It is rare that anyone ever writes a scathing book review while strongly favoring the topic of discussion within its pages, but here we are.
Some of you may have seen this work by Jonathan Cahn advertised on TV or in various Christian periodicals. It’s been out since January 3, 2012 and was the best-selling Christian book of 2012.
Some of you may have even read this book.
If you have not read it, I’m going to state emphatically that it is probably better that you don’t waste your time reading The Harbinger. Not because of the subject matter, but because of how the book subtly discredits the actual revelation that Cahn has somehow managed to stumble upon.
Simply put, The Harbinger is about America and Isaiah 9:10, which reads:
The bricks have fallen, but we will build with dressed stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.
From a glance, it’s hard to imagine how Cahn manages to correlate the above verse with 9/11, the 2008 Stock Market Crash, and other historical events—both recent and ancient—in American history. But that is what is most profound about Cahn’s revelation: he manages to connect prophetic, political, and historical dots with hair-raising accuracy.
In other words, it’s virtually impossible to refute his claims and discoveries.
This is why it’s so frustrating to have to write such a negative review of a book centered around this ever-important subject.
Without going into much detail, I will tell you that I was quite bitter after finishing the 272-page read. Not because of his revelation, but because of the way he portrayed it in literary form.
I saw him in an interview one day and was intrigued with his message, so I purchased the book thinking it would go into much more detail—which it did—but it also played out like a cheap knock-off of the film National Treasure.
Instead of saturating the pages of his book with hard data and a factual style of writing, Cahn insisted on insulting the reader’s intelligence by creating a novel—complete with fake characters, mystical seals, and mysterious modern-day prophets who suddenly appear and disappear at a moment’s notice throughout the story.
I’m not sure why Cahn decided to butcher his captivating revelation with such fictional nonsense. Maybe he thought that he had landed on something so big that it was perfectly acceptable to turn much of it into a fabled adventure for shallow-minded people.
Who knows…
For some reason, many American Christian leaders have a real problem with being real. It seems that they think their teachings will resonate with the masses more if they lace their messages with gimmicks and commercialism.
Unfortunately, Jonathan Cahn’s book is no different—which is sad because his message is such an important one.
Fortunately, there is good news for us realists who are not duped by commercialism: Cahn has also produced a DVD documentary on the subject, which does what his book should have done.
I would strongly recommend his DVD documentary in place of the book seeing that it focuses on all the factual elements of his message while disregarding the fictional fluff that should have never been printed in the first place.
You can also find numerous YouTube videos of him being interviewed regarding The Harbinger, but I will warn you that the interviews are purposely geared to highlight only certain aspects of his revelation, so as to prompt the viewer to spend money on his finished product. Think commercialism.
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash
- Is the KJV Really God’s Choice? A Brief Look at the Anglican Scriptures - December 28, 2020
- Book Review: “The Harbinger” by Jonathan Cahn - October 3, 2020
- The Media’s Uncivil War - August 4, 2018
