Jonathan Cahn - The Harbinger Companion with Study Guide

In the beginning of this apostasy Israel joined the worship of other gods to the worship of God. But in time the transformation was complete, as the nation’s spiritual confusion turned into outright enmity and war against God and His ways.

By the time of her end Israel was hardly distinguishable from the pagan nations that surrounded her—except for one thing: Israel had not merely become a pagan nation, but a nation at war against the very foundation on which she was conceived, a nation in apostasy, a nation in spiritual schizophrenia against her own purpose and calling.

An Alien Nation

Israel had driven God out of its government, out of its culture, out of its national life. Israel had disregarded the Torah, the laws, the precepts, and ways of God. It had replaced the Lord with idols and worshipped and served the gods of other nations. It had descended into sexual immorality. It called good “evil” and evil “good.” Israel had offered up its children as sacrifices. It had persecuted the people of God, those who still held true to His ways. And now, as the Lord sent His warnings, Israel rejected them. It had become a stranger to God, even an enemy. And in rejecting His calling to save it, Israel would have no future but destruction.

The Heart of the Matter

What was the heart of this dramatic fall? It may be found in Ezekiel 16. Ancient Jerusalem is portrayed as a woman God had adorned with beauty and splendor, but she had become a harlot to her pagan neighbors, worshipping their gods and sacrificing her children to them.

Verse 15 says: “But you trusted in your own beauty . . . ”

Note the irony. When God blessed His people, they gloried in the blessings rather than in the One who blessed them, turning the blessings into potential curses that threatened the nation.

Put another way, God’s people forgot God’s love for them.

“Forgetfulness of God’s love is the source of all sins. Israel forgot her deliverance by God in the infancy of her national life.” 4What was true for Israel is true for us. If we forget God’s love that drew us to Him, we begin a downward spiritual and moral spiral, leading us to places we would never have chosen when we were walking with Him. If we trust in our own strengths, the very strengths He gave us, rather than in Him, they will fail us. Most importantly, a strong and loving God will seek our return, as He did with Israel, first with warnings and finally by removing hedges of protection in our lives.

God’s love for us, as for His people Israel, remains unconditional. If we turn from Him, in His love He will call us and remove anything that would keep us or lead us away, even the hedge that surrounds our blessings.

WEEK 2 EXPLORE and APPLY

Read chapter 3 of The Harbinger.

Read Genesis 12:3; Exodus 19:6; Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28; 2 Kings 17:5–23.

Explore

What made Israel unique among the nations?

How many things can you find about the foundation and establishment of Israel that were unique among the nations?

What was God’s will and calling for Israel?

How do you think a nation that was given so much at her foundation could fall away from knowing God and His ways?

How could Israel’s people have forgotten Him?

Why, what was it, that you think caused them to fall away?

Do you think it happened all at once or gradually? Why?

What significance does going after many gods and personal idols hold with regard to morality? Self-centeredness? Materialism? Sensuality? And why?

In what ways did Israel become just like the nations that surrounded it—a pagan nation?

The pagan nations had never known God. So can you think of any ways that Israel must have been a nation divided against itself, against its own foundations?

Why do you think the people of Israel ended up persecuting the righteous, those who remained faithful to God and His ways (like Elijah?) What was behind the persecution?

Why do you think most people in Israel refused to listen when God called them to turn back through the prophets?

What challenges did the righteous who lived in Israel in its days of apostasy have to deal with?

How do you think they dealt with it?

Spiritual Truths

What spiritual and practical truths can you find in the example of Israel once knowing God and His ways and then falling away?

How can these same truths be applied not just to a nation but also to an individual?

Based on these truths, what counsel, safeguard, hedges, and advice would you give to someone to help them never fall away from God?

Mission to Apply This Week

What steps (try to think of three) can you take this week and put into application in your life? Make this your mission for the week and write it down in the space on the following page.

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, “America’s Rise and Fall.”

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 3

AMERICA’S RISE and FALL

The City on a Hill

THE BIBLE SAYS that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34). We have seen how an ancient nation turned from righteousness to sin, from worshipping God to warring against Him. We now turn to a modern nation—America—one that was also founded on God’s Word for His glory. While America has not replaced ancient Israel, America was established after the pattern of ancient Israel and has followed in Israel’s apostasy from God. In this study we explore how this transformation happened and how it followed the dynamics of the ancient apostasy.

America’s spiritual foundation was laid by godly men and women, beginning with the Pilgrims and Puritans who left Europe in order to practice their biblical faith freely. Starting with the Mayflower Compact in 1620 and continuing with the chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, they labored to build a new civilization on biblical principles, dedicated to God’s purposes, a “city upon a hill,” in the words of Puritan leader John Winthrop. 1

And as America’s forerunners embraced the God of the Bible, so too did they identify with the people of the Bible and the covenant at Sinai.

After the Pattern of Israel

[They] believed their own lives [were] a literal reenactment of the Biblical drama of the Hebrew nation. They [saw themselves] as the children of Israel; America was their Promised Land . . . the pact of . . . Plymouth Rock was God’s . . . Covenant; [they] saw themselves as . . . a people chosen to build their new commonwealth in the Covenant entered into at Sinai. 2

The Pilgrims’ celebration of Thanksgiving came from the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot . 3The earliest legislation of the New England colonies was influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures. America’s first colleges, such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, were established to train ministers of God’s Word. 4Hebrew words or phrases often accompanied their emblems or seals. More than a century later, when the first design of the official seal of the United States was proposed, the motto around the seal read, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” The seal depicts the Jews crossing the Red Sea. 5