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The bottom line is, Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn has done his homework. He has studied this for over ten years. His critics have not. What is being brought into question here and in all of the critic’s rhetoric against this book and others like it authored by Jonathan Cahn, is his honestly and his integrity.
I’ll tell you why. Rabbi Cahn knows what he’s warning us about. He has made a careful study of this for much longer than those with an agenda, who every time Rabbi Cahn publishes a national bestseller – one which is now a global bestseller – jump at the opportunity in seeking to ride his coattails by creating unnecessary and needless controversy.
Rabbi Cahn is being brought into question by these people whose sole reason for their behavior is to gain notoriety at his expense or anyone else’s. They make their living from this and call it “discernment.” The facts speak for themselves. The man – Jonathan Cahn – who researched and discovered them, deserves credit, not acrimony for having done the work and shared with the rest of us the fruits of his labors.
His theology, ministry, and entire teachings are being questioned, and even his integrity and honesty are being questioned as well by these ambulance chasing heresy hunters masquerading as Christian apologists. Christian Apologists do not, and have never, treated other Christian Evangelicals in the manner these people have treated Rabbi Cahn. I have been a in God’s grace for almost forty years, and I have never witnessed anything like it. Not in my lifetime.
I personally know that Rabbi Cahn is fully aware of what he has researched and put together here in this book and in his previous material regarding the topic of America’s decline and judgment, and the call to repentance and grace. Therefore I can say with confidence that he is being judged unfairly and without cause, because the people who are doing it, do this for a living against other Christian Evangelicals over the slightest disagreement. Their radio shows and Internet articles bear witness to this sad fact.
I also personally through private correspondence been maliciously attacked and maligned over several days and several nights up until the wee hours of the morning by one of them for biblically challenging him on this topic. This happened after I made a personal apology to him for something I had said to him. After it appeared that he had accepted my apology, hours later he e-mailed me again, and cc’d this e-mail to Rabbi Cahn – my pastor, and this started another new round of personal e-mails; with each succeeding one increasingly deteriorating in tone and spirit, taking on increasingly combative expressions, until they took on the form of open hostility, containing a kind of vile and vicious language that I have seldom seen express itself by another my member of our faith. After I had made several attempts at reconciliation by simply suggesting that he and I take the matter and drop it at the cross, he rejected this offer, claiming he was rejecting me, but not Christ, and continued his harangues. Having witnessed that his behavior had become increasingly hostile towards me, and his language increasingly bellicose and its tone harsh, and all efforts to reasonably arrive at a point where I could amicably resolve the matter and he had become entirely unreasonable, I had no choice but to do what Scripture says I should do in such cases, and I ceased all private correspondences and any future direct contact with this person.
God’s Word is clear under such circumstances and I only resorted to this after I had exhausted all of my efforts at reconciliation without any success whatsoever. I bcc’d all correspondence between this critic and myself to people of the highest integrity so that I would keep myself accountable to them – knowing that if I had stepped out of line in anything that I said, they would instantly make it known to me and I would take immediate remedial action for it, including up to an apology if necessary. Not one of them wrote me to say that I had done anything wrong. These people did not rubber stamp either my conduct or what I wrote this critic in reply to his e-mails. All of them exhorted me to guard against getting emotional and writing something I would regret later. I did as they counseled. These people are close enough to me to tell me where I’ve gone wrong, if I’ve gone wrong anywhere, and they don’t necessarily form a group that agrees entirely with Rabbi Cahn on everything, so it was not a rubber stamp to him either. If the critic ever said anything contained in this correspondence that had any merit, they would let me know.
Apparently, it is entirely acceptable for him to challenge Rabbi Cahn, but it is not acceptable if anybody else does. By this criteria, I have sinned, because I had the temerity to challenge this critic’s premise In Toto. My sin besides this?
For calling this critic and his colleagues to account for what they’ve done to Rabbi Cahn.
For calling this critic and his colleagues to act in a biblical manner and handle such differences in private, not publicizing them as they have done.
For calling this critic and his colleagues to repent of what they have done and come to the cross, confessing that while their original intent may have been altruistic, their approach was unbiblical and unnecessary.
For calling this critic and his colleagues to take immediate remedial action in keeping with this repentance by contacting the offended party – Jonathan Cahn – and all offended parties.
For calling this critic and his colleagues to accompany this remedial action by restraining themselves from attacking any Christian ministry publicly as they have done to this day without first contacting the ministry in private to work out any differences they may have.
For calling this critic and his colleagues to do what the Scriptures admonish all of us to do; to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith – if we are bearing good fruit abiding in Christ, and not destroy and vilifying our brethren in public by mischaracterizations of them on the Internet or on radio, as many of them are in the habit of doing.
These are my “sins” which I should never have made, because they all call for accountability, something that has been sorely lacking in these people, though this critic claims he’s made himself accountable to some people he considers indispensable and of high moral character.
Nothing against these people, from experience, some people are very adept at presenting to others the type of image they wish for them to see about themselves, while hiding their real nature, so that they may recklessly follow whatever course of action they believe is justifiable in their eyes. To them the ends justify the means.
This Church is filled with people like this, just as people such as these have littered the religious landscape since Cain slew Abel. There is truly, as God’s Word says, nothing new under the sun. I am no fool, I recognize this when I see it. I find it very difficult to believe that any self-respecting born again Evangelical leader could possibly approve the behavior this critic exhibited in these hostile e-mails he directed at me over several days and nights.
Every e-mail attempt I made in reply to his continual and incessant barrages, were summarily dismissed with increasingly bellicosity and abuse. Every word I wrote was twisted and then tossed back at me as this person projected himself at me. This critic also attempted to drive a wedge between Rabbi Cahn and myself through the use of personal ad hominem discreditation leveled at me accompanied by manipulative exhortations to Rabbi Cahn that he should take disciplinary action against me for the sins enumerated above, which this credit finds offensive.
The critic has now taken his hostility and redirected towards another person Rabbi Cahn and I know personally who also has biblically approached him about her differences with him over The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah, two of Rabbi Cahn’s works which the critic has assailed, and we and others have addressed. Another person who has blogged on The Harbinger and took issue with the critics also suffered much abuse by this critic. For the sakes of both the critic’s privacy and the privacy of all of the others mentioned, I have not disclosed their names. All of these people, including the critic, have ministries, and this must be respected. My differences with the critics of The Harbinger are posted here on my website. I need not disclose who these people are. They know who they are. What is important is the manner in which all parties have comported themselves, and whether or not this has brought Christ glory. Bottom line.
The biblical model is the one followed by Priscilla and Aquila in the Acts, and by Paul, not in the manner these critics have mishandled it. There is a marked difference between how one handles their theological disagreements with a fellow member of one’s faith and the way one handles a member of a cult or a charlatan and false prophet.
The problem with these people is that in their exuberance and zeal for what they believe to be true, their ability to tell the difference between the two have seriously been impaired, and one often finds them casting a wide net over what is genuine and what is not. This is pure carelessness and a callous disregard over another’s ministry and work in the Great Commission.
To these people a Christian is not only defined as one who has a personal relationship with God through implicit faith in Jesus Christ alone, but one that is works-based because these people add to this the necessity for Christian Evangelicals to meet their narrow personal theologies and approval their approval.
If the person meets this criteria, they are accepted as genuine by these people; if they do not, they are met by these people with nothing but public scorn and abuse and classified as heretics by them. This is works-based faith and it is unbiblical. The Scriptures are clear in this, that a person’s salvation is not based on the criteria of others, but on the completed work of redemption at the cross of the Lord Jesus the Messiah. To define it any other way is unbiblical. It is not man’s approval that one should seek, but God’s, and the cross is the place where it begins, not anywhere else. It is at the foot of the cross where all believers are equal before God; where he who least in the kingdom of God is greatest and he who is greatest is least.
The public use of very personal and highly charged language against another member of one’s faith to discredit them over a personal theological disagreement without presenting any evidence to support their charges – just simply charging the other person with mishandling Scripture and manipulating history – is what the Bible calls bearing false witness and slander, and it is a sinful criminal offense. That is all I have to say regarding this topic, and will not say much more unless it is necessary. Thank you for indulging me with your attention. May God use this to keep you in His grace in the Messiah Jesus.
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