian man, and apparently in writing this book he's writing for at least some others who had the same take on The Harbinger he had, but from where I sit he's missed it so completely it is hard to comprehend and hard to explain.

This is THE main recurrent theme of the criticism he brings against The Harbinger, that he thinks Cahn actually believes that Isaiah himself some 2500 years ago was writing not only to Israel and about Israel but also had modern America in mind. It boggles MY mind that he could even begin to think such a thing, but he thinks he sees it in some of Cahn's wording such as "Somehow Isaiah 9:10 has to be connected to Washington DC."

It's a dramatic device Cahn is using, he's not saying somehow Washington DC must be IN Isaiah 9:10, he's saying that for the prophecy to continue to be consistent, as it has been over the previous harbingers, for it to continue to play out as the remarkable reflection of Isaiah 9:10 it already is, when we get to the question of who SPOKE the vow to rebuild we would expect to find that coming from the LEADERS of the nation, because it was the leaders of Israel who spoke it way back then. In short, if the parallel between Israel's attitude and America's is to hold up we would expect to find the leaders of America voicing it. That's why we have to find a connection to Washington DC because that's where the leaders of America generally hang out.

I'd really like to know how many out there could possibly have misread this the way David James and his fellow critics have misread it. My guess would be very few or at least I hope it's very few. I can't even imagine what it is that leads them to read it this way. Is it somehow the consequence of their biblical hermeneutic that they can imagine anyone reading the present into an ancient manuscript like this? Common sense ought to tell them that even if at first glance it SEEMS like that's what Cahn is saying he couldn't POSSIBLY be saying that, which should then lead them to what he DID mean.

And really, since in various interviews they did put this question to Cahn over and over again and he consistently denied it, what sort of arrogance does it take for them to ignore his denials and continue to insist that THEIR reading of it is what he REALLY meant? Some time back I mentioned that the way the critics deal with Cahn reminds me of a "kafkaesque nightmare," which means they come to the task with some very strange preconceptions of their own that they apply whether they fit or not, they insist they do fit, and nothing Cahn says matters -- or everything he says only confirms his guilt in his interrogators' minds. He's under suspicion from beginning to end of the interrogation based on some standard that is completely alien to his own way of thinking, he's tried and convicted on this alien standard and they consider justice to have been done. I don't know how far this scenario reflects Franz Kafka's actual writings but it's what the phrase has always conjured in my mind and it sadly fits the situation of The Harbinger.

NAAA, AMERICA WASN'T DEFYING GOD, EDWARDS WASN'T DEFYING GOD

I'm sure that same theme is going to come up again as I read this book, but now James is going on to Harbinger Eight itself, which will no doubt involve another "kafkaesque" assumption designed to convict Cahn of some sort of offense of their own invention.

Cahn takes the reader to Washington D.C. where we are shown John Edwards giving a speech in which he quotes Isaiah 9:10. This occurred in reality at a Congressional Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast on the anniversary of 9/11 in 2004. Here's James' take on this:

As was said of those involved with the placement of the Tree of Hope at Ground Zero, Cahn frames Edwards's words as part of an unwitting act of defiance. However, an honest reading of the entire speech makes it clear that not only was defiance of God the furthest thing from his mind, but neither was he unwittingly using defiant words (as can be seen in the following excerpts from the speech). So if defiance was not in his words andif it was not in his heart and mind, then where was it? Unfortunately, this is just one more thing that has been made up.

To be sure it's clear where James is getting his view of Edwards' speech I'll reproduce what he's quoted of that speech in the book as well:

[John Edwards] Good morning. Today, on this day of remembrance and mourning, we have the Lord's word to get us through. "The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place."

Well, let's take this first part of it first because this is all Cahn needed to make his point. Edwards quotes Isaiah 9:10 which is the statement of Israel's defiance of God by vowing to rebuild what the Assyrians had destroyed, without acknowledging that the destruction was God's judgment of the nation or seeking repentance to bring the nation back to God's good favor. It was clear to Cahn, as it was to me and many other readers of the book, that merely quoting Isaiah 9:10 puts Edwards in the position of pronouncing the same attitude toward 9/11 that the leaders of Israel pronounced toward the Assyrian invasion. It was defiance in Israel and it remains defiance when applied to America.

Edwards' foolish misunderstanding of it as words of reassurance, as "the Lord's word to get us through," really only highlights the defiance in the message. James has italicized that phrase as if it demonstrates that Cahn is wrong, claiming it shows that Edwards had no defiance in his heart but wanted to bring a message of comfort to the nation. But it is that very fact that makes the defiance unwitting. Simply to speak of rebuilding without recognizing that 9/11 was God's judgment IS defiance of God. This is Cahn's point. This is why Cahn emphasizes over and over that it is not about the intentions of the speaker, but simply that in speaking the words themselves he is speaking defiance of God.

It also proves nothing about Edward's heart as James claims it does, since the very desire to comfort the nation for 9/11 without acknowledging that it was God's judgment IS to have a heart attitude of defiance. That is essentially what Isaiah 9:10 describes of Israel's attitude -- we will restore our hurting nation by rebuilding, with no acknowledgment that they are out of the will of God and no intention whatever of making amends with God.

Was their defiance intentional or conscious? I don't see that the scripture says it was any more than John Edwards' defiance was. Their "prideful and arrogant hearts" are implicit in the very ignoring of God's judgment. Israel was always committing sins and idolatries ALONG WITH their prescribed sacrifices and their rites and ceremonies in supposed worship of their covenant God Jehovah, and always considered themselves to be His chosen people. They didn't see their own defiance any more than Edwards saw his or America's. That's why God sent prophets to Israel over and over, to SHOW them that they were in violation of His law and His covenant, to bring suit against them in the hope of waking them up and bringing them back to the fold. This is what The Harbinger aims to do for America.

James is very naive here. He has the same naivete Edwards had and that America has. And it is his naivete that leads him to completely miss the point. It is a BIBLICAL point that Cahn is making, it is something you know from knowing the Bible. The human heart is wicked above all things, who can know it? said Jeremiah. Well, how many of us recognize the wickedness of our hearts without the Bible's telling us it is so? Hardly any. Most people think they are good and have good hearts and that most people have good hearts. Jeremiah tells us, no, our hearts are wicked.

This is why I don't think Israel intended to defy God, and it's why Edwards was defying God without knowing it, and all America was defying God in refusing to see 9/11 as His judgment. What an American leader SHOULD have done, preferably a President but any leader could have at least made the point, is call for a national time of fasting, mourning and repentance for the sins that brought the attack upon us. There were times in the past when Presidents did call for such an national observance. Instead all we heard was about the sufferings and needing to bind the wounds of a hurting nation -- that part was important and necessary but in the absense of an acknowledgment of the attack as God's judgment it becomes defiance of God. But this single focus is what James and so many others think is sufficient acknowledgment of God? I'm afraid so. Americans thought they were acknowledging God when they sang "God bless America" but in fact were defying God because ignoring His judgment against us, His attempt to make us aware that we are out of His will, that the nation is groaning under sins that He must judge unless we turn it back to Him.

This is the whole point of The Harbinger. It is a BIBLICAL point. James shares the very attitude of defiance of God that the book seeks to expose and correct and this is really the substance of his objection to the book.

James goes on to quote the rest of Edwards' speech, which is about the sadness of the nation over the attack, and the loneliness and the bewilderment, and this IS sad. I don't want to minimize the pain of the sufferers here, but NOBODY APPLIED THE RIGHT REMEDY. People went to the churches after 9/11 hoping to find an answer to this bewildering and painful experience and they got sympathy and platitudes, they did not get the truth. They didn't stay in the churches. What was there to stay for? You can get sympathy and platitudes at the local bar and the anaesthetic of alcohol as well.

I've been looking for a passage of scripture that says something like "They heal the wounds of My people lightly," meaning the remedy isn't sufficient that is being applied because the cause of the suffering isn't recognized. But I can't find it.

Found it:

Jer 8:11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when [there is] no peace.

The true prophets didn't prophesy peace where there is no peace, they prophesied judgment. The wounds won't be healed until the cause of the judgment is turned back.

This is another reason I don't think Israel's defiance was intentional, because there are many passages where God is lamenting that His people aren't taught rightly, they are ignorant of His ways and His laws and therefore keep coming under His judgment and having to suffer for lack of knowledge. This one in Isaiah at least describes the cause of the suffering:

Isa 1:4-6 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head [there is] no soundness in it; [but] wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

James thinks that Edwards' call for grace and goodwill and prayers for comfort, proves that there was no defiance in Edwards' heart.

Not a single hint of defiance can be read into Edwards's words. Defiance most certainly was not on the hearts and minds of those in attendance at the prayer breakfast that morning either. yet in spite of all evidence to the contrary, the following dialogue explains what Cahn elieves really happened that day:

[Kaplan] "It wasn't about the motive or the intention of the one doing it, the fact that it was done . . . that it happened. It happened because it had to happen. It was another replahying of the ancient mystery. What the speakier intended to say was irrelevant. The words came out because those were the words that had to be spoken. The vow had to be proclaimed, the words of the ancient leaders over the ancient calamity had to be proclaimed by an American leader over 9/11. And by doing so, the two nations, the ancient and the modern, were bound together. The utterance would join the Assyrian invasion to 9/11 and America's post-9/11 defiance to Israel's defiance in the face of God's judgment.

Jonathan Cahn contends that Edwards was openly defying God but did not realize he was doing so. Cahn does the same thing concerning Tom Daschle in the next chapter. Based on nothing more than a need to fit his harbinger theory, the author contends that although Edwards and Daschle both intended to say one thing, their words carries a far different meaning -- a meaning that they did not intend and a meaning that no one who heard either speech would have understood or even remotely considered.

Seems to me that what Jonathan Cahn is up against here is a Biblical deaf ear. James doesn't think biblically. He thinks like any secular fallen human being. This stuff is biblically naive to put it kindly.

The reason Edwards and Daschle had no idea what they were saying and that no one who heard them would have remotely considered the meaning of defiance is that they and their hearers, like most of America, are biblically deaf.

Cahn's biblical insight on the other hand is right on the mark. Edwards and Daschle both DID speak prophetically in quoting Isaiah 9:10, they DID pronounce the spirit of defiance on behalf of the nation, that was being expressed already anyway by the majority of the people including pastors across the country. In pronouncing that spirit of defiance they were speaking harbingers of God's judgment against a sinful nation. What does it mean when God's judgment is ignored? MORE IS TO COME. It is a Biblical principle. They spoke the words of defiance, defying God's judgment on 9/11. and that becomes prophetic of further judgment. It's a BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE.

James takes on Harbinger Seven, The Erez Tree Part 5: Again, is Isaiah ABOUT America?

And here comes this absolutely bizarre notion again that keeps cropping up in the thinking of The Harbinger's critics:

And finally, concerning the Erez tree, it must be noted once again that Cahn has at times tried to distance himself from his own words in the book by stating that Isaiah 9:10 is not a prophecy about America. However, it is virtually impossible to reconcile this claim with the following exchange:

[The Prophet] "The new tree was set into position to stand on the same spot where once had stood the Sycamore of Ground Zero."

[Kaplan]"What was it? What kind of tree?"

[The Prophet] "The most natural thing to have done would have been to replace the one Sycamore with another. But the prophecy required that the fallen Sycamore be replaced with a tree of an entirely different nature."

The prophecy in Isaiah 9:10 cannot require anything to happen in America if it was not given to America. Yet repeatedly Cahn insists that each of the harbinger events had to happen in America after 9/11 because the Isaiah passage required them to happen. Once again, there is no amazing prophetic coincidence. There is no match. There is no parallel. And there is no harbinger.

Often while reading this sort of thing in James' book I find myself sitting perplexed trying to figure out how he managed to get this idea out of that piece of writing.

Cahn is not "trying to distance himself from his own words," he's trying to distance himself from this sort of bizarre misreading of his words.

He states that "Isaiah 9:10 is not a prophecy about America" because it isn't a prophecy about America and he never said it was, although James apparently thinks he's saying it is in the short dialogue he quotes above.

First, Isaiah 9:10 itself is not a prophecy and Cahn does not mean it is a prophecy EXCEPT as it becomes manifest in America. THEN it becomes a prophecy TO America. But in itself it is just a statement of a nation's defiance of God in planning to rebuild after God has brought judgment against them, instead of repenting for the sins that brought the judgment.

Once it is applied to America it is THEN a prophecy and it THEN "requires" replacing the Sycamore with the Erez because that's what Israel said they were going to do. For the verse to BE a prophecy to America events in America must follow the pattern described there. That's all he means by saying "the prophecy required" the planting of the Erez.

Isaiah 9:10 in itself does not "require" ANYTHING to happen and Cahn does not say it does. James is simply misreading and misunderstanding the whole thing.

Hard to understand how but obviously he is and since he so completely misread that I suppose he would misread my explanation as well.

=======
Well, this finishes off James' section on the Erez Tree. On to the next section, Harbinger Eight, The Utterance.

Update on my soul-searching about The Harbinger

The critics were getting to me: Perhaps, although I don't see it, I am deceived about it since they are so convinced it is a deception. The only way to find out would be to suspend my opinions and take some time off to think and pray about it.

I did that. I kept hoping for some sort of clear directive to kind of hit me from out of the blue as it were. Nothing happened. But when I went back to reading David James' book it was just as clear to me as ever that he is wrong in his criticisms. That apparently is God's answer and now I'm back to defending The Harbinger.

Rocks and Trees and Speeches and Prayers of Hope and Comfort or Defiance of God?

I'm still reeling a bit from that last post, especially seeing that David James wasn't alert to the false theology of St. Paul's even through their mushminded sentimentality if nothing else, certainly their utter lack of a gospel context of any sort whatever, but also that he allowed himself to suspect that perhaps the idea of the "divine in all of us" was REALLY from Jonathan Cahn himself although it couldn't be confirmed. That hits me as really low.

But the main problem is that if David James and the other critics don't understand that it is defiance of God after He has brought judgment against us to try to comfort the nation with symbols of "hope" and promises to rebuild, perhaps it's hopeless to try to get the message across. This is a failure of spiritual discernment, or perhaps, also a failure of biblical hermeneutics, to hand them back their own criticism. That is, since their hermeneutic makes it impossible to apply Isaiah 9:10 to America despite its being such a perfect fit, they are going to be blind to the whole message of The Harbinger for that reason. Or perhaps it's theology: if you aren't committed to the view that God is sovereign over all things, in control of absolutely everything, you may fail to recognize disasters as the work of God, and in that case you may also fail to see that attempts to offer hope and comfort on the basis of human strength alone amount to defiance of God.

This in fact seems to describe the majority "Christian" response to 9/11 at the time, which is exactly what The Harbinger is intended to expose, exactly what the harbingers themselves are meant to sear into the collective American mind if anyone can be made to pay attention.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WHO WAS NOT EVEN A CHRISTIAN AT THE TIME KNEW THAT THE CIVIL WAR WAS GOD'S JUDGMENT AGAINST AMERICA FOR OUR SIN OF SLAVERY, BUT "CHRISTIANS" TODAY SEEM TO THINK OF GOD AS EVEN MORE REMOTE THAN THE DEISTS DID, A GOD WHO DOESN'T HAVE CONTROL OVER HIS WORLD, OVER NATURE OR OVER HUMAN ACTIONS. EVEN GEORGE WASHINGTON THE MASON WHO HAD A FALSE IDEA OF CHRIST BELIEVED IN "PROVIDENCE" AND KNEW THAT A NATION MUST HONOR GOD'S LAWS IF IT IS TO PROSPER. HOW DID THIS "CHRISTIAN" NATION LOSE THIS FUNDAMENTAL BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE NATURE OF GOD?

Cahn is dead-on right that the spirit of America's reaction to 9/11 is defiance of God, just as it is described in Isaiah 9:10. If you really do have discernment you should have known that without the revelation of The Harbinger, but it seems to me the revelation must have been sent to open some eyes, which must be understood as God's merciful condescension to a spiritually dull people if so. The vow to rebuild, restated in so many ways by so many American leaders, even actually quoting Isaiah 9:10 itself in the delusion that this is a positive and reassuring statement of national hope and pride; the fatuous sentimental delusion of making a bronze memorial of the roots of the fallen sycamore tree as if such a creepy image could by any stretch be an omen of anything good whatever; and planting the wishfully misnamed Tree of Hope, all of these things are unwitting testimonies to God's judgment against the nation rather than the positive symbols they were intended to be. They all reflect Isaiah 9:10 despite the critics' bizarre and hairsplitting attempts to undermine the obvious connections. Cahn has nailed it. James and the other critics are missing it completely.

I looked up some scriptures that it seems to me apply to the kind of thinking that treats these events as symbols of hope rather than symbols of God's judgment against the nation:

The theme is RITES AND PRAYERS AND EMPTY WORDS IN THE ABSENCE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. I'm thinking here of the sad refrain "God bless America" that was sung and said so often in the wake of 9/11, typical of America's appeal to God without acknowledging God's warning in that attack that we are out of His will. The only right thing we could possibly do under those circumstances is repent, as The Harbinger preaches over and over and over. Acknowledge the nations sins and do what we can to turn the country back to Him.

Prayer is useless when we are out of God's will. He will not listen. The story of the defeat of the Israelites at Ai because of the sin of Achan comes to mind:

Jos 7:10-13 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put [it] even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, [but] turned [their] backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you. Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, [There is] an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.

Oh but we aren't ancient Israel, are we? I guess that means that if WE commit sins God won't judge us the same way but will still listen to our fatuous prayers even while we're tolerating idolatrous religions as equal to God (and those making such prayers are part of those false religions), murdering our unborn in the tens of millions and up to our ears in unrighteous laws and legalized immoralities of every kind? Right. THOSE things only bothered God if ISRAEL committed them. I dunno, though, maybe we could TRY it. Stop asking God to bless this corrupt nation, get rid of an accursed object or two and see if it helps.

Here's a similar message from God to Israel (oh but far be it from me to suggest it might have implications for modern America. No, I'm just including it here because, well, because. Oh well.)

Isa 1:13-17 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; [it is] iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear [them]. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

The blood of the unborn is on our hands, God is sick of our empty ceremonies like dedicating a rock to rebuild what He knocked down to call our attention to our sins, like planting a "tree of hope" where He uprooted a sycamore to call attention to our sins, and praying over it too, prayers for God to bless a sinning nation with not the slightest intention of doing anything to make the nation obedient to His will. Oh but that's all just for Israel. God loves America even though we've removed His Commandments from our view and from our laws and now have laws almost reversing them. Right. It was just those bad Muslims who attacked us, that had nothing to do with God. Right. We're going to rebuild and God will bless us. Right.

Jer 7:9-16 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen [it], saith the LORD. But go ye now unto my place which [was] in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; Therefore will I do unto [this] house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, [even] the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

The abominations America commits in His house such as that abomination of an ecumenical prayer service in the National Cathedral that G W Bush assembled right after 9/11, with all the false religions including Islam that he called "the religion of peace" and Catholicism whose Pope he said reminded him of God. God has said He doesn't hear the prayers of those who deny Him and follow other gods. And I don't know if St. Paul's, the church where George Washington and his team prayed for the nation was a true church back then but it certainly isn't now and its clergy offer prayers that are an abomination in God's ears, and ceremonies performed with empty idolatrous words that deny Him and celebrate human works. Our churches and the nation as a whole are following all kinds of other gods, and the nation has legalized all kinds of sins including adultery and stealing and murder but we still "stand before Him in His house" as if we are "delivered to do all those abominations in His house." But we expect God to "bless America."

And the prophet Amos gives a similar message:

Amos 5:21-27 I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept [them]: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name [is] The God of hosts.

And again, of course we mustn't take this to apply to America because we don't observe the same feast days that Israel did so God must not hate OUR feast days, and we don't offer offerings any more as Israel did, and we don't sing vain songs to God, and we don't sacrifice to false gods and besides He can't send US into captivity beyond Damascus so OBVIOUSLY none of this applies to America.

Just one last thought. Was 9/11 REALLY God's judgment on America?

Amos 3:6 Shall there be calamity in a city, and the LORD hath not done [it]?

We need a new Protestant Reformation. Send us fearless preachers of Your gospel, Lord, to turn this nation back to You, Your true Gospel that overthrows darkness, turns hearts to righteousness and brings people into Your Kingdom by the blood of Christ, God in human flesh who died to pay for our sins. THIS is how You would bless America, Lord, if You would have such mercy on us.

James takes on Harbinger Seven, The Erez Tree Part 4: Tree of Hope or Defiance of God?

(This is a very rough post because it turned out there was so much that needed to be covered, took me most of the day to get the information together and I haven't yet fully commented on all of it or edited it either. But I wanted to post it in its rough form anyway. That usually helps me see what I need to do next.)

I'm beginning to think that much of this sort of hairsplitting irrelevance must come from the simple fact that these critics, including James, did not see 9/11 as God's judgment before The Harbinger came out and don't habitually think in terms of calamities as God's judgment, as I tend to do. A major reason I have taken such an interest in The Harbinger is that I did see it that way and Cahn's revelation of the harbingers hit me as a literal manifestation of that fact, which I've speculated comes perhaps as a way to wake up those who didn't recognize it as God's judgment in the first place. Perhaps it has awakened some, but those who rejected the judgment interpretation at the time, and are inclined to deny that SORT of interpretation as a general rule, may be simply elaborating their position in this strange attempt to find fault with the book.

The next subject James gets into under this heading of the Erez Tree particularly demonstrates this frame of mind. Here James is attacking the very heart of the message of The Harbinger, in fact the very heart of Isaiah 9:10. This is a theme that comes up in the context of other harbingers as well, but here it concerns the understanding of the planting of the Norway spruce in the place of the uprooted sycamore.

The third major problem with Cahn's theory of The Erez Tree harbinger concerns Israel's attitude and unmitigated act of defiance. Israel wanted to show the Assyrians that their attacks had neither permanently destroyed the nation nor their resolve to survive all attempts to annihilate them. Yet Israel also knew that the Assyrians were merely instruments in the hands of God who was severely judging them. Their intentional defiance was ultimately directed at the Lord.

Likewise, Cahn portrays the placement of the Tree of Hope (the Norway spruce) at Ground Zero as an equally significant act of defiance toward God. This is despite the complete lack of supporting evidence. Those at the ceremony simply were not defying God. They were not even necessarily showing defiance toward America's enemies at that point in time. They were focused on bringing a message of comfort and hope to the soul of a nation that had not fully recovered from 9/11.[THFOF p. 106]

Where does James get this idea that Israel's defiance was intentional? Isaiah 9:9 says they determined to rebuild "in the pride and arrogance of their hearts," but what's to say that they consciously intended to defy God any more than America did? Are we supposed to assume that because they were Israel who had been so favored by God that they would know they were defying God but that we in modern America wouldn't, although the people doing the ceremony over the Tree of Hope were supposedly Christians who ought to know the ways of God? Not to mention that most of us were raised with SOME sense of our Biblical heritage which also leaves us no excuse. Even further, that even the heathen who have had no exposure to the Bible are said in scripture to be without excuse as God's handiwork is apparent to all in some sense.

Seems to me that Israel's intention to rebuild could just as well be described in the words James applied to America, as being

focused on bringing a message of comfort and hope to the soul of a nation that had not fully recovered from [the Assyrian attack.]

Did not Israel's false prophets customarily prophesy "Peace, peace, when there is no peace?" Isn't that the essence of their false prophecies down the centuries, that they denied the hand of God in judgment, denied the prophecies of judgment to come that were given by the true prophets, even persecuted and murdered the true prophets because they didn't like their messages?

How is this different from America's blindness to God's hand in 9/11 and the frequently expressed anger at those few who dared to tell us that's what it was? God's people Israel were often guilty of failing to see God's workings and failing to listen to God's prophets. This doesn't mean they were any more "intentional" in their failure than America has been since 9/11 -- it's the way of the flesh, the common tendency of fallen humanity to follow our own fallible minds and forget God, and even God's people fail in this way if we are not careful. This way of the flesh IS prideful and arrogant by its very nature, as we regard ourselves as independent of God, not thinking of Him at all most of the time.

The angry denial that 9/11 was God's judgment of America is the same kind of pride and arrogance as Isaiah describes in the hearts of the people of ancient Israel. But the denial doesn't have to be angry to be defiance of God. Even the Tree of Hope is a way of crying "peace, peace, when there is no peace." When what was needed was acall to turn back the sins of the nation that had brought God's judgment against us. The planters of the Tree of Hope were indeed seeking to bring “a message of hope and comfort” to the nation. As were the political leaders Daschle and Edwards when they quoted Isaiah 9:10, as were all America’s leaders who promised one way or another that we would rebuild.

THE VERY INTENTION TO "BRING COMFORT AND HOPE" TO THE NATION BY SENTIMENTAL HUMAN MEANS WITHOUT RECOGNIZING THAT 9/11 WAS GOD'S JUDGMENT OF THE NATION THAT WARNS OF MORE TO COME IS INDEED THE PRIDEFUL AND ARROGANT SPIRIT OF DEFIANCE THAT IS EXPRESSED IN ISAIAH 9:10.

This IS the attitude of defiance of God but James doesn’t recognize it. He says that Cahn “disregards” the intention to bring comfort and hope “in favor of trying to create more support for his theories:

[The Prophet] “The Erez Tree becomes another symbol of the nation and its defiance – a living symbol of their confidence in their national resurgence, their tree of hope.”

[Kaplan] “A tree of hope, but not a good hope.”

[The Prophet] “No,” he replied, “a prideful, self-centered, and godless hope. What they saw as a tree of hope was, in reality, a harbinger of judgment.”

***
[Kaplan] “They replaced the fallen Sycamore with the Erez Tree!”

[The Prophet] “The sign of a nation’s false hope and defiance before God.”

[Kaplan] “It’s like something out of a movie . . . it’s surreal.”

[The Prophet] “Except that it’s real.”

[Kaplan] “Who was behind the decision to do that?” I asked.

[The Prophet] “No one,” he answered. “No one in the sense of any one person making it all happen or trying to fulfill the prophecy.”

[Kaplan] “No one had any idea what they were doing?”

[The Prophet] “No one.”

That is the essence of the message of The Harbinger right there, and James misses it by a million miles. He’s quoted this dialogue in order to declare:

Cahn imposes a clearly wrong interpretation on the events surrounding the placing of the Tree of Hope and misrepresents those who were involved. However, even two years after 9/11, the spirit at the dedication ceremony at St. Paul’s Chapel was consistent with what had happened at the church during the year following the terrorist attacks. In September 2002, National Geographic published an article by a minister at the church in which he described his experience during that year:

More than 5,000 people used their special gifts to transform St. Paul’s into a place of rest and refuge. Musicians, clergy, podiatrists, lawyers, soccer moms, and folks of every imaginable type poured coffee, swept floors, took out the trash, and served more than a half a million meals. Emerging at St. Paul’s was a dynamic I think of as a reciprocity of gratitude, a circle of thanksgiving – in which volunteers and rescue and recovery workers tried to outdo each other with acts of kindness and love, leaving both giver and receiver changed. This circle of gratitude was infectious, and I hope it continues to spread. In fact, I hope it turns into an epidemic.

That minister’s heart is clearly reflected in the words he spoke just a few days after the attacks: “But we would gladly give up St. Paul’s to have saved just one life across the street.” Even someone who might have sharp theological disagreements with whatever might be preached on any given Sunday at that church can readily see there was no spirit of defiance against God in this place – intentional or otherwise. It is simply unreasonable and misleading to suggest that the placement, dedication and lighting ceremonies for the Tree of Hope were any different.

The 21-foot Norway spruce was lowered into the ground on November 22, 2003. This was followed by a prayer service and lighting ceremony on November 29, when St. Paul’s was filled to capacity. Rather than an unintentional act of defiance toward God, it was an intentional act of worship and reliance on Him. Although some might argue that many there were not actually worshiping the God of the Bible, when it comes to assessing motives the important point is that thehy believed that they were. It is not their theology that is in question.

Many internet articles purport to quote part of the prayer of dedication as including a reference to "the divine in all of us." Of course, if true, this statement would be heresy. However, as of this writing, despite extensive research by this author, the oirgianl source of that prayer has not been located. It appears that most if not all writers my be referencing a message by Jonathan Cahn at his church, but this has not been confirumed. Unfortunately, the endnote reference on pate 94 of The Harbinger, which is also said to be a quogte from the dedication ceremony, only mentions the name of the speaker and cites no source for the quote.

However, even if true, it would be difficult to characterize this as defiance with a malicious heart. Although Israel’s defiance would have fallen into the category of an intentional ‘high-handed sin, “ such was not the case at the dedication of the Tree of Hope.

The plaque at the site of the Tree of Hope has the following inscription:

Ground Zero workers helped plant this Norway spruce on November 22, 2003, in place of a giant sycamore that was struck down during the collapse of the World Trade Center. In a special thanksgiving service, St. Paul’s dedicated the new tree as “The Tree of Hope,” a reminder and affirmation of the power of love in the face of tragedy.

I copied out all of that verbatim because I just couldn't believe my eyes and wanted to be sure I was seeing what I was seeing. There is absolutely NOTHING in anything James quotes from the minister at that church or that plaque that couldn't have been said by a Mormon or a New Age practitioner or a Unity believer or even an atheist.

What James misreads as apparently a true Christian spirit in "that minister's heart" I read as the soul of antichrist defiance of God itself because it denies God's judgment on the nation and prides itself on its supposed compassion at the human level. I can't find the speech dedicating the Tree of Hope anywhere online either, but I did find a page at the Trinity Wall Street Church site, of which the St. Paul's Chapel is a part, that clearly indicates it would be in keeping with that church's views to use such a phrase as "the divine in all of us."

When I first started researching the background for The Harbinger I found sermons at this Trinity Church that clearly misrepresent the gospel of Jesus Christ, denying His Deity among other things. I wish I had linked them at the time, but there's plenty enough at that site to show that it is a screamingly apostate church. For instance I just found a blog that identifies the theology there as Liberation Theology or at least some form of the Social Gospel, and as far as I looked I couldn't find one single statement of the true gospel of salvation in Christ, but a lot of existentialist New Agey gobbledygook that could almost be said to deify The Poor.

Below I've collected a hodgepodge of quotes that I'll try to get back and clean up, but if you read through them you'll find him talking only about social issues, about how he's writing a book about Barack Obama, he speaks positively about Roman Catholicism, talks about "gay rights," and especially carries on about The Poor. I've bolded the most UNChristian parts.

The Fullness

Preaching as Liberation Theology with the Poor in Mind
Every church community faces the task of authentic proclamation of the good news of God in Christ. The issue of poverty remains part of the fabric of human life. It does seem that in the words of Jesus, we will always have the poor with us. However, what distinguishes the church from other social institutions is how the church addresses this reality. How does the church place the poor as one of its prized treasures or concerns? Even in affluent communities, how does the church remind its people of the need to be attentive to the needs of the poor?

I base my preaching on the Good News of God in Christ: one that is good news for the poor, one in which the poor know they are the recipients of the reign of God, a democracy in which they are subjects. And I see myself as participating in God’s continuing action of sending manna for food, the prophets for moral nourishment, and the Bread of Life as Eucharist for the world.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Eucharist is called the Mass – it is from the Latin Word for dismissal. This word serves as a reminder that, as much as worship is about gathering as community, it is just as much about, going into the world to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.

So whenever we pray, whenever we worship, we should view ourselves as participating in the life, work, mission and love of God. Our liturgies should call us into a work for justice, freedom, peace and righteousness. Liturgies remind us of that profound call to love God and neighbor with our whole, mind, heart and strength.

Years ago, while serving as a missionary in the Amazon jungles of Brazil, I was made very aware of the power of liturgy to transform human lives. Throughout much of Latin America during the fifties, sixties and early seventies, many of these countries poorest people did not means of getting their voices heard through the regular political channels. Many of them turned to the churches, primarily the Roman Catholic Churches and this led to the development of the base communities and the Liberation Theology Movement.

After the gospel was read, the dramatization of the gospel began. With the dramatization, I noticed something in the gospel that after thirty years of reading I had never noticed before. A group of three women entered on stage carrying buckets for water, two of them fainted along the way, and only the Samaritan woman got to the well. On the other end of the stage the disciple are complaining that they are hungry. Jesus sends all of them to go and buy food. He walks towards the center of the stage. The narrator shouted the following: Lack of water and food increasingly divide our families and get in the way of the family staying together in love. We need easier access to water and we need more basis food supplies. We are thirsty, we are starving.”

The dramatization showed the Samaritan woman highlighting all her needs: lack of water, losing her husbands to the city life, struggling to make ends meet and telling her whole life to Jesus. Jesus listened and promised to help her and to help her village. They ended the dramatization with Jesus and the disciples meeting the woman and all the villagers. They get together and plant corn and dig a well. The closing scene showed the disciples baptizing the villagers and the whole church standing to sing, “Amazing Grace.”

I remember thinking, “Wow. Now this is what you call liturgy!”

The president says his view continues to evolve. I recently heard a commentator say that the president is too “young, hip, cool, and smart not to believe in gay marriage”. I believe and agree with that. Barack Obama, I believe, believes that gays and lesbians should marry. That said, on this issue; I think the president’s claim to be evolving does not pose a huge problem. In this day and age, where actions speak louder than words; the president’s action show that he supports gay marriage. Was it St Francis who said, “Preach the gospel at all time and when necessary use words”. I guess one could say, preach the gospel of gay marriage at all times and when necessary answer people’s questions about whether you believe in gay marriage. The kind of evolution practiced by the president offers more hope of justice than many “evolutions” present in our churches and society today. Let the reader remember, we are all evolving…

For me, the Incarnation (God occupying a human for in the person of Jesus) stands as the most sensibly and mysterious belief. God became a human being, Jesus Christ, a man, invited us all to become like God. This is good news, gospel. To believe in the gospel is to believe that God occupies every human being and God loves the poor in a special way.

In the book, Barack says, “Blessed are those who live a preferential love for the poor…. Blessed are those who die before their time because they are poor. Woe to those who advocate solving the economic woes [by putting burdens] on the backs of the poor. They advocate balancing the debt by cutting the social programs and refusing to tax the richest in the country.”

On May 1, I had the great honor of being part of a Trinity Institute program called May Day Teach-In, an attempt to address many of the issues facing our nation/world and the issues raised by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Religious and secular leaders were invited to discuss the issues of justice and the poor; in a context described as part convention, rally, and renewal.

Our first presenter, the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus, The Riverside Church, New York, reminded us of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King who preached against and pointed to the triple threat/evils of Racism, Militarism, and Materialism. Then, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, rector, Trinity Wall Street, spoke about the unity of actions between TWS and OWS to confront poverty and raise the issues.

Master of Ceremonies, Charles B. Strozier, professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and musicians Peader and Pio helped introduce and pave the way for the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, the Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, rector, Trinity Wall Street, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Diego Ibañez, Joyce Carol Oates, Bryan K. Parsons, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, James W. Jones and I to offer thoughs about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It was a hopeful discussion with many strong challenges.

I wanted to summarize my thoughts

•I wish Trinity Church had started the Movement. I wish we had been the ones to give birth to the Movement.
•Reminded the group that our greatest spiritual call is to love the divine in the other by caring for the poor and those most in need. Any worship where the poor do not receive preferential option and love borders on idolatry.
•It is idolatrous to disrespect the poor.
•Then I told a story that emphasized the importance of giving away what is precious to us.
•Then I shared the words of a holy man, I was honored to have met, Dom Helder Camara from brazil who said, “When I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”
•How I wish, I said, we could all be called communists.
•Then I shared a story about the importance of not being afraid.
•I reminded the group that Jesus spoke a lot more about money than we are willing to admit or are aware.
•I encouraged all of us to be grateful for the challenges that come from the OWS Movement.
•Then I mentioned I wished we were able to do the conference in the streets instead of the studio.

THIS CHURCH REPRESENTS EXACTLY WHY THIS NATION IS UNDER GOD'S JUDGMENT AS IT DENIES THE ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL AND ENDORSES THE VERY SINS OF THE NATION THAT DESERVE JUDGMENT!

WHERE IS YOUR SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT, MR. JAMES?