Jonathan Cahn - The Harbinger Companion with Study Guide

WEEK 10 EXPLORE and APPLY

Read chapter 19 of The Harbinger.

Watch or listen to the accompanying resource The Mystery Ground DVD or CD from The Harbinger: The Full Revelation eight-disc album.

Read 2 Chronicles 5:1–5; 6:3–4; 6:15; 6:28–30; 36:11–19.

Explore

What was the significance of the Temple to ancient Israel?

How was the Temple both the place of Israel’s consecration to God and its judgment by God?

At the Temple’s dedication, what did King Solomon foretell?

At its dedication, how did Solomon intercede for Israel?

How was the Temple’s destruction both an act of judgment and mercy?

When the Temple was finished and dedicated, the nation of Israel was complete, having assumed its completed form. When was America’s form as a nation completed?

How many parallels can you find between Israel’s dedication day and America’s?

What was the prophetic warning that America’s first president gave to the nation on that first and critical day?

What are the “smiles of Heaven”?

What did George Washington mean when he spoke of a nation disregarding the eternal rules of right and order “which Heaven itself hath ordained”? What are those eternal rules?

How is this coming true in our day—a nation disregarding the eternal rules of heaven?

How are we seeing the smiles of heaven disappearing?

What was the first act of the first fully formed American government?

On America’s first day as a fully formed nation, what was America’s capital city where this all took place?

Where was America’s future on this day consecrated to God? What is the nation’s consecration ground?

What structures stood on the adjoining field of St. Paul’s Chapel, also part of the church’s land?

We discussed the ancient principle of calamity returning to a nation’s ground of consecration. How did this principle manifest on September 11, 2001?

What harbingers manifested on America’s consecration ground?

On 9/11 a shock wave went forth from Ground Zero and struck Federal Hall. For what is Federal Hall significant? (You may have more than one answer to this.)

What object in New York City marks what happened at Federal Hall in 1789?

The shock wave of 9/11 put a crack in Federal Hall, the nation’s foundation. What might such a thing signify?

What was “the miracle of 9/11”? And what might that signify?

What object is believed to have caused “the miracle of 9/11”? And why is that object significant?

Spiritual Truths

The Harbinger protected and saved the place where America was consecrated to God. What insight into the purpose of the harbingers does this give us?

In Hebrew the word for “repentance” is teshuvah , and it means both repentance and return. The events of 9/11 caused America’s focus to return to the place where America was dedicated to God at its beginning—a return to the foundation. What kind of return would this signify, and what might the call of God be saying to America?

Mission to Apply This Week

Is there a “place” in God, a higher ground where you once stood, a time when you were closer to Him, or more in His Word or in prayer, more pure of heart, or a time when He was more your “first love” than now?

Is God calling you to return in some way to your first love, to the simplicity of your faith in Him, and to the joy of His love and presence?

If so, what steps can you take this week to begin your journey to where you need to be in the Lord? Write them down in the space provided, and make them your mission for this week.

Take time now to commit this to God and pray for His help and anointing.

Seal this commitment in prayer (individually, in small groups, as a class, or congregationally).

Prepare for next week (groups only): This week read, go over, and explore the next chapter, “What Lies Ahead?”

Write Down

1. Your thoughts, notes, and insights

2. What you believe the Lord is calling you to do

3. Your mission for the days ahead

Chapter 11

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

What Happened to Ancient Israel

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN a nation ignores the warnings of God and the call to return? What happened to ancient Israel? What happens to nations that return to God? What about America? What does the future hold? This chapter explores the biblical principles and patterns concerning the judgment or redemption of nations and peoples and the revelation it holds for America.

As we have seen, when the people of Israel’s northern kingdom fell into apostasy, God repeatedly called them to return. The very words of the Torah, spoken through Moses to their ancestors in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, were His first call and His foretelling future calamity if they failed to repent. When they ignored those words, God sent His prophets to confront the nation face-to-face with its transgressions. Even then the people and their leaders refused to listen, hardening their hearts to His message and persecuting the messengers. God finally allowed Israel’s enemies to breach His protective hedge around the nation, causing significant damage.

Yet as we saw, the damage was limited. Even in judgment God was calling the nation to wake up, turn from its self-destructive course, and be reconciled to Him.

Isaiah 9:10 was the nation’s defiant answer to God’s final call. Verse 11 describes the beginning of the tragic consequences of that defiance, the nation’s progression to judgment:

Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him and spur his enemies on.

The answer continues in the verses that follow:

And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.

For all this His anger is not turned away,

But His hand is stretched out still . . .

The land is burned up . . . .

What will you do in the day of punishment,

And in the desolation which will come from afar?

To whom will you flee for help?

—ISAIAH 9:12, 19; 10:3

Thus, Isaiah 9:10 leads to a prophecy of national destruction, fulfilled when the Assyrians returned, laid siege for three years, and destroyed the northern kingdom in 722 BC and exiled its people.

What Lies Ahead for America

We have seen in America’s story the same patterns of apostasy, initial warnings, and a further warning through the limited calamity of 9/11. We have seen how all Nine Harbingers of Israel’s coming judgment, including all that is contained in Isaiah 9:10, have been manifested in America. We have also seen how, in the years since 9/11, America, like ancient Israel, failed to return to God’s ways but responded in defiance, and how seven years later there came a second shaking of the nation.

If America continues on its course away from and in defiance of God, what lies ahead?

The Bible reveals several patterns of judgment but involving a consistent course. The nation’s blessings are removed by means of the sword (i.e., war), destruction, violence, or division. The pattern also involves famine (i.e., lack, want, deprivation, the removal of prosperity, impoverishment). Judgment can involve natural disaster, man-made disaster, terrorism, internal division, the collapse of a nation’s infrastructure, decline, and fall.

In the case of a nation so blessed as has been America, it would certainly involve the removal of these blessings. And in the case of a nation given the position of “head of nations” economically, financially, culturally, politically, and militarily, it would also involve the removal of this crown. Thus, if America does not turn back to God, we can likely anticipate the end of history’s American age.