No, there cannot be ACCEPTABLE animal sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple after Christ has come

I fairly recently discovered Brannon Howse and most of the time I appreciate his messages, but every now and then he supports a point of view that I decidedly don't agree with and that's happened a couple of times recently, both times a view given by a guest on his radio show.

I blogged a few times recently (below) on the remarks of Jimmy DeYoung on Jonathan Cahn's "Harbinger" which there's no point in repeating here. I'm looking forward to finding out what Brannon has to say after he's done some more research into this -- will he agree with DeYoung or Cahn?

Now today, March 21st, his guest was Dr. John Whitcomb, and I nearly fell off my chair* at what he said about the idea that during the millennium when Christ is reigning on the earth the temple will be reinstated and so will animal sacrifices as they were done in the Old Testament. [*Actually I shouted "EXCA-YOOOZE ME???" so loud I must have shaken up a few neighbors. Sorry, folks.]

I know of John Whitcomb particularly for his being co-author with Henry Morris of the 1961 book The Genesis Flood, which is credited with launching Young Earth Creationism as it is known today, and was probably the main reason I got so interested in the subject too. The only problem I'm aware of having with Whitcomb's views is that he argues for a ten-thousand rather than a six-thousand year old earth, for which I can't find any Biblical justification, and has said so on Howse's program too.

But here's what he said today (this all starts at about 37.20 into the broadcast). This was in answer to a listener's question how there could be a reinstitution of animal sacrifices after Jesus came to die for our sins, and particularly in the context of the Millennium when Jesus would be ruling physically on the earth. (The Millennium is interpreted by some to refer to a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth yet to come, after His Second Coming when His appearance ends the seven-year period of the rule of the Antichrist. The prophecies regarding this period are interpreted to include the reestablishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the main purpose of the Temple in Old Testament times was for animal sacrifice.)

Whitcomb says he studied this question for many years and discovered something about it that "thrills his heart and soul," whidch is basically that the Old Testament animal sacrifices were

"NOT TO TAKE AWAY SIN" but "to protect people from premature destruction when they entered the holy presence of God."

Here's where I woke up any dozing neighbors.

He goes on to explain that when Israel was about to come out of Egypt and God had them paint the blood of a lamb on their door frames, God said

"When I see the blood I will pass over you, NOT "save you." Not "regenerate you" but "pass over you." "I will not destroy you prematurely."

He further says that in the Millennium the sacrifices

will be a teaching aid, a visual aid of the holiness of God. They are not for the purpose of being saved, not to have their sins cleansed away as only the blood of Christ can do that and they will be taught that fact, but only to be a visual aid of the holiness of God, and the need for faith in the finished work of Jesus Messiah to be saved and accepted to God.

It is this sort of twisting of the scripture that is the main thing that keeps me from embracing the end times pre-trib rapture interpretations. They make some very good arguments until they get to the Millennium in which they posit these reinstated sacrifices and try to rationalize them as not the obvious blasphemy they are after the advent of Jesus Christ who IS our sacrifice for sin. It's not that there isn't scripture for such a reinstatement, but there is the problem that they WOULD BE BLASPHEMOUS. And besides, at the midpoint of the seven-year period of the Antichrist's reign scripture is clear (if you accept this interpretive scheme) that this wicked world ruler will put an end to the sacrifices that would have been instituted in the Jerusalem temple sometime in the previous 3-1/2 year period. Since they are blasphemous it makes no sense at all that they would be again instituted after the Lord Jesus returns another three and a half years after that.

What makes them blasphemous? This OUGHT to be unquestionable in the mind of any Bible-believing Christian it seems to me and I have a very hard time understanding how so many these days are trying to rationalize this away.

Jesus prophesied that the temple would be destroyed but He would raise it up in three days. His resurrection from the dead would have been that raising, and all of us who are the Body of Christ are the stones of that temple He raised [I know scripture is needed here so I'll try to get back and supply it]. In 70 AD the physical building that was the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army, fulfilling the Lord's prophecy of its destruction. And now we have the new temple, the living stones of His Body. Nothing could be clearer but that the Old Testament system of sacrifice was ended once and for all in Christ.

We are taught in many parts of the New Testament that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. His death on the cross was the fulfillment of all the previous animal sacrifices that could not atone for sin, though His blood atoned perfectly for all who believe on Him [spelled out particularly in the Letter to the Hebrews]. God's call to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac typified this much-later EFFECTIVE blood sacrifice for sin, and that event just happened to occur on the very ground where Jesus eventually died on the cross too. The Messiah is described in the Old Testament as coming "to save His people from their sins," defining the purpose of sacrifice right there. {Again I'll try to get all the relevant scriptures in place eventually].

The Passover, which Dr. Whitcomb so misrepresents, was also a type of the sacrifice of Christ, who is called "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Whitcomb twists the meaning of the words to suggest that "passing over" the people is something other than salvation, but this flies in the face of orthodox theology for the last 2000 years. God's passing over the people instead of killing their firstborn as He did those of the Egyptians, definitely represents salvation as all the animal sacrifices do. We who believe in Christ have His blood covering our souls just as the lamb's blood on the doorposts protected the people within, so that the wrath of God which abides on all sinners no longer abides on us. THAT's the "passing over" that Jesus accomplished for us and it IS salvation. And there are many other Old Testament practices that foreshadow the same meaning -- the sprinkling of blood on the people by the hyssop branch and so on and so forth.

ANY attempt to reinstate the old temple is already blasphemous in this light, a direct defiance of God's gift of His Son as THE sacrifice for sin. IF the temple is reinstated in Jerusalem and IF animal sacrifices are performed there, it could only be a terrible affront to God, and after the Antichrist removes the sacrifices to set up the Abomination of Desolation in their place I don't see how they could ever be reinstalled again. The Abomination of Desolation can't really be much more of a blasphemy than the reinstated sacrifices now that the Lamb of God has come.

It also seems necessary to say that the Old Testament ought to be enough of a "visual aid" in the Millennium just as it is now, of God's purposes in the sacrifices, especially in the light of New Testament interpretation of the Old. Why should people in the Millennium have any more of a need than we do for such illustrations? The idea is, really, ridiculous, and blasphemous. But it's even worse to suggest that the sacrifices aren't wholly an illustration of what Christ did for us, but a "teaching aid" to more general principles.

The scriptures that support this view are many but here are a couple that show that the purpose of sacrifice was WHOLLY to atone for sin -- NOT to be a "visual aid to the holiness of God":

Jhn 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Even before Moses gave the law to the Israelites, sacrifice was practiced as an atonement for sin:

Job 1:5 And it was so, when the days of [their] feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings [according] to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

And here are a couple of commentators who agree that the purpose of the animal sacrifices was to atone for sin:

Matthew Henry on Lev 4:1-12 which describes sacrifices appointed by God [go to Leviticus 4 at Blue Letter Bible and click on the button for Commentaries]:

The laws contained in the first three chapters seem to have been delivered to Moses at one time. Here begin the statutes of another session, another day. From the throne of glory between the cherubim God delivered these orders. And he enters now upon a subject more strictly new than those before. Burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, and peace-offerings, it should seem, had been offered before the giving of the law upon mount Sinai; those sacrifices the patriarchs had not been altogether unacquainted with (Gen. 8:20; Ex. 20:24), and in them they had respect to sin, to make atonement for it, Job 1:5. But the law being now added because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19), and having entered, that eventually the offence might abound (Rom. 5:20), they were put into a way of making atonement for sin more particularly by sacrifice, which was (more than any of the ceremonial institutions) a shadow of good things to come, but the substance is Christ, and that one offering of himself by which he put away sin and perfected for ever those who are sanctified.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on the same passage also treat all the different sacrifices as for the purpose of atoning for sin [also at Blue Letter Bible Lev 4 Commentaries]:

35. it shall be forgiven him--None of these sacrifices possessed any intrinsic value sufficient to free the conscience of the sinner from the pollution of guilt, or to obtain his pardon from God; but they gave a formal deliverance from a secular penalty ( Hbr 9:13, 14 ); and they were figurative representations of the full and perfect sin offering which was to be made by Christ.

It is this very meaning of the sacrifices as FOR SIN that John Whitcomb so studiously denies, his denial even "thrilling his heart and soul." WHY? Why do so many these days seem to want to whitewash the rebuilding of the temple with its sacrifices? God Himself destroyed it because its true purpose, the Messiah, had come and fulfilled it. Eventually, we know from scripture, great numbers of Jews will recognize this and be saved with us. When that happens THEY aren't going to want to keep the old temple either. What's with all this attempt to justify the Old Testament religion that Christ fulfilled?

Musings on prophecy for today (pray more and fast some and you may change your opinion on this)

Just a note inspired by the second to last post:

I know that some Christians are adamantly against the idea of prophecy in today's church, and since there is a lot of false prophecy, especially in the charismatic movement, that's a prudent view to take these days.

But think about the fact that David Wilkerson's church had been expecting some sort of disaster and the leaders called them to prayer over it for weeks before 9/11 occurred (see the video in the previous post). That's true prophecy isn't it? And you can't deny it. They were seeking God about something the leaders of the church felt was coming, for quite a while before 9/11 hit. David Wilkerson years ago wrote about a prophetic word he'd received about the destruction of New York city mostly through social breakdown, and that has not yet occurred. If it was really from God then it will eventually occur.

Believers who are deeply and consistently in prayer, in touch with God, reading the Bible, spending much time at it, DO experience God's speakings. At the very least we hear from Him on a personal level. God has spoken to me personally about my own spiritual life many times, often in correction or rebuke, alas, but very direct and personal (no, not audibly, but by a vivid impression on my spirit). I know I've had at least two dreams in my life that came from God, also about my personal situation. When it comes to external things, such as this blog is about, God does sometimes lead me and I know He is leading me, and the more I pray and seek Him the more I am likely to receive such leadings but this doesn't come in the form of visions or dreams or prophetic words, just the promptings of the Spirit. ALL Christians experience something of this leading of God, which often comes through the Bible, a particular passage just "jumping out" as you read, that has such a specific connection to something you've been experiencing or thinking about you know it was from Him.

We also sometimes have experiences of being hindered in some way, kept from doing something we fully intended to do, or on the other hand made to feel some urgency to get someplace we are going, then to find out that the hindering or urgency put us in a position we needed to be in, often to be of help to another Christian. I know many of us have had this sort of experience, and what is that but God intervening PERSONALLY in our lives? This isn't exactly prophecy but along with His leading us through His word it doesn't seem all that different from His actually making us aware of a direct message from Him. And all that COULD be said to be prophecy in a sense because it comes from God Himself. But certainly receiving a direct message must be called prophecy. It's not just "forthtelling the word" as some claim is the only form of prophecy we have today, it's a specific message for our time NOW, if only for oneself concerning something in your own very limited circle. OF COURSE IT MUST NOT CONTRADICT THE BIBLE. And again, those who spend much time seeking the Lord are the ones who are most likely to have such experiences-- and conversely, perhaps it's those who don't spend a lot of time in prayer and Bible reading who are the critics of such experiences.

The REAL problem with claims of hearing from God is when they contradict His word or are provably false. And that happens an awful lot in charismatic churches, particularly when a "prophet" comes and gives a "word" over a brother or sister in the church that doesn't pan out. The devil CAN give messages into people's minds too, and discerning the difference isn't always easy.

I'm saying all this because I know some object to Jonathan Cahn's message as a personal prophecy and I hate to see this obviously true message being dismissed out of hand on such a basis without giving it a fair hearing. It's really not a prophecy at all, it's his observations of connections between a Bible verse and real public events that anyone can check out for himself. But the Jewish Messianic movement of which he is a part does support prophecy for today and at the end of the talk he gave in 2005 which I've linked many times, including in the previous post, he describes some other experiences only tangentially related to the 9/11 message that are prophetic in nature, that I too have some doubts about.

But the "harbinger" message remains intact no matter what you think about such spiritual gifts for today or this branch of the church or Jonathan Cahn himself. I think of him as a dedicated Christian brother myself.

God's warning harbingers to America in light of revelations about the Antichrist nature of the American founders

There is no doubt in my mind that the correspondences between Isaiah 9:10 and events associated with 9/11/01 in America are something only God could have brought about. The fallen bricks, the hewn stone to replace them, the fallen sycamore, the conifer to replace it -- no human agent could have intentionally engineered all that in some strange attempt to make 9/11 echo Isaiah 9:10. The correspondences don't even need to be as exact as they are to show that America's attitude toward God is the same as Israel's was in response to a warning judgment from God, and that unless we repent we will meet further judgment from God, more serious judgment. Some of us also didn't even need this revelation at all to know that much. But it appears that God Himself wanted to impress this on America by giving us all these omens in the context of Isaiah 9:10.

It's also important, I think, that David Wilkerson of Times Square Church preached on this same passage from Isaiah on the first Sunday after 9/11.
There are two more parts to David Wilkerson's message. Part 2 is where he quotes Isaiah 9:10.

God was speaking to America this same message in many different ways. Nobody was listening then, is anybody listening now?

But Is/Was America a Christian nation?
After I became aware of the Harbinger message I've happened to learn quite a bit about the founding of America that has somewhat altered my view of this revelation, mostly through the film Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers by Chris Pinto. To my mind this film and others Pinto has done about the founding of America are as important as Cahn's revelation. He shows beyond a doubt that the most prominent of our founding fathers were so far from being Christians that it is right to call them "antichrists," because they denied that Jesus Christ was God come in the flesh, and even ridiculed the idea. Those founders who had this view included Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

They were clearly Deists with Enlightenment views, who believed in Providence to the extent that they thought it important to pray for God's blessings on the nation but did not believe in salvation through Jesus Christ, God Himself incarnate in human flesh, who was born of a virgin, did many miracles and died to pay for our sins. They denied all the supernatural elements of the Biblical revelation, and deified human reason above God's revelation.

Christians today have been misled by some who have sought to convince us that these men were Christians or at least intended to preserve Christian influence in the nation. We are easily misled by the fact that they believed in prayer and Providence, and at least in the case of Washington lived a highly moral life. Perhaps Adams did also, who said the nation they formed could only work for a moral people. We may rightly doubt Jefferson's personal morality and certainly Franklin's, and apparently also Paine's from what Pinto's film reveals, but we don't hear about that side of things when we are being given Adam's statement, and that and other such words taken out of context have wrongly convinced many Christians in the last few decades of a Christian influence in the making of the nation that really was not the case at all.

Not to say that America wasn't ORIGINALLY Christian, because it was. The original settlers were strongly Christian and their Christian influence continued even to the time of the founding. But by that time there was also the strong countereffect of the Enlightenment near-deification of Reason that specifically attacked Christianity, and the founding generation were particularly infected with this trend. They were also strongly influenced by Masonry which held to similar beliefs about Reason, with a strong dose of satanic occultism thrown in especially at the higher levels. Washington and Franklin were Masons, and I think also Paine.

Masons and Deists of that generation refer to "God" and to "Nature's God," promote a basic morality, and we often mistake that for a Christian mindset, especially because there are some who actively promote this equivalence. They would pray before opening Congress and they would even end a session by assembling together at a nearby church for prayer. It doesn't occur to most Christians that they would have done such things if they weren't Christian. But Pinto shows that Deism, which is really Antichrist religion, explains it all. When you become aware that all of them rejected Christ, yes, all five of them, it can be a bit like being punched in the stomach -- it was for me -- but it is something we need to know.

There were certainly strong Christian influences in the colonies from the beginning but unfortunately they were compromised and obscured by the documents that underlie the founding of America as a nation. Pinto shows that God was intentionally and specifically left out of the Constitution after much discussion in Congress.

Chris Pinto has done a thorough and believable job on this subject. I'd heard some of it from other sources before but not presented in such a credible way, making what seemed like extreme assertions without sufficient evidence to back them up. That can't be said of Pinto's presentations. Two other films about America's character can also be found at You Tube (although I'm sure Pinto would prefer you bought them from his site): The Eye of the Phoenix which should remove all those rationalizations you may have accepted about the symbolism of the Great Seal of America and other symbolism on our dollar bill as if they refer to the thirteen colonies and so on; and Riddles in Stone, which shows the masonic and pagan mentality that built Washington D.C.

I do think all that is as important as Jonathan Cahn's message. And it has altered my view of his message somewhat, at least it has raised questions. That is, he refers to the dedication of America by George Washington as if it were a Christian dedication, in a Christian chapel for one thing, and he refers to a quotation from Washington about the need for the nation to stay in obedience to God's laws in order to continue to be blessed. Now, I did sort of know that Washington wasn't a Christian, but he did pray and he did emphasize the need to be true to God's will, and it does seem fair to regard that time of prayer in the chapel at Ground Zero as a dedication or consecration of the nation to God.

And certainly all the harbingers that connect the attack on the WTC with Isaiah 9:10support the idea that God Himself is giving us a very personal warning as if He regards us as His own nation, dedicated to Him.

But knowing the mentality of Washington and the founders raises questions, and I can't answer them. Was the nation blessed for so long because we did acknowledge God even in the insufficient way of the Masons or Deists? But how could that be so if their views were really Antichrist, as they were? Shouldn't that have deprived the nation of blessings from its very beginning, since they weren't praying or acknowledging God truthfully? Did the nation succeed in being obedient enough to God's laws to keep us in His blessings for a while? Or should we consider that God's blessings were due to the Pilgrims and the original settlers, and the maintenance of a Christian worldview in the population of large, and such events as the Great Awakening which brought a resurgence of true Christianity to the nation just before the Revolutionary War? How to put all this together?

It's just a question. Things always turn out to be a lot more complicated than you first think they are. We need to know about the infidel founders of America, especially now as the last of the last days are surely about to burst over us.

But Jonathan Cahn's revelations are just as important and they should lead us to prayer for the nation. If Christians prayed as we should on the basis of his revelation, protracted prayer with fasting, huge numbers of us, surely God would turn things around. At least there would have to be a great influx into the church even if we can't save the nation.

I'm going to put up Jonathan Cahn's first talk on this subject from 2005 again. I udnerstand he did another at another Messianic convention very recently that includes much more information -- he's been tracking God's judgment on the American economy through Biblical references that are no less uncanny than the Isaiah 9:10 revelation -- but that talk is apparently only available on DVD from his ministry. And all that is in his book anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXei0Zb3dxM

Harbinger: A totally unfair criticism from someone who hasn't read it.

Oh brother, just listened to the Brannon Howse March 9th radio broadcast in which he asks Jimmy DeYoung what he thinks of Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger, who completely trashes the book although he says he hasn't read it himself. Moral of the story: READ IT YOURSELF BRANNON!! Or listen to Cahn's talks and interviews. There are some up at YouTube.

I had a feeling that making a novel out of that material was a big big mistake but nevertheless the book does stick to the overall revelation that Cahn gave in his various talks and does not deserve to be accused of "manipulating" the reader. The information, the correspondence between Isaiah 9:10 and events following 9/11 is uncanny and honestly presented, and Cahn is NOT making himself out to be a prophet in this, he is simply reporting on the correspondences he observed between the two events, and DeYoung MISREPRESENTED THOSE CORRESPONDENCES.

I think DeYoung's review is utterly irresponsible. He completely mischaracterizes what Cahn is doing. The idea that this Messianic pastor is pushing "replacement theology" is for starters some kind of huge misreading. All he said was that America was the only other nation that was dedicated to God as was Israel, and he pointed out the dedications that were made of America to God, which is indisputable as far as I can see. And it ought to be said that we don't need to refer to those instances of consecration for the harbingers of Isaiah 9:10 to be echoed in 9/11, it's just that it helps explain why God is going to such lengths to warn us. But in any case, Cahn said nothing to suggest America REPLACED Israel.

Then DeYoung didn't know that rebuilding actually has begun at Ground Zero although that has nothing to do with the revelation anyway. It's about the INTENT to rebuild which was clearly STATED by both Israel and America -- it's that ATTITUDE that is the main correspondence between the two, which is a statement of defiance of God after God sent judgment on both. DeYoung claims he took it out of context. He did not. The context was God's judgment in both cases and the nation's defiance in response.

Also nobody claimed America is rebuilding with hewn stone, nor that groves of sycamores were cut down that were replaced by groves of cedars yet DeYoung claims that's what was said. It was not. The reference is first to a symbolic hewn stone brought in to be the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower; second to a highly symnbolic sycamore tree on the property of Ground Zero that was felled in the event, and third, to a highly symbolic tree of the same basic type of the cedar (which has more similarities in Hebrew but to my mind is similar enough in English) that was put in its place. There was even a symbolic brick entangled in the roots of the felled sycamore tree, though there were also news reports of the wreckage of the twin towers as fallen bricks. The correspondences are symbolic and very telling, things that only God Himself could have brought about.

I hope Brannon Howse soon corrects this horrific misrepresentation.

Cahn's message does take some thought

If people would just THINK ABOUT the message of the harbingers they'd have to recognize that there's no way to discredit it. It's direct from God. People could not have done this even with the most conscious intention to do so (and nobody could have such an intention anyway because it's a message of God's judgment against America), but it's clear from the facts that nobody had a clue what they were doing as they unwittingly contributed to this message from God.

I understand that some people don't have the energy or the will or in some cases perhaps the ability to think carefully about the information that's been given, but most people ought to be able to with just a little exertion. It's a simple matter of recognizing:

that Israel was attacked by an enemy and so was America on 9/11; (Cahn gives reasons to think today's terrorists may be related by blood to those ancient Assyrians too)

Israel's buildings were destroyed and so was the WTC in America;

Israel's sycamore trees were cut down in the attack, and a highly symbolic sycamore tree in America was cut down on 9/11;

Israel vowed to replace their fallen bricks with buildings made of strong quarried stone; America brought in a gigantic quarried stone to be the cornerstone of our rebuilding project.

Israel vowed to replce their fallen sycamore trees with sturdier cedars. America actually replaced our downed symbolic sycamore with a symbolic conifer tree of the same family as the cedar.

Israel VOWED to rebuild in this way; So did America and in a highly official way too, through speeches by the Senate Majority Leader actually declaring the policy for the entire nation in response to 9/11 and by another member of Congress three years later as well, both actually quoting this very verse of scripture, misunderstanding it.

How much thinking does that take really?

And again there is lots more to this revelation that I've spelled out in earlier posts and Jonathan Cahn spells out far more systematically in his talks and his book, but I just have to keep repeating the bare basics.

HOW FAR CAN WE TAKE THE SIMILARITY WITH ANCIENT ISRAEL IN ISAIAH 9:10 TO SHOW THAT AMERICA IS ALSO GOD'S NATION?

Some will argue that America is not God's nation the way ancient Israel was, or even not a Christian nation at all, but whatever you think of those arguments the fact is that God Himself seems to be saying something rather different through these irrefutable harbingers that connect America with ancient Israel. There is no arguing with such things so clearly done by the hand of God, yet I've run across that argument being insisted upon. Which is only because the person did not think through the evidence as I say above.

If the particulars of Isaiah 9:10 that apply to both nations aren't sufficient to make the connection, the fact that Ground Zero turns out to be the very ground on which America was dedicated to God --by our very first governing body led by George Washingon-- as well as the ground where God let down His protection -- ought to open some eyes. Truly Ground Zero in many senses of the term.

It's a warning from God. Ten years have already passed during which we've already experienced economic judgment, and coming judgment continues to simmer away. Will Christians rally to the call or not?

The resistance to the 9/11 harbingers is a good sign but the church has to overcome it

The message from God through Jonathan Cahn just keeps growing on me.

This is really His direct call to His American church, what else can it be? This kind of direct irrefutable evidence of His existence and His heart for this miserable backslidden American church and sin-glutted nation as a whole just is not something He gives often in this world and it would be a tragedy if we lose the opportunity.

As someone reminded me tonight we're in the eleventh year since 9/11 and the warning to Israel of Isaiah 9:10 was followed by ten years of time to repent until God sent Assyria back to finish them off. We're already past that point, in a dangerous time as Cahn keeps saying. The southern kingdom of Judah had twenty years, perhaps that's the timing that applies to us. In any case we'll be one sorry lazy irresponsible Church if we don't spend whatever time is left to us fasting and repenting and praying our hearts out for God to show mercy. And believe me I'm talking to ME first. My bad habit of waiting for others to go first and inspire me has got to go. I know what's happening so I have the responsibility to do what I say we need to do, now. Oy.

This message has LOTS of resistance against it, some of it in the form of odd "little" things that interfere with it getting out to people. Any resistance is a sign of a call from God though. I got just about no response from those I emailed about all this a while back, either silence or excuses from Christians and unbelievers alike. To be fair, a few did respond the way I responded, and the way the audience of Jim Bakker's show responded, which is great, and they are sending it on to others, but there's still a lot of apathy which is discouraging. This message OUGHT to get us all fired up. What an opportunity! God just doesn't normally give us such opportunities as this one, such a direct irrefutable message straight from Him.

But there IS resistance and the challenge is not to give in to it, because it IS discouraging. But again, it does have to be a good sign, that this is something God really does want us to pursue because the devil does NOT like it.

The fact that it's promoted by some televangelists is going to be a barrier to some so they wouldn't even give it a chance. Even the fact that it's got all this off-putting hype attached to it, or that the book was written as a novel which can seem to undermine its authenticity, these things can prevent people from wanting to learn about it. In fact even that violin that kept playing over the message at the Messianic conference in 2005 can be a problem for some. All these things make it difficult to recommend them to people. But God likes to work through small weak imperfect things (like all of us) and such things just happen to require us to be humble if we want to hear from Him, which is exactly what He wants of us. It may be the devil adding the touches of interference, but ALL things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. He uses those who will listen and we have to humble ourselves and accept whatever packaging the message comes in. The Athenians looked down their noses at Paul "the ragpicker" and we're all ragpickers. If we're Athenians God usually can't use us.

So we're in the eleventh year since the warnings came, and the economy has already been hit hard and more is to come.

Oh Lord, wake up Your church that we may finally be the conduit of Your power and mercy to this world You made us to be. Amen.


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Just heard that Cahn had been on Pat Robertson so I'm putting up that video:

Just in case it's not clear enough here's another sketch of the uncanny correspondences between Isaiah 9:10 and 9/11/01

I've outlined the "harbingers" of Jonathan Cahn's study here already, but maybe it could use some more spelling out. I'm not comfortable with his system or the focus on "harbingers" really, just not the way my mind works I guess, so if I spell it out I come at it differently, less systematically perhaps.

So here's the story: This rabbi/preacher Jonathan Cahn discovered that there is a verse in the book of Isaiah in the Bible that relates to what happened on 9/11, to the attitude people had about the attack, but it not only corresponds to 9/11 in that general way, but specific things mentioned in that verse became literal realities on 9/11 as well. These are literal physical harbingers and it is truly uncannily amazing that there should be such a literal correspondence between an ancient Bible verse (732 BC) and a modern event. God certainly speaks to us today through his scripture but this is the only instance I'm aware of in which the actual facts of the scripture have been manifested literally and physically in the present.

Here's the verse and this time I'm going to include the context which shows the consequences God says will follow:

Isaiah 9:10 The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change [them into] cedars.

Isaiah 9:11-14 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.

So the first correspondence is that the people of Israel had the same attitude when they were attacked by the nation of Assyria, as America had when attacked by terrorists. They do not attribute the attack to God, do not see it as His judgment, and instead of seeing that they need to repent and turn back to Him they defiantly vow to rebuild bigger and better than before.

As a consequence of that attitude, right after that God says they will be attacked again. And as a matter of historical fact, Israel, the northern kingdom, was completely wiped out in another attack by Assyria some ten years later. The ten tribes completely disappeared, absorbed into the surrounding nations, and their former kingdom became known as Samaria. This was God's judgment against them for all their disobedience of his commandments, particularly for following foreign gods and for sacrificing their children to those gods.

Afterward, Samaria kept a distorted semblance of the Law given by Moses but as Jesus said of them when He spoke to the Samaritan woman He met at the well:

John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Judah, the southern kingdom made up of the two remaining tribes, was also warned of judgment to come, and also did come under judgment but later on, through attacks by the Babylonians. In 586 BC they went into captivity in Babylon for seventy years.

Judah's judgment came later because they had fewer sins, more obedient kings, and God had also promised that He was going to bring the Messiah Savior from them so He wouldn't completely destroy them, and it was from the tribe of Judah that Jesus was born 700 years after the events of Isaiah 9:10.

When the nation of Israel was originally formed under Moses after the Exodus from Egypt (around 1500 BC), God had given them commandments that they'd all agreed to obey and he'd also told them what would happen if they didn't obey. He promised protection and prosperity if they obeyed, but attacks by enemies, economic disaster and so on if they didn't obey. All this is spelled out in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy written by Moses, and to show this I'm going to copy out the first 25 verses of the 68 verses of Deuteronomy 28 at the bottom of this post.*

The attitude of the Israelites in Isaiah 9:10 is clearly the same attitude America had after 9/11, which anyone ought to be able to remember. Hardly anybody thought of it as God's judgment and the few who did were criticized. I immediately knew it was God's judgment and I don't know why so many other Christians didn't. They kept saying God wouldn't do that sort of thing, but the Bible ought to make it clear that nothing happens without Him. Also, it was clearly only a warning. 9/11 was bad but it could have been a lot worse, which means God isn't yet judging us as harshly as He could and He's giving us time to recognize Him and change things. It was a warning, but it's been over ten years and there's no sign of repentance from any quarter that I'm aware of, we've already had economic disasters and there's still more to come.

Even without all the uncanny harbingers the attitude expressed by Israel in Isaiah 9:10 is the same as America's after 9/11, but the uncanny harbingers did happen and what might have been merely an instructive example from scripture has become an official statement of America's defiance of God. Tom Daschle who was Senate Majority leader at the time actually QUOTED Isaiah 9:10 on the Senate floor the day after 9/11, thinking it was just a nice promise to rebuild that would make everybody feel better, not realizing it's a harbinger of judgment that states the defiance of America against God just as it stated the defiance of Israel against God. Better not quote the Bible at all than quote a passage like that.

Then three years later at a prayer breakfast also on 9/11 John Edwards quoted the same verse with the same misunderstanding of it.

In case anybody thinks they didn't misunderstand it, you can go read the commentaries at Blue Letter Bible on that verse, which all make it very clear that this is a statement of defiance against God. Both Edwards and Daschle did completely misunderstand it, and by pronouncing it in a public official way they committed America to defiance of God rather than to the repentance that verse ought to call for. Former American leaders knew better. Lincoln knew better for instance. But in our time only a very few -- who were vilified for it -- were calling it judgment and calling for repentance, everybody else was crying, "God bless America" as if God COULD bless this miserably apostate nation.

Those who don't believe in God might still think what's the big deal, but that's only possible if they aren't really thinking about it. Why did Dasche and Edwards quote that specific verse from the Bible that's ABOUT defying God and misunderstand it so completely? They could have quoted lots of verses from the Bible that really are comforting but they chose that one.

But that's just the beginning of the harbingers. Israel said they'd rebuild with hewn stone to replace their fallen bricks, refusing to recognize that it was God who had knocked down the bricks of their buildings. We brought in a huge stone weighing tons that was cut out of the New York mountains, a "hewn stone" to be the cornerstone of the proposed Freedom Tower to replace the WTC. It was just a gesture. The building wouldn't be built out of hewn stone but that hewn stone became a symbol for the rebuilding, and it's uncanny that they did it that way since that's what Isaiah 9:10 says Israel planned to do. The governor of New York made a speech over it too, also promising to rebuild what had been knocked down.

A symbolic hewn cornerstone of the defiant vow to rebuild isn't uncanny enough? Well, even more uncanny is that a sycamore tree was destroyed on 9/11, by a piece of the falling tower. It lay uprooted in the graveyard beside a little church at the corner of Ground Zero. Another symbol. The sycamores had been cut down by the Assyrian attack on Israel so a sycamore was also cut down on 9/11. It's not the same tree that's found in the Middle East but it WAS named after that tree.

And people made a big deal out of that fallen sycamore too. It appears that the church itself might have been destroyed but the sycamore protected it. They put its roots on display and a sculptor was commissioned to make a replica of those roots in bronze to commemorate the tree. That replica now stands next to the main church of which that small chapel is a part. There it stands, not recognized as the sign of judgment to come against America that it is.

AND, just as the Israelites said they’d replace their fallen sycamores, which the Assyrian army had cut down during the attack, with cedars, our fallen sycamore was also replaced by the same kind of tree, a conifer of the same family as the cedar. It was installed where the sycamore had stood, and officially named the Tree of Hope, although, again, it so clearly reflects the verse in Isaiah which is about defying God that it should really be called the Tree of Doom.

Can it be denied that all this is an uncanny playing out of the specifics of Isaiah 9:10? Every detail of it actually manifested on 9/11, the defiant attitude made official in quotes by American leaders, the fallen bricks replaced by a symbolic quarried stone, the fallen sycamore replaced by a conifer.

THEN, just to make sure that this is all God’s judgment on the nation of America, it turns out that the chapel where the sycamore had stood and where the conifer now stands was where the first government of America under George Washington met to pray for the new nation. The capital of America at that time was not Washington D.C. but New York City. Washington had just been sworn into office a few blocks away and he and his whole government walked to the chapel to spend two hours praying for the nation, essentially consecrating the nation into God's hands.

The uprooted sycamore now stands for God’s judgment that the nation has come to an end unless we turn back to Him.

Also, Ground Zero is property that was owned by that church. The attack on the WTC was therefore an attack on the original ground where America was originally consecrated to God, another sign that God is withdrawing His protection from the nation that was prayed for by Washington and his government.

Another uncanny bit of fact is that the church has a Wall Street address. The bronze sycamore root stands right next to it. It is known as Trinity Wall Street Church. God’s judgment on the American economy has already begun with stock market crashes.

And there's more: The New York Stock Exchange which is only a block from the church was originally formed from an agreement known as the Buttonwood Agreement because it was signed by the members under a buttonwood tree that grew on Wall Street. Buttonwood is another name for sycamore. (Wikipedia verifies all this). The uprooted sycamore specifically points to judgment against the American economy which is already well underway.

Cahn goes into all of this in his talk and in more detail in his book. I don't see how anyone could recognize all this and deny that there is a God who did it all, a God who is talking to America through all these events and through these amazingly manifested symbols that echo His word to ancient Israel when they too had gone astray and come under judgment.

So there's my sketch of Cahn's revelation of the "Harbingers." He actually goes into more in the book, involving the timing of our economic collapse in terms of other parts of the Law of Moses, so if this isn't already uncanniness overload I recommend reading about that too.

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*And here's part of Deuteronomy 28 about God's promises to Israel if they obeyed and warnings of what would come if they didn't:

Deu 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe [and] to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: [Surely we can say that God did bless America in this way in the 20th century]. And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. Blessed [shalt] thou [be] in the city, and blessed [shalt] thou [be] in the field. Blessed [shall be] the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed [shall be] thy basket and thy store. Blessed [shalt] thou [be] when thou comest in, and blessed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.

Deu 28:7 The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways. And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do [them]:

Deu 28:14 And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, [to] the right hand, or [to] the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deu 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the city, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the field. Cursed [shall be] thy basket and thy store. Cursed [shall be] the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou comest in, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.

Deu 28:20 The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. Deu 28:21 The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it. Deu 28:22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. Deu 28:23 And thy heaven that [is] over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee [shall be] iron.

Deu 28:24 The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. Deu 28:25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.