A WORD FROM THE PEPSTER: The following is some good reading, but we must be careful and discerning because the enemy uses our members to trip us up. He doesn’t attack from outside our camp, but like Korah’s rebellion, he attacks from within the camp, from one of our own. Case in point below.
Date: Mar 19, 2013
Harbinger Expert Critic says: "Bob, I read your analysis this morning and it was dead on right on every point." - David James, 3/24/13
MY CORRECTION: It is not surprising to find the name of David James posted on this website, and touted as “Harbinger Expert Critic” with a quoted brief statement by James praising the article. Its contents and manner almost appears to have been copied, lifted, and pasted from one of the pages of David James’ book The Harbinger: Fact or Fiction? No surprises there. This is more grist for the mill, and only serves to further convince Mr. James that his cause is right, when in fact his book and articles against The Harbinger are the grossest and most egregious application of Eisegesis and Hegelian Dialectics against another’s work I’ve ever encountered in over thirty years of walking in God’s grace.
Both Agree on the Theme of The Harbinger: Bob Enyart interviews Jonathan Cahn, the NY Times bestselling author of The Harbinger. Bob appreciates Cahn's warning to an America defiant of God but Enyart disagrees with Cahn's claim that 9/11 was a specific sign from God. See just below Bob's notes regarding his reasons for disagreeing with Jonathan Cahn's claims of a specific divine message in the events following the Attack on America
MY CORRECTION: Nowhere does The Harbinger make the claim that 9/11 was “a specific sign from God,” but if Mr Enyart had read The Harbinger objectively and done his homework, he would discover that what The Harbinger says that 9/11 was one of many repeats of warnings first seen in ancient Israel, with ever growing potency, now recurring on American soil since 9/11. That is a VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. Again, the narrative of what the book says is changed by its critic in order to replace that narrative with one of their choosing in order to debunk and discredit its claims. The first time this was witnessed in Scripture was in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent questioned Eve whether God had said what she claimed He said, and when she said He did, Satan retorted by calling God a liar, implying, that God did not say what He said about the fruit, and that He lied about what He said. Just as it says:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
(Genesis 3:1-5)
When I see this, as I do here and in other writings by critics of The Harbinger, red flags go immediately up, because this is a well-used tactic of the enemy against God’s prophetic word throughout history.
Rejecting The Harbinger's Claim of Divine Signs: (This is not meant to be harsh, for we love and greatly appreciate Jonathan Cahn, and though airing a daily radio talk show, we don't want to be like David who became battle hardened; yet, this is meant to be direct.) The last nine minutes of audio on today's program were recorded twelve years ago at an End Times seminar conducted in Winona Lake, Indiana only four days after Sept. 11, 2001. Bob Enyart predicted that sincere Christian authors (who love and honor God and preach the Gospel) would find a Bible passage with a few uncanny similarities to 9/11, and so would claim that therefore Al Qaeda's attack on America was a sign from God.
MY CORRECTION: It is good that you aired Mr. Enyart’s End Times seminar which he gave some years ago, because it is a very valid postulation against Christian prophetic sensationalism, and every truly discerning Christian who walks in the Holy Spirit of God, must allow for the Holy Spirit to use God’s Word to keep us from falling into this trap. And I agree with Mr. Enyart up to there. From there, I do not, and this is why. If Mr. Enyart had not aired part of his End Times seminar, we would not know what has swayed his judgment and his opinion on this matter, but the evidence is right before us. Mr. Enyart – it appears for quite some time – has had an adverse opinion of the prophetic in general and of anything that might appear to him as “prophetic sensationalism” in particular. His opinion is already prejudiced and biased based upon his own statement made when he gave his End Times seminar. Are we then to be surprised that they would change for The Harbinger? Of course not, and predictably as is with all things dealing with man, his statements and his judgment, as well as his thinking; are expressions of what is in his heart and how he views the prophetic. Is he a Cessationist? We don’t know, but it appears that he is, and if he is; like all Cessationists, he has disqualified himself in forming opinions about topics of which he personally does not believe. But, it is good that he included his End Times seminar at the end of this broadcast interview, because it presents us with a very real evidence of the man’s own private bias and prejudice of the prophetic and therefore his predictable reaction to The Harbinger, which we would not have had otherwise had he not given it. The devil is clever, but he cannot outsmart God. He always gives himself away.
Consider Jonathan Cahn's few parallels (which get repeated often) from Isaiah 9:10 to 9/11 events. In the audio from September 2001, Bob Enyart illustrates how easy this is to claim fulfillment of a prophetic pattern when, compared to the Harbinger, he quoted more and more significant 9/11 parallels but from Revelation 17 and 18. Bob knowingly misinterpreted the Scriptures to show how easily (and even innocently) this is done, and while Cahn's parallels get to select from events over a period of years, Bob's many more prophetic parallels were all fulfilled on the very day of September 11th.
MY CORRECTION: I appreciate Bob’s candor and his being brutally honest about this, but because he purposely misinterpreted Scripture to make a point several years ago doesn’t mean that Jonathan Cahn is repeating his “purposeful mistake” and to equate one with the other, or to apply his deliberate misinterpretation to The Harbinger is like saying that because Peter fell into a trance as he was praying means that he practiced witchcraft or dabbled in the Occult. We must be very careful with making such comparisons, though we tend to make them. It is the way of natural thinking; it is the way of man, but it is not necessarily always God’s way. But we do appreciate Bob alerting us to be careful with such things when approaching the prophetic aspects of God’s Word. I would caution Bob with making these comparisons, though I fully understand why he and anybody else would be tempted to do so. I do not believe that Bob has researched this book thoroughly to make such a comparison and does so here by falling into the same trap The Harbinger’s critics fall into; their superficial knowledge of the book is not based upon an exhaustive and objective study of it, but of a cursory understanding based largely upon someone else’s opinions about the book, and unfortunately that other person has completely misunderstood and mischaracterized the book and its author in a published work of his own.
The Internet hasn't existed for 2,700 years. Jonathan Cahn's nine harbingers are based on a quote in the Bible of men defiant against God, who, after suffering God's judgment, repeated in utter ignorance, "The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars" (Isaiah 9:10). If the web had been forever, a Google search would probably return countless pages recording, after attacks, utterances of that quote through Judeo-Christian history. About 18 minutes into the program, Jonathan Cahn says about Isaiah 9:10 and the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that back then, "you don't have anyone quoting the Scripture of judgment." Perhaps, perhaps not. In the very center of the Internet's page of Pearl Harbor Quotes we read Isaiah 9:10, not in the NIV or NASB, because those versions were translated later, but in the King James Version.
MY CORRECTION: There are a good many counsels that Mr. Enyart gives us that we must be careful to – as they say – “take the baby out with the bathwater” – in other words, disregard valid statements and observations that he makes because we might disagree with his position on a few of them. Bob includes a good many well thought out advices that the serious student of the Scriptures does well to receive. What we must be careful is how he applies these, in this case; to use against The Harbinger. Just because you have a lookalike and maybe two or three lookalikes, it does not mean that your lookalike is you, nor does it mean that you are they. Generalizations must be avoided at all costs.
Cahn chose to present his message in a book of fiction. Not unlike the folks who think Star Wars is real, for many readers, Cahn's literary device blurs the distinction between truth and fiction. The requisite suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy the elements of the story, a wary reporter, a surprised liaison, and an unnamed prophet with curious ancient seals, works to bias the reader who emerges from the novella into the real world lacking the desire to expend the mental energy necessary for an objective consideration of The Harbinger's theological claims.
MY CORRECTION: Not true. The above statement that all of The Harbinger’s elements “works to bias the reader who emerges from the novella into the real world lacking the desire to expend the mental energy necessary for an objective consideration of The Harbinger's theological claims” may apply to the writer of this article’s own self-confession – and therefore additional evidence that if he indeed read the book, he did so with a proverbial “CHIP” on his shoulder, with the proverbial “ax to grind,” in other words, his bias against the book from the onset. Again, the devil never outsmarts God, but he does tip his hand in what he says. Mr. Enyart again tipped his hand.
The first harbinger (i.e., a seal in the book's metaphor) is the 9/11 attack. Cahn says at about 6:30 into today's program that a first attack is a sign of God's judgment and that God's protection will be further lifted if the nation does not repent. Bob suggests to Cahn that not unlike 9/11, Pearl Harbor suffered 3,000 casualties, about 2,400 of whom were killed. We live here, today, and so we are inclined to discount far-flung attacks over the last 2,700 years and view the world, unsurprisingly, through our own eyes. Bob mentioned to Jonathan that years ago he had interviewed the beloved Hal Lindsey who, through a similar here-and-now-centered interpretation, suggested that the Second Coming would be in 1988. (This was not unlike superstitious European Christians who would panic when pestilence coincided with Halley's Comet, nor unlike those who thought Jesus would return on the Y2K computer bug, nor unlike those who thought that lightning strikes signified judgment from Zeus, until that is lightning rods ruined the divine aim. Superstition, sadly, is as rampant among Christian authors as it was among the Greeks who worshiped the pantheon.) We interpret our own suffering as though it were of biblical proportion, as Cahn said at about 21:40, that in addition to the harbingers (signs), America has suffered "economic collapse". Well, collapse means different things to different people. Within 48 hours of our prerecorded interview, Dow Jones reached an all time high, and at the very minute today's show began, Reuters reported, "Housing starts point to growing economic momentum."
MY CORRECTION: Again, I maintain that we are not to make our determinations on something based upon a crank or some cranks in the past misapplying Scripture to their ruin; and to say that because they did it, The Harbinger is doing it too, is ridiculous and a broad generalization. On the one hand we are being warned not to generalize, but on the other, we Mr. Enyart is himself succumbing to his generalizations in his comparisons – in true Hegelian fashion – taking one side of an argument (the original narrative), positing its complete opposite (replacing the narrative with one of his own invention), in order to posit an entirely new narrative its author never intended in order to debunk the author’s original narrative. This is the tactic that the serpent used against Eve in the Garden. I am of the opinion that nothing happens by chance, nor is God distant from the affairs of men, but Scripture teaches that He is direct, personal, and is aware of everything that occurs on this planet and far flung space. Indeed, Our Lord Jesus has said that a sparrow does not fall from the sky apart from God being aware of it, but the very hairs on our heads are numbered by Him; that is to say, God is very intimate in our affairs, and does intervene in the affairs of nations, kingdoms, and empires. To say otherwise is to depart from the biblical template, and to spiritually digress to agnosticism, and eventually to fall into the apostasy of atheism, chance, coincidences, and luck – ironically, to become what Mr. Enyart warns against; becoming superstitious.
Compare that just to even recent decimation by tsunami, typhoon, earthquake, and to the countries bankrupted, the millions slaughtered, and tens of millions ruined by war, and even to the billions in Asia and Africa who've truly suffered debilitating poverty. That's economic collapse, whereas if God brought economic sanctions against America, it wouldn't look like a downturn, and it wouldn't primarily hurt the poor and middle class.
MY CORRECTION: Not true. When God judged ancient Israel, first He exiled the northern kingdoms. Very few people were left who were not forcibly exiled. Eventually when the southern kingdom of Judah was exiled, there were very few who were spared. The argument is not an accurately biblically historical one. It sounds plausible, because it seeks to connect with our own human and imperfect sense of justice, but it is not the biblical pattern of how God judges nations. Christ prophesied that there would be wars and rumors of wars, and earthquakes and famines in diverse places, but that this was not the end. The Harbinger is not warning that it is the end, but that if we as God’s people and with US, many of our fellow Americans do not heed God’s repeated warnings – His Harbingers – we will most assuredly crumble and fall.
Given the freedom to be arbitrary, fans of Nostradamus (who apparently predicted the return, in the year 2013, of Twinkies and Ding Dongs) and Jean Dixon point to fulfillment of prophecy. Ironically, Isaiah 9:10 itself is not even a prophecy, so any claimed fulfillment is metaphorical at best. However, The Harbinger itself fulfilled an actual prophecy, uttered in the very week of 9/11, at that End Times seminar, which predicted that such books would be written :). And I'm not even a prophet Over a million Americans were killed in the civil and world wars. Weren't those lives worth a Bible verse?
MY CORRECTION: They were worth many, but because you don’t see it, doesn’t mitigate the possibility of its existence. Do you hold the answer to every question in the universe? I don’t think so. Neither do I, or anyone else. Let’s not make over-broad generalizations and then apply them to the macro level in order to win an argument, but be careful how we assess things, especially pertaining to God’s judgment. As for Nostradamus, he used a mixture of astrology, Jewish Kabalistic teachings and practices coupled with Medieval sorcery to conjure up his quatrains, and his followers interpret them as they will; but he has never preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in them, nor has he called anyone in them to repentance and salvation in Christ. Jonathan Cahn and his book call people unequivocally to repent and seek salvation in Jesus Christ. BIG DIFFERENCE; again, Christ is at the center and heart of The Harbinger. There is no different Gospel or other Jesus preached, but Christ and Him crucified, dead, buried and resurrected. The Harbinger doesn’t call attention to itself, but to repentance and to Jesus Christ. You cannot present Christ as Lord unless you do so by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit always bears witness of Jesus Christ and nothing or no one else. Let’s be discerning. The End Times seminar may not have been a prophecy and anyone could’ve made that prediction, because it has a historical precedent. Every cult and false revival in history has been based on someone drawing people TO THEMSELVES and not to Christ, to await the EMINENT END OF THE WORLD. Neither is Jonathan Cahn drawing anyone to himself, or his New York Times bestseller calling for the END OF THE WORLD. It’s time for us – God’s people – to be truly discerning, and not fly off a Cessationist handle to squelch every voice of warning that God is sending in these end times. The Harbinger and its author are calling the nation to repentance by warning that the same biblical pattern of judgment that we read in Scripture is repeating itself on American soil, and we best listen closely to it, rather than fight among ourselves as to whether or not God is speaking.
Around 25 minutes into the program, Bob agrees with The Harbinger, in that "for Israel, being a prophet was a matter of life or death" (p. 9). Enyart then explains that today, God has withdrawn His accountability system for prophets. Jonathan did not anticipate Bob's statement that stoning a false prophet to death is no longer commanded, nor permitted, by God, as the New Testament says, that with "the priesthood being changed [by Christ], of necessity there is also a change of the law" (Hebrews 7:12). So today, while Christians tend to forget and forgive (often without even admitting) the false prophecies of their brethren, unbelievers have long memories and stumble over our false prophecies and prophetic interpretations.
MY CORRECTION: Why Mr. Enyart had to bring this up is itself indicative that his motives were to impute upon Jonathan Cahn the incorrect mantle and charge of “false prophet,” or at the very least, to imply it. There is no other point in bringing up the stoning of false prophets under the Mosaic Law other than to draw that parallel and precisely for that purpose. It does not add or take away from the discussion, it is simply interjected there in order to control and deviate the narrative away from The Harbinger to one that the moderator (Mr. Enyart) seeks for his audience and his readership in this article. Again, discernment is called for, because it is very cleverly packaged and convincingly presented; but it does not imply that because it is cleverly put together and convincingly argued for, that it is therefore true and valid. Anyone can argue anything, but its validity is self-evident. Mr. Enyart has failed to make the case here, as in elsewhere throughout his interview and in this article.
The actual parallel between Israel and America, regarding 732 B.C. and 2001, is only thematic, not divinely particular. When a nation ignores God, she becomes increasingly weak and vulnerable to destruction from within and without. Contrary to The Harbinger's emphasis (p. 19), this is true for Israel and America and for Italy, Germany, and Argentina. Christians disagree terribly over interpretation of the plain words in the Bible. Realize how loose our interpretations will then be of events! What is the meaning of a flood? An earthquake? An attack? It is God! Or perhaps it's the devil! Or was it in fact Osama bin Laden? Jesus disapproved of such interpretations of current events in Luke 13:1-5, and when Enyart debated D. James Kennedy's Professor of New Testament from Knox Theological Seminary, this very passage, regarding 2,000-year-old headlines of murder and a fallen tower, was central to the matter.
MY CORRECTION: Spiritual relativism is as dangerous and as misleading as open blasphemy, because it compromises the ability in the person for clear and accurate analysis. Take note how Mr. Enyart draw comparisons between other nations, this nation, and Israel, and how he uses this in order to claim that because God orders judgments on nations according to a specific prophetic method, it doesn’t mean that we are to take the demise of these in the past or recent past as signs of His displeasure. It is amazing that he can make that statement and then turn 180 degrees on a dime and claim in universal moral and spiritual absolutes. See how clever and how deep it goes? Be very careful. Discerning.
The Harbinger makes the important observation that, "during national judgment, both the righteous and the wicked perish" (p. 30). Then Cahn writes, thankfully, that God was not with Al Qaeda, but he claimed this as part of the prophetic pattern, in that, God was not with Israel's enemies who attacked her. But again this is arbitrary, for there were plenty of times when God Himself orchestrated the attacks on Israel in punishment for her national adultery. Yet it is wrong to extrapolate from those extraordinary biblical interventions that, therefore, God is the one who orchestrates a molester's rape of a child, or the Holocaust. Attributing to God the designs of the wicked comes close to blasphemy, except that it is done in ignorance, although often, through negligent ignorance.
MY CORRECTION: This is pure cynicism applied to a discussion in order to deny the prophetic implications of the topic being discussed. It is a type of spiritual and moral relativism; a type of Hyper-Dispensationalist disbelief in the direct intervention of God in human history, even an implicit denial that God who knows when a sparrow falls from His skies, also is very keenly aware of every evil under the sun. The prophet Habakkuk had the same questions of God, but God showed him that oftentimes He uses even wicked nations as instruments of His judgments, though in the end those nations are themselves not exempt from His judgments, and are themselves judged by Him. This is something that escapes every critic of The Harbinger. Mr. Enyart seems to also have overlooked this aspect of the Providence of God and His judgments upon the nations of the earth.
Jonathan Cahn says, rightly I assert, that God was not with Al Qaeda, yet because of a degree of superstition, he then interprets defiance against Islamic terrorism as defiance against God. Is Israel defiant today against God? Yes. (Sadly, like America they are a nation of socialists who defend abortion and homosexuality.) Does that mean that Israel's defiance of Hamas is inherently condemnable? Of course not. Cahn takes a Time magazine reporter's perfectly valid quote as a double entendre, with the entire thrust of the book implying that the defiance is against God, even though it is typically explicitly stated, as in this case, that it is against Islamic terrorists. "Rebuilding Ground Zero was going to be America's statement of defiance," (p. 63, from July 1, 2008) "to those who attacked us."
MY CORRECTION: You cannot take the State of Israel’s defiance of terrorism to mean that the utterance of ancient Israel’s defiance as quoted by our nation’s leaders to commemorate and apply 9/11’s events to this Scripture and vice a versa; falls under the same category as does modern Israel’s defiance of Hamas, which in no way is a defiance against God, but against evil. Bob is comparing apples with oranges here, as in elsewhere in order to control the narrative and redefine its meaning. Every commentary of Isaiah 9:10 discloses that Isaiah was quoting what the Israelites of his day were saying in defiance of God. Our national leaders’ defiance ironic, because they cited Scripture, but they have not called upon the God of the Scripture they have cited. What’s more, their defiance is in believing that they can do it on their own without the agency and help of Almighty God. There, above everything else is your defiance, Bob, in case you missed it. It’s time to stop arguing among ourselves and turn to God in repentance. Don’t be self-righteous.
In September 2001 in our End Times seminar at Winona Lake (home of a famous Bible center, Billy Sunday, and a prayer launch pad for Billy Graham's first crusade), I didn't have to stretch the details, as Jonathan does a tad, to make far greater and more substantive parallels between 9/11 and the book of Revelation. The world trade center, her sins had reached to heaven, the nations, peoples, tongues, and languages, Babylon the great, is fallen, the kings of the earth see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment, watching the smoke of her ruin, the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury, her plagues will come in one day, death and mourning, she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her, alas, that mighty city, for in one hour your judgment has come, their commerce has ceased, no merchandising today of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, silk and scarlet, every kind of object, of wood, bronze, iron, and marble, incense, wine and oil, flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, pork bellies, and bodies and souls of men. For in the previous week, the targets of God's wrath, New York and Washington D.C. were debating the patent rights of the tiniest innocent babies, the embryos destroyed so that their bodies could be harvested and sold, by the Israelis, to businesses around the world, while American financial interests were angered that they may not be collecting the royalties they were demanding. And on the Hudson and in the New York harbor, all who travel by ship, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, "What is like this great city?"
MY CORRECTION:Mr Enyart’s End Times seminar, to which he repeatedly refers to interpolates the prophecy of Revelation 17-18 in order for him to make his point that Scripture can be cited for just about anything and any event. Good point. But because Scripture can be misinterpreted does not mitigate the fact that it can be interpreted correctly. Were we to take his argument that because it can be misapplied, therefore everyone who interprets Scripture is misapply it, we’d be proscribing the serious study of God’s Word. I don’t think that Mr. Enyart believes this for a moment, but he unwittingly has shackled himself and others who think like him (probably Cessationist and Hyper-Dispensationalists) into this theological iron box. The Harbinger does not interpolate Scripture with a different narrative, nor does it substitute its meaning, but presents the Scripture it refers to as it, and details specific historical events that have occurred outside of human control – long before the book was written which surrounds the Scripture in question, because in it there is a biblical pattern of judgment being repeated in America today. Its historical precedent is found in that Scripture. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out, and this is what The Harbinger is being criticized for in this article and by other critics of the book.
Both can't be correct, but either or both, the Harbinger and the Revelation 17-18 prophetic "parallels", could be wrong. As the above paragraph demonstrates, the more powerful and biblically extensive prophetic interpretation of 9/11 is not The Harbinger, but The Revelation. And that one is certainly wrong! For one, I intended it to be wrong. And secondly, if Revelation 18 was being fulfilled before our eyes on September 11, 2001 that would mean that we are now twelve years into Revelation chapter 19, and by now, the Second Coming should have occurred. So if the strong prophetic parallel (Revelation) isn't true, the weak one (Harbinger) probably isn't true either.
MY CORRECTION: Again, like other critics of The Harbinger, Mr. Enyart paints with a broad brush and misapplies one set of rules over another completely unrelated one because of similarities. You cannot do that. Similarities do not indicate that the two are identical, and here as in every other places this writer makes them; he errs in his application of them. It indicates that not only is his opinion fatally biased against The Harbinger and all such works, but that he cannot see beyond the bias and it has affected how he processes any and all information pertaining to it; a fatal flaw when objectively examining evidence. A forensic pathologist who would conduct himself in such a manner, or any writer or researcher examining and researching data for a report, would be disqualified from further examination, were this to happen during preliminary investigation of such cases. This rule of examination and research cannot be breached, and it has been repeated breached here, as is evidenced by Bob Enyart. The evidence is his own admission to his End Times seminar in which he attempts to debunk any and all prophetic applications of any and all modern historical occurrences. The premise behind this thinking is that God does not operate in modern times, and therefore a biblical understanding of them is impossible because of it. These are some of the most flagrant implications of this man’s writing here, and others like him, supported by Cessationist thinking and theology. Cessationism is a heresy that is more dangerous than Liberal Post Modern Christianity, because it disguises itself as believing in the inerrancy of Scripture, yet it denies its prophetic application and the most fundamental tenets of the Christian faith; that God is both living and active today, that Christ has risen from the grave, and that following His ascension, the advent and work of the Holy Spirit has commenced and continues to this hour as evidence of the previous. Cessationism denies the last while claiming the former, and therein lies the deception and the heresy. Indeed, it is a blanket denial of the office and work of the Holy Spirit of God, and therefore a blanket denial of Jesus Christ, and we’ve been warned of this type of heresy. It would not be coming from outside of the church, but from within, just as Cessationists hail from. Cessationists claim to be Christians but deny the power of God for everything but salvation. Cessationists claim to believe in the miracles of the Bible, in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, in the advent of the Holy Spirit, but they claim that the Holy Spirit’s gifts and manifestations ended with the Apostolic Age; a heresy that the Scriptures nowhere teaches. I call Cessationism the Right Wing of the Post Modern Church in which the Left wing are those who do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and the miracles of the Bible. Both extremes are equally as dangerous, because while one denies the existence of God’s agency due to unbelief, the other denies the existence of God’s agency due to disbelief – both in the end neither of the two believe in modern day miracles, gifts of the Spirit, or the prophetic. Both are part and parcel of the same heresy with the same results.
Allow me to be petty. A sycamore tree and a Norwegian fir (the claimed sixth and seventh signs) do not come close to the extraordinary depth of substance and parallel between 9/11 and Revelation 17 and 18. Besides (and these are insignificant, but mentioned because such trivialities in reverse, are used in The Harbinger to make its point. The World Trade Center wasn't made of bricks. (On the contrary, it is noted for being the first supertall building to be made without masonry.) And yes, (p. 72) New York City and America rebuilt. But so did Berlin. And Rome, one could say. Destroyed cities throughout history rebuilt, with notable exceptions like Nineveh. Isaiah speaks of many sycamores, not one as at the WTC. And as Cahn acknowledges, that tree destroyed on 9/11 had the same name, sycamore, but it was a different kind of tree; in fact, a different species, and a different genus. And a different family, and a different order. If it were much different, it wouldn't be a tree, one could say. (But then again, what couldn't one say?) Isaiah says the sycamores would be replaced, not with a single pine tree, but with woods of cedar.
MY CORRECTION: Bob Enyart is incorrect. The Norwegian Spruce is a large evergreen coniferous tree of the same Pinaceae family as the Sycamore, and it was this tree that replaced the Sycamore Tree in St. Paul’s Chapel that was struck and fell on 9/11 from debris when the towers fell. Nothing happened to the church. This was the church where our nation was consecrated to God in prayer in the first act of a joint session of congress and the first president of the United States who invoked God’s protection and blessing in the name of Jesus Christ on April 30th, 1789. As for the tree, One website explains it very well in an article titled 9/11 10th Anniversary: The Lord’s Word in September 11th: “ Just as recorded in Isaiah with Israel, America replaced this Sycamore tree with a 21-foot Norway Spruce called the Tree of Hope was planted in the Northwest corner of the churchyard at St. Paul’s Chapel on November 22, 2003, replacing the fallen Sycamore tree. The tree was donated by the Imperatore Nurseries and lifted into place by crane. On November 29, St. Paul’s hosted a prayer service and ceremonial lighting of the Tree of Hope.
They said, “We will replace them with cedars.” Though the cedar tree doesn’t grow in America, the Erez tree, translated “cedar” in the Bible, or cedrus conifera is of the Pinaceae family which includes many well-known conifers such as cedars and spruces.
“Likewise, the Tree of Hope was a conifer tree like the Cedar of Lebannon. It was a Norway Spruce which is a large evergreen coniferous tree of the same Pinaceae family.
In Hebrew parallelism, a verse is often matched with a verse that rhymes in thought. The fallen bricks and fallen sycamore are paired together in this sense and were both found in the ruins of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero. Similarly, there are the Cedar tree and the hewn stone which can be grouped together because they were both lowered by cranes, both had ceremonies surrounding them, and both were labeled as icons: The Tree of Hope and the Freedom Stone.”
If we are to take Mr. Enyart’s argument to its final destination, then we are to forswear any former interpretation of Isaiah 9:10 (and by implication) other prophetic Scriptures like it, not to mean historically what we have known about it, because to do so would – as Mr. Enyart reasons would force us to apply every apply these to every fallen and rebuilt civilization that has ever existed; as he writes “… yes, (p. 72) New York City and America rebuilt. But so did Berlin. And Rome, one could say. Destroyed cities throughout history rebuilt, with notable exceptions like Nineveh.” So what does this have to do with God’s judgment? And why is it being asked here? To control and change the narrative and change it in the process, in order to manipulate it and sway the listener or reader to accept its replacement with one of the moderator’s choosing. This is typical tactic used by psychologists, interrogators, and talk show hosts. This is the typical argument presented by the critics of The Harbinger. Association made to Sensus Plenior applications of Scripture. Were the writers of the New Testament facing these people, they would be branded heretics because of their application of Sensus Plenior to historical prophetic Scripture to occurrences of their day. The Evangelists in all four Gospels apply the Jewish Pesher and the use of Sensus Plenior (fuller meaning) to specific prophecies of specific historical events in Jewish history from the Hebrew Bible to the events of their day surrounding the life of Christ. The same rules that govern how The Harbinger’s critics’ hermeneutics would tear apart the Evangelists’ use of Scripture, because this method they use is based upon what has come to be known as Higher Criticism. The higher critics are usually among the liberal theologians, but in recent years, more and more conservative evangelicals have been falling for this Post-Modern trap. Many of our finest seminaries are infested with this thinking, especially among Dispensationalists of whom is David James, who is also a self-confessed Cessationist. Mr. Enyart employs it here in his argumentation. It is a cunning tactic, but it must be pointed out. There’s no room for pettiness with God’s Word, and what we are discussing here must be treated with the upmost respect and care, because America’s future is on the line, and the integrity of God’s prophetic warning is being questioned by men who do not believe He speaks today. This is really what it comes to, but they will insist that they do believe He speaks, but they really don’t, just as they don’t believe in the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit and do not believe if pressed, that God intervenes directly in the affairs of nations; though they’ll present studies on Eschatology claiming just the opposite.
The Harbinger also embraces the invalid contradiction of freedom yet being forced, justifying this by saying, "It takes two oars to make a boat go straight" (p. 86). Yes, but that boat illustration presents not even a theoretical contradiction, let alone an actual one. And the world isn't going straight, unless we mean straight to hell. Some of the claimed fulfillments of the prophetic pattern are really the same thing, repeated references to the attack itself, and tower falling, and the rebuilding, and the quoting, in hubris, it is true, of Isaiah 9:10 to rebuild, as by one significant government official who was… John Edwards? That disgraced non-official, failed vice-presidential candidate.
MY CORRECTION: Once again, we witness a critic of The Harbinger replacing what the narrative says on page 86 by misquoting it in order to give it a meaning it does not posit. Here Nouriel and the prophet are in one of their discussions, and as often is the case when discussing free will and predestination. Let us follow the narrative so there won’t be any misunderstanding:
“We were silent for a time. Then he reached into his coat pocket and handed me the next seal. I examined it without saying anything, placed it in my pocket, then resumed rowing to bring the boat back in to the dock. (They were in Central Park, New York) ‘And what clue do you have for me concerning the Seventh Harbinger?’ I (Nouriel Kaplan) asked as we neared the dock.”
‘“It’s as clear as the one before it,” he (the prophet) replied, ‘and as closely joined.”’
(Nouriel Kaplan) “Closely joined to the Sycamore.”
(the prophet) ‘“Correct.”’
‘“there are two trees in the prophecy,”’ I said, “so the Seventh Harbinger has to be the second tree.”
(the prophet) ‘“You see, Nouriel, it’s not so hard. You’ve already figured out all that and without even spending weeks searching for the answer. And we haven’t even reached the dock.”’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘“Then why do we need weeks or months before the next meeting?”’
(the prophet) ‘“For you to work on it.”’
(Nouriel Kaplan) “Why don’t we just keep going…here? It’s a place of trees. The setting works.”
“He thought for a moment, then responded. “why not then?”
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘Then we’ll do it here?’
(the prophet) ‘Why not?’ he repeated.”
“I never expected him to agree to the suggestion. It threw me. It threw me enough to question him. ‘So a prophet can change the plan…the appointed plan?’
(the prophet) ‘Who said the plan was changed?’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘But I was the one who came up with the idea.’
(the prophet) ‘And how do you know that your coming up with idea to change the plan was a change of plan…then it wasn’t appointed in the first place?’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘If it was a change of plan…then it wasn’t appointed.’
‘And if it was appointed,’ he (the prophet) replied, ‘then it wasn’t a change of plan.’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘So you’re saying you planned to continue here all along…before I mentioned it?’
(the prophet) ‘Whether I planned it or whether it happened because it was planned without my planning it makes no difference.’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘I think you’re just saying all of this.’
(the prophet) ‘And you’re free to think that,’ he replied.
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘So I’m free to think that. I don’t have to think that.’
(the prophet) ‘But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t planned,’ he added.”
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘How could it be both?’ I asked.”
(the prophet) ‘It takes two oars to make a boat go straight.’
(Nouriel Kaplan) ‘Meaning it’s both free will and predestination?’
(the prophet) ‘Meaning you need to use both oars and focus on keeping the boat straight, so we can make it back to dry land.’”
Here the author has provided his readers with a little comic relief as he discusses free will and predestination, and how the Scriptures appear to teach both in different places. The Sovereignty of God while the free will and choice of His creation – man. Yet, this is enough for Bob Enyart to anecdotally mention in order to continue to fill in his criticisms of the book, while he moderates the discussion along another stream of consciousness – from one to another, to another, all along the way manipulating and controlling the conversation as he direct his audience and readership through his own created narrative.
(Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger, page 85-85, Charisma Book Publishing Group, 2012 Lake Mary, Florida.
The 8th harbinger, coming with some peculiar justification in that spoken words are invisible, has to do with the Lincoln memorial in Washington, which is as it should be because D.C. was also a target (although there was no harbinger from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for that was not an intended target no doubt). A claim repeated about slavery and the civil war is that every drop of shed blood was due to judgment of God. So then why could the British and much of the world end slavery without a similar judgment? (That could be answered, but would require prophetic interpretations specific to the unique history of each country.) And a biblical hewn stone did not need to be quarried from a mountain, let alone in upstate New York, though that claim adds flavor to the fiction and yet another confirmation of the prophecy! One would think that bureaucracy could not thwart a divine sign. That stone, though, that Jonathan writes so much about, being quarried and celebrated, ended up not as the cornerstone at ground zero but at a suburban office building. For Mayor Bloomberg, et al., changed the One World Trade Center design and diverted one of the harbingers… to Long Island.
MY CORRECTION: Enyart continues his own examination as he muddles through another train of thought – this time about Shanksville, and how this couldn’t have been a harbinger because the location of crash was not an intended target. Then Mr. Enyart asks, “A claim repeated about slavery and the civil war is that every drop of shed blood was due to judgment of God. So then why could the British and much of the world end slavery without a similar judgment?” and answers parenthetically his own question in the following manner, “That could be answered, but would require prophetic interpretations specific to the unique history of each country.” as he continues his stream of consciousness; going from one train of thought to another. His next thought drips of sarcasm mixed with cynicism, as he mocks what the book says about the hewn stone of Ground Zero. But regardless of whether or not Enyart wishes to acknowledge the unmistakable fulfillment of a prophetic event such as the laying of the Ground Zero Stone or not; Mayor Bloomberg may have eventually diverted the stone to Long Island, but a real ceremony took place at Ground Zero for it, and it was laid first at Ground Zero before the stone was diverted later to another location. What happened to it afterwards is immaterial to the argument, and of no consequence, except only for those who seek to find objections to the sign itself, as does Mr. Enyart, in order to control the argument and bend it in his favor against The Harbinger.
A few words about Jonathan Cahn. We don't think that we convinced him, nor even gave him pause. Yet, at the same time, we don't think that he loves God any less than we do, nor do we believe that God approves more of us than He does of Cahn. We're just asking God to help us to do our best to rightly divide, and to urge all believers to rightly divide, the Word of Truth. The Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore publicly apologized here on KGOV.com for misinterpreting something as simple as a court ruling. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion "ban", Judge Moore, currently Alabama's chief justice, praised that ruling as a godly pro-life victory. Traveling to Birmingham, Alabama we challenged him to actually read the opinion, and he did, and so admitted that it was the most brutally wicked ruling in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court (and that's saying something). So there's hope for Jonathan too :)
MY CORRECTION: The hope that Mr. Enyart has is expressed as one who is convinced within himself that he is right and Jonathan Cahn is wrong. But what is amazing and inescapable is that because Mr. Enyart has already been prejudiced against any prophecy (is he a Cessationist? I would ask that question before all others), his mind was made up long before he interviewed Rabbi Cahn and later trashed his book. Because of this prejudice of his against the prophetic, his opinion and judgment has been swayed against it, and it has prevented him from contemplating the very real possibility – which were he truly objective (and he is not), he would’ve examined every possibility and left no stone unturned – that this may very well be God speaking through the means of his one of his servants in a book to this generation and this nation at this time for it to avert disaster and judgment.
The great upside of Cahn's book is its theme, which is the nation's desperate need to turn to God and the horror of losing His blessing, for as Jonathan quoted a Bible commentary, "The defiance of God shuts out immeasurable good" (p. 76). The Harbinger's downside though, is that many of its Christian readers will become even more superstitious.
-Pastor Bob Enyart
Personally, I do not know whether Pastor Enyart is a Cessationist, or whether he is a Dispensationist. It doesn’t matter to me, but I do know this; Cessationism has made a cynic and disbeliever out of the most devout and dedicated servant of Christ, and sent him/her into unknown and uncharted waters of a uncertain future eschatology, and into the arms of the Post-Modern Liberal Church whom it unwittingly helps by using some of the most clever and devious methods of debate I’ve ever encountered. My surprise is that it’s coming from within our ranks and not from outside of them. Herein lies the need for real and true discernment. The enemy always attacks from within, and he does so by questioning first whether God has said what is claimed He said, and then denying it outright, and if he can’t convince you otherwise; he’ll settle for using Hegelian Dialectics and Cessationist hermeneutics to make his point until he has confused you enough to make you a disbeliever. He can’t make you an unbeliever, because you already believe in God and His cross, but he can try to make you a disbeliever and “bench” you in the faith. Beware, be alert, know the Scriptures and know how to properly interpret them, and don’t be fooled by people who can cite Scripture and know how to make an argument and win debates. Satan has been doing that since the Garden of Eden.
