AMERICA’S FINAL WARNING!
ISAIAH 9:8-13
8 The Lord has sent a message against Jacob;
it will fall on Israel.
9 All the people will know it—
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—
who say with pride
and arrogance of heart,
10 “The bricks have fallen down,
but we will rebuild with dressed stone;
the fig trees have been felled,
but we will replace them with cedars.”
11 But the LORD has strengthened Rezin’s foes against them
and has spurred their enemies on.
12 Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west
have devoured Israel with open mouth. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.13 But the people have not returned to him who struck them,
nor have they sought the LORD Almighty.
· Israel had back slidden, turned from God. God sent a warning through an incursion across Israel’s border by the Assyrians. They dealt Israel a humiliating blow.
· Israel responded not by repentance and turning to God but by defiance
· God sent Israel 8 Harbingers of Divine Judgment -
· "A harbinger is a sign, an omen, or a foreshadow of something that is yet to come. It is an ominous warning of judgment that is coming.
The following are prophetic words given to Jonathan Cahn.....
1. THE FALLEN BRICKS
The newspapers rolled: “Acts of War,” “A Day of Infamy,” “Who did this?” “Terror’s Toll,” “Nightmare,” “Freedom Under Siege,” “Under Attack,” “Second Pearl Harbor,” “The Day That Changed The World.”
There has been no event that has touched the United States and the world more indomitably than the attacks of September 11th, 2001. As the images of the smoke, dust and death gorged the airwaves, the descriptions of devastation penetrated every media source.
Only sources with archives of the devastation of World War II had comparable images. Berlin, London, Nagasaki, Kassel, Hiroshima, Dresden, Rouen, Naples. Images of earlier holocausts. These cities today, a generation later, reveal little of their broken past, their fallen bricks. But the bricks of Ground Zero in Manhattan were reduced to ash, with little more than dust and metal to recover. Is there a different message in these fallen bricks?
2.WE WILL BUILD
On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, as a transfixed nation and world waited and wondered. Expectation was high for answers and outrage: it came in through the airwaves in the Joint Response of the Nation on the Senate floor in Washington, DC. Representing the Congress and the nation and by authority as majority leader, Senator Tom Daschle addressed the world.
Senator Daschle the morning of September 12th, 2001 can be read as they had been spoken:
“Mr. President, it is with pain, sorrow, anger, and resolve that I stand before this Senate, a symbol for 212 years of the strength of our democracy, and say that America will emerge from this tragedy, as we have emerged from all adversity, united and strong…
….The world should know that the Members of both parties in both Houses stand united. The full resources of our Government will be brought to bear in aiding the search and rescue and in hunting down those responsible and those who may have aided or harbored them.
Nothing, nothing can replace the losses that have been suffered. I know there is only the smallest measure of inspiration that can be taken from this devastation. But there is a passage in the Bible, from Isaiah, that I think speaks to all of us at times such as this:
The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars. That is what we will do. We will rebuild and we will recover. The people of America will stand strong together because the people of America have always stood together. And those of us privileged to serve this great Nation will stand with you.”
If there are any acceptable uses for a misapplication of Scripture, it is clear from the text that Isaiah 9 is not one. The heart of the message speaks specifically to the consequences of an improper response to a first judicial incursion. The illustration is a rebuke for lace of contrition and pompousness of will.
Of over 31,000 verses in Scripture, the Isaiah 9:10 verse would become, for those in governmental authority, the flagship verse of the Nation and be specifically spoken by four other prominent politicians [that are in public record and related to this event].
In the years following the 2001 event, each of the five leaders in the line of Presidential Succession for the former and current administrations would follow the resolve of the majority leader’s precedent with a pledge to rebuild from this event, apparently unaware of Isaiah 5.
3. BIGGER AND BETTER
On the day of the 911 tragedy, Rudy Guiliani, the mayor of New York City punctuated the resolve of the city. "We will rebuild: We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again."
Seton Hall University Professor A.D. Amar - “America will rise out of it. We will build new Towers, larger than the ones we lost to these cowards.”
4. THE HEWN STONE
The first stone to be used in the construction of the 1,176 ft. Freedom Tower was hewn from New York granite and lowered by crane in a ceremony on July 4, 2004.
Governor George Pataki of New York presided:
"Today is indeed, a momentous day. Today we take 20 tons of Adirondack granite - the bedrock of our State - and place it as the foundation, the bedrock of a new symbol of American strength and confidence. Today, we lay the cornerstone for a new symbol of this city and this country and of our resolve in the face of terror. Today we build the Freedom Tower.”
5. A SPIRIT OF DEFIANCE
Repeatedly Scripture and commentaries record defiance as the highest insult against the Most High God. Senator John Kerry, in his statement before the United States Senate on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 remarked:
“…And I believe one of the first things we should commit to - with federal help that underscores our nation's purpose – is to rebuild the towers of the World Trade Center and show the world we are not afraid - we are defiant.”
On the day the cornerstone was laid, then New York Governor, George Pataki again insisted:
“Today, we the heirs of that revolutionary spirit of defiance, lay this cornerstone.”
6. THE SYCAMORE
The Bible records the sycamore tree as being a sign of judgment. It even says in Egypt the sycamore tree was struck down as a sign of judgment.
On September 11th, a freak event happened in the devastation: a steel beam from the North Tower was hurled from the sky. As the Tower fell, it went through the air and struck down an object: it was a tree.
The next day [when] the people returned to Ground Zero, they found a tree lying on the ground, pierced by the beam of a falling Tower. There, at Ground Zero was a sycamore tree – struck town…after the tree of Isaiah 9…a harbinger of judgment…’the sycamore has fallen’…
…and strange, eerily, the people made a display of it, not realizing what it was in the Bible… and put it on display, its roots exposed…not realizing, as if to draw more attention to the sign. And a sculptor was commissioned to make a cast of it. He poured metal into the cast: he cast it into bronze, the Biblical metal of judgment…an image of the fallen sycamore to be displayed on Wall Street.
The significance of the bronze sycamore root sculpture is chilling. In May, 1792, twenty-four stock brokers met underneath a sycamore tree on Wall Street in New York City. The Buttonwood Agreement would be birthed as the golden calf of commerce, the bull of the New York Stock Exchange, but would be delivered, uprooted and cast in bronze.
This memorial on Wall Street would come to represent the riches of a nation uprooted, overturned, judged and displayed in bronze:
7. THE CEDAR
On the same Ground Zero, you had three [physical SIGNS] of the harbingers. But there’s one more, there is the cedar tree, the seventh harbinger is the cedar tree, the arez tree….’the sycamores are fallen but we will put cedars in their place...’
…Two years after September 11th …a strange site was seen on Ground Zero, a crane, a different crane, was lowering a different object… the object was being lowered to a place where there had been a hole in the ground, it was being laid over the place where the fallen sycamore tree had been struck down...It would have been natural to replace the sycamore tree with a sycamore tree, but the Scripture says ‘we will replace it with an arez [cedar] tree…The object lowered was an arez tree, a conifer tree, the same as the cedar of Lebanon…
8. THE VOW OF ARROGANCE: IMPENDING JUDGMENT
The words of the rulers in the wake of destruction.
At the end of November of 2003, the tree came down to replace the sycamore. Seven months later, the quarried stone came down on the ruins of Ground Zero…..two months after that was complete, there was a Presidential election and the Democratic candidate for Vice President was John Edwards.
He was speaking in Washington DC at a gathering, it was September 11th, the third anniversary of the devastation. And since it was a prayer breakfast he chose a Scripture which he linked to the events of September 11th. These now are his words on September 11th [of 2004]. Listen: Washington DC.
“Good morning. Today on this day of remembrance and mourning, we have the Lord’s Word: [Listen]
‘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….’
Of all the thousands of Scriptures he could have chosen, he chose this one obscure verse from Isaiah, which even most Believers don’t know, not realizing what he was saying: it was a Scripture of judgment – marking it, he linked it to September 11th and said that it was the Lord’s Word to us…. not knowing this, [he] then he based the whole speech on this scripture. He goes on to say:
“Let me show you how we are building and putting cedars in those three hallowed places, the Towers, the Pentagon and the Field. Walk with me through this day and you will see that while those bricks fell and the sycamores cut down, our people are making those cedars rise.”
And he closed with,
“Each time that bell tolls it calls us to a greater purpose. To never forget: it calls us to always remember that when we walk together this day that the cedars will rise and the stones will go up.”
More to the Story!!
The specificity of these parallel harbingers is profound and should surpass any standard of plausibility. But there is yet more. The response to the nation by Senator Tom Daschle on September 12th, 2001 reveals another, far more disturbing reference.
“It’s with pain, sorrow, anger and resolve that I stand before this Senate, a symbol for 212 years of the strength of our democracy.”
At the time, few listening would have challenged the apparent inconsistency: 212 years before 2001 would have been 1789, our national documents record July 4th 1776 as being the birth of the nation.
America was born as a fully formed nation on April 30th, 1789. On that day, for the first time, America had a Constitution, a House of Representatives and a President together. It was the birth of the United States as a fully formed, constituted nation.
On that day, the government, the House, the Senate and the President all gathered in the Capital together, it was the Inauguration of George Washington. It was the nation’s Dedication Day.
Washington gave a prophetic warning. He said this:
“We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and the right which heaven itself has ordained.”
The warning was, [that] America’s future blessing would be, as with Israel, will hang on its relationship to God. If America should begin to depart from God, its blessings its prosperity and its protection shall be lifted up.
The warning was given on the Nation’s first day, its day of dedication. After finishing the address and giving his warning, the first act of the American government was undertaken. It was this:
After the address, Washington, and all the other officials, the Senators, the House of Representatives, the Vice President, all left the place of Inauguration, travelled on foot to a small church, a chapel, they went inside…and we don’t know exactly what they said there, we know they were there for one purpose. For two hours they prayed, they committed, they consecrated this nation into God’s hands. The entire government was kneeling before God.
In ancient Israel, when judgment came, it came to the place where the nation was dedicated to God - the Temple Mount where Solomon had dedicated it. America, like ancient Israel, also departed from its foundations: it sought the prosperity instead of the One who gave it. The warning of Washington on that day: there would be the removal of God’s blessings if that happened.
So there was a day that epitomized to God’s people the first tolling of that removal, and that, without a doubt, was the 11th of September, 2001…
…the key is: Where is America’s ground of consecration? Where was America was dedicated to God? The first inauguration did not take place in Washington DC…[not] Washington at all - or Philadelphia. The first Capital of the United States was New York City.
It was there America began as a nation, it was there that the warning of judgment was given on the first day. Not just New York City, but lower Manhattan ... everything just described took place in New York City, in the southern part, [Washington’s] statue overlooking Wall Street.
After he gave his warning, he led the government on a journey, to a place to dedicate the nation….a little chapel – there, they dedicated it to God. It would be here, according to the pattern, [that] we would see the beginning of judgment: this consecration ground.
America, on its day of its birth as a nation was dedicated to God at the corner of a plot of land known as Ground Zero. Ground Zero is the ‘mystery place’ of American history.’ It was right there at the corner of Ground Zero they all prayed. The terrorists had no idea they were touching the very place America was dedicated and where God’s favor and protection were prayed for, the very place linked to the warning of Washington that day, that would be lifted.
…The spiritual birthplace of America is the corner of Ground Zero….the place where George Washington was, and knelt on the day of its birth. America’s national seal, the depiction of its power: the Eagle with the arrows and shield and olive branches: this earliest depiction was kept - not kept in the White House, not in the Pentagon. It was the sign of its protection. It is kept in a chapel that still remains standing to this day.
The words on the plaque above Washington’s Pew in St. Paul’s Chapel:
‘Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that you will keep the United States in Holy protection.”
And in that place is where that protection was lifted. As for ancient Israel, the bricks have fallen, we will rebuild, in fact, it says, the sycamore trees have been struck down: the sycamore, the 6th harbinger, where was it, where did it stand? It all happened on that very same ground where America was consecrated to God. Where in that place, is where the sycamore grew, in the back yard of the chapel in the graveyard. And where that arez tree, that pine tree, came to replace it, it was lowered into America’s consecration ground. The signs of judgment have been all there.
And yet Washington’s prayer was also fulfilled as well as his warning. In the wake of 911, all of the buildings around ground zero were badly damaged except one: they called it the “Miracle of Ground Zero:” the little chapel where America was dedicated to God.
In the cloud of destruction that covered Manhattan, that covered the chapel…this one building was protected, where America was dedicated to God…and what they believe protected it was a tree, a sycamore tree: the Biblical sign of the beginning of judgment: also a sign of the mercy of God. For as the steel beam went through the sky, the only thing blocking it from the chapel was the sycamore tree…the very place George Washington knelt was Ground Zero.
Judgment or salvation? Which will it be for America? Well, it could be both…we see all the same harbingers as with ancient Israel. Isaiah 9:10 before America on 9/11. Because they have not turned to Him, he will bring a greater judgment on the land. The ultimate purpose was not to destroy, but to call it back.
