The Harbinger II

by Jonathan Cahn

“A shaking that spreads fear to every city and town in America and around the world, that causes millions to hide themselves inside their homes, that paralyzes much of the nation’s economy and the world economy, that causes a declaration of disaster to be issued in every one of America’s fifty states, and shuts down most of the planet for the first time in world history . . . I would think that’s enough.”

  “Yes, but still, it doesn’t mean there isn’t more.”

  “I remember something else I put in that same chapter. When you spoke to me about the coming shakings and calamities, you said that in the case of a nation that had reigned at the head of nations, the coming judgments would ultimately mean the removal of its crown.6 You connected the coming shaking to the crown.”

  “And?”

  “The word crown. . . it’s the English form of the Latin word corona. . . corona is the name of the virus. And so the shaking is connected to corona, the crown.”

  “Yes,” said the prophet, “the plague is called corona. And what is its official name?”

  “COVID-19.”

  “Nineteen,” he said, “the number of judgment. They named it that for an entirely different reason, of course. Nevertheless, it bears the number given in the template of judgment, the number of years from the first shaking to the greater one.”

  “Is that why you’ve returned,” I said, “because of the shaking?”

  “It’s possible,” he replied.

  “And is there more to the mystery behind what’s happening now . . . that you’re going to show me?”

  “That too is possible . . . and more.”

  Chapter 29

  The Plague

  I THINK WE should sit down for this,” he said.

  We had just then come to a plaza within Times Square with empty chairs set up for pedestrians. But no one was there but us. We sat down.

  “Look at all the lights, Nouriel, the glitter and glory of a city, a nation, and a civilization. And yet behind all that is darkness.”

  I didn’t know then what exactly he was referring to. I didn’t, at that moment, press the point. I had another question on my mind.

  “America and the world have been brought to a near standstill because of a disease, a pandemic. Why? Why the plague?”

  “Behind any phenomenon,” said the prophet, “there are a multitude of causes, reasons, and purposes. And behind a solitary event, one can find causes both natural and transcendent, coexisting and acting in unison, occupying the space and moment. Why are there diseases? Because we live in a fallen world, a world of sin and evil, decay and destruction, wars, plagues, and disasters. Evil happens, calamities happen. And yet the fact that behind any given event are natural causes does not negate the fact that there are also transcendent and supernatural causes, or the fact that an event of evil may have redemptive purposes. The one does not nullify the other.

  “Do you remember in our first encounters, when we read the words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, in which he spoke of the Civil War as the judgment of God upon slavery, a judgment in which the riches gained by oppression would be lost and every drop of blood drawn by the whip would be matched by the blood drawn in war?”1

  “Yes.”

  “He was speaking of the war’s transcendent causes and purposes, the judgment of God on the evil of slavery and the bringing of that evil to an end. Lincoln wasn’t proposing that this was the only reason or cause for the calamity or that there wasn’t a countless multitude of natural causes behind it. But the fact that the war had natural causes did not, in any way, nullify the transcendent purposes of judgment and redemption that were working through it. Both and all were taking place in the same place and time.

  “In the same way, when judgment fell upon ancient Israel, it came through evil and brutal empires. Behind the rise of those empires were a multitude of causes, political, military, social, cultural, economic, and countless others coalescing with another multitude of turns, quirks, and twists of human events. And yet at the same time, all those factors converged to fulfill the judgments foretold by the prophets. Why did the calamity come? For all those reasons at once.

  “When judgment came to ancient Israel, the destruction and calamity touched not only the unrighteous but the righteous. It even extended to the surrounding nations. It even touched the prophets. Perfect judgment does not belong to this world but to the next. And thus the striking down or sparing of any individual in the midst of such calamities did not, in and of itself, signify that the victim was, in any way, more or less guilty than anyone else. The calamity was not centered on the individual. It was the judgment of a civilization. So too when Lincoln spoke of the Civil War as a judgment from God, he was not suggesting that any individual struck down in that war was being judged, but rather that a civilization was being judged for the sin of slavery.”

  “I understand. So how does this relate to the plague?”

  “In the same way, the fact that behind a plague is a multitude of causes does not mean that there are not also transcendent purposes. And the fact that there are transcendent purposes does not mean that any individual touched or struck down by such a plague is being judged. The question, rather, concerns the judgment of a civilization, of nations, and an age.”

  “So a pandemic can be a judgment?”

  “Not that it must be,” he replied, “but it can be. And if it is, there will be signs of it. The principle is revealed throughout the pages of the Bible where judgments can, at times, manifest in the form of pestilences and plagues. Though plagues would be seen then, as now, as evils and calamities, God used them for the purposes of redemption. How were the Hebrews saved out of Egypt?”

  “By a plague.”

  “Yes, and by more than one. But it wasn’t only then. The Scriptures record the coming of plagues as judgments against evil and the pride of man, to shake kingdoms, to cast down false gods and idols, to wake up the sleeping, to call back the lost and fallen, and to turn back nations to God.”

  “A plague used for the purposes of redemption?”

  “Yes, Nouriel. It is not only that the natural and the supernatural can occupy the same space and time, but so too can good and evil, even judgment and mercy. Just as God can allow the strike of an enemy for the purpose of waking up and calling back a nation . . . that it might, in the end, be saved from destruction—so too can He allow a plague for the same purpose.”

  “So could that be part of what’s happening now?”

  “Yes,” said the prophet, “that could be part. That which has come upon the world has certainly shown how quickly the certainties of life and the foundations on which a society stands can be shaken and removed. And sometimes they must be . . . in order that we might find the one certainty and the one foundation that cannot be shaken or removed—that we might find God.”

  “Then is the global pandemic a judgment?”

  “If it was a judgment, there would have to be something being judged. The plague has touched the entire world. So is there anything unique about this generation, the modern world, as touching judgment?”

  “Is there?”

  “There is. No generation has so turned away from God or so massively overturned His ways as this one. But is there any specific sin or act that could call forth such judgment?”

  “I can think of many.”

  “There are many,” he said, “but there is one that especially calls it forth.”

  “Which?”

  “The shedding of blood,” he replied. “It is an ancient law that evil must be answered in kind and the taking of human life by the taking of human life.”

  “It’s what Lincoln said, the blood drawn in slavery would be answered by the blood drawn in war.”

  “So can you think of any such sin that this world and generation are guilty of? A sin involving the shedding of blood and the taking of human life?”

  “The killing of unborn children, the taking of human life, the slaughter of the most innocent, abortion.”

&n
bsp; “Where was it, Nouriel, that the prophet Jeremiah stood with the clay jar prophesying the coming judgment of his nation?”

  “At the gate overlooking Tophet and the Valley of Hinnom.”

  “It was the ground on which the nation’s children had been sacrificed to the gods. It was a prophetic pronouncement and a prophetic act, the foreshadowing of judgment. He was prophesying the judgment that would come for what they had done in that valley:

  . . . (they) have filled this place with the blood of the innocents (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal) . . . therefore . . . this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. . . . I will cause them to fall by the sword.2

  “Because they had shed the blood of their children in that valley, so in that valley, their own blood would be shed.”

  “The ancient law.”

  “It is the blood of children, the most innocent, that especially invokes the judgment of God. Jeremiah was prophesying the destruction of his nation. Their children’s blood would bring about their destruction, the destruction of the entire kingdom. Now would you think that the sacrifice of their children was their only sin?”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

  “No. The land was filled with sin, and all of it would be brought into judgment. But the killing of their children was the most gruesome of their sins, their defining sin, their epitome of sins, the graphic manifestation of the depths to which they had descended. And so, in the judgment of that sin would come the judgment of all their sins, the judgment and destruction of an entire civilization. Now listen carefully to the words Jeremiah spoke of the judgment that would come upon the nation because of its children’s blood:

  I will make this city desolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.”3

  “Plagues!”

  “Yes . . . plagues, as in epidemics, pandemics, diseases, and viruses. The original word used to speak of the coming judgment was the Hebrew makkeh. As with other words used for disease, it can refer to a stroke or wound, an epidemic, a plague.”

  “A pandemic?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Now listen to a second prophecy given through Jeremiah concerning the same sin and judgment:

  And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech. . . . Now therefore . . . this city of which you say, ‘It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.’”4

  “Pestilence,” I said, “another word for an epidemic, a plague.”

  “Yes. Again, the blood of the children would be answered by judgment, and one of the ways that the judgment would manifest would be in the coming of a plague, a pestilence, an epidemic. The second prophecy speaks of the plague by using the Hebrew word dever. Dever is the same word used in the Book of Exodus of the plagues that fell upon Egypt. And what was the first of those plagues?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The turning of the Nile River into blood. The Nile was the place where the children, the baby boys of Israel, were killed by the Egyptians. It was their Tophet, their Valley of Hinnom. So again, the blood of little children calls forth the judgment of nations, and again, the judgment takes the form of a plague.”

  “So the plague that’s come upon America and the world . . . does it have anything to do with blood?”

  “Egypt murdered thousands of Hebrew children in the Nile. The Kingdom of Judah to which Jeremiah prophesied sacrificed thousands of its own children in the valley of Tophet. How many children do you suppose have been killed by our own civilization?”

  “Killed by abortion?”

  “Just in America.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Not thousands,” said the prophet, “not tens of thousands . . . not even hundreds of thousands . . . but millions. Over sixty million! Over sixty million children! Would you say that a civilization such as Nazi Germany should be brought to judgment for the Holocaust? Then what do we say of a civilization that has committed the equivalent of ten Holocausts? How much blood cries out from that?”

  “I would imagine . . . rivers,” I said.

  “And how many children do you suppose have been killed by the nations of this age?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Over one billion children!”

  “One billion,” I repeated.

  “Each one a life, each one a child . . . torn apart, burned alive with chemicals, murdered before it had the chance to breathe its first breath or to cry out for its parent’s comfort. How much blood is that? The gruesome truth is that this generation has killed more children, far more children, than any other in human history. Never has any generation had its hands covered with so much innocent blood. The loss of one life is a calamity. And the heart of God weeps over each life lost . . . but over one billion children . . . ”

  “It’s hard to fathom,” I said, “much less take in.”

  “And who was it in ancient Israel that committed the act, who offered up the little children?”

  “I would imagine the priests of the gods.”

  “Not only the priests. They didn’t take the children; the children were placed in their hands. So who was behind the sacrifice of the innocents?”

  “It would have had to have been the parents.”

  “And so the act was all the more horrific, as it was the crime of the parents against their own children, the ones they should have most protected from harm. It was a crime of the strong against the weak, the older against the youngest and most defenseless. The judgment that came upon Israel for the children offered in sacrifice was the manifestation of the principle of inversion and reciprocity. As they had taken the lives of their children, so their own lives would be taken. The judgment becomes the inversion of the sin.

  “So if a judgment was to come upon the world for such a massive and colossal evil, how would it manifest? What would be the judgment, the inversion, for the sin in which the older takes the life of the younger?”

  “It would be a judgment,” I said haltingly, almost trembling, “that strikes down . . . the older . . . a judgment that focuses its fury on the older, that strikes down the older of that generation.”

  “And?”

  “And spares the younger . . . the youngest of that generation.”

  I was speechless for several moments. The prophet was silent as well, allowing me a moment to ponder what I had spoken. And then he spoke.

  “And if one of the central consequences for the sin of shedding the children’s blood is the judgment of the dever, or ‘makkeh, the pestilence, or plague, then what could we now expect to come upon the world? A plague that would especially strike down the older of our generation and especially spare the young . . . We would expect . . .”

  “We would expect the pandemic,” I replied. “We would expect COVID-19!”

  “It is one of the unique properties of this particular plague that though the young may contract and carry the virus, its destructive power is overwhelmingly focused on the old.”

  “Like an ancient judgment,” I said, “like a biblical plague passing through the land, its power is focused; it overwhelmingly strikes down the old.”

  “Tell me,” said the prophet, “how long has abortion on demand been legal in America and in much of the world?”

  “It was legalized across the nation in 1973, but it began in 1970.”

  “And for most of the world, from around that time or thereafter. That means that most of those responsible for the killing of the over one billion children would still be alive in the year 2020 and so too would be the multitudes who stood by and never acted or spoke a word to prevent it. And those who championed its legalization half a century earlier would be among the oldest of those still living. 2020 would mark the closing of
an era. It was then, in that year and to that generation, that the plague, with its strange properties, came upon the world. The generation that had robbed millions of their first breath was now struck by a plague that would require of them their last.”

  He paused again to allow me time to grasp what I was hearing. This time it was I who broke the silence.

  “So it is as it was then,” I said, “the sins of the civilization under judgment are many, but the killing of its children is the epitome, the defining evil.”

  “Yes, the most graphic witness to the depths of its darkness.”

  “And so in the judgment of the one evil is the judgment of an entire civilization, the judgment of all its sins and evils.”

  “Tell me,” he said, “what nation is it that performs more abortions than any other?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “China. And where did this plague begin?”

  “In China.”

  “And what nation, by its example and influence, has led the governments of other nations to sanction the killing of their children?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “America, the city on the hill, the exemplary nation. And when the plague came upon the world, what place did it strike most severely?”

  “America.”

  “Yes.”

  “But other nations have done likewise.”

  “Yes, and the blood of children can be found in every land. And in ancient times, far more children were sacrificed outside the borders of Israel than within them. But Israel was consecrated from its birth to the purposes of God. It had known more, been blessed more, and thus fallen more. And to whom much is given, much is required. And so Israel was more accountable, and thus its judgment more severe. America was likewise consecrated from its foundation to the purposes of God. And America has, likewise, been given more and so has more greatly fallen. And thus had it done nothing more than what other nations had done, for that reason alone, we would have expected its judgment to be more severe.

  “But America has not only, by its example, led others into this practice but has killed more children within its borders than have the vast majority of nations. And beyond that, the laws it passed concerning the killing of unborn children are among the most permissive in the world and allow for the even more gruesome killing of children in the latter stages of pregnancy.