Here are the latest articles of interest on The Harbinger. Unfortunately, it is so often true that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, or even some of the people all of the time, but the most important thing above all else is that one pleases the Lord whom one serves to Who alone we will all give an account of ourselves and our works in this life.
Regardless of whether one believes in later day prophetic utterances, and prophecies (I do as Scripture affirms both genuine and false prophecy for the latter days, days such as ours), The Harbinger unquestionably is a prophetic book that contains a prophetic warning for our times. Already over a million copies have sold, and it continues “barnstorming” across the nation, calling all to repent and seek God and pray for the nation and its leaders. This indicates that it has impacted much more than that number inasmuch as it has broken the language barrier and gone into Spanish, and other languages, including Hebrew.
This in itself is prophetic, because the warning of The Harbinger is the perfect Segway to the Gospel. In fact, it includes the call to repentance and acceptance of Jesus the Messiah as one Personal Savior and Lord. This is completely biblical, and it is the heart of what Evangelical Christianity has always taught.
Breaking into Hebrew will open even more doors for the Gospel to reach countless unreached Jewish people, and Rabbi Cahn’s appearance in Israel this week, will break new ground for it even more. There are more Israelis who watch these programs on Daystar than many people realize. It is crucial for the return of Jesus as Messiah to be recognized and welcomed in Israel by its leaders, and in order for that to transpire, national Israel, perhaps not all Jews (as Rabbi Cahn has observed), but national Israel must be in control of Jerusalem upon His return to welcome Him - the first part of this prophecy has come to pass. Since June 7th, 1967, Israel has resumed control of all of Jerusalem, and has had it since. This is a good Harbinger of things to come, because it is tied to the coming of the Messiah; the return of Jesus Christ as Israel’s Davidic King to the land He walked two thousand years ago.
Rabbinical Judaism does not recognize or know the secret of Messiah’s coming, because in its current frame of mind and spiritual and theological form, it is in complete denial of the Messiah. In some circles, His name cannot be even mentioned, much less be discussed openly with the rabbis. It is mostly fear; fear of reprisals should one’s community leaders discover that one is discussing Jesus without their authorization; fear of being cut off from one’s community. In Judaism, community life is one’s life, and to be cut off from one’s people is a very great price for some, too great in fact. But many have done it, because they see that it is greater to honor God than it is to honor men. Who is greater, God, or man? I rest my case.
There is fear that it will be discovered that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, and so many are making this discovery that there are professional “deprogrammers” who make their living kidnapping people who have “converted,” and subjecting them to systematic psychological torture to get these people to renounce their faith.
This only shows the state of desperation some of these people are in, because they understand and see that the Jewish people are trending slowly but surely to full recognition of Jesus as Messiah. It will only be a matter of time before the rabbis themselves will have to consider for themselves individually who Jesus is, and what significance He has other than the unfortunate one He has had for His people since the Roman Catholic Church took it upon itself to declare every Jew a “Christ killer,” even though it is sin that put Jesus on the cross and not a people. If it must be said, it is the human race in its fallen state that put Him on the cross.
But thanks to the countless persecutions and pogroms, expulsions, and Anti-Jewish edicts and bulls enacted against them for sixteen centuries by “Christians,” Jesus has been and is today unrecognizable to His Jewish family – to His people. He is like Joseph in Egypt who was unrecognizable to His own family until He revealed Himself to them. So it is coming to pass. Jesus is revealing Himself to His people individually, and the numbers are increasing every day. Someday, it will be the nation and its leaders who will say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” And that is the key to His coming. They don’t know it, and precious few of them are willing to understand it, but it is the key to Messiah’s coming.
Since He lived as a human being and walked among His people Israel two thousand years ago; His return will not be in like manner, but as the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven accompanied by His great army just as Daniel’s vision describes Him. His first coming was to atone for a people, a nation and a world, to prepare these for His return as the One who will judge and rule the earth as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords from Jerusalem.
There is no doubt in my mind that The Harbinger has prepared the people God has allowed to be reached to be reached, and are still being reached for redemption, and I do not believe as another supporter of Rabbi Cahn’s book posits; that the book has run its course because of what that writer describes as its promotion by Charismatics and Pentecostals, and Rabbi Cahn’s visits and associations with some of them, the writer calls “apostates” and does not deem them as genuine Christians. To be sure, some may not be, and I am more in agreement with another Internet writer who has posited the following, and reflects in my opinion, more the spirit of grace and understanding than the previous one, where she writes:
“…they (The Harbinger’s critics) are the ones who are violating scripture and causing problems in the “field”. They may be successful in pulling up some tares in the process but this does not justify this work because the LORD commanded us NOT to do this. This is a serious prohibition in scripture because it hurts the body, unlike calling someone “Rabbi”, which doesn't hurt anyone.”
As a servant of the Most High God and as one who has God’s grace upon His life; Jonathan Cahn realizes as does this writer that we are not to act as judges, juries, and executioners with regard to our brethren over matters of doctrine, and if we are to win any errant brother to Christ, it is with God’s love and His grace, not shunning them and treating them as though we are above them. We are not.
The trend is not good, because there are specific ministries in which the primary purpose and focus of these ministries is to attack other Christians over doctrinal differences. Years ago, there were Christians ministries who defended the Christian faith against heretics, atheists, and cults. This was Apologetics. But in recent years, some of these have turned their focus on legitimate Christian ministries, and have run campaigns against them with article upon succeeding article, misrepresenting a good many Christian servant as an apostate.
Someone whom I’ve known as a friend and my Rabbi for over ten years, has now become the target of some of these because of a book he wrote – The Harbinger – in which he warns the nation of impending judgment if we do not heed the book’s call to repent and seek the Lord, calling upon the name of Jesus the Messiah for our salvation.
Because of the book’s prophetic nature and how it is written, as fiction with much figurative language, it has attracted a number of these “discernment” ministries as detractors, and for over a year, these have engaged in the most unprecedented extended persecution of a Mainline Evangelical Christian in the recent history. To be sure; most the opposition is crystalized along Cessationist quarters, because this is the group within the American Protestant Church that proscribes prophecies of any type in any form, and by anyone in the Post-Modern Church.
This has presaged a rebuttal and explanation to answer these critics and their continual barrage of charges and false accusations against Rabbi Cahn. To this end, websites such as Faith’s Corner, (article cited at the bottom), and the Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace, have arisen and made their collective voices heard. The second website is this writer’s, and I defer a good portion of the debate to Faith, who has been in it since the beginning of last year, and whose website has addressed much of the charges, accusations, and mistaken false narratives created by its chief critic, D. James. Faith has done a truly remarkable job rebutting all of these.
But Rabbi Cahn’s visits with certain preachers she finds objectionable, has made it difficult for her, but recognizing the prophetic warning in The Harbinger, she puts her full support behind the book, although she objects to its author’s associations with some Charismatics. She writes:
“So add to those words by the politicians the uncanny appearances in the wake of 9/11 of those other harbingers that echo the specific elements of Isaiah 9/10 and it looks to some of us like God has given us indisputable symbolic tokens of our defiance of Him that we cannot honestly deny. A sycamore tree destroyed by the attack on the WTC, a conifer brought in to replace it, fallen bricks and a hewn stone brought in to symbolize the rebuilding.
“To me these few things are the essential message of The Harbinger that all by themselves put a seal of sorts to God's displeasure with America. There are other factors that deepen their implications, such as the fact that the felled sycamore was on the very corner of the property occupied by the WTC, in the courtyard of the very chapel in which George Washington prayed for the nation right after his inauguration. These factors and more are waved away by the critics as if any human being could have trumped them up.”
There are others who support The Harbinger’s message and its messenger, and have recognized the Cessationist objection to it as a natural reaction from a corner of Protestant Christianity that does not believe in either the miraculous or in the sign gifts that the Apostle Paul in the Holy Spirit admonishes all Christians to seek. (1Corinthian 12) Rabbi Cahn has taken the message of The Harbinger to every venue that will allow him to explain and expound it. There is the following video of Rabbi Jonathan interviewed on the Mike Huckabee Radio Show about The Harbinger. He’s also been interviewed on other shows, and because of the urgency of the message and his desire to get it out; just as the prophets of old were tasked with doing; Jonathan Cahn’s visits with some do not ingratiate him with some like my dear sister Faith. I understand her apprehension, but I also understand Jonathan’s fervent desire to reach as many people for the Gospel with The Harbinger as he can while there is yet time for them to be reached. It has been a costly venture for Jonathan, but his dedication and fidelity to God is evident in his determination that regardless of the price, regardless of what may be lost, what regardless of what some will say; he will bring the Gospel and the warning of The Harbinger to anybody who will listen. I respect that, and I admire that. What’s more, that’s what we’re supposed to do.
In January 2012, Jonathan Cahn’s New York Times bestseller, The Harbinger, released to the public and quickly garnered widespread media attention and popular appeal. The book, a narrative revealing ancient mysteries 2,500 years old pointing to 21st century America’s future, sounded a wakeup call and promptly triggered a gamut of questions from readers who realized the spiritual significance of the story. Now, a year later Cahn is releasing The Harbinger Companion: With Study Guide. Filled with photos, drawings, photographs, charts and a section answering the most often asked questions surrounding The Harbinger, the book is non-fiction. Cahn explores each mystery he revealed in The Harbinger, piece by piece, with background information. The Companion also features a 13-week study guide that individuals, small groups and churches can use to go deeper into The Harbinger.
Here in this interview, Cahn talks the nation’s response to his 2012 book, this new work and why it’s vital that church leaders preach prophetically on the end times.
Jonathan, did the overwhelming response to The Harbinger surprise you at all? Why do you think it caused such a stir throughout the nation?
From the way The Harbinger came to me and the way it became a book, I had no doubt it was from the Lord. So I had an assurance that it would go forth to the nation. What surprised me was how fast it all happened. The week of its release, it became the No. 1 new book on Amazon and made The New York Times best-sellers list. That definitely surprised me. I still don’t understand the dynamics of how it happened.
I believe the reason The Harbinger is causing a stir through America is due to that same reason; it’s a prophetic word; an alarm, a wake-up call. So by its very nature, if it is to make a difference, it must be different. A wake-up call, an alarm, has to cause a stir. There has to be some controversy, or it’s not doing its job. In fact, if you look at the end of the book, you’ll see it’s foretold that it would have to be that way.
What does that response tell church leaders about where people are today, what they’re thinking, what they’re wrestling with, etc.?
It tells us there’s a deep sense among believers and not just believers that America is in trouble, heading down the wrong path. I believe that most believers have that sense, and a sense of danger concerning judgment. What The Harbinger did was to reveal that it’s not just a sense. It’s real, it’s happening. America is following a precise and exact progression of biblical judgment with exact and precise signs and manifestations (harbingers) appearing in the land.
What compelled or inspired you to follow up The Harbinger with The Harbinger Companion? Was it in the back of your mind when you wrote The Harbinger?
Ever since The Harbinger released, people have wanted to know more, to go deeper into the mysteries. Before we knew it, the message was being preached in pulpits, taught in Church classes, shared in Bible studies. Churches devoted weeks of preaching, classes and studies on it. It was already happening long before The Harbinger Companion began. People were writing to us from all over the country asking for more and wanting to start up Bible studies. I was also deluged with people asking me about the story behind the story: Who was the prophet? Was I Nouriel? How did the revelations come? Beyond that, people were coming from all over the country to the Jerusalem Center/Beth Israel, the congregation I lead, and then going to New York City to search for the actual harbingers and the places in the book. So there was a very intense demand for more. The Harbinger Companion answers all of those questions and provides a study guide for individual readers, Bible studies and churches to go deeper into the mysteries.
Tell us a little about how the content of the Companion came together. In what ways is this new work Spirit-led? How did He lead you as you worked on it?
The original idea was to do a study guide that could be used by individuals and churches. And The Harbinger Companiondefinitely has that. But it quickly became much more. I don’t know if I woke up with the idea, but I know the idea of it becoming more came to me very suddenly. I shared the idea with the publisher [Creation House, the book publishing arm of Charisma Media, which publishes Ministry Today], and they believed it was the Lord. From there, it just snowballed.
What are some of the features in the Companion that you knew had to be included when you started on this project? What are some of the “surprises” that you didn’t set out to include but that made their way into the pages?
The book begins with a 13-week course and exploration into the mysteries, the issues, the background, the spiritual principles and taking the truths into action and practical application. It was one of the most frequently asked questions: “Now that we’ve read The Harbinger, what do we do?” The Companion answers that question, giving practical application that any individual can apply, as well as a larger call to action, to impact our nation and world.
I also believed that that the Companion should be filled with images. For many readers, for the first time, they will see images of the nine harbingers and the mysteries written about in The Harbinger. For example, one of the photographs we included is one of the Nine Seals mentioned in the book.
There’s a section on end-time prophecy, detailing what has been fulfilled and what is yet to come. There’s a feature on where America fits in or doesn’t fit into the prophecies of the last days. There’s a chapter that gives the background into every major biblical character mentioned in the book, and one which outlines the prophecies of Messiah—and of course a piece on salvation.
And one of the most dramatic is the story of how The Harbinger became a book in the first place. It involves what happened to me at Charlotte Airport, a scene every bit as dramatic and ‘supernatural’ as any scene in the book. In fact, as in the book, it involved the appearance of a mysterious stranger. In fact, it was as if God reproduced one of the scenes in The Harbinger to cause the book to be published. Another story involves a man who showed up at the congregation, as a true, flesh and blood, real-life Nouriel.
What are some of your personal favorite features in the Companion?
It’s hard to say, but one of the most unique is the “Guided Tour of The Harbingers.” This section has maps, photographs, and background information that guide readers as they find and discover the actual harbingers for themselves.
Why did you want to include a guide? Do you have any tips or ideas for how churches can use it as we begin 2013?
The study guide lends itself especially to congregational use. It can be done as an entire church series, with preaching from the pulpit on Sunday and exploration by congregants throughout the week. It can even be used evangelistically as The Harbinger is of interest to anyone who lives in America, believer or unbeliever. It can also be done as series in classes and Bible studies. The questions could be used as key points in a group discussion. The study guide has instructions for how to use it in any of these formats. In addition, DVD teachings accompanying many of the chapters are also available. At the end of every teaching, we’ve included a section on applying the revelations to life. So everyone leaves the preaching or teaching with a mission to go forward within the coming week. The last session is geared for prayer and revival, individual revival and corporate or church revival.
Why is it vital that church leaders teach on the end times?
If one is living in the end times, it is vital to speak about it. If one is living in a nation under judgment, then as God’s ministers we must alert those around us to that fact and do everything we can to warn those around us and to prepare our people. Beyond this, such messages lead to personal and congregational revival. It is a message to America, but it is also a message to the believer. Judgment begins with the house of God—and so does revival. One of the amazing things that’s happened since The Harbinger came out is that what’s spoken in the book is coming true. The harbingers are continuing. The mysteries are continuing to manifest.
What could an ancient mystery more than 2,500 years old mean to the future of your ministry? To understand its relevance for today, let me set the stage and go back to the last days of ancient Israel.
Before Israel’s destruction as a nation, nine harbingers appeared—nine warnings of destruction in a biblical template of national judgment. These same nine harbingers of judgment are now reappearing in modern America in specific detail. Some have appeared in New York City, some in Washington D.C., some have involved the highest leaders of the land, even the president of the United States. The manifestations of the harbingers involve such things as the Stone of Judgment, the Sign of the Sycamore, the Tower, the Utterance, the Prophecy and more.
The pattern begins with a national wake-up call: The nation’s hedge of protection is breached in some way. Years before the judgment, an enemy is allowed to strike the land. In the case of ancient Israel, that assault took place in 732 B.C. with the Assyrian invasion. In America, it happened on Sept. 11, 2001. After Assyria’s attack, Israel did not repent or turn back to the Lord. Neither has America. In fact, both nations descended deeper into apostasy. And in both cases, the first strike led to further shakings. In America, we saw the second strike as the U.S. economy collapsed. Behind this modern-day collapse was a stream of ancient mysteries, some of which actually identified and ordained the very dates, days and hours of the greatest economic crashes in American history.
A Nation at War
To understand what these harbingers mean for your ministry, we have to understand the biblical context. The backdrop is that of an ancient nation, founded on the Word of God and dedicated to His purposes. Yet over time Israel begins to drift away, departing from His ways more and more rapidly. It becomes a civilization at war against its own foundations, a culture turned in against itself, a nation in spiritual schizophrenia. Even in the wake of God’s warnings and shakings, Israel hardens itself against Him, a defiance that ultimately leads to its destruction.
We’re witnessing the same scenario happening to America. This nation, too, was founded upon and dedicated for God’s purposes. But like Israel, America has departed and is departing from God and His ways. It has become a nation at war against its own foundations, a culture turned in against itself, a civilization in spiritual schizophrenia. What this means is that as God’s ministers, we now find ourselves in the same position as the righteous who lived in the days of Israel’s apostasy. We are living and ministering in a culture increasingly set against our witness and ministry. As I write this article, America’s departure from God and His Word continues unabated and ever more rapidly.
When I began to write The Harbinger, the words flowed out like a stream, as if the book had already been written before I wrote it. The book released in the very first days of 2012. I believe there was a reason for that. In The Harbinger I wanted to voice a prophetic warning, sound an alarm, offer a wake-up call.
National Tipping Points
Last year (2012) was critical in America’s trajectory away from God. He warns before judgment. The year marked the first time in U.S. history when a sitting president publicly spoke against the biblical definition of marriage. It was the year that America re-elected the first president to take such a stand, not to mention a radically activist stand on abortion.
Many believers sensed that these political moves represented a tipping point. They did. The year wasn’t just about the presidency, as 2012 marked the first time that three states voted to end the biblical definition of marriage by popular vote. In each of these elections, the number of people seeking to protect the biblical definition of marriage was just under 50 percent, while the number seeking to end it was just over 50 percent—a tipping point. Among those voters aged 18 to 35, the percentage opposed to the biblical definition of marriage is now a stunning 70 percent. By the next presidential election, these statistics will represent virtually everyone up to 40 years old.
40PM EDT 3/19/2013 Steve Strang
Did you know that John Winthrop, one of the Puritan fathers, believed that the Plymouth colony was established after the pattern of Israel in order to be “a New Israel?”
Did you know that there was some discussion early on for Hebrew to be the official language of this new country? Did you know that there are Hebrew letters in the official seal of Yale University?
I may have heard this in the past, but I didn’t think about it much until I had breakfast earlier this month at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention and Exposition with Jonathan Cahn, the author of The Harbinger. He was there to meet broadcasters and to talk about The Harbinger, which has sold more than one million copies. We continue to get emails about how the book is really changing lives.
I was getting ready to speak, a few hours later, at a pro-Israel event in Nashville sponsored by my good friend Robert Stearns and Eagles' Wings. I was talking it over with Jonathan and got so excited about some of the things he shared with me that it became the gist of my brief speech.
Jonathan said, “I believe America has been blessed partly because it has become the greatest refuge in the last 2000 years for the Jewish people. But the love for Israel is part of our spiritual DNA, going back to the Puritan fathers.”
The people at Robert Stearns’ luncheon seemed very interested when I talked about the fact that the very week the Jews were expelled from Spain, Columbus sailed toward America, not knowing that he would discover a new world.
America has blessed Israel as no other nation has. Because of the Abrahamic covenant, America also has been a most blessed nation. But that leads to a warning, because while America has been blessed, it is turning away from God just as Israel turned away. God is warning America that we need to repent and turn back to Him.
This is the gist of The Harbinger, where the prophecy in Isaiah 9:10 literally came to fruition with the attacks of 9/11.
In fact, as we chatted that morning, Jonathan mentioned to me something that I did not know. The One Year Bible, published by Tyndale, breaks down the Bible into daily segments so that you can read through it in one year. It just happens that the verse of Isaiah 9:10—the warning of The Harbinger—is to be read on Sept. 11.
When I got back to the office, I found a copy of the One Year Bible published in 1987. I had written on the front page that I had read through the Bible in 1989. The pages were starting to turn yellow with age.
But, there it was on Sept. 11, many years before the terrorist attacks. What is the significance of that? I’m not sure, but it is interesting.
Another very interesting fact from The Harbinger surrounds the day on the Jewish calendar that the debts were forgiven every seven years, called the Shemitah. It turned out that the Shemitah was the Monday after the terrorist attacks, and the day that signified the biggest stock market drop in history. In The Harbinger, the “prophet” explains this to Nouriel, the fictional journalist piecing together the mystery.
Seven years to the day later on the Jewish calendar was the next biggest drop in stock market history. I urge you to read The Harbinger to get more detail. All I can do here is to comment on it. But a reader of The Harbinger actually figured the statistics and found that the odds of this happening once are one in almost 1,200. The odds of it happening twice are one in almost 1.4 million.
I personally don’t put prophetic significance to that because there has been a Shemitah every seven years since the time of Moses. But it is an interesting coincidence, and it’s something that makes you wonder about the message God is conveying to America.
I believe America must stand strong with Israel. I am concerned that the Obama administration seems to be moving in a different direction—another great cause of concern for our country.
Let’s pray that our nation will turn to God, and that our nation will continue to stand strong with Israel.
Please share comments below. Help me to grow my readership of this Strang Report and our Standing With Israel website and newsletter by sending it to friends and encouraging them to sign up. Post this on social media and let’s get a dialogue going about this.
Friday, May 31, 2013
The way things have been going I don't think The Harbinger is going to have much more of an impact than it's already had. I think this partly has to be due to Cahn's persistence in publicizing it through charismatic channels, which I do think is wrong, and likely to be a dead end as far as getting out the message goes if only because so many Christians object to him for that reason.
I don't think this is a bad thing. I think the book is a solid demonstration that the nation is under God's judgment, but I don't think it's going to open many eyes to that fact, I don't think we are going to have a revival or much of a national turnaround at all, so I think it's mostly going to stand in the end as an indictment from God to that effect.
Perhaps there's a sort of spiritual irony involved here, that a message from God is getting bogged down in one of the apostate branches of the church. I may be reaching for it but it's not hard to see a metaphor for our present condition in this very fact.
Be all that as it may, I still find the book's message to be solid.
I think we could reduce the whole message of the Harbinger to its observation that a few American political leaders pronounced judgment on the nation when they quoted Isaiah 9:10 as if it were a message of hope following 9/11. To my mind this is the most indisputable fact in the book.
Isa 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.
God knocked down our buildings but WE will rebuild. The verse was quoted by Tom Daschle and John Edwards in reference to 9/11, and its essence "We will rebuild" was written by Obama on a beam to be raised to the top of the new Freedom Tower which is to replace the World Trade Center. Others echoed the attitude but these three have the most official national status.
In its biblical context it is clearly a message of a nation's defiance of God's judgment through a great calamity, and by failing to see 9/11 as God's judgment on the US, and by failing to give the appropriate call to national repentance in a time of judgment, these American leaders aligned themselves with the very same spirit of defiance by the leaders of ancient Israel which is expressed in that verse. This defiance is the reason God says in the very next verse He is bringing the Assyrian adversary against them again.
We almost don't need any of the other harbingers in the book to make the case, but so obtuse are some of our "discernment" people that they actually fail to see how these statements are defiant of God or how they are a pronouncing of God's judgment against the nation.
So add to those words by the politicians the uncanny appearances in the wake of 9/11 of those other harbingers that echo the specific elements of Isaiah 9/10 and it looks to some of us like God has given us indisputable symbolic tokens of our defiance of Him that we cannot honestly deny. A sycamore tree destroyed by the attack on the WTC, a conifer brought in to replace it, fallen bricks and a hewn stone brought in to symbolize the rebuilding.
To me these few things are the essential message of The Harbinger that all by themselves put a seal of sorts to God's displeasure with America. There are other factors that deepen their implications, such as the fact that the felled sycamore was on the very corner of the property occupied by the WTC, in the courtyard of the very chapel in which George Washington prayed for the nation right after his inauguration. These factors and more are waved away by the critics as if any human being could have trumped them up.
So I still support this book. I don't, however, support Jonathan Cahn's associations with charismatics, some of whom are known apostates and not Christians at all. I think this damages his reputation and the prospects for his book.
There may be more to say but I'm going to stop here for now.
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