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Excerpts from: |
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The Harbinger A Matter of Critical Discernment By T. A. McMahon, the Berean Call |
June 4, 2012 Home" |
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The excerpts below are important warnings. Read the rest HERE |
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"...although The Harbinger is a fictional account that invites subjective criticism, it makes numerous claims regarding actual signs or harbingers from God—which it attempts to justify by supporting them with Scriptures. God’s Word, however, is not fiction. That subjects The Harbinger to factual evaluation, because the Bible is God’s objective truth. Therefore, we can challenge Cahn’s claims objectively by searching the Scriptures to see if they indeed are true (Acts 17:11). As Isaiah wrote,“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to [God’s] word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20)....
"Cahn’s isolation of Isaiah 9:10 and his symbolic interpretation of that verse to make it fit the September 11, 2001, jihadist attack on the U.S. is preposterous. ...Furthermore, even a cursory review of American history will bring to mind far more devastating events than 9/11, from Washington, D.C. being burned and sacked in the War of 1812, to the Civil War, to Pearl Harbor, to the debacle in Vietnam, etc. ...
"Isaiah 9:10 cannot be identified with America and 9/11, and that’s all one has to understand in order to reject Cahn’s book. Yet, for those enamored with The Harbinger and still not convinced of its serious biblical problems, consider a few of the harbingers themselves..."Another harbinger of warning to America is referred to as “The Tower.” Cahn seems hard pressed to make a biblical connection to a tower other than a vague reference that the main character makes when he’s asked how he would know what the Tower of Babel looked like. He replies, 'I don’t, but I’ve seen pictures of it.'
"That inane [imagination-based] statement aside, Babel was not a Jewish tower. Nevertheless, Cahn finds a Jewish tower that he believes fits. But he had to go to the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, for help. Isaiah 9:10 in the Greek is translated thus: “The bricks are fallen down, but come, let us hew stones, and cut down sycamores and cedars, and let us build for ourselves a tower.”...
"There are numerous other problems with the harbingers, even though they are constructed subjectively and selectively by Cahn....
Another imposition from Cahn’s imagination is his suggestion that the inauguration of George Washington in New York City was a 'consecration' of America to God similar to Solomon’s consecration of the Temple in Jerusalem. To even compare the two verges on blasphemy, especially because history reveals that much Masonic ritual was involved....It was more suitable to the god of the Masonic Lodge, the Great Architect of the Universe, than to ...the God of the Bible."...a big red flag went up regarding the publisher. Though the cover says 'Front Line,' it’s actually an imprint title of Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group, the publisher of Charisma magazine. ...there is no other publication that has supported and promoted more of the unbiblical Word/Faith teachers, the 'wealth and health' preachers, the Kingdom/Dominionists, the Apostles and Prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation, the so-called spirit revivals of the Toronto Airport Vineyard, the Brownsville Revival, the Lakeland Revivals, the Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God, and so forth.
"There is some irony in the fact that in chapter 9 of Isaiah, The Harbinger’s key biblical chapter, God brings down His judgment upon Israel because of 'lying prophets.' Charisma has over the years featured many who fit that description. That doesn’t automatically throw The Harbinger into a bin of rotten apples, but it should at least cause one to examine its fruit very carefully. Jesus said,
“A corrupt tree [cannot] bring forth good fruit” and “by their fruits ye shall know them.”
"These are days of rampant and beguiling apostasy. We need, therefore, to test all things by the Scriptures so that we do not 'slip' away from God’s truth (Hebrews 2:1). We also need to pray for and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ that we all might be biblically discerning regarding the latest agenda, movement, trend, or popular book that is adversely influencing multitudes in the body of Christ."
***********See also What's Wrong with The Harbinger's "Ancient Mystery"?
Vital Insights into The Harbinger by Jeremy James