Harbinger: anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign (dictionary.com)
“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”
Isaiah 9:10
Looking back on biblical history we can see the effect disobedience had to the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 28 God tells Israel that if they obey the commands that He has given to them, God will bless them.
9 The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in obedience to him. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you. 11 The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. Deuteronomy 28:9-11
If the Israelites turned away from God and disobeyed His commands they would be cursed.
58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the Lord your God— 59 the Lord will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. 60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. 61 The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Deuteronomy 28:58-63
God had infinite patience with Israel and gave them many chances to turn back from their disobedience and follow Him. Israel ignored the prophets that warned them again and again to return to God. Finally God sent harbingers Israel as a final warning, but in their arrogance, Israel ignored the warnings.
America is following in the footsteps of Israel. America is the only other nation that was founded on biblical principles, as a Christian nation, and as long as we continued on that path, God blessed America. We were blessed more than any nation on earth, America was the leader of the free world. For most of our history we considered ourselves a Christian nation, and our leaders stood for those principles. As time has gone on we have started removing God from every aspect of our lives; from school, government, public institutions and public places. Anything Christian is mocked and abhorred. Is it any wonder that the blessings that America once had are leaving us. We have received the same harbingers of warning that Israel received, and we have chosen to ignore them and have arrogantly claimed that we will triumph under our own power.
God sent nine harbingers to Israel and America. In the next section, I will relate the harbingers that Israel received to the ones that we received. There is no way that this can be coincidence, the events line up in an eerie similarity. Only God's hand on these events could make them so similar.
“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”
Isaiah 9:10
THE HARBINGERS
The first harbinger is the breach. God had protected Israel throughout her history. Many times He had saved her from incredible odds, but now He removes the hedge of protection from Israel and she is attacked by the Assyrians in 732 B.C.
The United States has been the military superpower of the world. We are far superior to any other nation in the world. God has removed our hedge of protection and our breach came on September 11, 2001. For the first time, we were attacked catastrophically within our borders.
The second harbinger is the terrorist. Assyria were the terrorists of their day, they had the art of terror at its highest level. They were one of the most feared nations because they would kill their enemies in horrific ways. The Assyrians are actually the ancestors of Al Queda, the terrorists that breached our walls. The Assyrians spoke a language called Akkadian, the language is extinct but it developed over time into Arabic, the language spoken by Al Queda. So the two terrorists groups spoke a similar language while performing the same acts of terrorism.
The third harbinger is the fallen bricks. After the Assyrians attacked Israel there was a lot of damage to buildings and walls. Many piles of fallen bricks were all around Israel. The fallen bricks are a foreshadowing of the nation's future collapse. I don't need to remind you of the destruction caused by the falling towers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
The fourth harbinger is the tower. After the Assyrians attacked Israel, they vowed to rebuild even better and stronger than before. They did not repent and turn back to God, instead they proclaimed their defiance to God. They proclaimed that they would rebuild with hewn stone, a much stronger alternative than the mud and straw bricks that they had used previously. Hewn stone could also be built higher.
After September 11th it seemed that every leader was making proclamations of rebuilding. There was a lot of talk about building a freedom tower in the place of the twin towers, as a symbol of our defiance. We were talking about being defiant to our enemies, but we were really being defiant to God.
The fifth harbinger is the Gazit stone, or the hewn stone. This kind of stone is usually quarried out of mountain rock. After it was carved out of the mountain, it would be smoothed and shaped into a building block. The stone must then be transported to the site of the fallen bricks to be a part of the prophecy. Israel had stone hewn out of the mountains and brought back to begin their rebuilding. Now you are probably thinking that we don't build with granite, but with steel; but we did have a cornerstone of granite cut out of the Adirondack mountains and we called it the Freedom stone.
http://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/09/10/freedom-stone-ceremony-honors-non-uniform-911-responders/
The sixth harbinger is the Sycamore. When the Assyrians attacked Israel many of the sycamore trees were cut down and destroyed. The sycamore in that time was the ficus sycamorus, also known as the fig mulberry tree, a common tree all over Israel's lowlands. The uprooted sycamore trees are a foreshadowing of the uprooting of a kingdom. Now you are wondering what this tree could have to do with America, there are not a lot of trees in downtown Manhattan. As the north tower collapsed, it sent debris flying through the air. At the far northern corner of ground zero the debris struck down a sycamore tree.
http://neddybee.blogspot.com/2011/09/miracle-of-sycamore-at-ground-zero.html
The seventh harbinger is the Erez tree, or cedar. The sycamore was a common tree, not considered very strong. In their proclamation, Israel planned to replace the common sycamore trees with very strong cedar trees. Erez is usually translated as cedar, but it is really more of a conifer tree, a pinacea tree. Pinacea trees include cedars, spruce, pine and fir trees. The sycamore that had fallen at ground zero is removed and put on display as a symbol of the calamity. Now a new tree would need to replace the fallen sycamore. Instead of replacing it with another sycamore it is replaced with a pinacea tree, picea albies.
http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/news/articles/lighting-ground-zeros-tree-of-hope
The eighth harbinger is the utterance. The utterance is the proclamation of the vow in the capital city. The nation's leaders had to make the proclamation and speak the act of defiance. In Israel, the leaders made the proclamation of Isaiah 9:10 in Samaria, the capital city. Did this utterance take place in America? Yes it did. In 2004, John Edwards speech in front of the Congressional black caucus was built entirely on the vow of Isaiah 9:10.
Here is a link to the speech. John Edwards Speech.
The ninth harbinger is the prophecy. This harbinger is also verbal, but it is not about what is, but what is to come; a prophecy. The proclamation by Israel in Isaiah 9:10 is both a vow and a prophecy. On September 12, 2001, the day after the attacks Tom Daschle, the senate majority leader gave a speech. In the speech he quotes Isaiah 9:10, in doing so, he joined together America and 9/11 with the prophecy in Isaiah. In effect, he prophesied judgment on America. Tom Daschle's speech.
As you see how the events in America have mirrored those of Israel, you can see that America has been warned and we have stood in defiance of God's warnings. We are seeing the results of that defiance now with our failing economy and the disasters that have come upon this country since that date.
If you want to find out more go and check out the book The Harbinger, by Jonathan Cahn.
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