“O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.”
I have been writing in response to critics of The Harbinger since late last year. There are a myriad of articles also that I’ve addressed, some others I have yet to address, much of these I have already addressed and my articles can be accessed at my website, The Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace.
I have had the privilege to have what is a front row seat to the teachings and messages that Pastor Cahn has given over a ten year period which comprise the message of The Harbinger, and I know these messages very well. What’s more, I also have read The Harbinger for myself several times, and I know Pastor Cahn personally. None of The Harbinger’s critics can make this claim, and those who wrote their polemic against the book, cannot make any of these claims. It is my close and intimate knowledge of the topic, the one who has taught it for ten years in various messages which eventually became what the book contains, and know personally firsthand all of the aspects of this topic that needs to be known in order to examine it in the most thorough and biblical manner possible that has enabled me to write The Truth about The Harbinger: Addressing the Controversy and Discovering the Facts About This Prophetic Message and get it published October 1st of this year.
I was planning and had desired to end my discussions addressing the criticisms against The Harbinger and move on to other projects, and had prepared to do so after the publication of my book The Truth about The Harbinger: Addressing the Controversy and Discovering the Facts About This Prophetic Message on October 1st of 2013; but it had become increasingly evident from certain objections raised by one of them to my article about Pastor Gary Gilley’s brief but highly charged broadside that it was not enough for me and others to warn these brethren that their approach and methods, and their treatment of a brother in the faith – Jonathan Cahn – a fellow minister in service to Jesus Christ no less; the language they used against him, and their behavior towards those – like myself – who brought these things to their attention; was not enough to tell them of this, the evidence for it had to be presented to them, because they had become convinced in their minds that they had done no wrong and had not sinned in what they did to Jonathan Cahn for two years – 2012 and 2013.
Having made this clear, we now go on, and again express our appreciation to these critics for allowing me to fully examine everything possible according to the Scriptures, to verify both the efficacy of the message of The Harbinger and its particulars to the light of God’s Word, while we address man’s contentions with it. In doing this, we understand the purpose of such divisions these arguments pose to the body, and while we lament them, we also so God’s purpose in this, as Paul does when he writes in the Holy Spirit the following. I quote:
But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
(1Corinthians 11:16-19)
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) I believe that God more than ample supplies what is necessary to validate something that is His by allowing critics of it to have their say, and then raising His servants to defend it biblically. In the case of The Harbinger, He has used the critics to compel His people to get their noses back in their Bibles to verify the content of this incredible New York Times bestseller. The critics of The Harbinger have allowed all of us to closely examine the Scriptural, historical, and public records available to us, and the arguments they present, so that we may biblically arrive at a definitive conclusion about this topic and address its clarion call to all of God’s people and the leaders of this nation, and its citizens to know the degenerate state we are in, seek God, and call upon the name of Jesus Christ in full personal repentance individually and then collectively as a nation. This is something all Jews, Christians – Jewish Messianics, Evangelicals, and all people of faith can agree with and do, and we must do it sincerely and fervently to avert disaster.
THE PEPSTER
Written by Tim Challies on October 16th, 2012
Is it fact or fiction? That is the question everyone asks when they first encounter Jonathan Cahn’s book The Harbinger. The answer is both, I guess—a little from column a and a little from column b. How about this: The Harbinger is meant to be fact presented in the form of a novel; in reality it is an unfortunate mixture of truth and error presented in the form of a script. Still with me?
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: Fact or Fiction?, this statement is derived by the title of this book’s chief critic whose comments on The Harbinger Mr. Challies obviously read and in this article plagiarizes to a point, since it is after all, the title of the critic’s book, or at least part of it. The question posed here by Mr. Challies is a rhetorical one, submitted to the reader in order to dialogue against the New York Times bestseller by Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. As is evidenced by Mr. Challies’ immediate answer to his own rhetorical question which follows, it is not meant to dialogue about it, but to express a subjective opinion against the book without examining the biblical arguments in its favor. In answer to Mr. Challies’ question, “Oh, we are with you sir, more than you realize. We know without equivocation where you’re coming from. But have you read The Harbinger for yourself? And have you at the very least consulted its author or the author of The Truth About The Harbinger to get the facts for yourself? Or are you going strictly on here say and getting biased second-hand disinformation about the topic?” These are legitimate questions that need asking and sincere answers to, but Mr. Challies has not yet been forthcoming in this regard. When I attempted to contact him, he put a block on me from his website. So much of intellectual honesty and Christian charity and brotherly amity. I at least tried to contact you.
Tim Challies: What is demonstrably factual is that The Harbinger is a phenomenon. It has held steady for forty weeks on the New York Times list of bestsellers, selling over 700,000 copies through fifteen reprints. At the time I write this, Amazon ranks it #2 on their list of Christian fiction and #7 on their list of Christian theology. The book had largely escaped my view until the past few weeks when I received a series of emails from people wondering what it was all about. I finally caved and read it. Consider this more of an explanation of what it is than a thorough review.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: The statistics show that the call to repentance contained in The Harbinger resonates with a very large Christian Evangelical audience, though it is unfortunate that its author has not made much use of my own work, The Truth About the Harbinger, which examines these arguments and many more by the critics and biblically defends Rabbi Cahn’s work. While The Harbinger has received and continues to receive wide promotion in various quarters, the only apologetic work in existence regarding has not and has been left for people to discover as they surf the net and stumble upon Amazon.com. Perhaps The Harbinger’s author believes that The Truth About The Harbinger is the best secret weapon out there, and wants it reserved for the second coming, but not before it. Without a doubt though, The Harbinger is, even in spite of its critics’ continued harangues, a New York Times bestseller even to this day.
Tim Challies: I will get to the content in a moment, but first a word about the form. Though described as a novel, the book is actually far closer to a script (a script that would make an exceptionally tedious play or film). There is very little action, only the barest semblance of a plot, and no development at all of the three characters. Instead, the book is composed of amateurish dialog that proceeds at a plodding pace. The writing is repetitive to the point that it could easily have been boiled down to a third or a half of its current length. The book is a chore to read and, speaking personally, the end simply could not come too soon.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: Mr. Challies’ bias against the book is so blatant that it does not warrant a response. Mr. Challies misses the entire point of the book, because his focus instead is in criticizing how it is written. It would have been better for Mr. Challies to have focused instead on the central focus of the book, which is a call to repentance to its readers.
Tim Challies: Within this work of fiction are claims that the author insists are factual, biblical, and of the utmost importance. He claims to reveal an ancient mystery that holds the secret to America’s future. Like so many other books, it claims that the truth has been hidden in the pages of the Bible until one man ferreted it out. It is essentially a long exposition of Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones; The sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.” More correctly, it is a dual exposition of this text, applying it both to ancient Israel and to contemporary America. A snippet of dialog will explain how this can be (and, undoubtedly, convince many of you to read no further):
“But what does America have to do with ancient Israel?”
“Israel was unique among the nations in that it was conceived and dedicated at its foundation for the purposes of God.”
“OK…”
“But there was one other—a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception…America. In fact, those who laid its foundations…”
“The Founding Fathers.”
“No, long before the Founding Fathers. Those who laid America’s foundations saw it as a new Israel, an Israel of the New World. And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning its rise or fall would be dependent on its relationship with God. If it followed His ways, America would become the most blessed, prosperous, and powerful nation on earth. From the very beginning they foretold it. And what they foretold would come true. America would rise to heights no other nation had ever known. Not that it was ever without fault or sin, but it would aspire to fulfill its calling.”
“What calling?”
“To be a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God’s purposes, a light to the world. It would give refuge to the world’s poor and needy, and hope to its oppressed. It would stand against tyranny. It would fight, more than once, against the dark movements of the modern world that threatened to engulf the earth. It would liberate millions. And, as much as it fulfilled its calling or aspired to, it would become the most blessed, the most prosperous, the most powerful, and the most revered nation on the earth—just as its founders had prophesied.”
Of course there is a “but” that follows. Just as ancient Israel turned its back on its covenant with God, so too has America. By doing so, America has called down God’s judgment.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: Not so fast. Nowhere does The Harbinger say as Mr. Challies claims here for it, and its other critics do, that – I quote - Just as ancient Israel turned its back on its covenant with God, so too has America. By doing so, America has called down God’s judgment.” – as though to say that America has a covenant with God. Its founders covenanted in consecrated prayer to God for the land upon which the nation was founded, as did the Founding Fathers at St. Paul’s Chapel in NYC (and houses of worship throughout the new republic that day), a matter of historical record; but nowhere does The Harbinger or its author claim that the United States of America has a covenant with God. That is what its critics claim for it.
Tim Challies: Cahn sees the prophecy of Isaiah 9:10 as applying as directly to America as to Israel, and all because America is a second Israel, a second nation dedicated to God and set apart for her purposes. The purpose of The Harbinger is to unmask a series of nine omens which have been manifested in America since September 11, 2001. Just as God warned Israel and gave her specific warnings of impending judgment, God has now given America a similar series of warnings, all beginning with 9/11. The time of warning has now passed and all that remains is for America to make her choice: Will she return to the Lord or will she continue to wander? If she returns to the Lord by such tokens as returning the Ten Commandments to view in public squares and reinstituting prayer in public schools, she will once again receive his blessing; if she refuses, terrorism will increase and the nation will suffer a fate similar to Israel’s.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: There are other claims Mr. Challies (and the critics) make about this book for it, attributing to it claims and statements which it simply does not make, such as that the author, “Cahn sees the prophecy of Isaiah 9:10 as applying as directly to America as to Israel,” – no he does not. Nowhere does Jonathan Cahn claim that Isaiah was prophesying of America. What he has repeatedly clarified (except for these people) is that the same pattern of judgment which befell the northern kingdom of ancient Israel has befallen the United States. This is a far cry from claiming that Isaiah 9:10 prophesied of America. Another claim made here by Mr. Challies, but without any basis in fact, is the one where he writes that The Harbinger says these remedial judgments being repeated in America is also “because America is a second Israel, a second nation dedicated to God and set apart for her purposes.” which is patently untrue. It is not because the Puritan and Pilgrim founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Rock dedicated the land of this new world to God and saw it as a new promised land, a second Israel, that judgment has befallen it, because The Harbinger makes it clear that it is its continued moral decay and degeneration that has brought these remedial judgments from God as harbingers of worse to come if the warnings they provide in grace are not heeded and acted upon in clear repentance, not what Mr. Challies claims for the book. Challies gets the gist of the book, but misses the mark entirely in his argumentations. This happens when a person gets second hand information that is critical about something and before investigating it for himself, takes the information given as fact and then proceeds to formulate his own arguments based upon this information.
Tim Challies: These omens are very obscure and, not unlike The Bible Code, visible only in hindsight and by stretching both Scripture and logic well past any rational limit. Time would fail me to trace each of those omens, how they are drawn out of that short text, and how they have supposedly been fulfilled in the US of A. In a sense, though, that is neither here nor there, because those omens depend upon supposing that America is a second Israel. That may sit well with some Americans (and probably not so well with the rest of the world), but it is entirely absent from the Bible. While a historian may be able to make a case that America was founded upon Scriptural principles, nowhere in the pages of the Bible are we told that America has any special standing in God’s eyes; nowhere are we given even the smallest hint that America is to be equated with Israel while England or Canada or Nigeria are not. Certainly we cannot reasonably read Isaiah 9:10 as if the original prophecy was meant to apply equally to Israel and America.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: The arguments presented here by Mr. Challies is nothing but a regurgitation of other articles critical of The Harbinger, all of which interpolate meanings into the passages within the book that the book itself do not contain. The Harbinger does not claim that Isaiah prophesied of America. Nor does The Harbinger claim that America is a second Israel, and as its most unfair critic has claimed on multiple occasions, that it says it has replaced Israel, and accuses Rabbi Cahn of teaching “a form of Replacement Theology,” when in fact he does not. Additionally, nowhere does The Harbinger claim that the Bible says America has any special standing with God, as Challies appears to claim here (as do many other critics), but that because of the consecration of devout Christians of this land upon which it is founded, and its dedication at its founding to God in a Christian service, the God – who according to Scripture – honors the prayers of all people – heard and honored these dedications made to His provision and sovereign grace, and blessed the land and the nation founded upon it, and has until its citizenry and its leaders ceased extolling His name and calling upon it for His divine protection and favor over it.
Tim Challies: For the sake of time and space, I will forgo extensive discussion of the book’s errors. If you are interested in greater detail, you may like to visit this critical review.
Much like The Shack—quite an obvious point of comparison—Cahn displays the power of melding fiction and theology. What stood out to me as I read The Harbinger that perhaps was not quite so clear in The Shack, is that writing fiction allows the author to dictate his reader’s reaction. He can present a mundane fact and follow it with a gasp or an expression of awe as if the reader has missed the obvious importance. This is something Cahn does often and to his advantage. What seems like a great stretch in logic can be rationalized or given increased credence by a character’s excitement. It’s an effective tactic I hadn’t spotted before now. To be fair, unlike The Shack, this book contains a clear and substantial call to the gospel, definitely one of the few highlights and rather a rarity for a book that makes its way to the bestseller list.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: It is unfortunate and wholly unfair to compare this book to The Shack, a pantheistic New Age work and work from this comparison to comment upon The Harbinger. Here Mr. Challies claims he read The Harbinger. But, by these arguments, it is painfully obvious that he did not read it as thoroughly (if really at all) as Mr. Challies claims, because the comments he makes bely one who is parroting someone else, and not a person who independently expresses an opinion based upon his unbiased reading of the material in question. The question that begs an answer is whether Mr. Challies actually read the book thoroughly, and if he did and had questions, why didn’t he pursue the author, or write me about it? I know Rabbi Cahn would’ve loved to help him with anything he might’ve had questions with, and I would welcome such questions and would’ve provided the answers, even offer to ship him a copy of my own work on the topic, The Truth About The Harbinger. If Mr. Challies had been truly objective and honest, he would’ve done this before writing this hit piece. He did worse, he blocked me from his site, when I attempted to communicate with him.
Tim Challies: It’s not that The Harbinger has nothing good to say, but that so many of even those good things are built upon a poor and even dangerous foundation. The book depends upon a fundamentally flawed way of understanding and applying the Bible, treating the Bible as a mystery to be solved rather than a clear and sufficient explanation of what we are to believe concerning God and how we can live in this world to his glory. There is no good reason to read or recommend this book.
RETORT/CLARIFICATION: Again, this is nothing but a very biased subjective criticism based upon a personal preferences of the one who has written the article, and does not do justice to the topic, which is the sad state of Evangelical Christianity in the West in general and in America in particular; something that The Harbinger’s author and I have discussed on many occasions on the net, on You Tube, and on radio.
I have provided below a list of the different ministries that go by the moniker of Discernment Ministries and their doctrinal/theological orientation. The site I pulled it from is decidedly Cessationist and Calvinist in orientation. It is called with CHRIST.org. I list it here so that those who read their articles will be aware of the doctrinal and theological “bent” or bias of the Critic’s Corner, as I like to call it in order to understand their approach.
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