"The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn

"The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn is supposedly this shocking book revealing how America fits into Bible prophecy. At least, that's what most people who like the book will make you think. I will tell you up front that I did not enjoy the book, nor did I agree with the premise.

Let me begin with my literary criticisms, then I will move on to the Biblical and doctrinal criticisms.

To begin with, I believe Cahn's choice to write this book about his interpretations of Bible prophecy as a fiction narrative was a disaster waiting to happen. The book had no action in it at all (despite the back cover making a comparative reference to the plot being like "a Hollywood thriller"). It was entirely made up of dialogue. And of this dialogue, easily 40% of the sentences were questions.... not GOOD questions, but questions like: "What does that mean?"  "How?"  "They didn't know?"  This made the reading very boring.  The unnamed "prophet" character had an annoying habit of dropping uninformative sentences, to which the main character (a journalist named Nouriel) would ask a clarifying question. It was painfully boring writing.
Here's a made-up example of a conversation between the two, which will serve to illustrate:

Prophet: "They should have known..."
Nouriel: "Who?"
Prophet: "The Israelites. They should have known, but they forgot."
Nouriel: "Forgot what?"
Prophet: "The prophecy."
Nouriel: "What prophecy?"
Prophet: "The prophecy about the tree."
Nouriel: "What tree?"
Prophet: "The tree that fell."
Nouriel: "Fell where?"

This is only the slightest of exaggerations. Much of the book felt like that conversation to me. So it was boring. The characters weren't well developed, and there was very little emotion - really very few "human" elements to the book at all. The author should have either written a better novel, or written this as a non-fiction book on prophecy. This book is repetitive, shallow, anti-climactic, and boring. And that's just my LITERARY opinion!

The story basically revolves around the conversations between Nouriel and the Prophet. The Prophet gives Nouriel nine ancient clay seals with images on them, and he uses the seals and images, along with Isaiah 9:10, to explain how America is supposedly following the same pattern as the ancient Jews. This pattern includes vows, warnings, signs, and judgments.

When you take away the seals and images (which do not actually exist - they are a plot device in the book to introduce the author's points), and the repetition, and the pointless dialogue, the author could have easily made his claims in a 40-page booklet.

I won't take the time to go through all of the book's contents, nor will I dismantle the Biblical errors one-by-one. But I will say that the author goes beyond the bounds of any reasonable hermeneutical principles on several points. The first one being taking that which was prophesied for ISRAEL and applying it to the USA. There is simply no biblical reason to do that. The author says that the founders of America thought they were creating a nation dedicated to God's purpose. But this is in no way comparable to God's actual chosen people, the Jews - nor does it compare to the actual covenant relationship God has with them. (God has no covenant with America, or any other nation for that matter).

The book just did not ring true. The author kept speaking of "ancient mysteries" more than actual prophecies (maybe because he knows in his heart that the PROPHECY was for Israel, not the US?). He also kept speaking of the "vow" of Isaiah 9:10, and how America's political leaders repeated this "vow" - and therefore defied God and invited judgment. I do not believe in magic words. If God is going to judge America (and I think He is already doing that), then it will be because of their rejection of Him and His Christ and His Word - not because they said the magic words of a made-up "vow."

Furthermore, the author made some REALLY HUGE stretches of imagination in order to make his parallel between Isaiah 9:10-11, and America's 9/11 attacks and Wall Street collapse, fit the frame of what he was saying. When you have to twist and contort things in order to make them fit, then you are doing damage to the Word of God.

For example, the Isaiah 9:10 prophecy mentions that a sycamore tree has fallen. Then the author claims that a sycamore tree was destroyed near Ground Zero on 9/11. The problem is, we English speakers just CALL both of these trees sycamores. They are totally different trees! It is equivalent to saying that the ancient prophecy talked about a barracuda, and applying it to a goldfish - because they are both "fish". The author makes these kinds of creative contortions with semantics all throughout the book.

When you strip all of this away, you are left with.....not much, really. There are much better critiques of "The Harbinger" available on the internet. But, please, read things like this with discernment - don't accept everything just because they sell it in the Christian bookstore.

I would NOT recommend this book - either for entertainment reading, or for Bible prophecy study.

"Black Sea Affair" by Don Brown

Special thanks to my sister for giving me this book! ***SPOILER ALERT!!!!****

This is the first book that I've ever read by Don Brown (not to be confused with Dan Brown...). I must say that the story was very gripping. And the cover is really cool.

The story centers around Russian plutonium that is stolen by Chechen terrorists who use it to create a hydrogen bomb. An American submarine is sent on a highly dangerous mission to intercept the freighter that is carrying the plutonium. As tensions between the Russians and the Americans escalate, things go terribly wrong. The US sub commander is arrested and transported to Moscow to appear before a military tribunal on charges of war crimes.

I really liked the pacing of the story. There was plenty of action, and lots of scenes were filled with political maneuvering, personal drama, and military tech/jargon. It definitely wasn't boring at all. There were several characters and story-lines followed for most of the book, so it stayed very interesting.

My biggest problems with the book are:

1. The dialogue was sometimes cheesy.... It is my opinion that conveying "spoken words" is the hardest part of writing fiction - so I am not usually too hard on authors for this. But the US President in the book just said some corny stuff. And almost ALL of the Russian characters had some "corn". (The Russian characters had this annoying habit of referring to everyone by their FULL name - multiple times in the same conversation. "Why do you say that, Nikolai Petrinkov?", and so forth. Maybe this is a part of Russian culture that I am just unaware of. But it got on my nerves a little bit.)

2. The guy that I thought was the main character, the JAG officer representing the sub commander at the tribunal, didn't even show up in the book at all until about 50 pages from the end. SERIOUSLY?!?! He is the first of only two characters mentioned in the description on the back cover of the book, so you would reasonably assume he was the main character, right? Needless to say, we didn't get to know that character well at all before the book ended. Speaking of that....

3. The ending felt hacked off and rushed. There is a difficult balance an author must strike between writing too much after the climax/resolution and hacking the book ending off. I definitely feel Don Brown did the latter. The bomb is intercepted and diffused, the US and Russia make peace, the sub commander and crew are returned home, and the sub commander is reunited with his kids - all in just a couple of pages.

All in all, it was a good book - and I'd definitely read some of Don Brown's other works. 4 out of 5 stars.
(Thanks again, sis!)

"What Love is This?" by Dave Hunt

Dave Hunt was a tremendous Bible teacher. He passed away in April of this year (2013). As I read this book, it became clear to me that this man had a passion for the Word of God. The amount of research that went into this book is absolutely astounding. I have read more "technical" theological books that weren't as well-researched and had much shorter bibliographies - and far fewer footnotes. There were literally at least 50 or so footnotes per chapter!

Dave Hunt tackled the sticky problem of Calvinism not in order to start a fight, but to expose the true roots of Calvinism (the Roman Catholic church) and to present the Biblical evidence that shows so strongly against it. After seeing the history of the doctrines of Calvinism, as well as the shockingly evil behaviors and heretical beliefs of a few of it's earliest adherents (John Calvin, Martin Luther, and St. Augustine), one wonders how ANY Bible-believing Christian could call themselves after the name of such heretics.

The sheer volume of verses in the Bible that the Calvinist is forced to re-interpret to fit the points of TULIP should be the first warning. Why not let the Bible speak for itself? Why "wrest" it to say anything? The weakness of the Calvinism framework is clearly exposed. Their web of strange doctrines fails to hold up under scrutiny. Dave Hunt does a SUPERB job of reviewing all 5 points of traditional Calvinism, and demolishing their presuppositions with the plain teaching of Scripture.

He uses HUNDREDS of quotes of prominent Calvinists' own writings in order to accurately represent their beliefs. He also does not shy away from the very tough Scriptures that are favorites of Calvinists to support their views. But, as you can see in this book, even in these tough passages there is NO Biblical support for 5-point Calvinism. This was important to me - because some of these very verses have troubled me for years. Calvinism seemed to lack the ring of truth to me, but these verses were very thorny; and I had no explanation for some of them.

Dave Hunt also took the noble and honorable step of letting some of his Calvinist friends review the early manuscript so they could correct him if he caricatured Calvinism wrongly. He included many of their critiques, and answered them accordingly.

This book is not nearly as technical as "Whosoever Will", which I reviewed here. But the use of Scripture in "What Love is This" was, in my opinion, more compelling than the arguments in "Whosoever Will".

If you have wondered about some of those troubling Bible passages, or if you have not come to a decision about Calvinism, then read Dave Hunt's book. Calvinism will be seen as an atrocious - and blasphemous - heresy.

The only negative is that much of the book is repetitive - because the 5 points of Calvinism are all contingent on each other, so many of the Scriptures and arguments show up in several places. But as a resource, this book is priceless.

I thank God for courageous and godly men like Dave Hunt who teach the Bible with simplicity and power. I pray that God will raise up more men like him.

"Get Connected: Mobilizing Your Church for God's Mission", compiled by Johnny Hunt

I was introduced to this book through a recommendation from a dear friend of mine, Bro. Ed Gibson. He is a man who is challenging the status quo of independent Baptists when it comes to world evangelism. The "traditional" way churches look at Missions has some very distinct flaws, especially in the 21st century. Let's not keep doing what we've always done just because it's what we've always done - let's do what works best to reach people with the Gospel. Brother Ed is leading the charge, in my opinion, for the necessary changes to independent Baptist Missions.

If you are familiar with Johnny Hunt, you know that he is a Southern Baptist pastor. I probably lost a few readers right there - but don't let his affiliation rob you of the chance to learn from this book. Johnny Hunt partners with about 5 other pastors in this book, mostly to share how God has challenged and changed the way their churches looked at world evangelism (yes, beyond even the SBC's "Lottie Moon" offerings). And I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the philosophy of Missions presented in this book is spot on and totally Biblical.

It is not a very long book - a little over 100 pages, I believe. Any church leader or church member who has a passion for world evangelism should read this book. Some of the common themes in the 6 or so stories presented in this book include church members getting PERSONALLY involved in the work of missions, as opposed to merely throwing some money in plate to go to a faceless missionary reaching a forgotten people group. This is how a church will catch fire for Missions - when the PEOPLE begin to fulfill the Great Commission themselves, instead of literally paying other people to do it for them.

Those words sound harsh, but that is about the extent of any sort of strategy in the average independent Baptist church: The pastor has a few college buddies that are missionaries - so he invites them to come present their ministry, the church takes them on for support, and the missionary sends a letter every few months talking about their broken down car and MAYBE a few conversions here and there. I'm being very harsh, but also realistic.

WHERE IS THE STRATEGY???? The Great Commission is the most serious task that Christ left to the church! How can we be satisfied with ourselves? What happened to CHURCHES having the burden for world evangelism, instead of a few (and getting fewer) full-time missionaries having the burden and having to BEG churches to support them? Meanwhile, this family will spend probably 5 years and close to $250,000 on deputation (rough estimate of average) BEFORE THEY WILL EVEN GET TO THEIR FIELD!

We can do better than this! We MUST do better than this! This book does not have all the answers, but it definitely will help you start thinking in the right direction.

I read this book, then my pastor read it, then we gave it to all our Missions Committee members and deacons. Our church is seeing the change of mindset already. We have a long way to go, but we are making real progress.

Please, read this book. It may help you see your part in the Great Commission a little more clearly.

If you would like to have a thought-provoking speaker at your church's next Missions Conference, I would highly recommend Bro. Ed Gibson. Email me, or contact me through Google+, and I'll get you his contact info.