Rabbi's Book: The United States Needs to Turn Back to God

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn has written a book about getting the United States to return to its roots as a Christian nation.

Cahn's “The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future," states that God has used nine events, or harbingers, including 9/11 and the crash of the stock market in 2008, to get the country’s attention. The book is on the New York Times’ bestseller list and is the 58th most popular book on Amazon.com.

Cahn, a messianic rabbi and pastor, heads the Beth Israel Worship Center in town, a multi-cultural house of worship, and Hope of the World ministries.

The facts and support for Cahn’s premise are laid out as a narrative in the book between two people.

Cahn insists that the book is not meant to scare people or communicate that the Biblical Rapture and subsequent end of the world is coming like preacher Harold Camping predicted would begin on May 21, and again on Oct. 21, last year.

“It’s a book about hope. It’s like a fire alarm: If there’s a fire in a building and the alarm goes off, it better be jarring, or else what’s the use of having an alarm,” Cahn said. “This book isn’t my opinion. The things that have happened in the United States are not a matter of opinion.”

Isaiah 9:10 provides the cornerstone of Cahn’s premise: “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with hewn stone; The sycamores have been cut down, but we will plant cedars in their place.”

“The striking down of the sycamore tree is a Biblical sign of judgment,” the book states. “But the same tree is also a symbol specific to American power.”

The literal collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11 was a foreshadowing of the financial collapse that would engulf the country beginning in 2008, according to the book.

Ancient Israel received similar warnings, which can be found in the Bible, to return to God. It is the same with the United States, Cahn said.

Bible verses and Biblical references can be found throughout documents that provide the framework of the United States and its government.

“Israel was shaken and the United States is being shaken now,” Cahn said. “It was founded to be a city on a hill to fulfill the purposes of God from the beginning of its history. Because of that establishment, the United States is still sought to be a light to the world. It is sought to be a refuge for people.”

The current culture is running counter to that initial purpose, according to Cahn.

“It’s like a house moving against its own foundation,” Cahn said.

“A nation’s attempt at defying judgment apart from repentance ends up setting in motion a future calamity,” the book states. “In its campaign to strengthen itself, it ends up bringing about its own weakening.”

Cahn said that more than 250,000 copies of the book, the first he has written, have been printed.

“The book is not a matter of me coming up with an opinion,” Cahn said, noting that 90 percent of it contains facts regarding events that are happening now. “If it can warn people that, as a nation, we should turn back to God, then it’s fulfilled its purpose.”