The Harbinger

Have you heard about this? A coworker was telling me about the recent Inaugural Prayer Breakfast where Rabbi/Pastor/Author Jonathan Cahn spoke to the gathering about returning the nation to God. Yes, that was his message. Look it up. You can listen on YouTube. I read a transcript.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn is President of Hope of the World ministries, Senior Pastor and Messianic Rabbi of the the Jerusalem Center/Beth Israel in Wayne, New Jersey. He is also the author of a recent bestseller, The Harbinger, a fictional novel. No, you need the full title: The Harbinger: the Ancient Mystery that holds the secret of America's Future. Presented as fiction, Cahn believes it is, instead, based on biblical truth. His fundamental launch pad for his presentation is Isa. 9:10.

"The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place."

The text is about Israel's impending judgment. The problem, you see, is that they have decided to go ahead without God's input and without repentance. The promise, then, is destruction.

Cahn, then, works this text as a prophecy against America. He argues that September 11, 2001, was a judgment from God, a call for repentance. We didn't. He references in The Harbinger nine signs, harbingers of destruction, warnings of impending judgment. The fifth harbinger is "The Stone of Judgment". Three years after 9/11 they laid this "Stone of Judgment" at Ground Zero. The sixth harbinger is "The Sign of the Sycamore". As it turns out, when the twin towers fell, they knocked down a sycamore tree at the base of the towers. A bronze sculpture of roots of that very tree are on Wall Street now as a reminder, and Cahn points to that as proof. Stones and sycamores. See?

This kind of stuff disturbs me. I really want to cheer when someone stands in front of Washington's powerful and declares, "You need to repent and return to God!" To that I say, "Amen!" When someone gets into the public eye shouting, "Outside of Him there is no safety, but inside of Him there is no fear", I want to say, "Amen!" When the call for national repentance is sent out and people get interested, I want to cheer. When a coworker says, "This is really good stuff", I'm happy. So when the stuff turns out to be really far out prophecy-making with remote connections to disconnected Scripture and random current events cobbled together to make the connection, I'm really, really disappointed. Cahn is warning of a 7-year cycle. Seven years after 9/11 in the same month as 9/11 on the 29th day of Elul (Jewish month) we had a financial crash on Wall Street. See? God's judgment on a 7-year cycle. A Jonathan Cahn fan gives you a helpful list offering evidence that all of this is true and we're facing judgment from God. Expect the end of America on the 29th of September, 2015.

See, I really agree wholeheartedly that America (rather, Americans) needs to repent. American Christians need to repent. American unbelievers need to repent. God told His people "if My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chron 7:14). Whether or not that qualifies as a promise for America, I will affirm with my whole heart that we who are God's people need to humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways. But do we need to hear that message peppered with extrabiblical prophecy, irrational and irrelevant eisegesis, and bizarre "proofs" from current events? What will that do to people like my coworker when the false prophet is revealed? What does that do to the needed message of call to repentance? I hate mixed messages like that.