This article was sponsored by Charisma Media.
New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Cahn, in his new documentary film, “The Harbingers of Things to Come,” identified some remarkable similarities between the judgment ancient Israel experienced and what appears to be playing out in the United States now.
And “The One Year Bible’s” designated reading for September 11 offers one parallel. More on that in a moment.
Cahn’s film is based, in part, on his 2012 blockbuster book, “The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America’s Future,” and his 2020 follow-up, “The Harbinger II: The Return.”
Watch the powerful film, “The Harbingers of Things to Come,” now streaming or available on DVD.
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Cahn, who is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ, argued that America’s founders followed the pattern of ancient Israel’s leaders of covenanting themselves with God, though in the case of the latter, the Almighty initiated the agreement.
In American history, the Pilgrims, through their Mayflower Compact, Massachusetts Bay Colony’s first governor Jonathan Winthrop in his famous “City Upon a Hill” sermon, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence all sought God’s favor and involvement in their endeavors.
The premise underlying both Cahn’s books and the movie is that Sept. 11, 2001, marked the beginning of judgment against America for turning its back on God.
A biblical passage that heralded God’s removal of his hand of protection against ancient Israel — Isaiah chapter 9, verse 10 — is doing the same now, Cahn said.
It reads: “The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.”
In Isaiah 9:10, the prophet was recording a prideful boast made by ancient Israel’s leaders after the Assyrian army conducted a raid in the northern part of the kingdom in 732 B.C: We’ll build back stronger!
This limited invasion, the Bible recorded, was a manifestation of God’s anger — a warning blow.
Unfortunately, the people did not respond to this breach of their defenses by repenting of their wicked ways and turning back to God, so things got worse. God allowed the Assyrian army to conquer the northern kingdom capital of Samaria in 722 B.C., and eventually the entire kingdom fell into enemy hands.
Cahn identified the 9/11 attacks as a breach of the nation’s defenses, akin to what ancient Israel first experienced, and America responded with the same failure to repent.
Then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle actually, unwittingly, made the connection of the 9/11 attacks when he read the Isaiah passage from the Senate floor the day after the strikes.
Daschle “proclaimed the ancient vow of Isaiah 9:10 word for word. He identified America as the nation now under judgment and 9/11 as the day that it began,” Cahn said.
Out of Daschle’s “mouth came the words that sealed ancient Israel’s destruction,” Cahn noted.
Watch the “The Harbingers of Things to Come,” now streaming or available on DVD.
Eleven years later, in June 2012, then-President Barack Obama would mimic the essence of the Isaiah 9:10 vow by what he wrote on a beam placed at the top of One World Trade Center at ground zero.
“Hidden inside this tower is a mystery, a biblical mystery, that goes back thousands of years. Hidden on the top, written by the leader of the land, the highest words in America, words that two-and-a-half thousand years ago brought judgment and destruction on a nation,” Cahn said.
Obama wrote: “We remember. We rebuild. We come back stronger!”
Cahn argued it was the same three elements of Isaiah 9:10: remembrance of destruction, pledge to rebuild and plan to come back stronger.
And Obama did so even with the same number of words contained in the Bible text. “Eight English words matching the eight Hebrew words,” Cahn said.
But it was not just Daschle and Obama who made the connection of the Sept. 11 attacks to the judgment ancient Israel experienced. It was even foreshadowed in “The One Year Bible,” first published by the U.S.-based Christian publisher Tyndale House in 1986.
The book breaks down the Bible into 365 segments, including portions of the Old and New testaments, to be read on each day of the year.
“On the morning of 9/11 when the terrorists were in flight ready to inflict destruction on America all over the nation, believers were opening up their Bibles, all of them to the same exact scripture. What scripture? Isaiah 9:10, the scripture of the harbingers,” Cahn said.
“They began opening to that scripture before the calamity even took place. How did that happen?” he asked.
Because that portion of Isaiah was slated to be read on September 11.
“The Bible itself marked the date of the beginning of America’s judgment as September 11. It pinpointed the date that calamity would fall upon the land in the form of an enemy attack of terrorism appointed for 9/11,” Cahn contended.
“And so every year, on September 11, believers were opening up their Bibles to the scripture that spoke of the enemy’s attack. And then on the morning of that day in 2001, it happened … the buildings fell,” he said.
Cahn believes there is still hope for the U.S., based on some previous times in the nation’s history when the people changed course and the land returned to security and prosperity.
Watch Cahn make his powerful case in “The Harbingers of Things to Come,” now streaming or available on DVD.
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