And David inquired of God, saying, Shall I go up against the Philistines? And wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And the Lord said unto him, Go up; for I will deliver them into thine hand. —1 Chronicles 14:10

Soon after David had ascended the throne of Israel, the Philistines again attacked God’s chosen nation. Before sending troops against the Philistines, King David asked the Lord for His will in the situation. David desired to know if he was commissioned from heaven to engage the enemy in battle, for the steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord (Psalm 37:23). David would not move until God first moved. Only when God said, “Act!” would David take action.

King David knew it was his destiny to purge the Philistines from the land, but he wanted assurance that God would go before him to give him the victory. David understood God’s perfect timing.

Once you have God’s Word—the Sword of the Spirit—on the matter, you can go into battle expecting to be victorious. Determine to acknowledge Him in all your ways. Be sure His hand is on whatever you set your hand to do, and you will have total victory throughout the year.

God, to You belong the battles of this day and every day.
I will not fight until You have sounded the trumpet for
battle. I will not move until You move. For in You and
Your perfect timing and will reside every victory
and glorious triumph. Amen.

While I was praying over 2012, I received impressions about many things—some warnings and some promises. But what burned most on my heart to share with the masses wasn’t a list of predictions or a prophetic directive. What burned most on my heart to share are four simple words: Revival begins with you.

We yearn to see signs, wonders and miracles manifest today as they did in the book of Acts, don’t we? But are we willing to pay the price the early church paid? Are we willing to die to self? Are we willing to relinquish control to the Holy Spirit so He can move like He wants to move? Are we willing to repent for the character flaws that hold us back? Are we willing to walk in love and unity with true believers who don’t believe exactly the same as we do? Are we willing to war against the spirit of compromise that is raging against the church in this age? Revival begins with you.

The book of Acts never fails to fascinate me. It is the Holy Ghost in action, the gifts of the Spirit made manifest, a charismatic believer’s delight. Indeed, many of us want to see the Holy Ghost move in the church—and in the world—like that again. Well, I beseech you to consider these four words: Revival begins with you.

Sure, we see a ration of revival spring up from time to time. We see a measure of the miraculous. We see demons cast out, in the name of Jesus. But it doesn’t compare to the book of Acts, does it? Revival begins with you.

Despite 24/7 prayer movements that bear plenty of fruit, we don’t see people waiting to stand in our shadows hoping to get healed. Despite the apostolic movement (and the thousands of Christians who call themselves apostles), we rarely see people raised from the dead. Despite large stadiums of sincere people repenting in tears before the Lord for the sins of generations, we are yet a far cry from the reality of the book of Acts. Revival begins with you.

We can’t do the Lord’s part—we can’t force miracles, signs and wonders. But we can do our part—we can tear down the strongholds in our own souls that are preventing us from walking in the fullness of the Spirit. We can stop tolerating spirits that tempt us to sin. We can start interceding for the fallen saints instead of playing judge. In other words, we can start living like the saints lived in the book of Acts: sold out, on fire and ready to die for the gospel. Revival begins with you.

Again, we can’t manufacture miracles. We can’t work up wonders. But we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit to separate the profane from the holy in our own hearts and in our own minds. We can purge ourselves and lay aside every weight that holds us back. We can allow the Spirit of God to do a deep work in us and so the Spirit of God can do a great work through us. Revival begins with you—and me.

Jennifer LeClaire is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including The Heart of the Prophetic. You can email Jennifer at @ or visit her website here.

Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of
Kedar! Too long have I lived among those who hate peace. I am a man of
peace; but when I speak, they are for war. —Psalm 120:5-7

Psalm
120 gives us a number of examples of different ways that God uses to
get our attention. Meshech and Kedar symbolize places where we do not
like to have to live. Are you living in the “wrong” place? Perhaps you
are feeling a little sorry for yourself. But maybe God has put you
there so that you will value what really matters. Because of an unhappy
situation, where things just aren’t the way you would like them to be,
God gets your attention. He can also use danger, delay, or discord to
get our attention.

Meshech and Kedar also symbolize places of
danger. Kedar, for example, refers to the Bedouins who were a perpetual
problem to the travelers. Are you one of those people who enjoy living
on the edge of danger, but now find yourself in trouble?

Another
part of the distress, delay, is found in verse 6: “Too long have I
lived among those who hate peace.” Perhaps your distress is because of
a prolonged situation. You have waited and waited for the situation to
change. In reality, however, all this time perhaps God has been waiting
for you to turn to Him.

God also uses discord to get our
attention: “I am a man of peace; but when I speak, they are for war”
(v. 7). Are you in such a situation of discord? Perhaps your marriage
is on the rocks; perhaps you are living somewhere where there is
nothing but tension. God can use discord to get your attention.

What
makes for peace is when we come to terms with the fact that the problem
is not merely the situation but our reaction to the situation. A man of
peace will defuse heated situations, not adding to their misery. Such a
man can do this because internally he has discovered and experienced
“perfect peace” (Isa. 26:3). It is called the “peace of God, which
passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7, KJV).

Excerpted from Higher Ground (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1995).

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. —Genesis 1:1

In the time it takes you to read this page, you will have entered a moment you have never experienced before. God said before we can form His name in our minds and speak it forth, He will be there! (Isaiah 65:24). Before any pain or discouragement, God has already gone before you, making all the necessary arrangements to ensure that you will make it into the next moment of your future with Him. God never starts anything before it is finished. He’s the Alpha and Omega. He knows the end before the beginning.

With God in charge, every moment can be a radically new beginning. In the next moment, if you will let God be bigger than the pain of the last moment, you will have a new beginning in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Before remembering all you endured last year, think about where you are right now in God. And right where you are, God is there—greater than all your problems!

As you start this year, put God at the beginning of every day and every moment in each day. Let Him lead you through a year of victory!

Lord God, You alone are at the beginning of my day
and each moment in my day. Take control of my life.
Have Your way in my every thought and deed, and
I will give You all the praise and the glory for the
new thing You will be doing in my life today.
Amen.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. —2 Corinthians 5:17

Before the breakthrough comes the vision of what God can and will do if you will act in faith. Notice this: It’s not vision we lack, but resolve.

Breaking through requires much of us. God has done His part. He has issued the invitation, “Come to My table. Eat of My flesh. Drink of My blood. Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you.” (See John 6.)

All the elements needed for a breakthrough have been provided by God for you. The breakthrough for your harvest is here. The breakthrough for your healing is here. The breakthrough for your prospering is here. The breakthrough for your inheritance is here. Will you break through?

The Lord’s anointing oil is on you. —Leviticus 10:7

Our reward in heaven will not be determined by yesterday’s anointing but by today’s fresh anointing. I will not receive a reward for how well I preached, how many thousands I reached or blessed, or even how many people were converted under my ministry. To be rewarded for my gifts is nonsense! “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7). God is not going to reward me for the ability He alone gave me. My reward in heaven (may God grant that there is such) will come entirely by whether I practiced what I preached: walking in the light, dignifying the trial, totally forgiving others, and placing utmost priority on my intimacy with Him.

And yet my continued effectiveness here below is also determined by my hearing God’s voice today. If my anointing given me yesterday is replenished by a fresh anointing that comes by the way I live personally and privately, I will continue to hear God speak and will know His will daily. I will not  miss what He wants of me or what He wants me to see around me. I can think of nothing worse than missing out on what God is doing. And yet my knowledge of the Bible will not in and of itself guarantee that I will recognize what He is up to today.

We must all learn to distinguish the difference between what is important and what is essential—and always do the latter. Whether with our use of time, money, our diaries, or social relationships, the issue is what is essential and being sure we do what is essential. Yesterday’s anointing is important; today’s fresh anointing is essential.

Excerpted from The Anointing: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Charisma House, 2003).

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted. —Psalm 148:13

Although there are terms or words for God, there is only one word given in the Old Testament for God’s Name: Yahweh, Lord. It is used 6,800 times in the Old Testament, set in small capitals: Lord. Now whenever we see the word Lord in the New Testament, even without small capitals, it is a reference to Jesus. The Greek word is kyrios, but it is the translation of Yahweh.

When Paul, a Jew, would use the word kyrios to describe Jesus, he ascribed to Him not only deity but also the very name of Yahweh Himself, for kyrios was the word most frequently used in the Septuagint to translate Yahweh. Any Jew knew that.

Now to call Jesus kyrios, Lord, was not only saying that He was God but was also ascribing to Him the name that is above every name.

After Jesus died on the cross, He was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, and welcomed home by God the Father. The first thing the Father said to Him was, “Sit down at my right hand.” That in itself meant equality with God.

Not only was Jesus exalted to the highest place, the position that can only be described as that which belonged to God alone, but Paul said Jesus was also given the “name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). In other words, there was no room for doubt or speculation: there was only one name known in heaven and in earth that was above every name. It was to demonstrate His sheer majesty.

It is the name of the One who is worthy of our worship; it is the name of the One who fights our battles—Jehovah Sabaoth. It is the name of the One who supplies our every need—Jehovah Jireh. It is the name of the One who made the sun in creation’s morning and later took dust from the ground and made man after His own image. It is the name of the One who put His name in the temple and allowed His name to dwell there. It is the name of the One who has put His name in the midst of the church.

The name that is above every name is called the Everlasting One, the Most High God, the King of glory, the One who inhabits eternity, the One who controls the destiny of nations.

Excerpted from Meekness and Majesty (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1992, 2000).

{jcomments on}Jonathan Cahn’s new book, The Harbinger, isn’t just an exciting read; it’s a bold prophetic message and biblical mystery wrapped in one powerful story. But there’s far more to this timely revelation—and the person delivering it—than what’s on the page.

As he looked across the waters of the Hudson River from the Statue of Liberty, the twin towers of the World Trade center spiking the New York City skyline, Jonathan Cahn had a deep sense of foreboding.

The Messianic rabbi had joined with other prayer and prophetic leaders at the nation’s symbolic gate—Lady Liberty greeting the many immigrants arriving at nearby Ellis Island, where they would take their first steps in their new land—to seek God. They had gathered with a shared burden to pray for the city and a sense of concern about a possible terrorist attack on the United States.

Two years later, the suicide flights that stunned the world would touch Cahn’s, too. His future wife, Renata, was to have been at the World Trade Center for an appointment but changed her plans at the last minute, as did other members of his congregation who worked there. Two who were in the Twin Towers were among those who escaped before the collapse.

But in addition to feeling personal relief, Cahn was pitched into a journey of discovery. It would take him to ground zero, historical sites and research libraries, collecting hundreds of pages of notes in a mission to uncover the deeper story behind the shocking news footage.

From disparate fragments of present-day events, key moments in America’s past and somewhat obscure biblical passages, he has pieced together a jaw-dropping jigsaw puzzle that presents a disturbing picture of a nation on the brink.

Cahn shares what he has uncovered in his new book, The Harbinger, revealing that the 2001 terrorist attacks, the war on terror, the economic collapse, the actions of the U.S. government and even the words of its leaders all are part of a modern-day replaying of an ancient drama. Laying out current happenings over an Old Testament template, Cahn presents an uncanny match.

The message: Israel’s fall to judgment for failing to return to God, as described in Isaiah 9, is being re-enacted step by step in the U.S. today with the appearance of nine prophetic harbingers, or warning signs, from ancient times manifesting to America. The Assyrian invasion, Israel’s ruin and ultimate exile are remarkably being mirrored in a sequence of events that started unfolding on 9/11.

Cahn reveals how Scriptures recording Israel’s defiance of God have actually been quoted by America’s leaders in the wake of the terrorist attacks and that contemporary events have often unfolded on dates with specific significance in the Jewish calendar. He traces the ways in which occurrences at ground zero have inexplicable links to Bible texts and connects the dots of the economic collapse to God’s progressive judgment.

“We are at a crossroads,” says Messianic movement leader and broadcaster Sid Roth simply of Cahn’s book. “Either the church will act like the church in the New Testament or it will collapse and the U.S. will become a Third World country and we will not fulfill our destiny.”

Though Cahn describes The Harbinger; as a trumpet call, it may ring bells for some who recall messages from David Wilkerson in the wake of 9/11. The famed New York City pastor and author told how he believed that the strikes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a sign of God’s judgment—referencing Isaiah 9. The Harbinger expands on Wilkerson’s early broad-brush alarm, with Cahn inheriting the now-deceased pastor’s prophetic mantle and “building on the shoulders of his revelation,” Roth says.

He became aware of the first stirrings of Cahn’s message several years ago. Cahn had spoken about what he believed God was showing him at the Messianic congregation he leads in New Jersey and some conferences. But Cahn turned down an invitation to talk more widely about the message on Roth’s TV and radio broadcasts, sensing that the time was not right.

After the economic collapse of 2008, Cahn realized that what was revealed and foreshadowed in the nine harbingers was affecting the entire American and global economies. Cahn says: “A lot of believers have a sense regarding America—this sense that America is rapidly departing from God and that if it doesn’t return, its future is bleak. The book is a revelation that behind this sense is a deep and uncanny biblical reality.”

An Atheist Finds Yeshua
While the book releases in print only this month, its message has already created waves through early interest in an e-book edition, made available in September, and Cahn’s two appearances on Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural TV show in the fall. The broadcasts—”the most important prophetic show you will ever see,” Roth says—produced “a phenomenal response.”

Though the bearded 52-year-old, who might be mistaken for an amiable college professor, may be unfamiliar to many, Cahn is well known and respected within the Messianic movement. Since 1988 he has led Beth Israel Worship Center, one of the country’s largest Messianic congregations. Members travel from four states to a former furniture department store in Wayne, N.J., where Jerusalem’s Western Wall and the old city gates are being recreated as part of the fellowship’s celebration of the Jewish roots of their faith.

Located 20 minutes outside New York, the center is also home to Cahn’s Hope of the World, an outreach ministry with radio broadcasts—including Cahn’s weekday The Nice Jewish Boy—and compassion programs providing clean water and supporting orphanages overseas. Cahn has traveled to Cuba, Nigeria and India on ministry and spoken at the United Nations. He often symbolically blows the shofar at gatherings, echoing its Old Testament call to worship.

Cahn is known for unlocking Bible mysteries through the understanding born from his Jewish background, and his heritage and personal history have prepared him to sound the trumpet in The Harbinger. Descended from the line of Aaron, whose priestly role included calling the people to worship and leading Israel into battle through the sounding of the shofar, he grew up in a reformed Jewish home, the youngest of three children to scientist parents.

Though he attended synagogue services, he became an atheist at age 8. “In the synagogue, people would say the prayers by rote,” he recalls. “There was no sense that God was real in their lives. It made me question the whole thing.”

Cahn was dubbed “The Atheist” at school for his vigorous unbelief, but things started to change when he became a teenager. He began to question his atheism and then to embark on a quest for the truth through science, philosophy, the occult, even UFOs. He was surprised to find Jesus mentioned in many of the books.

“God got me through the back door,” he says with a smile, recounting how in a store one day he stumbled across a book that seemed by its cover to be like some of the others he had read. It was The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, a best-selling exploration of end-times prophecy that brought many to Christ.

Eventually Cahn came to accept that the Bible was true and that Jesus, Yeshua, was the Jews’ long-promised Messiah. He even witnessed to others about Him and led them to faith—but he wasn’t ready to take the step himself.

Cahn told God he would surrender His life when he reached old age. Two car accidents within a few months—one of which saw him escape unscathed when his vehicle was crushed “like aluminum foil” by a train on a railroad crossing—caused him to reevaluate. As a 20-year-old college student, Cahn climbed to the top of a mountain overlooking the Hudson River and told Yeshua he was ready.

Cahn’s first job as a new believer was as a night watchman, at one stage guarding property that included the headquarters of an outreach to Jews. Keeping night watchman hours to this day—he typically studies and works until the early hours, rising later in the day—Cahn observes of his past: “I think that the Lord prepares us in our life, and He gives us signs and indications of His will.”

The Start of ‘Something Big’
There was also a prophetic element to The Harbinger‘s acquisition by Charisma Media. Having finished the manuscript, Cahn had someone in mind to speak with about finding a publisher. “I wanted it to get out God’s way,” he says. “There’s conventional wisdom in publishing that you have to promote yourself, but I didn’t want to do that.”

Mulling things during an early morning layover at a North Carolina airport on his way to speak at a Promise Keepers conference, Cahn bowed his head and prayed that the Lord would get the message of The Harbinger out His way. When he looked up from praying and reading his Bible, he noticed a man sitting to his left.

“He was looking at me,” Cahn says, “and he said, ‘What’s the good word?’ I figured he was a businessman who didn’t know the Lord, so I started witnessing to him.”

Cahn was half right. The man was Hubie Synn, a New York accountant—a believer with a prophetic gifting. Synn had once told client David Tyree, a devout Christian and wide receiver for the New York Giants, that God was going to highlight his skills.

Synn’s word to the athlete was delivered several months before the 2008 Super Bowl, during which Tyree dramatically snagged an Eli Manning pass with his right hand, pressing the ball against his helmet. Footage of the stunning play became an Internet sensation, and ESPN SportsCenter dubbed Tyree’s catch “the greatest play in Super Bowl history.”

When Cahn realized that Synn was a fellow believer, the two began talking. “Then he began to prophesy over me,” Cahn says, “telling me that God was about to do something big.”

When Cahn later mentioned that he had been working on a book, Synn suggested that he contact Charisma Media founder Steve Strang, whom he knew for having published Tyree’s book, More Than Just a Catch.

Synn recalls being at the airport because his flight had been delayed and initially being reluctant to follow the nudging he felt by the Holy Spirit to speak to Cahn, because he was preoccupied with family concerns. “The way my gift works, I don’t really know what I say, it just blows right through me,” Synn says.

But when he bowed to God’s prompting and finished telling Cahn that an important book he had written would be published, Cahn told him he had been praying to know what to do about his book. “God literally answered his prayer right way,” Synn says, “because he opened his eyes and I was there.”

Cahn originally documented his revelatory findings as nonfiction but decided to rewrite and present them in story form to reach a wider, general audience intrigued by past-and-present mysteries such as The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure. “In the Bible, God uses images, symbols, stories and parables to convey prophetic messages or spiritual truths,” he explains.

But why would God choose Cahn to deliver the message of The Harbinger?

Cahn shrugs, cross-legged in the chair of his basement home office that looks out over a small lake. “He chooses the foolish things of the world,” he says. “At school I was known as ‘The Atheist.’ Perhaps that makes me the least likely person.”

Roth offers other reasons, pointing to Cahn’s prophetic gift, his rich understanding of the Old Testament as a Messianic believer, his proximity to ground zero and that premonition two years before 9/11 that something was going to happen. All of it makes him “a very unique person,” Roth says.

He also wonders whether Cahn’s personality—passionate but restrained, a combination Roth says makes him like “a kind John the Baptist”—fits him well to deliver such a sobering message.

With a thoughtful manner belying the intensity of his message, Cahn says that he is driven by love, not anger.

“If you see people who are in danger of calamity and you don’t warn them, and you say nice things to them and make them feel good, that’s not love,” he says. “If you love them, you will sound the alarm. You will plead with them and you will do everything you can, even if it costs you, to get them saved. That’s what love is.”

Click here to read Cahn’s article, “2012: America’s Final Warning?,” in which he writes about how he came across the harbingers, what it means for America and more.

Andy Butcher, an award-winning journalist, is the editor of Christian Retailing and former news director of Charisma.

{jcomments on}More than 2,700 years ago God gave ancient Israel a specific warning accompanied by nine symbolic signs of things to come if it didn’t return to Him. Those same harbingers of destruction are today reappearing—in uncanny detail—in America. Has God issued the same prophetic message for our nation of what is yet to come?

Is it possible that there exists an ancient mystery in which is hidden the secret of America’s future? Is it possible that this mystery lies behind everything from 9/11, to the War on Terror, to the crash of Wall Street and the global economy, to the Great Recession and more—even the words and actions of American leaders, including the president of the United States? And is it possible that this mystery contains a prophetic word—a message to America from God, a warning of national judgment?

It might sound like the plot of a science fiction novel or an Indiana Jones movie, but it’s real. In fact, it’s so real that it has affected and is affecting the course of our nation to this day.

The Nine Harbingers of Judgment
I was standing at the edge of ground zero in New York City when my attention was drawn to an object that would comprise the first puzzle piece of an ancient biblical mystery—a prophetic message known as The Harbinger concerning the future of America. A harbinger is a sign or foreshadow of things to come, an omen of warning. Before God judges a nation, He sends warning. He repeatedly sent warning to ancient Israel through the prophets. In 732 B.C., after years of calling Israel back—to no avail—God removed Israel’s hedge of protection and allowed its enemies to breach its borders in a devastating strike that would traumatize the nation. It was an alarm and a call to return to God.

Instead of heeding the call and responding with repentance, the nation responded with defiance. In Isaiah 9:9-10, the prophet recorded how the Israelites proclaimed a vow, saying “in pride and arrogance of heart: ‘The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.’”

What they were saying, in other words, was this: “We will not be humbled and we will not repent or return to God. We will continue in our course of rebellion. We will defy the hand of God and rebuild stronger than before.”

Israel’s defiance in the face of God’s repeated warnings sealed its fate. There then appeared in Israel nine harbingers of judgment—nine prophetic signs, alarms and foreshadows of what was to come.

Today America is the nation in rapid departure from God’s will. And God has likewise allowed America’s hedge of protection to fail and an enemy to breach its borders in a devastating strike that began on Sept. 11, 2001. It was, as with Israel, a nation’s wake-up call.

Yet America, like Israel, has not responded with repentance but with defiance. Long before the rebuilding began at ground zero, while the dust of the attack still hovered above the ground of devastation, a well-known American senator issued this call: “I believe one of the first things we should commit to … is to rebuild the towers of the World Trade Center and show the world we are not afraid—we are defiant!” Other key leaders—from the mayor and governor of New York to the president of the United States—offered similarly defiant proclamations, echoing the same sentiment boldly pronounced thousands of years earlier by ancient Israel’s leaders.

And now the same nine harbingers of judgment that appeared in the last of ancient Israel have reappeared on American soil. Four harbingers have manifested in visible detail at ground zero, two have manifested in Washington, D.C., and several involving the highest leaders in the land. Each harbinger contains a prophetic message. To reveal all the mysteries of The Harbinger would not be possible in an article—thus, I was led to put the revelations of the mystery into a book. But I will do my best here to touch on one of the nine harbingers and some of the other mysteries involved.

The Declaration of Defiance
As ancient Israel rose from the ruins of the first attack and calamity, the nation’s leaders uttered a specific series of words—the declaration recorded in Isaiah 9:10. These words would form a vow of defiance against God. This vowing, in the form of a prophecy, was the ninth harbinger—one that would seal Israel’s fate and lead to its destruction.

The morning after 9/11, this ninth harbinger reappeared after more than 2,000 years to America—on Capitol Hill. On that day, the Senate majority leader was to present the nation’s response to the calamity. He closed his speech with a proclamation, declaring the fateful words Israel’s ancient leaders had asserted 2,700 years before in the last days of that nation’s judgment—the exact same vow, word for word.

The Senate majority leader had no idea what he was doing. But in making this proclamation, he was declaring judgment on America. His words were prophetic. They would foretell the nation’s future—that America would follow the course of ancient Israel, a course carrying the gravest of consequences.

The Biblical Secret That Caused America’s Economic Collapse
According to the ancient mystery, if after the first calamity and warning the nation doesn’t return to God but responds in defiance, its response will end up triggering a second calamity. And that’s exactly what happened with America. In the days after the attack, the Federal Reserve sought to defy the effect of 9/11 by a series of actions that would slash the nation’s interest rates to extreme levels. This attempt to defy 9/11 would create an economic house of cards that would come crashing down seven years later.

In 2008, the government and the Federal Reserve would make a second fatal mistake, a decision that would collapse the American economy and lead to the Great Recession. Amazingly, this decision took place exactly on the seventh anniversary of the day when the ancient vow of defiance was uttered on Capitol Hill.

So, too, an ancient biblical mystery exists that actually ordained the day, even the hour, of the greatest collapse in this economic implosion—in fact, the greatest crash in Wall Street history. This mystery centers on the biblical Shemitah.

Every seventh year, the Shemitah, or Sabbath Year, would cause the land to rest. During that year all sowing and reaping, as well as buying and selling of the land’s fruit, would come to a standstill. But on the last day of the Sabbath year, the full force of the Shemitah would be manifested. On that day, the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Elul, all debts and credit would be released. Obviously, the Shemitah affected the nation’s economic and financial realms, wiping away its financial accounts and nullifying both credit and debt.

This Sabbath year of national rest was meant to be a blessing. But if Israel turned from God and drove Him out of its life, then the Shemitah would become a sign of judgment.

And that’s exactly what happened. As Israel departed from God, it was judged based on the Shemitah as the nation’s financial accounts were wiped away, as the land was devastated, and all sowing, reaping and trade came to a standstill.

In September 2008, the American economy collapsed. The peak of that collapse came at the end of September with the greatest stock market point crash in American history. When did it happen? On the ancient biblical calendar, it happened on the 29th day of the month of Elul, the biblical day of the Shemitah—the very day appointed by God to wipe away a nation’s financial accounts!

Seven years before that was the greatest stock market crash in American history up to that date. It was the crash caused by 9/11. When did that crash take place? On the 29th day of the month of Elul—the exact day of the Shemitah!

Thus the crash of 2001 and the crash of 2008, the two greatest financial collapses in Wall Street and American history up to the time of their occurrence, each happened on the exact same Hebrew day—the day specifically appointed in the Bible for the judgment of a nation’s financial realm—and the sign against a people who have departed from God.

America’s Mystery Ground
When judgment came upon ancient Israel, the calamity reached its finality when it touched and destroyed the ground of the Temple Mount. There was a reason for that. This was where Israel had been consecrated to God.

As a principle of judgment, destruction will often return to the very place where a nation was founded—its ground of consecration. This, in itself, is a sign or mystery of return; and for ancient Israel, God was calling the nation back to Himself.

What about 9/11? Could there also be in the American calamity such a mystery of return? Could there be a prophetic message hidden in the place where it happened?

History tells us that America’s first day as a fully formed nation was not in 1776, but actually April 30, 1789, when for the first time the nation and its government was led by a president. And on that first day, embedded in America’s foundation is a prophetic message—a warning spoken by the nation’s newly inaugurated president that is now coming to pass in our day.

After that warning was given, the president led the nation’s first fully formed government in its first act: to pray, to commit and to consecrate America’s future to God. The president and members of Congress proceeded on foot to the place especially chosen for this act. This was America’s consecration ground.

So where did this all take place? It happened at ground zero! In the days of judgment, the destruction returns to the nation’s ground of consecration. Ground zero was America’s ground of consecration. God was calling America, as He had Israel, to return to the foundation upon which it was begun and to return to Him in prayer.

What Does the Future Hold?
Two years before 9/11, I stood overlooking the Hudson River in a gathering of prayer for God’s mercy on New York. We had come together based on a prophetic sense that a terrorist attack would come to the city in future days. As I led the group in prayer, my focus was drawn to the two towers of the World Trade Center across the water. A deep sense came over me of things yet to come for America. It would not be long before it all began.

There is much more concerning the ancient mystery and what the future holds than I could possibly share here, but I do so now as a prophetic call first to God’s people. Our nation is in danger, and God continues to call. In His mercy He has sent warning to wake us up that we might return to Him. His will is that none should perish.

But if our nation is to avoid destruction, we, as God’s people, must be the first to respond. The call is this: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chr. 7:14, emphasis added).

As the people “called by His name,” we must intercede for our nation, for mercy, for repentance and for revival. And we must be part of that revival; we must be the first to repent. Now is the time to get our own lives right, to put away what must be put away and to rise to the calling God has given us. It’s time to shine the light of salvation and boldly proclaim the word of salvation.

Pray also that God would have His way with the message of The Harbinger for the salvation of the lost. We are the watchmen on the walls. We cannot fail to sound the alarm. We must sound it, that our nation may awaken … and the lost be saved.

Click here to read more about Cahn and his timely revelation in an in-depth feature by Andy Butcher.

Jonathan Cahn leads Hope of the World ministries and Beth Israel Worship Center, a congregation based in Wayne, N.J., that comprises people of all backgrounds, Jew and gentile alike. His teachings can be seen on television and heard on radio across the country and are known for being prophetically significant and for revealing mysteries from God’s Word. To contact him, write to Hope of the World, Box 1111, Lodi, NJ 07644.

An Ancient Puzzle Falling Into Place

Jonathan Cahn’s The Harbinger unveils a multifaceted mystery from ancient Israel being reenacted with chilling, uncanny replication in America today. Here’s a sampling of this gripping page-turner.

“And nobody realized that what they were doing was matching up with the prophecy?” I asked. “There was no one putting it all together?”

“No one,” he answered.

“It’s an exact, precise fulfillment of the ancient vow. It’s exact, and as if they’re highlighting it so you can’t miss it.”

“That’s the nature of a harbinger, Nouriel. It has to be made manifest.”

“They couldn’t have matched it any more precisely than if they had recited Isaiah 9:10 word for word. And nobody was trying to make it happen. They all just happened to do it?”

“Think about it, Nouriel. Who could have put it all together? The tower fell because of the terrorists. It happened to fall exactly as it did to strike down that one particular tree. The tree just happened to be a sycamore, which just happened to be growing at the corner of ground zero. The tree that would replace the fallen sycamore just happened to be given as a gift from outsiders who had nothing to do with anything else, but who just happened to feel led to give it. Their gift just happened to be the fulfillment of the biblical Erez Tree, which just happened to be the same tree spoken of in the ancient vow—the tree that must replace the sycamore. They just happened to lower it into the same soil in that the fallen sycamore had once stood—exactly as in the Hebrew of the ancient vow. And the man who led the ceremony around the tree just happened to bring it all together without knowing that he was bringing anything together. No one knew what they were doing. It wasn’t a matter of intent. It was the manifestation of the Harbingers.”

“It’s mind-boggling,” I said, “and another replaying of the mystery. They were all stepping into the ancient footsteps—and they thought it was their own.”

“It was their own,” he said, “but in the ancient footsteps.”

“Another piece of an ancient puzzle falling into place, another reenactment of an ancient drama … of judgment. It still seems like a movie. It’s still hard to believe that it’s all real, that it actually happened.”

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. —Daniel 6:10, KJV

What do you suppose was Daniel’s secret? It has to be said that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were exceedingly rare men. It is not every day that you meet someone who conveys the presence of greatness. I don’t know about you, but I have a peculiarity, in that whenever I am in the presence of one I deem to be truly great, I instinctively ask, “What is their secret?” I want to absorb anything I can.

What was Daniel’s secret? He saw the overthrow of Babylon and a new king. Now Darius the Mede was none other than Cyrus the Persian, the man who would one day allow Israel to return. Despite the change of government, Daniel continued to enjoy royal favor.

Whatever the reason, we know that Daniel was not a threat to the new king and there was  a real friendship. Real friendship is when there is no threat to each other. When you see one another as a threat, then there will always be tension.

The problem was that not everyone felt that way about Daniel. He had exceptional grace, and he so distinguished himself by his qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom; that was too much for his peers. Daniel knew, no matter what he did, they were out to get him.

It is at this point that we discover Daniel’s secret. It had something to do with God, and the most encouraging thing of all is that it was not his ability at the natural level, which no doubt was an ordinary secret. Prayer takes discipline, and Daniel had regular times of prayer. Extraordinary man but an ordinary secret; it is something anybody can do. Daniel simply loved God so much that he gave time to Him. We tell how much we care about another by how much time we give them. The secret of Daniel was not his intellect; it wasn’t his personality, his visions, or even his ability to debate—it was his prayer life.

Excerpted from The God of the Bible (Authentic Media, 2002).