You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘religion’ category.
A church I used to attend once plastered pictures of Bono in their fellowship hall while promoting a food drive. My heart sank in dismay. It was discouraging because I knew the following information. Please read:
THE ROCK GROUP U2
by David Cloud
The following is from the latest edition of the 400-page Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, which is available in print as well as a free eBook from the Way of Life web site — http://www.wayoflife.org.
_____________________
U2 was formed in 1978 and has been hugely successful. The band was selected as Rolling Stone magazine’s Band of the Eighties and was still called “the biggest band in the world” in Rolling Stone’s December 2004 issue. U2 front man Bono was Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.
But U2 is much more than a popular rock band. U2 has a great influence in the emerging church and the contemporary worship movement. U2’s lead singer Bono is praised almost universally among contemporary and emerging Christians. Phil Johnson observes that “Bono seems to be the chief theologian of the Emerging Church Movement” (Absolutely Not! Exposing the Post-modern Errors of the Emerging Church, p. 9).
“Bono played a far more significant role on the formative years on those who became emergent than anyone else, from a human standpoint. Bono, in the 1980s, was, if not worshipped, then absolutely adored by millions of Christian youth who were hanging on his every word. They saw his cool kind of Christianity. He helped lead people into what eventually became the emerging church. Bono has led people into a version of Christianity that is so slippery, so undefinable, so liberal, yet he is considered the main icon of the emerging church” (Joseph Schimmel, The Submerging Church, DVD, 2012).
Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, says U2 has a prophetic voice to the world and says Bono is a prophet like John the Baptist (foreword to Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog).
Brian Walsh believes that U2’s lyrics should be used for seminary training and as commentaries alongside the Bible, and that U2’s concerts should be studied to see “how worship really happens in a postmodern world” (Get Up Off Your Knees).
Mark Mulder has taught a U2 course at Calvin College and he observes that the school shares Bono’s view that the world will not be destroyed but will be renewed (“Calvin College on U2,” Christianity Today, Feb. 2005).
Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo say that Bono is moving the world toward the kingdom of God and increasing the kingdom of God in the here and now (McLaren and Campolo, Adventures in Missing the Point, 2003, pp. 50, 51).
Bill Hybels interviewed Bono at Willowcreek Community Church’s Leadership Summit in 2006 and that interview has been shown in thousands of churches all over the world.
Rick Warren invited Bono to Saddleback Church to help launch his P.E.A.C.E. program.
Rob Bell testifies that the first time he really experienced God was at a U2 concert (Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, p. 72).
Emerging leader Steven Taylor calls Bono “a worship leader” and on his blog promotes “Seven Things I Learned from Bono about Worship Leading.”
Christianity Today almost worships U2. When Episcopalian ministers Raewynne Whiteley and Beth Maynard published “Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog,” Christianity Today responded with a review entitled “The Legend of Bono Vox: Lessons Learned in the Church of U2.”
In fact, U2 is no church and is destitute of spiritual truth when judged biblically. That U2 is wildly popular with contemporary Christians is a fulfillment of the apostasy described in 2 Timothy:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
U2’s Early Christian Experience
In their teenage years, Paul Hewson (“Bono”), Dave Evans (“Edge”), and Larry Mullen visited a charismatic house church called Shalom and made a profession of faith in Christ, but they have long since renounced any formal church affiliation.
U2 member Adam Clayton does not make any type of Christian profession, and in my opinion, he is the most honest of the four band members. At least he does not pretend to have faith in Christ while living a rock & roll lifestyle and denying the Bible’s clear teachings.
Bono, Evans, and Mullen admit that they wrestled with quitting rock & roll when they began studying the Bible. They chose to stay with rock & roll and have been moving farther and farther away from the Bible ever since.
Of that early struggle Bono told a Rolling Stones magazine senior editor: “We were getting involved in reading books, the Big Book. Meeting people who were more interested in things spiritual, superspiritual characters that I can see now were possibly far too removed from reality. But we were wrapped up in that.”
This idea of spiritually-minded Christians being “too far removed from reality” is a common smokescreen used by rebels to excuse their worldliness. The Bible says:
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4).
Bono mocks as “superspiritual” those who reject the things of this world to set their minds on heavenly things, but that is precisely what God wants His people to do.
U2 guitarist Dave Evans testified that he chose rock & roll over holiness:
“It was reconciling two things that seemed for us at that moment to be mutually exclusive. We never did resolve the contradictions. That’s the truth. … Because we were getting a lot of people in our ear saying, ‘This is impossible, you guys are Christians, you can’t be in a band. It’s a contradiction and you have to go one way or the other.’ They said a lot worse things than that as well. So I just wanted to find out. I was sick of people not really knowing and me not knowing whether this was right for me. So I took two weeks. Within a day or two I just knew that all this stuff [separating from the world] is ——- [vulgarity]. We were the band. Okay, it’s a contradiction for some, but it’s a contradiction that I’m able to live with. I just decided that I was going to live with it. I wasn’t going to try to explain it because I can’t” (Bill Flanagan, U2 at the End of the World, 1996, pp. 47, 48).
Note that Evans did not base his decision upon the Word of God. Contrary to Proverbs 3:5-6, he leans on his own understanding, and in accordance with 2 Timothy 4:3-4 he follows his own lusts.
In an interview with Joseph Schimmel, Chris Row of Shalom Fellowship, Bono’s former pastor in Ireland, said that Bono, Evans, and Mullen chose rock & roll over the Bible. He said that when Bono flew him to Los Angeles to perform his marriage, he wasn’t allowed to go backstage at a U2 concert because they didn’t want him to see the things that went on there (Schimmel, The Submerging Church, 2012, DVD).
There is no evidence in U2’s lives, music, or performances that they honor the Word of God. They have been at the heart and soul of the wicked rock & roll scene for over three decades. They are one of the most popular rock & roll bands alive today and this certainly would not be the case if they were striving to obey the Bible and live holy lives to the glory of Jesus Christ and if they were preaching absolute truth, the reality of heaven and hell, and salvation only through Christ’s atonement.
To the contrary, their lives have been anything but holy and their message anything but Scriptural.
U2’s Christianity
The members of U2 don’t support any denomination or church. In fact, they rarely attend church, “preferring to meet together in private prayer sessions” (U2: The Rolling Stone Files, p. 21). Sundays find them in a pub rather than in a pew. They are “not rabid Bible thumpers” (Ibid., p. 14). In the song “Acrobat,” Bono sings, “I’d join the movement/ If there was one I could believe in … I’d break bread and wine/ If there was a church I could receive in.”
One church Bono does attend from time to time is Glide Memorial United Methodist in San Francisco. “When he’s in the area Bono is a frequent worshipper at Glide…” (Flanagan, U2 at the End of the World, p. 99). Bono attended Glide Memorial during a special service to honor Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential election. Speaking at a meeting connected with the 1972 United Methodist Church Quadrennial Conference, Cecil Williams, pastor of the Glide Memorial Methodist Church, said, “I don’t want to go to no heaven … I don’t believe in that stuff. I think it’s a lot of – – – – [vulgarity].” A Jewish rabbi is on William’s staff. Williams was the Grand Marshall of the San Francisco Gay Pride parade and the chairman of his board was a homosexual. He has been “marrying” homosexuals since 1965 and says, “I have not married a single couple at Glide who weren’t already living together” (Williams, speaking at the Centenary United Methodist Church, St. Louis, quoted in Blu-Print, April 25, 1972). Long ago William’s church replaced the choir with a rock band, and its “celebrations” have included immoral dancing and even complete nudity. After attending a service at Glide Memorial, a newspaper editor wrote, “The service, in my opinion, was an insult to every Christian attending and was the most disgusting display of vulgarity and sensuousness I have ever seen anywhere.”
This is U2’s type of Christianity.
The book Bono on Bono: Conversations with Michka Assayas (Hodder & Stoughton, 2005) contains a wide-ranging interview with a music reporter that extended over a long period of time. Nowhere in this 337-page book does Bono give a scriptural testimony of having been born again, without which Jesus said no man can see the kingdom of heaven.
Bono says that he believes Jesus is the Messiah and that He died on the cross for his sins and that “he is holding out for grace,” but Bono’s “grace” is a grace that does not result in radical conversion and a new way of life; it is a grace without repentance; it is a grace that does not produce holiness. Nowhere does he warn his myriads of listeners to turn to Christ before it is too late and before they pass out of this life into eternal hell.
In fact, the only thing he says about heaven or hell is that both are on earth. “I think, rather like Hell, Heaven is on Earth. That’s my prayer … that’s where Heaven for me is…” (Bono on Bono, p. 254). It sounds like Bono has been listening more to John Lennon than the Bible, and in fact, he says that when he was 11 years old he listened to Lennon’s album Imagine and it “really got under my skin, the blood of it” (p. 246). On this album Lennon sang, “Imagine there is no heaven above and no hell below.”
The members of U2 do not believe Christianity should have rules and regulations. “I’m really interested in and influenced by the spiritual side of Christianity, rather than the legislative side, the rules and regulations” (Edge, U2: The Rolling Stone Files, p. 21). The Lord Jesus Christ said those who love Him would keep His commandments (John 14:15, 23, 15:10). The apostle John said, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). There are more than 80 specific commandments for Christians in the book of Ephesians alone, the same book that says we are saved by grace without works. Though salvation is by grace, it always produces a zeal for holiness and obedience to God’s commands, for we are “saved unto good works” (Ephesians 2:8-10). According to Titus 2, the grace of God teaches the believer to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
Bono says that the older he gets the more comfort he finds in Roman Catholicism. “Let’s not get too hard on the Holy Roman Church here. The Church has its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there … murmuring prayers, stories told in stained-glass windows, the colors of Catholicism–purple mauve, yellow, red–the burning incense. My friend Gavin Friday says Catholicism is the glam-rock of religion” (Bono on Bono, p. 201).
Though he speaks positively of Romanism, Bono has nothing good to say about “fundamentalism,” falsely claiming that it is a denial that God is love (Bono on Bono, p. 167) and calling it vile names (p. 147).
The problem is that Bono defines love by the rock & roll dictionary rather than by the Bible, which says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3).
U2’s Lifestyle
The members of U2 live in blatant contradiction to the reality of biblical grace. They are described in the following passages:
“They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1:16).
“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:5).
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
“He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).
The lives of the U2 rock stars exemplify their no-rules philosophy.
In 1992 “Bono was named premier male sexpot” (U2: The Rolling Stone Files, p. xxxvi).
Of sexual activity, Bono says: “You know, if you tell people that the best place to have [sexual activity -ed] is in the safe hands of a loving relationship, you may be telling a lie! There may be other places” (Flanagan, U2 at the End of the World, p. 83).
Bill Flanagan, a U2 friend who has traveled extensively with the group, in his authorized biography describes them as heavy drinkers and constant visitors to bars, brothels, and nightclubs. He says, “If I wanted to I could fill up hundreds of pages with this sort of three-sheets-to-the-wind [drunken], navel-gazing dialogue between U2 and me” (Flanagan, U2 at the End of the World, p. 145). Bono admits that he lives “a fairly decadent kind of selfish-art-oriented lifestyle” (Flanagan, p. 79). Their language is interspersed with the vilest vulgarities and even with profanity. Of basketball star Magic Johnson’s widely publicized sexual escapades, Bono flippantly and foolishly says: “Be a [sexual] machine, but for Christ’s sake use a condom” (Flanagan, p. 105).
Many of Bono’s statements cannot be printed in a Christian publication. The cover and lyric sheet to their Achtung Baby album contained photos of the band in homosexual drag (men cross-dressing like women), a picture of Bono in front of a topless woman, and a frontal photo of Adam Clayton completely nude. Bono said the band enjoyed dressing like homosexual drag queens. “Nobody wanted to take their clothes off for about a week! And I have to say, some people have been doing it ever since!” (Bono, cited by Flanagan, p. 58). Bono told the media that he and his bandmates planned to spend New Year’s Eve 2000 in Dublin, because “Dublin knows how to drink” (Bono, USA Today, Oct. 15, 1999, p. E1). Bono has simulated [sexual activity] with women during his concerts. Their concerts have included video clips portraying nudity and cursing. The band members have had serious marital problems and Dave Evans is divorced.
People magazine described Bono’s “nine-hour binge which left him brainless.” “The U2 star … got struck into beer, wine, cocktails and bubbly celebrating the American release of the band’s Rattle And Hum film. ‘He was slobbering, shouting and showing off,’ said a bartender at the Santa Monica niterie that hosted the bash. ‘Even the rest of the band told him to calm down. They should have been kicked out but because of who they are we let them stay…’” (People, Oct. 23, 1988, p. 15).
When asked about his position on homosexuality, Bono said: “My bottom line on any sexuality is that love is the most important thing. That love is it. Any way people want to love each other is OK by me” (Bono, Mother Jones magazine, May/June 1989).
At Wheaton College in 2002, Bono said, “It’s a remarkable thing, the idea that there’s some sort of hierarchy to sin. It’s something I can never figure out, the idea that sexual immorality is somehow much worse than, say, institutional greed. Somewhere in the back of the religious mind is this idea that we reap what we sow is missing the entire New Testament and the concept of grace completely” (“Backstage with Bono,” Christianitytoday.com music interviews, Dec. 9, 2002).
The Christianity Today reporter understood that Bono was saying that reaping what we sow is not a biblical teaching and is contrary to grace. In fact, the Bible plainly says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7), and that was stated in the very context of Paul’s teaching about grace. God’s grace through Christ is offered to all men, but its reception requires repentance and faith (Acts 20:21). Nowhere in the New Testament do we find Christ or the apostles fretting about “institutional greed” or rebuking the Roman government for its institutional sins, but the New Testament says a LOT about PERSONAL sin and sexual immorality! Most of the New Testament epistles warn about sexual immorality.
Appearing on the Golden Globe Awards broadcast by NBC television in 2003, Bono shouted a vile curse word. The incident was investigated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which deemed his language “profane” but decided not to fine the stations. Imagine an alleged Christian shouting such vile things on the public airwaves that he is investigated by the FCC!
In 2006 Bono said: “I recently read in one of St. Paul’s letters where it describes all of the fruits of the spirit, and I had none of them” (“Enough Rope with Andrew Denton,” March 13, 2006).
In October 2008, Fox News reported that Bono and rocker friend Simon Carmody partied with teenage girls on a yacht in St. Tropez. The report, which was accompanied by a photo of Bono holding two bikini-clad teenagers on his lap at a bar, said, “Bono, Carmody and the girls partied into the night on the yacht” (“Facebook Pictures Show Married U2 Singer Bono’s Rendezvous with Sexy Teens,” Fox News, Oct. 27, 2008).
U2’s Message
U2’s Christian supporters tout the band’s “biblical” lyrics as evidence of the reality of their Christianity. But U2’s ambiguous lyrics do not present a clear Christian message, and the few songs that do mention Christ typically do so in a strange, unscriptural manner. “The listener senses something religious is being dealt with but can’t be quite sure what” (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 172). They never preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in a plain manner so that their listeners could be born again. They pose moral questions in some of their songs, but they give no Bible answers. “U2 don’t pretend to have the answers to the world’s troubles. Instead, they devote their energies to letting us know that they are concerned and to creating an awareness about those problems” (U2: The Rolling Stone Files, p. 10). What a pitiful testimony for professing Christian musicians who COULD be preaching the light of the Word of God to a dark and hell-bound world.
Consider, for example, the lyrics to “When Love Comes to Town”:
“I was there when they crucified my lord/ I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword/ I threw the dice when they pierced his side/ But I’ve seen love conquer the great divide. When love comes to town I’m gonna catch that train/ When love comes to town I’m gonna catch that flame/ Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down/ But I did what I did before love came to town.”
This is typical of U2 songs. It intermingles thoughts about a girl at the beginning with thoughts possibly about the cross at the end, but nothing is clear. Listeners can interpret the ambiguous lyrics in a multitude of ways.
Consider the song “All Because of You” from U2’s 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. “I’m alive/ I’m being born/ I just arrived, I’m at the door/ Of the place that I started out from/ And I want back inside.” That’s a confusing, really meaningless message.
One of U2’s most popular songs even proclaims that they haven’t found what they are looking for. “You broke the bonds/ You loosed the chains/ You carried the cross/ And my shame/ You know I believe it/ But I still haven’t found/ What I’m looking for” (“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”).
This is a strange message for an alleged Christian rock band to broadcast to a needy world! They sing about Christ and the cross and then state that they haven’t found what they are looking for.
A Social Gospel
The group is active in political causes, but they are liberal, humanistic ones. For example, in 1992 they played a benefit concert for the environmentalist/pacifist group Greenpeace and joined Greenpeace in protesting against a nuclear power plant. One of their hits, “Pride,” is a tribute to the civil rights leader Martin Luther King; and in 1994, U2 received the Martin Luther King Freedom Award. King was an adulterous, theological modernist who taught a false social gospel. U2 supported the adulterous, abortion- and homosexual-supporting Bill Clinton in his 1992 run for president. Clinton conversed with them on a national radio talk show during the election campaign and met them in a hotel room in Chicago. At the same time they mocked George Bush during their USA concerts that year. They featured a video clip depicting Bush chanting the words to “We Will Rock You” by the homosexual rock group Queen. Members of U2 performed at Bill Clinton’s televised inaugural ball on MTV. Bono said he was glad that Clinton’s election was a victory for homosexuals (Flanagan, p. 100).
Bono’s passion in recent years has been AIDS and poverty in Africa. He has petitioned Western governments to cancel the debts of African nations and to increase foreign aid. While Bono does call upon African leaders to “practice democracy, accountability, and transparency,” he does not tie this in with foreign aid and does not put the blame of Africa’s AIDS and poverty problem where it truly belongs, which is government corruption, pagan religion, and its corollary, the lack of moral character and immorality. If the entire wealth of America, the United Kingdom, and Europe were transferred to Africa tomorrow, it would not result in significant and lasting change unless these factors were first addressed, and Bono’s plan does not significantly address them nor require any such radical systemic change. Instead, Bono puts the largest part of the blame for Africa’s ills upon the unfair trade practices of and lack of aid by Western nations and an alleged lack of compassion on the part of Christians.
Speaking before Wheaton College in December 2002, Bono said, “Christ talks about the poor [and says] ‘whatever you have done to least of these brothers of mine, you’ve done to me.’ In Africa right now, the least of my brethren are dying in shiploads and we are not responding. We’re here to sound the alarm” (Christianity Today, Dec. 9, 2002). Bono thus grossly misapplies Christ’s statement in Matthew 25:40, applying it to the unsaved in general rather than to the nation Israel. This is the Fatherhood of God heresy that Mother Teresa also held, that all men are the children of God regardless of whether they have faith in Christ. Further, if Matthew 25:40 is a reference to the unsaved in general, the apostles and early Christians failed miserably, for there is no record that they attempted to relieve the social ills of the Roman Empire in general. In fact, the context of Matthew 25:32-46 is immediately following the return of Christ at the end of the Tribulation, and it describes how Christ will judge the nations on the basis of how they treated His people the Jews, which will be so viciously persecuted during that period. Compare Revelation 7:4-14.
Universalism and a False Christ
Bono’s christ is a false one. He says he is “attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism” (U2: The Rolling Stone Files, p. xxviii). The Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible is not a pacifist. He is not anything like the adulterous Martin Luther King or the Hindu Gandhi. Christ did instruct His people not to resist evil in the sense of taking up arms for religious causes. When persecuted, we are to endure it (1 Cor. 4:12); but Christ did not teach pacifism. Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist, warned soldiers to be content with their wages, but he did not rebuke them for carrying arms as soldiers (Lk. 3:14). Before his death, Christ instructed his followers to provide swords for themselves (Lk. 22:32-38). Christ said he came not to send peace but a sword (Mt. 10:34). In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ will return on a white horse to make war with his enemies (Rev. 19:11-16). The Christ of the Bible is no pacifist and He did not establish a pacifist movement.
When asked by Mother Jones magazine if he believed that Jesus is the only way and if that excludes other people from heaven, Bono replied: “I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that fundamentalist concept. I believe–what is it? ‘The way is as narrow as the eye of the needle,’ and all that–But I think that’s just to keep the fundamentalists out. I never really accepted the whole ‘born again’ tag” (“Bono Bites Back,” Mother Jones magazine, May 1989).
For their Vertigo Tour in 2005, U2 promoted “Coexist” as an icon for world peace. Bono wore a “coexist” headband that featured the cross of Christianity, the crescent moon of Islam, and the star of David of Judaism and he led the crowds in shouting, “Jesus, Jew, Muhammad, it’s true; all sons of Abraham.”
Anti-Christ
Bono has repeatedly worn upside down crosses in his concerts, which are satanic anti-christ emblems. He has displayed the inverted cross while singing the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter.” He has worn it while singing the Rolling Stones’ vile song “Sympathy for the Devil” (Joseph Schimmel, The Submerging Church, DVD, 2012).
Bono has aggressively promoted the movies of the occultist Kenneth Anger. When Bono was considering establishing ZooTV to rival MTV, he envisioned it “as a window for the world to see the films of Kenneth Anger” (Bill Flanagan, U2: At the End of the World, 1996, p. 477). Bono told Details magazine, “Part of America’s dilemma is its TV because as a mirror it’s a pretty distorted one. I mean, where can you see Kenneth Anger films in the United States?” (“Turning Money into Light, Details magazine, Feb. 1, 1994). Anger, a homosexual who has “Lucifer” tattooed into his chest, wrote the foreword to Anton LaVey’s books The Devil’s Notebook and Satan Speaks. Anger exalts the occultist and moral pervert Aleister Crowley in the movie Lucifer Rising: Invokation of My Demon Brother. He promotes Crowley’s vision of a New Age world order called the age of Horus. Anger’s movie Invocation of My Demon Brother starred LaVey and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Anger joined Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page guitarist in trying to exorcise Crowley’s former residence in Scotland of what they believed to be “a headless man’s ghost.”
No Christ-loving, Bible-believing man would promote the work of Kenneth Anger, and I’m sure he would agree with that statement.
Bono even transformed himself into the devil in the ZooTV tour during the early 1990s. The devil, which he called MacPhisto, was an aging rocker who had sold his soul for fame. That certainly sounds like Bono.
Other quotations demonstrate that U2’s “spirituality” is not based on the Bible:
“Bono dislikes the label ‘born-again Christian’–and he doesn’t go to church either. [He says,] ‘I’m a very, very bad advertisement for God…’” (U2: The Rolling Stone Files).
“A U2 concert aims to raise people’s sense of their own worth. ‘It’s a celebration of me being me and you being you,’ as Bono once put it. The music soars and swirls but never bludgeons. … ‘I want people to leave our concerts feeling positive, a bit more free,’ says Bono” (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, p. 28). A celebration of me is exactly what rock & roll is at its most fundamental level, and it is a fulfillment of 2 Timothy 3:2. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves…”
“I believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose [an abortion]. Absolutely” (Bono, Mother Jones magazine, May/June 1989).
Beware When the World Loves You
U2 is exalted as “the biggest band in the world,” and they are praised by everyone from Christianity Today to Rolling Stone. The world loves U2, and that brings some Scriptures to mind.
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).
“I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:14).
“They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them” (1 John 4:5).
“And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19).
The world loves U2 because U2 is of the world, and the world recognizes its own. The love that Bono sings about is the world’s love. U2’s philosophy is the world’s philosophy. U2’s lifestyle is the world’s lifestyle.
Consider this line from the song “Vertigo” — “A feeling is so much stronger than a thought.”
Bono quoted this in an interview with the wicked Rolling Stone magazine, and it summarizes the rock & roll philosophy and its blind mysticism, which is to do what feels right regardless of what the Bible or some other authority says about it. The Bible says we are to live by God’s Word, but rock & roll says, “Live by your feelings.” The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, but rock & roll says, “Just follow your heart.” The Bible says we can only know God through the sound doctrine of His revelation in the Bible, through right thinking that comes by the right understanding of God’s Word, but rock & roll says, “Feelings are more important than thoughts.”
This is why the world loves U2, and this is why apostate Christianity loves U2.
How Do You Respond?
Posted on August 9, 2012 by reformednazarene
Scripture teaches over and over that we are to separate from error. We are told to “have nothing with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11). 2 Cor. 6:14 says to not be yoked together with unbelievers.
I am continually amazed, but also not surprised, at the fast pace of compromise in the Christian world, year after year. We are watching once solid leaders ignoring biblical principles of separation as they turn to hold hands with almost anyone who declares themselves Christian, in spite of clear evidence of apostate behavior. As Ken Silva points out in his recent article (David Barton Controversy), one leader after another is becoming involved in various joint ventures to unite all “Christians” with the goal of making the world a better place.
The latest compromise is the Under God Indivisible Leadership…
View original post 849 more words
[See also: Part I, The Christ Anointing and the Antichrist Spirit, Part II, Part IIIb and Part IV (Conclusion).]
…Cosmic humanism forms the basis of the New Age Movement and related religious expressions, particularly Eastern mysticism. It says that man is evolving toward a state of higher consciousness that will result in the attainment of godhood…
…Many have…adopted a form of cosmic humanism, believing that they are capable of achieving the same anointing of Christhood that Jesus had. Their beliefs are predicated upon a new Gnosticism which appears so very Christian as to deceive even the elect if possible. Through close examination, however, they are found in an error so serious that it threatens the stability of the churches in which these people fellowship and, in some cases hold positions of leadership.
– Albert James Dager, Vengeance Is Ours85
Occultists…
View original post 3,671 more words
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows (Galatians 6:7).
Very few things motivate us to give God our undivided attention like being faced with the negative consequences of our decisions. Regardless of our guilt, we find the courage (or nerve) to turn to God for help and oftentimes a miracle. We make promises to Him as if this would change His mind about our situation. Suddenly, we’re concerned for the welfare of others. We look for whatever leverage we can find to get God to do something on our behalf.
Many of us experience tension because we live daily with the painful consequences of sin. Mistakenly, we thought, hoped, or were told that once we accepted Christ, God would miraculously erase our consequences. With the daily evidence He has not taken away our consequences, some of us conclude we have not…
View original post 687 more words
by Mike Ratliff
3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (Matthew 19:3-6 NASB)
My wife and I attempted to eat at our local Chick-Fil-A here in Olathe, Kansas this evening in support of Dan Cathy in light of the completely biased or one-sided coverage of his interview statements as a Baptist in a Baptist publication about religious and theological issues. It seems…
View original post 1,492 more words
This is total blasephemy….and is conditioning people to bow down to image of the AntiChrist.
An estimated 6,000 pilgrims braved heavy rain to venerate the relic of St. John Vianney’s heart when it arrived in England in July 2012.
“This relic represents a call to the heart, a call to return to what must lie at the heart of the life our parishes declining or apparently flourishing in city, town and countryside,” Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury told pilgrims at Liverpool’s Cathedral of Christ the King on July 6.
Source: Ewtnnews.com
My comment:
It is almost impossible to understand, why Roman Catholics wants to bow and pray in front of a dead piece of rotten meat.
Why at all, cut a heart out of a corpse, put in in a box, and carry it around the World?
It is close to impossible to understand this, since Jesus of the Bible told us to pray in a totally different manner. He told us to go into…
View original post 698 more words
The Harbinger, the Inverted Tree, and Why Christians need to Discriminate very carefully between Prophecy and Speculation
by Jeremy James
Trinity Root : sculpture of an inverted tree outside Trinity Church on Wall Street
“The Sephirothic tree of the Qabbalah was therefore inverted…”- Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages
_______________________
The Harbinger
is a best-selling book by Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, published in January 2012. The publisher’s blurb on the back cover includes the following: Is it possible…That there exists an ancient mystery that holds the secretof America’s future? That this mystery is behind everything from 9/11 to the collapse of the global economy? That God is now sending aprophetic message on which America’s future hangs? Before its end as a nation, there appeared in ancient Israel a series of specific omens and signs warning of destruction – these same Nine Harbingers are now manifesting in America with profound ramificationsfor America’s future and end-time prophecy.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/98699045/The-Harbinger-The-Inverted-Tree-And-Prophetic-Speculation
Hidden in an ancient biblical verse from the Book of Isaiah, the mysteries revealed in
The Harbinger
are so precise that they foretell recent American events down to the exact days…the 3,000-year-old mystery that revealed the exact date of the stock market collapse of 2008…the ancient prophecy that was proclaimed from the floor of the US Senate and then came true…and more. The revelations are so specific that even the most hardened skeptic will find it hard to put down. Though it sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller –
it’s real
.***
Fact or Fiction?
The message of repentance in
The Harbinger
is immensely important. We should shout it from the rooftops. But there are serious problems with the way the message is presented. And if we remain silent about these problems, we are failing in our duty to examine prophetic warnings, from whatever source, in strict accordance with God’s Holy Word. Americans find it very hard to accept that their nation is not mentioned in the Bible, except as one of the many Gentile nations on the earth today. Any responsible theologian who claimed that it was mentioned would be expected to demonstrate his conviction in a sound scriptural manner, in accordance with accepted principles of Biblical exegesis. But Rabbi Cahn does not do this. Instead he expresses his opinion in a fictional format and so avoids the need for traditional, legitimate scholarship. He assumes that his readers will get caught up in the flow of the narrative and will choose to believe his thesis. This would be perfectly okay were it not for the fact that he, or at least his supporters, also want his thesis to be accepted as though its truth had already been demonstrated in a sound Biblical manner. But he can’t have it both ways.
Either The Harbinger is fiction or it is fact. Since he chose to publish it in a fictional genre he is not entitled to claim that his work is anything other than speculation.
Methodology
In his videotaped talk,
The Zohar Speaks (which can be viewed on YouTube), Rabbi Cahn refers to the following passage from the Kabbalistic book, the Zohar, but then proceeds to quote it in a very selective way, as we shall see: “In the Gulgalta sit thirteen thousand myriads of worlds which move on feet and lean on them. And from that Gulgalta dew drips upon Him who is outside, and fills his head every day, as it is written, My head is filled with dew
(Songs 5:2). And from that dew which He who sits outside shakes from His head, the dead will awaken in the World to Come, as it is written, For a dew of light is Thy dew, and the earth shall bring forth thes hades
(Isa. 26:19). That dew is the light of the pale glow of the Ancient One. And from that dew exist the supernal saints, and it is the manna which they grind for the righteous in the World to Come. And that dew drips down to the field of Sacred Apples…” Idra Rabba, Zohar 3: 128b
[Quoted in The Messiah Texts by Raphael Patai, Wayne State University, 1979]
He argues that the Gulgalta (skull) in the Zohar is a reference, albeit unwitting, to Golgotha (skull), the hill of Calvary where Christ was crucified. However, a plain reading of the text would strongly suggest that such an interpretation is completely unwarranted.
The Gulgalta of the Zohar is the skull or cranial cavity of the Kabbalistic godhead in which thousands of worlds exist and from which emanations project to support a messiah-type figure in the worlds below. Here is the text as quoted on YouTube by Rabbi Cahn (which I transcribed from the audio feed):“In the Gulgalta sit thousands of myriads of worlds. And from the Gulgalta drips dew and the dew fills the world and the dead will awaken in the world to come as the dew comes forth. The dew is the lights of the Ancient One. The light of the Ancient One comes from Gulgalta and as it touches the dead come to life. From Gulgalta is the light of God bringing life from the dead…”As you can see, the differences between the actual Zohar text and the one quoted by the Rabbi are significant. I am not suggesting for one moment that the Rabbi was deliberately misleading his audience in any way, but simply showing that he did not have full regard to what the Zohar was actually saying. In his eagerness to see a connection, he found one – just as he saw a connection between the tragic events of 9/11 and a solitary verse from Isaiah.
This kind of enthusiasm may be understandable in an evangelistic forum, but it should not be accepted as a substitute for sound scholarship and careful exegesis.
The So-called Secret Destiny of America
The book has caught the popular imagination, and is fêted by celebrities like Glenn Beck, because it treats America as a nation of Destiny, a nation that has been ordained by God to play a major part in His plan for mankind. Those who hold to this view –which has no scriptural basis – have actually adopted a belief that is central to Freemasonry. Few Americans today, including readers of The Harbinger, seem to realize that their country’s history and future development has long been shaped and planned by the ultra-rich elite who control Congress (which in Masonic symbology is regarded as a Temple), as well as other key institutions in American society. Here’s the proof. Most American Masons will have read, or will at least be familiar with, a work published in 1944 by Manly Palmer Hall. This highly influential scholar is widely revered as one of the greatest authorities on the Craft. His book, The Secret Destiny of America , which is little known outside of Freemasonry, sets out the remarkably ambitious plan that the top Masonic degrees have long been following for the United States. It is worth one’s while to persevere with the following excerpts from Hall’s book since they shed considerable light on what is really happening in America today:
America cannot refuse the challenge of leadership in the postwar world .Mere physical reconstruction of ravaged countries and the reorganization of political, economic, and social systems is the lesser task we will face. The larger problem and the great challenge is in how to set up a new order of world ethics firmly established on a foundation of democratic idealism…I dedicate this book to the proposition that American Democracy is part of a Universal Plan…Thousands of years ago, in Egypt, these mystical orders were aware of the existence of the western hemisphere and the great continent which we call America. The bold resolution was made that this western continent should become the site of the philosophic empire…And so it is from the remote past, from the deep shadows of the medieval world as well as from the early struggles of more modern times, that the power of American democracy has come. But we are only on the threshold of the democratic state. Not only must we preserve that which we have gained through ages of striving, we must also perfect the plan of the ages, setting up here the machinery for a world brotherhood of nations and races…Greek mythology perpetuates the knowledge of a blessed land beyond the Western Boundaries of Ocean. In this blessed land dwelt the Hesperides, the beautiful daughters of Night, and here also at the end of each day the sun came to rest. In popular mythology the Hesperic Isles were a kind of terrestrial paradise…By the wisdom then of those gods who are eternally vigilant over the needs of man, the blessed lands of the west were set apart, for none of the great civilizations of the past rose in North America to overshadow the continent with the ruins of old tradition, or to set up the corruptions of old administrative policy…The old seer [ Nostradamus ] refers to this country under several names. He calls it the Hisparides, the Blessed Isles of the West. In another place he simply names it America. And his third designation of it is, the Land Which Keeps the Thursday. This last form is the most astonishing. For it refers to the unique American holiday, Thanksgiving, which always falls upon a Thursday. And this the only holiday which depends upon the day alone for its observance…Franklin spoke for the Order of the Quest [ the secret society behind Freemasonry ], and most of the men who worked with him in the early days of the American Revolution were also members. The plan was working out, the New Atlantis was coming into being, in accordance with the program laid down by Francis Bacon a hundred and fifty years earlier. The rise of American democracy was necessary to a world program.- Manly P Hall, The Secret Destiny of America , 1944
Curiously, the “field of Sacred Apples” mentioned in the quote from the Zohar is the same as the “Blessed Isles of the West” mentioned by Hall and Nostradamus – where the “Hesperides” serve as guardians of the Sacred Apples. Hall also makes an unsettling reference to Thanksgiving (which falls this year on 11/22).Let’s summarize what Hall is saying here: America was long ago identified by the gods as the country through which a new world order would be established. The secret society system in Europe set it up with a view to covertly bringing the rest of the world into step with its agenda. This plan is not simply man’s plan, but a divine plan – a “Universal Plan” or “plan of the ages” – that is designed to create a “world brotherhood”. Under the benign supervision of “those gods who are eternally vigilant over the needs of man”, the plan is taking shape and the “world program” is coming into being. That’s the Masonic agenda. And since high-level Masons worship Lucifer, the plan is demonic in nature. Here is how Hall himself described Masonry: “Masonry is a university, teaching the liberal arts and sciences of the soul to all who will attend to its words. It is a shadow of the great Atlantean Mystery School, which stood with all its splendor in the Ancient City of the Golden Gates, where now the turbulent Atlantic rolls in unbroken sweep…When the Mason learns that the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply energy.”- Manly P Hall,
The Lost Keys of Freemasonry
(1923)
Christianity is seen as the enemy. It got in the way of Lucifer’s plan and forced the secret societies to be even more careful and secretive in pursuing their goals: “The rise of the Christian Church broke up the intellectual pattern of the classical pagan world. By persecution of this pattern’s ideologies it drove the secret societies into greater secrecy; the pagan intellectuals then reclothed their original ideas in a garment of Christian phraseology, but bestowed the keys of the symbolism only upon those duly initiated and bound to secrecy by their vows.”- Manly P Hall,
The Secret Destiny of America
( 1944)
Note that the secret society system adopts a ‘Christian’ face – “a garment of Christian phraseology” – in order to hide itself in plain sight. It also uses severe vows of secrecy to control its members and prevent information from leaking out.
Misusing Scripture
The Masons use their ‘Christian’ persona to hide the fact that they are steadily undermining traditional Christian values through the judicial system, socialist indoctrination, media propaganda, and in many other ways. They are also striving where possible to appropriate Biblical prophecy for their own purposes. British Israelism is part of this agenda, the belief that the aristocratic and elite bloodlines of both the United Kingdom and the United States are direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel and thus the ones that will inherit the promises made to Jacob and the Patriarchs in the Old Testament. Interpretations of Biblical prophecy which fit in with this agenda are highly esteemed by the Masonic fraternity. This has the dual advantage of giving a scriptural veneer to their “plan of the ages” while at the same time opposing the LORD’s will for Israel. The 9/11 ‘prophecies’ profess to find a connection between the sycamore tree which was uprooted in Wall Street and its symbolic return some years later in the guise of a garish street sculpture outside Trinity Church. The work, an inverted tree cast in bronze and known popularly as Trinity Root, was officially installed in 2005. It is significant therefore that Manly Hall refers specifically to the occult meaning of the inverted tree: The Mysteries taught that the divine energies from the gods descended upon the top of the Pyramid, which was likened to an inverted tree with its branches below and its roots at the apex. From this inverted tree the divine wisdom is disseminated by streaming down the diverging sides and radiating throughout the world. – Manly P Hall,
The Secret Teachings of All Ages
(1928)
The mediæval Qabbalists represented creation as a tree with its roots in the reality of spirit and its branches in the illusion of tangible existence. The Sephirothic tree of the Qabbalah was therefore inverted, with its roots in heaven and its branches upon the earth. Madam Blavatsky notes that the Great Pyramid was considered to be a symbol of this inverted tree, with its root at the apex of the pyramid and its branches diverging in four streams towards the base. – Manly P Hall,
The Secret Teachings of All Ages
(1928)
The inverted or Sephirothic Tree has been exalted by magicians and occultists for centuries. For example, the works of Robert Fludd, a magus in the court of Queen Elizabeth I, include a representation of this revered occult symbol – see graphic overleaf.
The Harbinger is thus a very welcome book from the Masonic viewpoint. While I am not suggesting for a moment that its author is familiar with the “plan of the ages” and the goals being pursued by the Masons and the Vatican, his fictional speculation about Biblical prophecy plays right into their hands. It is truly astonishing that so few Americans seem to understand the forces that control their country.
The Kabbalistic inverted Tree of Life or Sephirothic Tree,from Robert Fludd’s
Philosophia sacra
, 1626

To identify Isaiah 9:10 – “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars” – with the collapse of the Twin Towers is foolishness of a very high order. It hardly seems possible that so many Christian leaders could be taken in by this. Whatever happened to discernment? And without discernment, what hope is there for repentance? The verse in Isaiah that they should be studying is “Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word; your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed.”- Isaiah 66:5 Only the professing Christians of a truly backslidden, rebellious nation could be moved by the fate of a sycamore tree and yet not be drawn to repentance by the awful realization that – through their indifference and flagrant hypocrisy – they have allowed more than 50 million unborn children to be murdered in their country since 1973.
Jeremy James
Ireland
28 June 2012
The Lord has had me repent of pride in correcting a brother or sister many years ago. He showed me:
Romans 14:1-4 “Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. 2For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. 3Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. 4Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.”
As I prayed about the meaning of it, the Lord reminded me of how He restored Peter after He had denied Jesus. Remember that Peter had boasted in pride about his own faith that he would never abandon Jesus…
View original post 1,121 more words
A Commentary on The Harbinger: A Warning About The Harbinger
by Christine Pack
Source
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=8385
A book called The Harbinger is fast becoming a lightning rod issue among evangelical Christians, with many Christians saying it is exactly what America needs right now to “wake up” and repent, and come back to biblical truth, but other Christians documenting that Cahn quotes liberally from extra-biblical and mystical sources for his book. The cover of Cahn’s book (right) boldly claims that The Harbinger is an “Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America’s Future.”
Could this be true? Could it be that there are hidden truths that need to be decoded and unveiled to Christians today? And if so, for what purpose? Cahn seems to think so, and has written a book which proclaims just that. The Harbinger is a fiction book, and features a character known as The Prophet who is slowly giving seals to one of the main characters. These seals contain messages (nine in all) which are meant to be put together as clues in a mystery, so that a final, distinct message will emerge and be revealed. This message, once decoded, is intimated to hold the secret to bringing America back to its moral center and becoming once again a Godly nation.
I have many concerns about this book, and so I will address them one at a time.
Gnosticism
There is an exchange between two of the characters in The Harbinger who are discussing a secret message from a mysterious character (“The Prophet”) in the book:
“It’s the appointed time, but not for an ancient nation. It’s time for the word to be given…..for the mystery to be revealed…..for the message to go forth. It’s the appointed time⎯but not for an ancient nation.” (The Harbinger, p 13)
Friends, anytime you see language like this, and like the language below (also from The Harbinger)…..
¡ “ancient mystery hidden for thousands of years……but now revealed”
¡ a “mystery” that holds a “secret” to our future
¡ “clues” needed to “unlock” a mystery
¡ “messages” that need to be “unveiled”
……what you are dealing with is an ancient heresy called Gnosticism.
Gnosticism is a very old heresy that teaches that the truth has to be decoded, uncovered, unlocked, unveiled, discovered.
Secret Knowledge = Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a heresy because, according to God, we are given all that we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) in God’s word. We don’t need to decode secret mysteries, unravel sealed up messages, decipher clues, or pull back the veil on hidden things. All that we need, all that God wants us to know, is contained in the Bible. Now, I will grant that in the New Testament, Paul does talk about the mystery of Gentiles and Jews being united together in a common church and common faith (something that could have scarcely been imagined in Old Testament times). There is also the mystery of Jesus Christ, who was dimly glimpsed through types and shadows in the Old Testament, but Who was gloriously revealed in his fullness as our Savior in the New Testament. But these are mysteries which are laid open for all to see and know and understand and respond to, and not clues on a Mysterious Journey to Somewhere (which is really the more western understanding of the word “mystery”).
“I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.”(Isaiah 45:19)
As a former Gnostic, I found great comfort as a born again Christian in understanding that all that God truly wants me to know He has plainly revealed in his Word. I spent more than a decade of my life as a New Ager/Gnostic going from teaching to teaching to teaching. I lost track of how many conferences I went to, books I purchased, teachers and gurus that I sought out, all in an effort to find truth. My quest for truth was sincere, but truth proved to be surprisingly elusive to attain. By the time God saved me, I was weary. I was worn out. I didn’t have it in me to go after One More Thing. All I could think of at the end was that I wanted rest, just a little bit of rest, from all my fruitless searching. The Lord, in his infinite mercy, gave me rest by rescuing me out of the mire of man-made wisdom and giving me the elegant simplicity of his Word. There is such a lovely purity and clarity in knowing that I can rest securely in the knowledge that all that God wants me to know I can find in the Bible.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
If you are unfamiliar with the heresy of Gnosticism, please listen to Phil Johnson in this in-depth discussion of what Gnosticism is, and see if you don’t come away from that talk thinking of The Harbinger.
Fiction? or Fiction Masquerading Itself as Fact?
Much like William P. Young’s troublesome book The Shack, The Harbinger also has a fictional character who is teaching things that are contrary to Scripture, but which the author wants to claim as truth. Of course, when pressed on the biblical problems with the teachings, both Young and Cahn have resorted to saying, But it’s only a fictional character! The problem with this is that Young and Cahn both personally believe what they have written, and are seeking to teach a wide audience of readers what they believe to be true, while hiding behind the label “Fiction.”
The Truth About America’s Future
The truth about America’s future (and the future of all nations, for that matter), is that God holds the future in His hands. Yes, we should pray, we are commanded and exhorted to pray, but ultimately, we know that our sovereign Lord will work all things together for the good of those who love him and for HIS own purposes (Romans 8:28). And sometimes, in God’s sovereign wisdom, this means that He will allow countries to fall, and nations to topple. Even, that is, nations that He has used in a mighty way to proclaim his truth to the world. I certainly do not desire to see America fall, and I pray for the leaders of this country, but at the same time, we know from the Bible that God has often used times of distress and difficulty as a means of chastening and disciplining his people.
“The kingfs heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” (Proverbs 21:1)
When I was a fairly new Christian, I came across a resource called James Ussher’s Chronological Chart of History that helped steady my thinking in this regard. James Ussher was a 17th century Anglican bishop who painstakingly charted out the bloodline from Adam and Eve to Jesus. His chart features the Biblical timeline going across the top and the corresponding world history underneath it. It’s so amazing to look at this chart, and see God’s hand sovereignly guiding all of human history. Below the scarlet thread of Jesus’s bloodline, you see nations and kings rise and fall, rise and fall, but above it all, God’s bloodline marches steadily onward toward the fulfillment of his purposes.
As Americans, we tend to think that we are so mighty, the greatest nation on earth. Well, when you look at Ussher’s timeline, you realize that ALL these kingdoms once had their day in the sun, but where are they now? Egypt was once the mightiest nation in the world, known for the architectural magnificence of their awe-inspiring pyramids, and for taming the Nile River. Babylon, known for their acclaimed Hanging Gardens, and brilliant military campaigns led by Nebuchadnezzar. Rome, their amazing Roman roads and contributions to education and government. Where are they now? Some of them are still around, but do they rule the world? Looking at this chart is truly humbling, and it brings the deeper realization that all that is here will be one day be burned up and destroyed, when God himself creates a new heavens and a new earth. No government that exists here on earth – not even America – will be reigning in that Kingdom to come. But this is not bad news, this is glorious, good news, that should gladden the heart of all who truly love God and bend the knee to his sovereign will and purposes.
As far as America goes, all people everywhere are commanded to repent and believe on Christ for the forgiveness of sins, but that is not the basic message of this book. This book teaches that there is a secret message encoded in the Bible that needs to be decoded to be understood, and if we will only buy this book and decode this message, then we can bring America back. But as I wrote above, this is the heresy of Gnosticism. Our country does not need a “special” Gnostic teaching to tell us what we already know about repentance, salvation and the forgiveness of sins. In fact, I tend to agree with John MacArthur (When God Abandons A Nation), that when we look around us, we don’t need to wonder, will we be judged? because we are already under judgment. First came the sexual revolution of the 60s/70s/80s (Romans 1:24), then came the homosexual revolution (Romans 1:26-27), and next comes the debased mind (Romans 1:28). We are following the trajectory laid out in Romans 1, and where we are indicates not a country that is basically good and can come back to its moral center, but a country that has been given over to its depravity. So we can churn out book after book about “taking back America” and “reclaiming America” (including Jonathan Cahn’s The Harbinger), but in my opinion, America is past the tipping point. True Bible-believing Christians are in the minority in this country, and a minority is never going to reclaim a culture. We need to proclaim the gospel and snatch the few that we can from the flames.
Jonathan Cahn’s Extrabiblical, Mystical Sources
“An incredible thing, it blew me away, I found it in the mystical writings, Jewish writings, of the Zohar*….” Jonathan Cahn, discussing extra-biblical, mystical writings as his sources.
* Please note that Zohar is an extrabiblical, mystical source from which the occultic and mystical Kabbalah is derived.
The Zohar Speaks
Jonathan Cahn | Myspace Video
Jonathan Cahn Goes on Glenn Beck’s Show To Discuss How To “Save A Nation”
Harbinger author Jonathan Cahn joined Mormon Glenn Beck for two segments of Beck’s June 26/June 27 programs, and said the following things about The Harbinger:
“The Harbinger is a two and a half thousand year mystery that lies behind everything.”
“The message of The Harbinger is not to condemn, it’s to wake up and it’s to call back. This is I believe coming out now for a reason, it’s to save a nation, and to turn back.”
“We can’t maintain our blessings without God…..America is blessed as much as America follows God. If America does not follow God, you cannot expect the smiles of heaven.”
Once again, a Gnostic teaching about a “mystery” that has to be decoded, and a call for America to turn back to God. But, why is Jonathan Cahn, who is a Christian pastor, linking with a Mormon (Glenn Beck) in order to proclaim his message? Christians and Mormons do not worship the same God, and for Cahn to appear with Mormon Glenn Beck and for the two to discuss God and America turning back to God can only serve to send a very confusing message to the world about who “God” is.
Conclusion
Does The Harbinger hold clues to helping America find her way back God? In my view, Jonathan Cahn’s book is “hooking” those Christians in America who are burdened over the rising tide of immorality in our country, and who desire for America to repent and come back to the Lord. This is not a wrong or wicked desire…..it’s just that, it might not play out that way, in God’s sovereign plan. And this desire can become problematic, especially when Christians begin linking with non-Christians (as Jonathan Cahn did with Mormon Glenn Beck) in an effort to force those desires to come to fruition.
“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)
DiscernIt 
Recent Comments