In September, Sid Roth had Jonathan Cahn as his guest for a 2-part appearance on his “It’s Supernatural!” show. If you know Sid Roth, you know that he has a certain, shall we say, “style”…and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he does have a good knack for getting some good guests on his show. The bottom line being that regardless of how interesting or engaging the guest is, the “signal to noise ratio” is pretty low It’s Supernatural! (which also has a lot of peddling of offers to clutter up the time) So, I took it upon myself to edit these two shows and strip out as much of the “noise” as I could so that Cahn’s message, which is quite intriguing, might have a better chance of being heard. There’s still some Sid in there, God bless him, but only as much as is necessary.
The original parts 1 and 2 can be found here for those who are interested:
https://www.sidroth.org/site/News2?abbr=tv_&page=NewsArticle&id=10457
https://www.sidroth.org/site/News2?abbr=tv_&page=NewsArticle&id=10494
Harbinger?
I called this “Harbinger Remix” because Cahn titles his message, drawn from Isaiah 9:10, “The Harbinger” and if you search for Jonathan Cahn or The Harbinger, you’ll find plenty of references, sites, videos, etc. I think this particular 30-minute mix does pretty good justice to the message that he’s trying to get across, which is that America’s crises from 9/11 to the current economic woes parallel a series of increasingly severe judgments that a defiant ancient Israel faced. The Harbingers are 9 warnings or omens that Israel faced that, according to Cahn, America is also facing.
I certainly find the parallels compelling and, I too, believe that there are things that the Lord is not pleased with regarding America. In this particular instance, I would say that I’m in general agreement with Cahn, but do I have two concerns.
First, this sort of prophetic perspective usually adds weight to the “gloom, doom and judgment” perspective of prophecy that flies in the face of the emphasis on the goodness of God, which I believe is probably more crucial in this hour (all hours?) than dire warnings. Judgment has its proper place in the character of God and redemptive history, past, present and future. However, focusing on it and/or not understanding God’s heart/motivation behind it (as Mike Bickle likes to say, “God judges to remove everything that hinders love.”) can, I think, end up twisting our image of who God is, for us, for others, for His Creation. Unfortunately, while I’m sure Sid means well, his “style” does more, in my opinion, to stir up this unbalanced perspective of God and of prophecy.
Second, while I think what Cahn has received is from God and his conclusions about the need to repent, in general are correct, I still see the same glaringly myopic perspective of what to repent of that comes out of the mouths of most American Christians: abortion, homosexuality, pornography, etc. Granted these things need repentance, and, in my opinion they have received a notable quantity in the last 30 years or so. Consequently, I find it curious that the two specific judgments that are mentioned in Cahn’s message, 9/11 and the financial crisis, don’t directly point the finger at this traditional triple whammy of sexual sins. Rather, in my view, they point the finger at the two things that most (right-leaning Christian) Americans don’t notice as sin and yet they are the two things that the entire rest of the world sees as America’s most glaring offenses:
- Unrelenting empire building/maintaining
- Capitalism in its most predatory guises
The two are quite linked, of course, and the spirit of empire and the spirit of mammon and the predator/victim spirit all swirl together in evil glee to work with one another to steal, kill and destroy as much as possible. Part of the reason that Americans don’t “get this” is that America is a land where individualism and independence is highly valued but these two sins are at their most destructive (and yet most elusive) in their institutional and corporate forms. The sins become systemic and one can’t easily point the finger at an individual and say, “Repent!” Americans don’t yet know how to see American governmental and corporate impact on the world stage and rightly point the finger at themselves and say, “Repent!” Nowhere is this more evident than in the hyper-polarized political scene in America where pointing the finger elsewhere sinks to new amazing lows with every passing day. I would wager that the one place where Americans are comfortable grouping people together and focusing on a “corporate entity” is when we label someone “Republican” or “Democrat”.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) the Lord looks at both individuals and corporate entities and they both have roles and responsibilities in God’s Kingdom.
So, to me, 9/11 is a wake up call about our imperialistic/neo-colonial swagger in the world and the economic meltdown is about our predatory capitalistic appetite in the world…and in those two areas is perhaps where we need to focus most of our repentance energies at the moment.
So, with that rambling preamble, on with the show!
Big thanks for posting this here. The linking of Scripture and the actual events are sobering. Like you the issues of USA being a ‘Christian nation’ I question… but the analysis of harbingers and the understanding the season is right on.
The next few years are so critical in US history. Not a rebuilding, nor a being established again as ‘top-dog’ by God (?) but the immense possibility for the church in the US to find a new way of being.
Judgement but his judgements are redemptive and this can be the greatest day for the body of Christ in the US. And we in Europe need our brothers and sisters. We are bound together – US is the child of Europe… Europe is the child of rape.
There is also one other aspect that I believe has to be worked into – a few days ago I was meditating on the Chinese rising power. There was a lot of Chinese bloodshed on US soil to build the railroads, the cycle is now coming round where China will (is being) paid in full.
I hadn’t made the Chinese railroad worker connection, but I would agree…they are getting paid back for their indentured servitude. At the same time, the Chinese economy has some troubled waters coming and a “desperate” China is not a pleasant thought!
It seems to me that you are saying that Chinese economic growth is a payback for bloodshed. Am i understanding you correctly?
If “you” is me, then I’m saying that I had not considered it before, but that I could see the connection as Martin describes it, “the cycle is now coming round where China will (is being) paid in full.”
Looking simply at historical events, it’s obviously complex but it seems some prophetic connections that one sees in the Bible, in which centuries of tangled history lie between, would demonstrate similar types of connections.
Interested in your perspective.
You is Vous. Since I tutoyer both of you, French wins!
Here is what I see: railroads enabled the expansion of industry in the western US. Some of the cost was Chinese lives purchased through injustice. Some of the cost was Irish, British, German, etc., lives, as well. (The US began and expanded with injustice and bloodshed: not one treaty with native tribes was kept by the US gov’t. The land was appropriated mostly through bloodshed. This is not a righteous record.) This industrial expansion afforded the US unprecedented prosperity. Today, Chinese industrial expansion and US economic stability are also purchased through injustice: unfair labor conditions, low wages and artificially low currency valuation in China. I don’t see a payback here. I see the continuation of a systemic injustice that degrades and devalues the meaning and quality of life. China has bought into the system and is playing the game at a very high level with a potentially terrible cost.
My perspective on “paid in full” is two-fold: 1. Eye for eye is an old covenant principle for Israel. 2. Even if one believes there is a carryover from old covenant to new covenant (as many believe applies to the tithe, for instance), to think that God would take/approve/accept financial payment as restitution for human bloodshed is to reduce man to the level of animals. Animals killed could be paid for; human bloodshed requires human bloodshed. There was, of course, human blood shed that paid for all.
In my thinking, the Chinese situation described is an example of the principle of sowing and reaping with increase. In the 1850’s the players were China and the US industrialists. Today, it is the entire world. As long as we continue to sow into corrupt systems whose motivations are greed/lust/pride and whose goal is the endless acquisition of power, we will continue to reap corrupt harvests of injustice with increasing measure.
So to me, the essential question is “How do we leave Babylon in order to bring the sins of our nations under the Blood of Jesus?”
Sowing and reaping…exactly.
But what IS sowing and reaping? Is it a form of judgment? I think when it goes positively, we’re quick to label that a blessing from God and give Him direct credit. He’s the God of multiplication. He also established at creation spiritual, natural, relational, etc. laws that govern many actions and consequences. When one reads Hosea 8 (sow wind, reap whirlwind), it’s obvious that we have a multiplication of consequence based on original action…but it’s also obvious that God’s directly involved.
The principle of sowing and reaping is a principle based on the idea that we do something and that God’s law and/or God’s more direct intervention bring a return that is a multiplication of what was sowed. Sowing and reaping was established in the OT as were plenty of immutable laws (gravity, etc.) They are true and are not ELIMINATED by the New Covenant, but are SUPERSEDED by the New Covenant. So while sowing and reaping is true, there are things that are “more true”; higher principles, like grace, love and forgiveness, sacrifice, reconciliation, etc. When the higher principles are not engaged, I believe that the lower ones are alive and well. To say that God judges is not necessarily to say that there is anything vindictive involved, rather there is a minimum consequence to achieve the desired result. Sometimes that “minimum” looks quite intense to us.
I would also distinguish between what Martin said, “paid in full” and the term “payback”, since “payback”, while ostensibly synonymous, DOES carry a connotation of direct spiteful vengeance, as in “paybacks are a bitch!” where as “paid in full” can easily support the idea of payment for a debt coming from an unexpected source to where we see simply that accounts are reconciled…justice in some measure is activated from a source other than the original debtor directly.
I think what Martin sees is a connection between the two and I guess I can see that that could certainly be true and I don’t believe that it violates the way God works nor how He has established laws in His Creation. I certainly do agree that to draw that conclusion one has to take a macro view of events and that at the detailed level, macro-level cause and effect is difficult to discern. I believe this is one of the reasons that many Americans in general struggle with the concept that any American action in the world could have created grievances that would provoke someone to fly full airplanes into the World Trade Center towers. At the detail level, the puzzle pieces don’t fit, but at the macro/strategic level, I believe they can.
As for financial payment vs. human lives, obviously the financial doesn’t pay THAT in full, but there was a financial element involved in the injustice, and I’m guessing that it’s the financial aspect that Martin is talking about. Sort of like the Israelites leaving Egypt and getting all the riches from their captors. That was the financial payment, and perhaps Pharaoh’s army drowning in the Red Sea was part of the human cost. Again, that’s a macro view of 430 years of complex history that we don’t know the details of. If we only had that level of detail of the Chinese involvement in railroad building and no great detail in between, then we might more easily make that connection between today’s events and what happened back then.
As to your last question, is “we” the Body of Christ or the nation as a whole (I see it as the Body of Christ)?
WTC Towers – The Seven Kings of Revelation 17?
Revelation 17
9. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
There are 7 major mountain ranges in the United States of America:
1 – Rocky Mountains
2 – Appalachian Mountains
3 – Ozark Mountains
4 – Cascade Mountains
5 – Sierra Nevada Mountains
6 – Alaska Range
7 – Brooks Range (White Mountains – Alaska)
10. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
All 7 WTC Buildings were destroyed as a result of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Five WTC Buildings are under construction at this time.
One has been completed. (WTC – 7 in 2006)
There is no clearly defined 6 World Trade Center in the new World Trade Center master plan however it is most likely that one will be eventually included and constructed parallel to the others in the plaza. Five are fallen…one is (WTC 7)…and one is surely to come and must continue a short space. (WTC – 6?)
These kings are also referred to as “mountains”. The towers being representative of financial power through world trade, in large part, control the free market economy of the entire world, even affecting countries that are not free. In this respect they are “kingly” as well as being “mountainous” forms of steel and concrete.
Might this possibly mean that time is limited for the new WTC buildings along with the entire city of New York? And why did John the Revelator use the word “space” rather than the word “time” if the intention was to imply a period of time? ‘Dis is what I ‘tink…he meant just what he said…space would indicate area, not time. Building 6 may break ground and even get partially built, “continuing a short space”, before something happens…but what? Whatever it is, I don’t think it will be good.
WTC 1 – Opening Dec. 2012
WTC 2 – Opening 2014
WTC 3 – Opening 2014
WTC 4 – Opening 2013
WTC 5 – Opening 2013
WTC 7 – Completed 2006
And…..
“U.S. of America” = 666
“New York” = 666
“New Whore” = 666
“A New Babylon” = 666
where A = 6, B = 12, C = 18, D = 24…..Z = 156