Harbinger criticism is totally absurd

June 24, 2013:   I'm rewriting this post because I let myself get carried away too far in the original version. 

The more I see of the attacks on Jonathan Cahn by David James and Jimmy DeYoung and T A McMahon, the more I see people straining hard to find something, anything, to pin on The Harbinger, no matter how ridiculous. While it's always right to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are brothers in Christ, there is something about the absurdity of the attacks on this book that invites at least the suspicion of something less than complete sincerity going on here. It almost borders on the malicious. And this is coming from ministries that generally enjoy a good reputation and a good following among Christians.

Why? What on earth has provoked them to such extremes of denunciation of The Harbinger? It would be one thing if any of their objections made any sense, but unfortunately they seem to be largely reactions to certain words that they are unable to read in the context presented in the book and keep misreading in some preconceived context of their own.

Oh oh oh, he said that the first settlers of America made a covenant with God, yikes that means he thinks America has replaced Israel and God has given up on Israel completely! He said that Washington consecrated the nation to God in prayer, oh oh oh that means he believes America is God's nation now! Oh, and looky look, he even compared Washington's consecration of America with Solomon's consecration of the temple. Oh horror of horrors he thinks that a passage in the Old Testament applies to America today, oh that means he thinks the prophet Isaiah himself knew about America and was writing to us directly. Oh, and he doesn't even MENTION modern-day Israel, that's PROOF that America is the New Israel in his mind.

Jonathan Cahn is a Messianic Jewish rabbi/pastor you would think the ministries that enthusiastically embrace the reestablishment of israel would bend over backwards to appreciate and support. Instead of imagining a few words about America's having a covenant with God into a full-blown accusation of Replacement Theology, you'd think they'd just KNOW that the idea is absurd and try to understand the context in which it was meant.

That brief discussion between DeYoung and James that I posted at the bottom of yesterday's blog does have the flavor of a concerted attempt to destroy The Harbinger. The fact that they linked the book with the claim that it shares the perspective of a Mormon heresy in a new book called The Covenant, based only on a flimsy bit of hearsay that the author of The Covenant claimed that Rabbi Cahn agreed with his views, does not suggest charity toward a brother in Christ. At the very least they seem willing to jump to conclusions and let a terrible accusation stand against Cahn on the slightest excuse. Again, why? 

Every argument that is made against the book is false in every possible way. You'd think they might come up with ONE reasonable criticism, but I haven't seen it if so.

In the absence of any scriptural support, how can it be claimed with any certainty that 9/11 marked the removal of God’s hedge of protection? Furthermore, even if God ever has provided such a hedge of protection around America, is it not possible to also argue that it is still in place? There has not been another terrorist attack since 9/11—even though the motivation, intent and plotting to launch more attacks has continued to the present.

This just doesn't compute.  The "hedge of protection" is a metaphor based on the hedges built around vineyards to protect them from predators. Since up until 9/11 America had been blessed with unusual peace and security on our own soil for over a century -- not counting Pearl Harbor which is outside the main continent of America -- it's perfectly reasonable to attribute that to God's protection, for which the biblical metaphor is a hedge.

And once we have been attacked on our own soil, BY DEFINITION any such hedge of protection that had been in place has been removed. No, it's NOT "still in place" because it was removed or we couldn't have been attacked, and the nation has not made the first step toward the only thing that would bring God's protection back to us -- repentance, that is, acknowledgment and correction of the nation's rejection of Him and violations of His Law.

...in both the book and the documentary by World Net Daily, the author attempts to build the case that America’s leaders were proudly and arrogantly acting in defiance against God when they spoke of rebuilding (even though they didn’t realize it).24 This is very misleading because although standing in defiance of America’s enemies, they were demonstrably not standing in defiance of God.

This one grabs me every time I run across it and I just can't let it go. They WERE "proudly and arrogantly acting in defiance against God when they spoke of rebuilding" because that's what it means to speak of rebuilding and replanting in our own human strength, without acknowledging God's hand in judgment against the nation or calling for repentance for the nation's rejection of Him.

I may have a slightly different take on this than Jonathan Cahn does since he sharply distinguishes their own personalities and motives from the message of Isaiah 9:10. Of course they had no idea what they were doing and if they had they wouldn't have done it, but that fact in itself makes them guilty of defiance, since merely reading the verse as if it weren't an offense to God shows that their motives were defiant in spite of themselves, lacking any sense of God's judgment on the nation, any sense of a need for repentance, only the human will to rebuild.  That right there is the essence of the defiance in Isaiah 9:10 being played out in modern America.

Contrary to the objection of David James, their WANTING to reassure people or even WANTING to be in God's will not only not save them from ACTUALLY defying God in reality, their understanding the verse that way IS defiance. And really, it's a false idea of God they are appealing to, a God they assume would bless America's desire to rebuild and replant WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF REPENTANCE, just as a majority in America at the time apparently did. David James is also appealing to this same false idea of God since he actually tries to defend Daschle and Edwards on the ground that they weren't consciously defying God. I think you could say that about most idolators and it's TYPICAL of today's denatured "bless-me-bless-me" Christianity that we just go about our idolatrous materialistic sinful self-centered lives not expecting God to judge us and not imagining that we need to repent, assuming God is on our side. The God that James and Daschle and Edwards have in mind -- even if they might deny this -- is a God who would not judge America and would not require repentance but would be easily placated by rousing renditions of "God bless America" again, just as a majority in the nation did at the time. This is NOT the God of the Bible, in fact this is idolatry, an appeal to a false God, in defiance of the true God.

Sorry, I know I'm repeating myself on this point to an extreme by now, I just never quite feel I got it said.

Harbinger critic David James totally misses the point of the defiance of God in Isaiah 9:10

Did finally start reading David James' review of The Harbinger which is pretty much an expanded version of his comments in the interview of Jonathan Cahn I reported on in the last post. I don't know how far I will get into this, but I thought I'd at least highlight his comments about Daschle and Edwards' quoting of Isaiah 9:10 again. Sorry to keep repeating myself but this seems to need to be soundly trounced. If he so completely missed that point certainly he's missed others, and maybe I'll eventually get to some of the others as well.

Israel knew that the Assyrian attacks were a judgment they had brought upon themselves. When they declared that they would rebuild, they were shaking their fists in defiance of both their enemies and their God.

I don't know, were they? israel was often in defiance of God's will with their idols and violations of the Law, but sometimes they simply rationalized it all away, not thinking much of it. Matthew Henry says they were "willingly ignorant" of God's threat of judgment, and David Guzik says they trivialized the threat, treated it as something they could overcome. Both suggest they were conscious of the threat but also denying it. But I don't think it's crucial to know for sure.

This is not what happened in the wake of 9/11. Yet, in both the book and the documentary by World Net Daily, the author attempts to build the case that America’s leaders were proudly and arrogantly acting in defiance against God when they spoke of rebuilding (even though they didn’t realize it).22This is very misleading because although standing in defiance of America’s enemies, they were demonstrably not standing in defiance of God.

This is at least incredibly naive. Simply quoting Isaiah 9:10 in a positive way is "demonstrably standing in defiance of God." Whether America was more or less intentionally and consciously defiant of God than Israel was is not that easy to determine, but Isaiah 9:10 is a statement of defiance, period. And defiant we were. All Daschle and Edwards really did was echo the nation's feelings that we were hearing every day, and Isaiah 9:10 spoke for those feelings only too well.

The defiance was very clear at the time to some of us, not many but some. The choruses of "God bless America" were to my ear clear statements of this defiance, though this was unrecognized by most, and David James in this review has exactly that same attitude himself, not recognizing the defiance but in fact insisting it wasn't defiance. America seemed to think she was acting as a godly nation by calling for God to bless us. Terrible misunderstanding. Since so many were calling on God and thought they were standing only in defiance of our enemies, to their mind as to James' mind this means they were not in defiance of God.

This is a major way we fail to recognize God's hand in events, by seeing only the human hand in them -- or the hand of Nature as it may be. But our enemies cannot act independently of God, even Satan can't act independently of God, Nature also can't act independently of God, but Christians have been so badly taught Biblical theology that this basic fact of God's sovereignty escapes the majority.

For months and years after 9/11 patriotic macho-toned cries of defiance against our enemies were raised. When I would try to point out that 9/11 was God's judgment of the nation I was hooted down and sometimes accused of siding with our enemies. Or they'd accuse me of lack of sympathy with the victims. The main objection always was that God "wouldn't do such a thing." "Our God is a good God." Always the focus is on the human side, God is ignored. I answered with references to God's judgments against ancient Israel and other peoples of that time. I quoted Amos 3:6:

If there is calamity in a city, will not God have done it?

David James no doubt also failed to see God's hand of judgment at the time, and now his blindness keeps him from getting the most basic message of The Harbinger.

The explanation of the ninth harbinger seems even more misleading. In the book, Cahn gives the impression that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle concluded a speech on 9/12/2001 by quotingIsaiah 9:10.23 But, that was not the end of the speech. In the documentary by World Net Daily, Cahn specifically states that Daschle closes the speech with, “That is what we will do and we will rebuild, and we will recover.”24 However, this is not how the speech ended. There were two more sentences not shown in the documentary:

The people of America will stand together because the people 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.25

By invoking God and thinking he was comforting Americans by using the Bible (albeit wrongly), his intent was clearly not defiance against God—it was exactly the opposite. To fail to include or mention his last two sentences is very misleading.

It's very odd, it seems to me, that James thinks the inclusion of the last sentences changes anything about the message. It was already clear from the quote itself that Daschle's intent was to give a message of hope and reassurance, and ending with a compliment to the people for standing together is really just another statement of defiance against God in spite of his intentions and and in spite of James' take on it.

The emphasis on the virtues of the people, what the people can do, or in Biblical terminology, what "the arm of flesh" can do, is always a way of describing human reliance on self rather than on God. That's what the whole message of Isaiah 9:10 is about. WE will rebuild with stronger materials, WE will replant with stronger trees, WE will do this in our own strength... WE will stand together. WE are a great nation and a great people, they can't keep US down. In other words, James seems not to get what could even be described as THE most basic message in the Bible -- human reliance on human strength instead of reliance on God, and that IS the message of defiance of God. We don't need God, we can do it ourselves.

And this is all of a piece with complete blindness to the fact that God is working in ALL events ALL the time, to bless or to curse, and that we CAN'T ignore Him except at our peril. This is how we miss the most obvious act of God's judgment on the nation.

This spiritual obtuseness of His people could be a way to explain why God decided to bring these literal material tokens of His judgment into our midst, these signs or harbingers. The idea here is that if we are spiritually blinded maybe we will notice such a gracious and merciful accommodation to our weakness. Kind of how the Lord so graciously condescended to show Thomas His wounds after Thomas had refused to believe the witnesses who had told of His having risen from the dead. Sometimes the Lord will accommodate our weaknesses like this. And obviously many have understood the message in the signs or harbingers, but there are still some whose eyes aren't opened.

On September 11, 2004, then vice-presidential candidate John Edwards was speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast. Cahn attempts to frame his speech as another unwitting act of defiance against God. However, an honest reading of the speech26 shows that defiance of God was the furthest thing from his mind.

Uh, that's what makes the defiance "unwitting" Mr. James.

However, he explains that both Daschle and Edwards were defying God without realizing it. In spite of their intentions, Cahn postulates that God was inspiring them to unknowingly pronounce judgment upon America.27

He isn't "postulating" this, he's pointing it out as something as plain as day to anyone who knows the God of the Bible. That Mr. James doesn't see it only underscores how far today's Christians are from a real understanding of the character and attributes of God.

We KNOW that Isaiah 9:10 is a statement of defiance of God. That's what the leaders of Israel were saying, this is acknowledged in all the commentaries as the tenor of that verse, and it can only be the same for anyone who quotes it today as well. It IS a statement of defiance. And again, although one might want to claim that the "heart" of the speaker is not with that attitude of defiance, in fact simply to embrace it is to have that attitude because it IS defiance. The only alternative is recognition of God's hand in 9/11 as judgment on the nation, calling for repentance. That's what NONdefiance would be, and that was the substance of pastor David Wilkerson's preaching of this very same message. He pointed out that this defiant attitude is America's attitude, and the remedy for it is repentance. THAT is the Christian take on Isaiah 9:10.

ISAIAH 9:10 IS A STATEMENT OF DEFIANCE OF GOD. It just IS. We WILL rebuild is a statement of defiance of God. It's not a matter of interpretation, there is no subtlety to it. It ignores God's hand in the attack, has no inkling of the nation's being under God's judgment, no thought about why God would have done such a thing or what we need to do to respond properly to it. It's just a bald statement of intention to come back better and stronger than ever.

Since Daschle and Edwards quoted it straight, as a simple statement of the intention of America to rebuild, they pronounced the attitude of defiance on behalf of the nation in their official capacity as representatives of the people. Unwittingly.

But how does he know that God is inspiring America’s leaders to prophecy? Unfortunately, he presents his speculation as fact. This is undoubtedly not part of the fictional storyline.

This degree of spiritual blindness is really sad. There is no "speculation" going on here at all. If America's leaders pronounce a message of defiance of God in the exercise of their elected office, while thinking that they are saying something reassuring and inspiring instead, then this is God's own doing. It's open and shut. With all the other signs or harbingers of God's doing already having been accumulated and recognized, these speeches of what is KNOWN to be a message of defiance are just further aspects of the same message GOD HIMSELF IS BRINGING TO US.

The author attempts to defend his theory by referencing Caiaphas, who unwittingly prophesied concerning the death of Christ (John 11:49-52) Cahn concludes that Daschle and Edwards intended to say one thing, but their words carried a far different meaning. However, that is not what happened with Caiaphas. His words were inspired to mean exactly what he intended. He just didn’t know how right he actually was. Once again, the author’s exposition of the biblical text does not stand up to scrutiny and the supposed parallel is simply not there.

But Caiaphas is an excellent comparison to make the point, not an exact parallel, no, but a case of a man's unwitting declaration of God's intention. His motives were NOT God's motives as he meant to murder the miscreant and take him out of the way -- he certainly didn't intend the WAY Jesus would "die for the people" saving them from their sins -- but his actual words described God's intention and stood as true prophecy. Daschle and Edwards' conscious motives were to bless the nation but God had them speak words of defiance that seal His intention of judging the nation.

Unless we repent.

A few answers to DeYoung and David James. Harbinger is God's own message to America

(June 10 update at bottom.)

I thought at first that the comments on The Harbinger by Jimmy DeYoung on Brannon Howse's radio show were most likely impulsive and would probably eventually be retracted. I assumed that his accusation that the book promotes "replacement theology" was just too over-the-top to stand, and could only be considered at all because he hadn't read the book.

Turns out this way of thinking, wrongheaded though it is, is far more entrenched than I had any idea. I wasn't aware at that time of how rigidly held is the belief that the Old Testament was written only to Israel.

I also really didn't know much about Jimmy DeYoung. Still don't, but I'm now aware of his website, Prophecy Today, which apparently focuses on Israel and the Middle East in these end times. Today on his main page you can see that DeYoung has hosted McMahon's review of The Harbinger, which suggests he hasn't changed his mind.

I did listen to the interview DeYoung did with Jonathan Cahn and David James back in April. There's also a long review of The Harbinger by David James there, which I haven't read through yet. (Also for reference, The Calvary Chapel website I linked in the previous post has lengthy articles from Jonathan Cahn, which I'm not going to reproduce on this blog, at least not all of it.)

The interview brings out the concerns of DeYoung and James about the book, such as their impression that America is treated as replacing Israel, even that Isaiah is treated as speaking directly to America, that there is an implication that prophecy continues today as it did in Biblical times, and the like. They accept that Cahn is not himself intentionally promoting such ideas but it may be that they still think the book is doing so in spite of him. That's not completely clear.

I was particularly struck by David James' arguing that Cahn misunderstood Daschle and Edwards' quotation of Isaiah 9:10. He wants to insist that Cahn missed "the intent of the heart" in those instances, and that if you listen to the whole context you see that they are intending to be in tune with God and not defiant of God. David James even said that you "would need a prophetic word from God to show that they were doing the opposite of what they said they were doing." [this is around 50:00]

This so utterly misses the point it makes it painfully clear why the majority of pastors and Christians in this nation not only failed to see 9/11 as judgment from God but were angry with those who did recognize it as judgment. David James is a seminary-trained man. What are they teaching people in those seminaries?

As Cahn goes on to make clear, the words themselves from isaiah 9:10 are the statement of defiance of God; the mere statement of intent to rebuild and replant is the statement of defiance of God. That both Edwards and Daschle quoted it without recognizing this, even thinking they were giving reassurance from God himself, even wanting to say something in tune with God, does not keep it from being a statement of defiance, merely underscores that their defiance was unwitting. Adding "God bless America" to the message only compounds the defiance.

Consciously, by vowing to rebuild and replant they are in defiance of America's enemies, not realizing that this is the same thing as defiance of God. When Governor Pataki affirmed the spirit of defiance against our enemies at the dedication of the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower, he too no doubt had no conscious intention of being in defiance of God, merely defiant of the enemies of America.

Surely the leaders of ancient Israel who originally said the same words had no idea they were in defiance of God either.

I also want to add that although Jonathan Cahn said it wasn't about Daschle and Edwards personally, not a judgment of what was in their hearts personally, this really isn't true. They quoted that passage because that same sentiment WAS in their hearts and recognition of God's hand and the call to repentance WASN'T. This attitude was shared by the majority of Americans at the time.

A vow to rebuild and replant is the opposite of an attitude of humility and repentance. That ought to be obvious.

The popular refrain in response to 9/11, "God Bless America" was itself defiance of God in that context. You don't ask God to bless a nation when He's just brought judgment against the nation. The only right response is repentance.

James also objects to the various signs or harbingers as insufficiently similar to the originals in Isaiah 9:10 to apply. The many bricks that fell in ancient Israel under the attack by the Assyrians were to be replaced by many hewn stones, whereas in America we have only the one large cornerstone brought in; in the original there were many sycomores that were to be replaced by many cedars, and the sycomore of the Middle East is a fig tree not like the sycamores of North America and a cedar is not a Norway Spruce. Etc. etc.

They seem to be straining at gnats here. They do seem to be asking for absolute identity rather than the symbolic correspondences that so effectively show God's hand. Two towers were struck, not an entire city so the fallen bricks become meaningless? One hewn stone is meaningless because many were called for in the original context, one sycamore is meaningless, one conifer is meaningless. But this completely misses the point that in America these are SIGNS that God gave in clear correspondence with the events of Isaiah 9:10 to show us His hand in 9/11, our defiant attitude and the need to repent.

The odds against such precise correspondences occurring at all in a random accidental way must be astronomical. A tree that has the basic shape of the Middle Eastern sycamore and was named after it too, both being called "sycamore," is a pretty close correspondence. A Norway Spruce isn't a cedar, but they are both conifers and the fallen sycamore COULD have been replaced by, oh, another sycamore, or an oak rather than a conifer, AND as Cahn points out, the Hebrew word erez, which is translated "cedar" refers to the whole class of conifers. {Later edit: The Hebrew word erez apparently applies to the specific class of trees with the Latin name pinacea, or pine type trees, a classification which includes the pine and the fir as well as the CEDAR and the SPRUCE.]

Also, the fact that the quarried cornerstone turned out not even to be needed in the building of the new tower at Ground Zero is treated by David James as eliminating any correspondence with Isaiah 9:10, but it ought to be recognized that it's even MORE uncanny this way BECAUSE it isn't needed. It was brought in nevertheless and dedicated to the task with the same attitude of defiance. NO stone whatever, because modern building methods don't require it, would dash the claim of similarity with Isaiah 9:10 but such a hewn stone brought in spite of its not being needed confirms it.

The main correspondence with Isaiah 9:10 is the vow of defiance, the vow of the INTENTION to rebuild. The actual rebuilding is, if not irrelevant, beside the point as far as the signs or harbingers are concerned. ALL THIS IS INTENDED TO BE SYMBOLIC and the correspondences are eerily uncanny for that purpose.

I don't think those who have such objections to The Harbinger are likely to change their minds. They've read the book and they still believe as they do.

As Jonathan Cahn ends up saying, the fact is that Christians including pastors and church leaders from many denominations across the country have recognized the importance of the message; it's had a huge and growing success and is bearing good fruit everywhere in changed lives, recommitments to the Lord, prayers of repentance and the like.

Scripture says there always have to be some dissenters for the truth to be made manifest (I'm not going to say "heretics" here).

Maybe it hasn't been said, or said clearly enough: The Harbinger is as far as I know unique of its kind. I don't know of any other message that has come so clearly from God Himself to any part of the world since Biblical times. This by itself is enough to raise questions about it, of course, but the specifics of the message are what must convince you that this is no man-invented message, this does indeed come from God. For whatever reason, God Himself IS specially blessing America with this message of warning and we'd do well not to miss it.

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June 10, 7 AM: Oh bruuuther. Just went to Jimmy DeYoung's website and found a discussion between him and David James doing their best to further trash the Harbinger as some kind of theological heresy. They are talking about another book that has come out called the Covenant which according to them does treat America as a covenant nation in exactly the same sense as ancient Israel, and they again smear The Harbinger with guilt by association.

First they don't even give the name of the author of The Covenant so it sounds for a while like it was written by Jonathan Cahn. Its author is Timothy Ballard. Then they give the hearsay that the author of The Covenant claims to have had a conversation with Cahn in which Cahn agreed with him about the content of his book. I have to seriously doubt this. There is NOTHING about the Harbinger that goes along with the ridiculous Anglo-Israelism which is apparently what the Covenant is about. If they DID talk and Cahn agreed with him about anything it could only have been with a very limited statement he made.

From the sound of it, if this little bit of information can be trusted, The Covenant IS a heresy and it's probably a heresy in more ways than one as the Google page on it shows that its author has been on Glenn Beck's show pushing the idea that America is a Christian nation along the same lines as David Barton does, who has been shown by Chris Pinto to have been misrepresenting the facts in what could almost be called a near-criminal way. Anglo-Israelism is part of Mormon lore, which would make this book doubly welcome by Beck.

Satan never sleeps. Anything to confuse and bury whatever comes from God. By now Jonathan Cahn must be aware that dozens of accusations can be made up against his book that he could never have dreamed of in a million years. Lord protect him.

What I point out in the post above about DeYoung and James' interview with Cahn ought to demonstrate that they don't know what they are talking about. James utterly misreads the message of the nation's defiance, in a very silly way, committing the same sin himself that Isaiah 9:10 reveals as defiance.

I really don't think this ministry deserves to be followed at all, but apparently they do have some popularity and unfortunately probably do need to be answered.
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Checked out The Covenant at Amazon where I found a review that blows its cover: Thinly Veiled Mormon Drivel: Beware! The author did enough research to uncover Tim Ballard's Mormon background. The reviewer is a bit too favorable toward Glenn Beck it seems to me, but all that's needed here is the revelation that Ballard is Mormon.

JUST ANOTHER BIT OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THE HARBINGER.

Jonathan Cahn answers T A McMahon

Got a nice note from Mary at Appleton Wisconsin Calvary Chapel inviting me to read a letter from Jonathan Cahn at her website about the McMahon review of The Harbinger. I'm going to quote a few excerpts from it:

The article’s other set of criticisms falls along the lines of taking issue with the harbingers or warning signs, themselves, on the basis that there are differences with their manifestation and the original text. By such logic, taken to its conclusion, one could only accept the validity of the connections revealed in The Harbinger if, on 9/11, America were attacked by ancient Assyrians, if the Twin Towers were made Middle Eastern clay brick, and if American leaders responded to the attack speaking perfect ancient Hebrew.

How true! That was such an odd comment about identity versus similarity I couldn't make sense of it. I ended up taking it to be a complaint that there wasn't enough similarity to justify the claim to correspondence between the verse and 9/11. To complain that there isn't an exact identity, however, would require the impossible.

Another comment he made answers the complaint about George Washington's non-Christian beliefs very nicely:

McMahon charges that to see a connection between Washington and Solomon and to speak of the prayers offered up on America’s inaugural day as a consecration is near blasphemy on the grounds of Washington’s non-Christian connections. This again misses the point. When the Gospel records that a prophetic word came through the mouth of Caiaphas, it wasn’t about Caiaphas, but about the word spoken. Neither is it about Washington – but about what took place on America’s seminal day. The fact remains that on America’s first day as a fully-formed nation, its first government gathered in prayer to consecrate its future to God – and did so on a most significant ground of earth.

Very good point, it isn't the priest but the office that God respects.

What Cahn observed about the dates relating to the "Shemitah" I believe came after he'd discovered the main harbingers, and took him away from Isaiah 9:10 only to demonstrate that God has His hand on America in uncanny ways beyond what anyone could possibly imagine, in this case going beyond the general warning of judgment to come to the exact timing of His judgments on the nation's economy. Here he just reminds us of what he discovered about this:

Nor would the reader begin to have an idea of the magnitude of what’s involved in The Mystery of the Shemitah. I do appreciate that McMahon notes: “Granted, the author does raise an intriguing date phenomenon” – But the reality behind this allusion is far greater than what is suggested – including the fact that the greatest financial collapse in American history happened to take place on the one day given in the Bible on which a nation’s financial accounts were wiped away – not just once – but twice – and seven Hebrew years apart, the exact time period ordained in the Bible for this to transpire – down to the exact biblical day. The work of one analyst who did a statistical study of the chances of just these two occurrences, and using the most conservative of criteria, it to come out to, at the very least, one in a million, three hundred and sixty one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-nine.

There's also no reason to think that God is through with manifesting this pattern in America so we can look forward to more to come.

Farther down the page at the website linked a letter is reproduced from Jonathan Cahn written directly to Tom McMahon, in which he mentions other critics McMahon apparently had supported earlier. What interests me particularly is the specific accusations they made of the Harbinger:

“He (Jonathan) says the United States is the Israel of the new world”

(The Harbinger depicts America) “replacing Israel in God’s plan for the future…”

It’s a novel that’s trying to manipulate the word that God has rejected the Jewish people”

“(The Harbinger claims) That God has chosen America. He’s negated all the covenants, the Abrahamic covenant, the land Covenant, the Davidic Covenant”

“Now the relationship has been taken away from the Jewish people and given to the United States”

“Replacement Theologians say that God’s promises to Israel have been taken away…This is the same principle that he is following in the book”

(The Harbinger claims) “God has put together a covenant – a special covenant relationship with the United States of America”

“In other words he’s making the statement ‘God is finished with Israel.’”

“This (Isaiah) is supposedly a prophecy of the United States”

“He is going to establish a throne, a Davidic throne… when he restores national Israel, not the United States to its place of blessing God’s program” (as if The Harbinger had anywhere said such a thing)

“It won’t be America that controls the world…”

These were the charges made and broadcasted over the airwaves by the man who wrote the paper you embraced and championed along with his partner.

With this kind of accusation coming at him it's probably a very good thing that he is a Jewish Messianic rabbi who is firmly grounded in his own belief in Israel's reestablishment on their land and belief in their future according to biblical prophecy, so he KNOWS there's nothing to such strange accusations.

I'd like to know if there is anyone out there who actually read the book who ended up with this view. I don't see how there could be but maybe I'm wrong. In order to have such a view of it you'd have to ignore -- well, most of it.

Yes, The Harbinger IS a "matter of critical discernment" Pt. 4

Another harbinger of warning to America is referred to as “The Tower.” Cahn seems hard pressed to make a biblical connection to a tower other than a vague reference that the main character makes when he’s asked how he would know what the Tower of Babel looked like. He replies, “I don’t, but I’ve seen pictures of it.” That inane statement aside, Babel was not a Jewish tower. Nevertheless, Cahn finds a Jewish tower that he believes fits. But he had to go to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, for help.

This attempt to find fault with Cahn almost gets humorous.

As I understand it, the tower connection was DISCOVERED by Cahn as he delved into the scripture versions and commentaries to be sure he understood the verse correctly. He DISCOVERED that the Septuagint version of Isaiah 9:10 HAPPENED to mention the idea of rebuilding a tower. Hey, pretty uncanny don't you think? He didn't NEED a tower to demonstrate the correspondences, he had plenty already, but the Septuagint just came along and gave him a tower to add to his harbingers.

These critics keep attributing to Cahn himself what only God could have done.

Isaiah:9:10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. in the Greek is translated thus: “The bricks are fallen down, but come, let us hew stones, and cut down sycamores and cedars, and let us build for ourselves a tower. ” So, he has his “tower,” but not without an inherent problem for “harbingers six and seven.” Those harbingers are dependent upon a cedar replacing a sycamore tree. The Greek translation says “sycamores and cedars” are “cut down”; the Hebrew says that sycamores (plural) will be changed with cedars (plural). It would seem that Cahn can’t have both his “Septuagint” tower and his “Hebrew” replacement cedar (singular). They contradict one another. [For further explanation, refer to the TBC Extra page in this issue.]

Clearly the Septuagint mistranslated the verse IF all the other translations are correct, but the fact that it even MENTIONS a tower adds an element that ties in with 9/11 in a way that it would be hard to ignore if you're researching this verse. Blue Letter Bible doesn't show what word got translated as "tower" so there's no way to judge the choice, but does Cahn have to point out the obvious, that the translations are different?

There are numerous other problems with the harbingers, even though they are constructed subjectively and selectively by Cahn.

Just gonna repeat that this is utterly false.

Granted, the author does raise an intriguing date phenomenon related to the economic misfortunes connected with 9/11 when he attempts to link the Jewish shemitah , the Torah law of letting the land lie fallow and the forgiving of debts in the seventh year of a seven-year cycle, as a warning to the U.S.

I'm at a loss to understand why this connection finds favor with McMahon but not the stones and trees, but at last he appreciates something in the book. The dates are exact according to Cahn's understanding of Hebrew. The more he researched the more he discovered. Discovered, not selected, not subjectively made up, discovered.

No matter what one conjectures regarding the significance of a stock market crash occurring on the first day of shemitah, the shemitah itself has no bearing on anyone or anything other than the nation of Israel.

Yup, clearly this is the preconception, the biased mindset that makes it impossible for McMahon to see what is really going on here. The scripture applies ONLY to Israel, THEREFORE Cahn MUST HAVE made up these connections, and that mindset leads McMahon to magnify the trivial differences and overlook the obvious similarities that make the harbingers so uncanny and revealing of God's own handiwork.

It has never applied to the Gentile nations, either in actual practice or figuratively in Scripture. To superimpose a connection with America is just that—a superimposition.

The degree of uncanniness is so far beyond such a supposition it OUGHT to wake anybody up out of it and make it plain as day that God for whatever reason -- whether you believe the scripture was written only to Israel or meant to apply to the Church or the future -- for whatever reason God Himself is here applying it to America. You don't need to assume that America is a covenant nation in the same sense as ancient Israel was, or that God is making any equation between the nations beyond the fact that He's clearly decided to make His law of the shemitah apply in America today. For whatever reason!

Attempting to rationalize away the amazing connections that Cahn has unearthed in fact reminds me of the thinking of the extreme "replacement theology" camp, the very kind of thinking the Israel-only people such as McMahon deplore, where because of their preconception that all the Old Testament references apply now only to the Church they have to deny or rationalize away the plain fact that Israel is back on their ancient land. They seem to be blind to the fact that various scriptures can be better applied to Israel's reestablishment in fulfillment of prophecy than to the Church, and that their being a center of world attention and especially world hatred sure does look like that verse about God's making Jerusalem a "cup of trembling" to the world at the time of the end, AND that in the various wars in which they were attacked by their Arab neighbors there's very good reason to see the hand of God on their side, even something like miracles. ALL THAT is ignored by the "replacement theology" camp, dismissed as mere accidents of history, as if there ever could be such a thing, or even treated as a work of Satan, as if Satan had any reason to want Israel reestablished, or as if God couldn't keep Satan from any project if it didn't fit with His plan.

This is really the same kind of dismissive thinking as McMahon is doing with all the uncanny connections Cahn has discovered, making what is clearly God's own work into mere inventions of his own.

Another imposition from Cahn’s imagination is his suggestion that the inauguration of George Washington in New York City was a “consecration” of America to God similar to Solomon’s consecration of the Temple in Jerusalem. To even compare the two verges on blasphemy, especially because history reveals that much Masonic ritual was involved, as well as the “works-salvation” doctrine of Masonry contained in Washington’s speech. It was more suitable to the god of the Masonic Lodge, the Great Architect of the Universe, than to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of the Bible.

Well, has God specially blessed America with unusual peace and prosperity as we've all thought for so long, or not? If so, to what do we attribute that fact? If the nation was consecrated to Satan which is what a purely Masonic consecration would be, why has the nation been so favored down the centuries, as recognized by the whole world? Is this to be attributed strictly to the Pilgrim founding and the fact that we've been a Christian nation by population and general philosophy up until recently?

We don't know what was prayed in that chapel. What about the men who accompanied Washington? His whole cabinet were with him. Did they pray in the name of Jesus? There were more true Christians in the government even then than Deists, although it is true that the big name Founders were Deists and Unitarians. Nevertheless Washington himself regularly attended a Christian church. And although thanks to Chris Pinto I now understand that Washington was a Deist* and not a Christian I also know that we've been indoctrinated to believe that the Founders WERE Christians and you can't fault Cahn if he believed that, you can't accuse him of blasphemy if he believed the propaganda that the whole American Church has believed for decades now and honestly assumed that the prayers were in the name of Christ.

Part of the dilemma in criticizing The Harbinger is that if the foundational error in it is not acknowledged (that America has some sort of covenant with God,

There is nothing "foundational" about the apparent relationship GOD HIMSELF seems to be owning between Himself and America by simply giving us these harbingers! It's a CONCLUSION that must be drawn FROM them. Not a BEGINNING point but a CONCLUDING point.

Cahn DISCOVERED that God had given us these signs or harbingers. In thinking about them and following up with further research he discovered that Ground Zero where they all occurred turns out to be land that originally belonged to the church Washington and his cabinet prayed in, a church that was then most likely a true Christian church, although it is now apostate (you can read their teachings at the Trinity Wall Street Church site).

But I repeat: these are all uncanny correspondences Cahn uncovered. That's a pretty dramatic historical coincidence to try to sweep away as if it were meaningless.

and that there is a direct biblical correlation between Israel and the U.S. in the events of 9/11 and following), that opens the door for the acceptance of the book’s many fallacious ideas.

Again, this correlation with the verse was DISCOVERED BY CAHN. The connections are just THERE, he merely DISCOVERED them. If he went too far trying to understand God's mind in interpreting the prayer in the chapel beyond what is warranted, and I personally don't think he did -- he certainly said nothing to imply he believes that America is a covenant nation in the same sense that Israel was and when asked if he does he denies it -- but if he did misinterpret to some extent you still have to acknowledge that:

Only God Himself could have directed the beam that felled the sycamore tree which so uncannily echoes the verse in Isaiah, in the graveyard of the church at Ground Zero where George Washington and his cabinet prayed for the nation after his inauguration as our first President;

Only God could have directed the memorializing of its roots in bronze (which sure looks like a harbinger of God's intention to uproot the nation to me) and had it placed at the main sanctuary of that church on Wall Street a few blocks from the Stock Exchange;

Only God could have directed the replacement of the sycamore by a tree of the same type as a cedar, you know, a tree with needles and cones;

Only God could have planned the correspondence between the uprooted sycamore tree at Ground Zero and the Buttonwood tree (another name for sycamore) under which the agreement that began the Stock Exchange was signed, known as the Buttonwood Agreement, which ought to give you chills as you contemplate what this must mean about the future of the American economy;

Only God could have directed the bringing in of a quarried stone to be the cornerstone of the new building even though it turned out not to be needed, if only for the purpose of talking to America through Isaiah 9:10;

Only God could have had New York Governor Pataki express a version of the attitude of Isaiah 9:10 in his speech over this cornerstone -- a declaration of defiance in so many words;

Only God could have directed Tom Daschle and John Edwards to read Isaiah 9:10 as their message of supposed reassurance to the nation after 9/11;

Only God could have directed David Wilkerson to preach that same verse after 9/11 as His message of judgment instead of reassurance;

Only God could have directed the journalists to describe the rubble as a pile of bricks;

Only God could have directed the placement of the twin towers on land owned by a very old church that goes back to the founding of the nation, where the first President of the United States went to pray with his cabinet right after his inauguration.

Only God could have directed the timing of the events of the fall of the American economy to occur on dates He gave to ancient Israel concerning THEIR economy.

I mean, COME ON, Mr. McMahon. You are letting preconceptions blind you to the simple uncanny FACTS here.

This creates a perception of “credibility” simply by entering into a dispute over them. Even so, because most of them are so obviously wrong, pointing any one of them out to someone enthralled with the book may still be helpful. Some of these things are addressed in other parts of this newsletter and will be touched on in our future issues as questions arise.

Seems to me once you've made the mistake of attributing to Cahn what only God could have done, accused him of predetermining his facts when all he did was follow them out and research them and interpret them after the fact, once you've got a mind to make the minor details into a major indictment, you can't correct your course and you therefore end up accusing this honest Messianic Jewish pastor of enormities out of your own imagination.

He goes on but I think I'll end this here and probably finish up in one more post.

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

*"Deist" may not be the right description of Washington or the others: Today [June 8]both Chris Pinto and Brannon Howse were talking on their radio shows about a new book that's out, Religious Beliefs of America's Founders, by Gregg Frazer, who is on the staff of John MacArthur's church and Master's College. As he studied the writings of the Founders he came to the conclusion that not only were they not Christian, they were also not Deists as that term is defined. He invented a new category, theistic rationalism, he thinks fits better for some of them.

Yes, The Harbinger IS a "matter of critical discernment" Pt. 3

Preamble: Two things:

One: I feel I should say that I used to getthe Berean Call, in the mail, the newsletter put out by Dave Hunt and T A McMahon, and I still appreciate their ministry overall. I stopped taking the newsletter when they started attacking Calvinism, often in a mean-spirited way, which I see from their online archives they are still doing as of this current issue. Now I'm objecting to their take on Cahn's book as well. Nevertheless, they've always had important biblical insights into the growing apostasy in the church, the occult and the New Age, Roman Catholicism, and events shaping up in the world in fulfillment of prophecy, and I learned a lot from them over the years.

Two: As mentioned in the previous post, I've begun to suspect that the MAIN reason for the strong reaction against Jonathan Cahn's Harbinger is the adamant insistence that God's word to Israel can ONLY be to Israel, which is for some reason strongly held by many of those who believe that national Israel is going to figure prominently in the end times. I believe that also, but I do believe that much of God's word to Israel is also to the Church which is spiritual Israel, something that the Israel-only people adamantly deny. And the New Testament also leads us to anticipate that the Church will in the end times receive a huge influx of what is now natural Israel as they come to recognize their true Messiah and are born again --a great increase that has already been happening in recent decades -- until then they are not God's Chosen People. And again, no, this is not a "replacement" of natural Israel, the Church was always the true Israel God was shepherding down through the millennia, made up of the redeemed, His faithful followers.

In any case, again, the story of the harbingers is about something that only God Himself could have set up, not something that relies on anyone's understanding of how to apply the scripture.

But on to more of McMahon's review:

Cahn’s isolation of 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. and his symbolic interpretation of that verse to make it fit the September 11, 2001, jihadist attack on the U.S. is preposterous. (It’s also very odd that nowhere in the book is Islam or the term “Muslim” mentioned.) Nevertheless, as tragic as 9/11 was, what reasonably discerning person would see this as comparable to Isaiah’s account of God’s judgment on the Northern Kingdom of Israel?

The reasonably discerning person who would see it this way is someone who had noticed that God Himself apparently makes that comparison. That's the answer here over and over again. Again, Cahn was not the only one to notice the applicability of this verse to 9/11, as I pointed out in the last post.

Cahn was making no comparisons with the degree of devastation except to note that in both cases this is a first attack that could have been much worse and that if repentance does not follow, much worse will come. Otherwise he merely noted what others had noted, that Isaiah 9:10 is a perfect description of America's attitude after 9/11 just as it was ancient Israel's attitude, an attitude of defiance against God, a refusal to accept the attack as God's judgment and call for repentance: We aren't going to repent, we are going to rebuild and replant with sturdier materials, sturdier trees, and make it harder for our enemies to do such damage to us again. We, we we.

This is the crux of the message, the attitude of defiance in the face of an act of judgment from God and McMahon seems to have missed it completely. As David Wilkerson recognized, it very well describes America's attitude after 9/11. Very few pastors in America, very VERY few, would even recognize the attack as God's judgment at all, even saying God wouldn't do such a thing, even criticizing those few who did recognize it as God's judgment. No calls to repentance, just calls to assert our strength as a nation, just assertions of pride and patriotism, calls to God to bless America but few calls to God to change our hearts and have mercy on us.

It occurred to me after writing this to go to the Berean Call to see what message they gave in the wake of 9/11, and it was certainly not a call to repentance. It was a warning about the terrorist foundations of Islam. There is probably a clue here as to why some can't see 9/11 as a judgment from God. Of course most Americans at that time had no knowledge of Islam at all and the Berean Call was always on top of that information. In fact it was from their ministry that I got a book a few years before 9/11 that showed Islam's designs -- in Muslim leaders' own words -- against Israel and all "infidels" in the world [This is the book Philistine by Ramon Bennett]. People then needed to be made aware of Islam as a real threat in the world, and to some extent we are more aware, although there are many who still insist on the politically correct view of it as just another religion that should be granted the same freedoms as all others.

The idea that God would use terrorists to judge America seems to be hard for people to wrap their minds around. But God used Israel's enemy Assyria as His instrument of judgment against His people, and Babylon and other pagan nations. If we've been attacked, as Christians we should have learned -- FROM the Old Testament -- that these things don't just "happen," that God is behind everything, that this is how he punishes nations through history, and the need for repentance should be the first thought that comes to our mind. There was a time in America when Christians immediately recognized this. Even some US Presidents whose Christian faith might be questionable seemed to understand it. No more. Today's Christians have been corrupted by the unbiblical "gospel" that's all about "blessings" and rarely about sin and judgment, and the false teaching that "our good God wouldn't do such things." So America will get judged again and they'll deny God had anything to do with it again, and along will come the next Antichrist ...

Knowing Islam's motives isn't going to help us if God is against us. But if we repent and turn to Him we can count on Him to restrain Islam and give us protection from our enemies. If the nation doesn't do this, at least individuals who understand the truth can do it.

Anyway, The Berean Call missed God's hand in 9/11 just as the majority of Christian ministries in America did at the time.

Furthermore, even a cursory review of American history will bring to mind far more devastating events than 9/11, from Washington, D.C. being burned and sacked in the War of 1812, to the Civil War, to Pearl Harbor, to the debacle in Vietnam, etc. Ignoring such events, Cahn zeroes in on the devastation of “Ground Zero” as verification that God has removed His “hedge of protection” from the United States. How Cahn decides what events of contemporary history God is using for His very specific purposes is troubling. Are they Cahn’s own prophetic insights or just his speculations? If the former, he is on very tenuous ground.

It's not all that complicated. The "hedge of protection" surrounds continental America. Perhaps Cahn can be faulted for not considering Pearl Harbor as an earlier breach of the hedge, and for not including even earlier attacks on American soil, but at least the context IS foreign attacks on American soil and not American participation in foreign wars and not our own civil war. America has been RECOGNIZED as specially blessed in that we have been spared such attacks, certainly in the last century, while Europe and other parts of the world have suffered much devastation to their own lands. Maybe Cahn should have spelled all this out more clearly, but I had no trouble knowing what context he had in mind and I don't know why T A McMahon didn't.

The idea is that this was NOT a great devastation, but a first warning attack (since Pearl Harbor, or the War of 1812 should I add?). Although the attack on Israel was more devastating than 9/11, still it was nothing like what was clearly going to come upon them as a result of their defiance of God's hand in the first attack -- which is what the full passage in Isaiah 9 is clearly saying.

There are other ways God's judgment can be seen on America besides such direct attacks anyway, such as the invasion of illegal aliens, the great destruction in floods and hurricances over the last decade, and the increase in the very sins that are bringing further judgment, the huge slaughter of the unborn for instance that's been going on since 1973, and all the other violations of God's Law that Christians are always enumerating and protesting. And it probably all goes back to the basic abandonment of our Christian roots in the Puritan and Pilgrim founders of the nation before there was a nation, our abandonment of the gospel as the foundation of national life, which sadly should be largely attributed to the ANTI-CHRISTIAN mentality of the Founders of the generation that fought the Revolutionary War and wrote the Constitution, to us Christians who have perpetuated the errors of that generation. But that's another story.

But the context of The Harbinger is violent attack on national soil, and it seems fair to regard this as a breach of the hedge of protection that kept us from attack through the 20th century, again not counting Pearl Harbor. But if you don't want to accept the idea that this was a first breach of the protecting hedge, at least you have to recognize that America has never repented for the sins that have been accumulating God's judgments against us, and that the uncanny correspondences between Israel's defiance of God in response to attack and the American defiance in response to 9/11 signs and seals God's judgment of America in an amazingly graphic way. That's what The Harbinger is really all about. We missed it when the twin towers were hit so God has sent us some amazingly literal signs to wake us up and a book to point them out to us spiritual dunderheads. Are we going to wake up or not?

For many, selectivity on Cahn’s part creates some of the most compelling assertions in the novel. Again and again, as G. Richard Fisher of Personal Freedom Outreach has noted, “Cahn is playing on the old mistake of saying [that] similarity means identity.”

Huh? Good grief, the ingenuity with which the critics find ways to fault Cahn is staggering. "Playing on?" I don't even think I know what this person is trying to say.

The nine harbingers are selectively (and erroneously) taken from Scripture and are then given life by the comparison to similar things surrounding 9/11, which are then identified with Isaiah:9:10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars..

Uh, Cahn NOTICED that American leaders quoted Isaiah 9:10 word for word in exact imitation of the attitude of the leaders of ancient Israel reported in that verse, he didn't "select" these incidents from some range of possible similarities; and he NOTICED that there were uncanny echoes of the specifics of Isaiah 9:10 in fallen bricks, a hewn stone, a fallen sycamore tree, a cedar-type tree to replace it -- he didn't "select" these things, they jumped out at him as the uncanny similarities they IN FACT ARE.

That’s the faulty method. Fisher explains, “Similarity is not identity. A $100 bill is similar to monopoly money, which is paper, has numbers on it, and is referred to as money.” To attempt to tie them together beyond that similarity, like paying a bill with monopoly money, will have embarrassing consequences at least.

Oh good grief. Identity? All Cahn did was NOTICE certain SIMILARITIES. Where is anyone getting the idea that he's insisting on some sort of identity between Israel and America? They ask, Does he think America is also a covenant nation as Israel was? No, he doesn't think that, he's answered whenever that comes up. And he's never said anything to imply any other sort of identity either.

I have thought it might have been most effective if Cahn had simply told the story exactly as he himself experienced it, from the point where he first noticed each event that ties into Isaiah 9:10. Each discovery of these correspondences must have struck him as a revelation of the finger of God. Instead he opted for a more artificial arrangement of the information, probably partly to maximize the drama, but also perhaps to organize the material step by step in relation to the scripture verse, since he probably didn't discover all the parts of it in such an orderly fashion. But who knows.

Isaiah:9:10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. cannot be identified with America and 9/11, and that’s all one has to understand in order to reject Cahn’s book

. Sigh.

Yet, for those enamored with The Harbinger and still not convinced of its serious biblical problems, consider a few of the harbingers themselves (there’s not enough space here to evaluate all of them).

The sycamore and cedar trees are mentioned in Isaiah:9:10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.: “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.” The passage uses sycamores as a metaphor for weaker trees being replaced by stronger, taller cedars in an act of arrogant defiance by the Israelites, who will not submit to God.

Cahn points to a singular sycamore and what he refers to as a type of cedar tree (actually a Norway Spruce) that replaced it at Ground Zero as harbingers connected to Isaiah:9:10The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.. Although there is a similarity , it takes a great deal of subjective wrangling by Cahn in his attempt to make it match Isaiah’s prophecy. The context does not allow Cahn’s claims.

Sigh. Newspapers described the rubble after 9/11 as a pile of bricks. Similarity. A gigantic hewn stone was brought in to be the cornerstone of the new Freedom Tower -- it wasn't even needed for the building, which makes the event even more uncanny. Similarity. Quarried stone. Symbolic reflection of the scripture verse. A single sycamore tree in the churchyard of the chapel where George Washington prayed for the nation after his inauguration was skewered by a piece of one of the falling towers and uprooted, a tree named after the sycamores of the Middle East. Similarity. Symbolic. A conifer type tree -- yes, not a cedar, a Norway Spruce, but very similar in type to a cedar (technically, the Hebrew word for it is "erez" which refers to the pine tree class, which includes the cedar, the pine, the fir and the spruce) -- was brought in to replace the fallen sycamore.

OK, here, let me SHOW the similarities with the trees:

Middle Eastern Sycamore, Ficus Sycomorus:


North American Sycamore:


Cedar of Lebanon:


Norway Spruce:(below)


Granted: I could have used representatives of each tree type that would show more differences than similarities but this comparison calls for the similarities to be emphasized, and certainly there are similarities enough to justify the connections Cahn made -- NOTICED not invented.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, back to the McMahon review:

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

How sad. Cahn has done no such thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued in next post.