To Dr. Thomas Ice: In Answer to Your Review of The Harbinger

My Rebuttal to Thomas Ice’s: A Critical Look at 'The Harbinger' immediately above which I could not post on his site because it would not accept my registration due to the fact that I was not referred to that site by anyone, and I tried to point it out to its moderator, but one must be referred to by someone with a valid username, and I was not. Nevertheless I post it here on David James’ site on Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 at 2:50PM. I resubmitted this entry on Thursday, December 6th, 2012 at 10:40PM because David James did not post it the first time. I have posted this rebuttal in the following form on my blog site The Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace with the following caveat:

“The following is a very brief rebuttal to Thomas Ice's posting about The Harbinger which I post here on my site because I could not post on his site due to restrictions placed upon new usersp specifically, it would not accept my registration due to the fact that I was not referred to that site by anyone, and I tried to point it out to its moderator, but one must be referred to by someone with a valid username, and I was not. Nevertheless I post it here on David James’ site on Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 at 2:50PM:”

Dear Mr. Ice with regards to the following comment you made where you posted the following:

“His inaugural address was across the street form(sic) The Stock Exchange on Wall Street, blocks away from the Trade Center site.

“Also, his premise for the 9/11 is based around the judgment that Israel suffered because they didn't let the land rest. So, how can God hold us, a gentile nation, accountable for a covenant that is no longer in force?

“Also the timing from 9/11 2001 and 2008 is pretty shaky as the book presented it. If God wanted to make a statement 2001 and 2008 would be a one day event on the same date, but it wasn't. I think he is trying to make the dates and events fit a narrative, rather than the narrative be proven precisely by the events.

“Bottom line, IMO, if He judges this nation different than any other, there would presumably be a covenant He could point to that we breached, as He did with Israel. We have indeed been favored and blessed, but the difference between us and Israel is the difference between night and day. The covenant He made with Israel led to Messiah, there is no parallel to us that I can find. Interesting coincidences? Perhaps, but we being judged as God judged Israel? There are too many dissimilarities and the lack of a covenant for me to buy it.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Let us address your first statement.

Mr. Ice, whether George Washington held his inaugural address blocks away from Ground Zero or across the continent, following his address he and every other leader present walked to St. Paul’s Chapel at what is known today as the Ground Zero site, where a beam from one of the towers struck a sycamore tree which protected the chapel from being struck by the falling debris as the towers collapsed. As a result of this, St. Paul’s Chapel, the very first place where the first president of this new nation made his first public prayer as its president; was spared from destruction.

Additionally this is where the new president of the new nation along with those who accompanied him went to pray for two hours, and where he later offered the following prayer to the Lord God of the Universe for the nation and its people:

“Almighty God,

“We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field.

“And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

--George Washington

What significance does this have on our current discussion? On the day when George Washington and the framers of our Constitution established this Constitutional Representative Republic (note, not democracy, but representative republic – where its national Constitution equally protects the rights of all people – the minority as well as the majority; and tempers its government with limited powers under the rule of this same law, thus protecting its citizenry from whiles and the whims of other men.), Washington they went to a little chapel named Saint Paul’s Chapel, (built by Trinity Church) located on the grounds of where Ground Zero is located, and there they prayed for hours for the new nation to the God of All Creation.

Washington’s Prayer for the United States of America appears on a plaque in Saint Paul ’s chapel in the city of New York as well as at Pohick Church , Fairfax County , Virginia , where Washington was a vestryman from 1762 to 1784. And as a believer you understand that no man who prays in such a manner from his heart as Washington did on that historic day; can be turned away. We know this from Scripture because Christ Himself has promised universally to all men everywhere that He would never turn them away, when He said:

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

(John 6:37)

Some would argue that because George Washington was a Mason, that his prayers were not directed to the God of Israel; the God of the Judeo-Christian faith, but to the god of the Masons – what they call the Great Architect of the Universe, and I would argue that this would be true if not for the specific times – as this one – where Washington ended his prayer specifically in the name of “Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

In his private journal, Washington has the following prayer to God:

“O eternal and everlasting God, I presume to present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept of my humble and hearty thanks, that it hath pleased thy great goodness to keep and preserve me the night past from all the dangers poor mortals are subject to, and has given me sweet and pleasant sleep, whereby I find my body refreshed and comforted for performing the duties of this day, in which I beseech thee to defend me from all perils of body and soul....

“Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the gospel; give me repentance from dead works; pardon my wanderings, and direct my thoughts unto thyself, the God of my salvation; teach me how to live in thy fear, labor in thy service, and ever to run in the ways of thy commandments; make me always watchful over my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin, nor an unwillingness to depart this life, may cast me into a spiritual slumber, but daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy son Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time attain the resurrection of the just unto eternal life bless my family, friends, and kindred.”

(An undated prayer from Washington's prayer journal, Mount Vernon)

No one unless they are a Christian, can make such a prayer to the God of heaven. Oh yes, I will agree that they will pray, but in a perfunctory manner; not in this manner, and not with this conviction of heart. No one, whether he or she claims belief in Jesus Christ can readily with conviction willfully and full cognizance of what he or she is saying, call Jesus Christ Lord unless they have the Holy Spirit of God according to Scripture (1Corinthians 12:3). What’s more, unless one is born again, regardless of what they call themselves, Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, or anything else for that matter, unless they are born again, they will not with full conviction have Christ as Lord in their hearts, or call Him Lord publicly as George Washington has done here, and in various other prayers of his which can be read in his private journal.

This is because unless a person is born again, they cannot either enter or be aware of the kingdom of God (John 3:3-8), and therefore their public statements and behavior will mirror their private convictions, because men speak out of what is in their hearts (Matthew 15:18, Mark 7:21, Luke 6:45), and there is where the Lord looks, while man’s tendency is to look at their public affiliations, pedigree, church attendance, or such things as whether or not they take communion – the outward trappings and appearances (1Samuel 16:7), just as the Scripture says:

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

As to your second objection, if you are a Gentile, and a Christian, having received Christ by faith into your heart and life as Savior, having been born again of the Holy Spirit of God; then your prayer as a Gentile to the God of Israel with whom He established His covenant; has been heard and answered. Then you have become as a myriad of others not of the stock and seed of Abraham, that is one who is not Jewish – wild olive as it were – one who has received of the grace of God to the nations the induction by faith through Christ into this nation with whom God established His covenant – the Abrahamic Covenant. If this is the covenant that you and other critics of The Harbinger are referring to. If you and other critics of The Harbinger are referring to the Mosiac Covenant, which God established exclusively with Israel a little more than four hundred years later, then I am in full agreement. But if you are referring to the Abrahamic Covenant, let me remind you that this is the covenant whereby which God promised Abraham that He would through his Descendant would bless the nations of the earth with, his seed – that is, Christ.

For it is through Christ that the promises made to Abraham have been extended to all who come by faith through Christ to God from every nation under heaven without the need for Gentiles to become Jews through the Bris of circumcision according to the Law (read Paul’s Letter to the Galatians). There is no exception, and anyone who attempts to make one, is guilty of trying to reestablish one where God in Christ has abolished it.

As a Gentile Christian, or whether you’re Jewish; you are aware of this, and appreciate it as do I. To cite that the Abrahamic Covenant – if that is the covenant you and other critics of The Harbinger are referring to – as exclusive, it is only exclusive to the land and its people, the Jewish people, but the promise of blessing the nations extends through Christ in what Paul calls “the mystery” of the promise of God that the nations would be fellow heirs – wild olives grafted to the God’s olive tree Israel – and would be made partakers with Israel of the promises He made to Abraham through faith – faith in Christ. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the foreknowledge of Almighty God, Paul writes the following about this One People of God comprising God’s Olive Tree of grafted wild olives – Gentiles – and re-grafted Jewish believers in Jesus the Messiah:

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands—remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

(Ephesian 2:11-22)

And unlike Reform Theology, it (Dispensational Theology coupled with Cessationism) denies the most basic tenet of the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ – that God's redemptive plan was well laid and ready before the foundation of the earth and all the covenants which followed came into being. This is why Dispensational Theology is good for breaking down history in a Bible study, but it is a poor form of Biblical Hermeneutic to use in the study of the Sacred Scriptures. God’s plan of redemption does not originate in the covenants, but the covenants originate from it – and work within the framework of God’s redemptive plan which He established long before He made these covenants with man. Yet His plan of redemption works independent of the Law. (In the providence of God, the totality of God’s redemptive plan must be taken into consideration, not subdivided and layered with theological limitations of what God can accomplish throughout history.

I am not plugging for Reform Theology here, but this is where I am in agreement with it and to an extent with Dispensationalism, where I agree with the two – God has a definite plan for the nation of Israel, but He has broken down the barrier of the dividing wall which is the Law of Commandments ratified in the Mosaic Covenant, and He has done this through the death of Jesus Christ once and for all with no distinctions other than to accept Christ as Lord and Savior in faith and be born of the Holy Spirit of God and washed in the cleansing blood of Christ. Out of two He has created one new man and out of the nations He has brought forth children unto Himself whom He has incorporated into His people Israel as One people with One Faith, One hope of our calling, One Lord, One God – our Lord Jesus Christ who is Lord above all and over all, amen. (1Corinthians 8:6, Ephesians 4:4)

Indeed the God of Israel when speaking to the prophet Jeremiah refers Himself as “the God of all flesh.” (Jeremiah 32:26) Why then are the critics of The Harbinger trying to make a distinction that since Christ no longer exists, when the only distinction that exists is between those who know Christ and are saved and those who do not, and use this argument to claim where and when God judges nations and what nations He will judge? What’s more, Paul in the Holy Spirit, refers to God as the God of the Gentiles as well where he writes:

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.

(Romans 3:29-31)

And what the Apostle Paul in the Holy Spirit of God in his Letter to the Ephesians writes under inspiration is too great not to cite here where he makes it abundantly clear to those who would place a dichotomy between God’s people – Jew and Gentile in Christ – where one does not exist, which God through Christ has once and for all time abolished:

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

(Ephesians 3:1-21)

Therefore your statement: “Also, his premise for the 9/11 is based around the judgment that Israel suffered because they didn't let the land rest. So, how can God hold us, a gentile nation, accountable for a covenant that is no longer in force?”

And the others, such as:

“Also the timing from 9/11 2001 and 2008 is pretty shaky as the book presented it. If God wanted to make a statement 2001 and 2008 would be a one day event on the same date, but it wasn't. I think he is trying to make the dates and events fit a narrative, rather than the narrative be proven precisely by the events.

“Bottom line, IMO, if He judges this nation different than any other, there would presumably be a covenant He could point to that we breached, as He did with Israel. We have indeed been favored and blessed, but the difference between us and Israel is the difference between night and day. The covenant He made with Israel led to Messiah, there is no parallel to us that I can find. Interesting coincidences? Perhaps, but we being judged as God judged Israel? There are too many dissimilarities and the lack of a covenant for me to buy it.”

Mr. Ice, your argument is flawed on its premise that God’s standards change from nation to nation, and that His Word does not apply outside of Israel, because Gentiles are not a part of God’s covenant people (I agree to a point – outside of Christ they are not), where there is ample evidence of God dealing with Gentile nations and people long before He made His covenant with Abraham and long after He made it, as He will until the day Christ returns, and for this I would suggest that the critics of The Harbinger do a rereading of their Bibles from Genesis to Revelation.

And it is this flawed theology that is at the heart of The Harbinger’s critics, this and the false doctrine of Cessationism, which denies every work of God in the modern – all exception redemption and the new birth – which form a deadly combination that has result in the toxic concoction that lines the pages of The Harbinger: Fact of Fiction? A book that is a tacit denial of a prophetic message of God to His people – those who worship the God of the Bible and are His people by faith – Christians everywhere – to repent and seek their God, and pray for their nation and their leaders, and if they should aspire for public office that they could serve and honor God while they dispatch the responsibilities of the office they hold for which the people elected them.

The events of September 11, 2001 have been thoroughly documented and many documentaries have been produced telling and retelling the same story with various details from many different angles, testimonials, and personal recollections by those who lived it, who took part in it, and those who produced these documentaries. Both what happened on that terrible day and what preceded it has been investigated and told and most everyone is knowledgeable in some way as to what occurred. Even what has happened since that day has been reported by the various news organizations and print media with regards to the rebuilding of the Freedom Tower.

Moreover, the bricks, wood, and steel of the World Trade Center were fallen, but the rebuilding began in earnest with hewn stone on July 4, 2004 only when the granite cornerstone for the building of The Freedom Tower was set. The sycamore tree outside Saint Paul’s Chapel had fallen when it was struck by the beam and debris from the collapsing World Trade Center towers, but the cedar tree was lowered into place on November 22, 2003. It was named, the Tree of Hope.

This so-called Tree of Hope today is shriveled and is close to death. Chance? There is no such concept or thing in the Hebrew language or way of thinking. I ask again, chance? No, I don’t think so. The God of heaven is as far off as the critics of The Harbinger make Him out to be, but He is as near as the Scriptures teach; yes, as close as every man’s heart. Nothing happens by chance, but by the providence of Almighty God and in His foreknowledge and redemptive plan for mankind, beginning with Israel and extending out through the cross to all of the human race, to as many as will come to Him for salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.