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October 25, 2017

Jonathan's New Con -- Selling a Paradigm of American Idolatry

By Anthony Wade

Jonathan Cahn has a new con for sale. An imaginary paradigm based upon worshiping this country as an idol...

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You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority, knowing that God is watching us. -- 2Corinthians 2: 17 (NLT)

https://charismamag.com/life/culture/34377-jonathan-cahn-sheds-light-on-mysterious-connection-between-king-ahab-and-our-modern-western-culture

He's back beloved. With a new book in hand; hoping you forgot his last missive, The Harbinger. Yes the con-man himself Jonathan Cahn returns to sell you another book made up from his imagination and his obvious idolatry of this country. As usual, his underpinnings are wrong, his understanding of history is inaccurate and his theology is flawed. The above link is a recent article/advertisement by Charisma News who is the online authority on worshiping this country as an idol. As we review this latest promotional piece we must realize where this idolatry stems from. There has long been a false teaching permeating the church known as dominionism, some say that can be traced back to Calvin himself. Dominionism believes that Christians should not only influence culture but should take over the world with a Christian rule based upon Biblical principles. This is a core belief of the New Apostolic Reformation, IHOP, Bethel, Charisma, the Kansas City Prophets and many many more. It is a cancer eating away at the body of Christ. The truth behind it is that these people love this world. They love the sins and excess they get to enjoy while playing church and have no intention of giving it up to some carpenter from Galilee. Sound familiar? They are enamored with a revival that according to the Bible is not coming. Let us reason together again as we go through this article with an open Bible:

"In his latest New York Times best-seller The Paradigm, Jonathan Cahn unveils how today's politicians demonstrate alarmingly similar behaviors as leaders from the Bible." - Charisma

This is the staple of the Cahn writings. To scour the Bible and find coincidences he can sell as connections. There was no mystery of the Shemitah and the harbinger portended absolutely nothing. At every turn Cahn has been exposed as a snake oil salesman who doesn't even have any snake oil. The bottle is empty. So today's leaders share traits with leaders from the Bible? The heck you say! Is that perhaps because leaders often have the same traits and there remains nothing new under the sun as Ecclesiastes teaches us? Is this really some great revelation beloved?

"Cahn writes on King Ahab, whom the Bible presents as a man divided. He was at the forefront of deepening apostasy in ancient Israel, leading a spiritual, cultural and political war against the nation's biblical faith and traditional values. Cahn identifies the characteristics of such a leader and reveals how these traits set the precedent for political figures in modern, Western culture. The king will be a divided man. On one hand, he will come from a culture founded on faith in God. On the other, he will embrace and champion a culture and an ethos that wars against the God of his heritage.... He will be a man in conflict, compromised, complicated and divided," Cahn says." - Charisma

It is true that Ahab married a woman who worshipped Baal and as such, he did as well. It is also true that he established this idolatrous worship in the nation of Israel. Surrounding these truths are clever little inserts that have nothing to do with this story but only serve to lay his absurd foundational comparison of the nation of Israel to the United States of America. This faulty foundation was also part of the Harbinger and Shemitah nonsense before. For instance, Ahab did not lead a cultural and political war against the nation's biblical and traditional values. First of all there was no Bible yet. Secondly, there were no politics. Israel was a theocracy led by an autocratic king. Why does Cahn exaggerate here? Because he trying to sell the direct comparison to the United States. He will come from a culture founded on faith in God but will champion a culture that wars against the God of his heritage? Seriously? Can you be any more transparent? Apparently so:

"He emphasizes the impact that leaders have on a nation and how their actions carry great weight for good and evil. Cahn extrapolates on Ahab as a leader, detailing how he oversaw the rise of a new pagan morality and presided over its enshrinement. By embracing Baal worship, Ahab allowed his people to transfer sexuality from the private realm of marriage to the public realm of the temple cult. Furthermore, Baal worship involved child sacrifices. Thus, under Ahab's reign, the government endorsed the killing of innocent children. Cahn then reveals how the Bible uses this paradigm of the king to foretell a modern-day leader who would also allow the murder of children, along with other acts of ungodly morality." - Charisma

Stop it Jonathan. Just stop it. This is not some biblical paradigm. There is no foretelling. Israel is not America. Beloved, we must understand the crucially flawed foundation Cahn always relies on. The belief that America was once a biblical nation is historically ignorant. I used to teach American history. Were people more religious in the 1700s as opposed to today? Sure. Was Christianity the dominant religion of the 1700s? Sure. The people who founded this country however were not all Christians and even those that were did not set out to create a theocracy. America is not in a state of apostasy Mr. Con -- the church is because they follow blind leaders like you. Abortion is also not child sacrifice. That is a biblically and intellectually vacuous argument. Now Cahn starts to take sides:

'"As it was with King Ahab, President Clinton was especially connected to the blood of the innocent.... As it was in the reign of King Ahab, it was in Clinton's time in office that the state now became an active agent in the nation's apostasy," Cahn writes. He points to how Bill Clinton signed a series of executive orders that enabled abortion in America and around the world. He also writes on Clinton's act of adultery in the White House, which not only separated sex from marriage, but also placed sexual sin on the ultimate public platform. Bolstered by these parallels, Cahn underscores King Ahab and President Clinton's overall moral ambiguity. "Though Clinton was raised with a biblical foundation, he would embrace an ethos and morality that warred against biblical morality. As was his prototype, King Ahab, Clinton was a man divided. ... He would sin against the ways of God and then express repentance and sorrow--just as Ahab did," Cahn says.' - Charisma

This is when it becomes apparent that this is a political article disguised in Christianese. Never mind that abortion declined every year under the Clinton presidency. Never mind about the Iran Contra debacle from the Reagan years or the savings and loan crises from GHW Bush. Never mind about the cocaine usage of GW Bush or the fact that he lied to start two wars for what appears to be monetary considerations. Hundreds of thousands dead. Now an unabashed Trumper, Cahn decries the morality of Bill Clinton but must think nothing about someone who thinks nothing of sexually assaulting women and bragging about it. Beloved this is not an exercise in tearing down one party as neither represents the cause of Jesus Christ. Jonathan Cahn however has taken pen to paper to prop one up because he idolizes this country. Overall moral ambiguity? Sure Clinton fits that but so does Bush, Obama, Trump and every president we have had in the history of this country. You know why? Because we are all immoral sinners. That does not make any of them King Ahab.

Just stop for a minute and consider the stupidity of the argument that Jonathan Con is making here. That 2900 years ago there was a king who gave in to his foreign wife and allowed the pagan worship of Baal in Israel. As part of Baal worship there was the public display of sexual perversions and child sacrifice. Cahn worships and idolizes this country so he selects a political foil he can pretend there are correlations to. Baal worship included child sacrifice? Clinton once signed some executive orders regarding easing abortion restrictions! That's practically the same thing, right? Wrong. Well, Baal worship included sexual perversions within the temple and Clinton once engaged in extramarital oral sex in the White House! Surely that is the same thing, right? Wrong. Abortion is not child sacrifice to appease a false god. An extramarital affair is not engaging in public sex in a temple as part of a ritual to a false god. Yet Con packages these loosely connected falsities and proclaims they constitute a paradigm. He then puts them into a book and names it, "The Paradigm"; desperately hoping that people have forgotten that there was no mystery to the Shemitah and the Harbinger amounted to that line from Macbeth about a tale being told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. There is no paradigm beloved. despite the hard sell from Cahn.

'The Paradigm details how both these leaders, one from 3,000 years ago and the other in contemporary America, exhibited a weakness of will and morality. By drawing on these similarities and even incorporating shocking parallels between timelines, Cahn demonstrates how the paradigm can provide insight for future events. "The Bible is the Word of God," Cahn affirms, "So much that its patterns, keys and templates reveal, illuminate, foretell, if not determine even the events and details of the present day."' - Charisma

Bzzzt. Thanks for trying Jonathan. The Bible is not some conglomeration of hidden gnostic truths. There are not patterns and numeric coincidences to ascertain to reveal secrets spanning the millennia. Prophecy in the Bible is very obviously prophecy. You do not have to guess what it is. Beloved this is the shtick of Jonathan Con. He is a biblical code cracker even though there are no codes to crack. He is a scriptural pattern diviner even though there are no such patterns to divine. He is the huckster the key verse warns us about selling the Bible for personal profit. Mercifully, this paid advertisement from Charisma News comes to an end:

"In The Paradigm, Cahn uses these revelations to educate readers on the dangers of having leaders who rebel against God's ways. He expounds on how Clinton and Ahab had both "broken the ground and breached moral parameters that had never before been breached. And because of these breaches, the repercussions would be far-reaching, not only into the future but into other lands." The Paradigm refers to an ancient blueprint that reveals secrets to modern-day events. In his signature descriptive and precise writing, Cahn exposes shocking parallels between ancient Middle Eastern palaces and the White House, biblical leaders and today's political figures, scandals from 3,000 years ago and the current controversies on American soil." - Charisma

Except Bill Clinton is not saved. There is no comparison between a 20th century pagan president and an apostate King of ancient Israel. Bill Clinton or any other president for that matter cannot be apostate because they were never in the faith to fall away from. Likewise, they cannot lead America into apostasy as this country has never been under covenant with God. This is the same foundational mistake Cahn made in both of his previous books. It is the same grievous error those that idolize America always make. That if somehow, the unsaved millions could just behave better then maybe God would not judge this nation as the Bible promises He will. There is no scriptural end times revival beloved. Just an end times apostasy is foretold.

That apostasy however is not from the unsaved. It is within the church. A church that was supposed to be a shining city on a hill. A church that was supposed to bring the Gospel to a dying world. Instead we see a church enamored with itself, a bloated sense of false purpose, and compromising with the leaven of the world for the sake of carnal relevance. It is a church that has traded in the wisdom of Almighty God to chase after cult of personality preachers such as Cahn. That is the true paradigm beloved. Israel was constantly falling for false teachings and idolizing other gods as is the church today. Yes there is always the opportunity to repent but time is running out for the dying world and the church needs to stop chasing after silly nonsense disguised as serious Christian fare. We need to stop chasing mysteries, harbingers and paradigms and get back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is time to recognize snake oil when it is presented to us and even more so when the huckster is out of oil.

Reverend Anthony Wade -



Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

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