Jonathan Cahn: A Tectonic Event Awaits America

I disembarked the train at Union Station. I was in Washington, D.C. It was May 28, 2015. I didn’t plan the timing, but the day would prove to be of critical importance. It was the day that the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case that would decide the future of marriage in America. I was led to go to the Supreme Court to pray.

When I arrived there, the mass demonstrations were over. There were now only scattered crowds and individuals standing at the base of the steps. One of those standing there recognized me as I approached. He had read The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah and told me that when he saw me in person he was scared, taking my presence there that day as a sign of coming judgment. But if anyone was a sign, it was him. He was dressed completely in sackcloth, the biblical garment linked to mourning and judgment. Next to him was a woman by a sign pleading with America not to strike down the biblical definition of marriage.

The following night, I spoke in the Capitol Building to a gathering of leaders and members of Congress. I knew it was a prophetic time and that I needed to give a prophetic message. I addressed my words not only to those gathered but to the Supreme Court, the president and the nation. I warned that to strike down what God Himself had ordained would be to cross a fateful line and to invoke the judgment of God.

The following day was April 30, the anniversary of America’s first day as a constituted nation with the inauguration of its first president. That evening I stood in Federal Hall, New York City, the nation’s first Capitol building, the very place where Washington had been sworn into office. It was on that ground that our first president issued a prophetic warning: “The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right that heaven itself hath ordained … .”

In other words, if America should ever turn away from God’s eternal order and ways, the blessings of God would be removed from the land. That night I repeated the warning he had given there on that site 226 years before. I don’t believe the timing of these events was an accident. If anything could ever constitute America disregarding the “eternal rules of order and right that heaven itself hath ordained,” it would be the striking down of the biblical definition of marriage as given in the Word of God.

The day of which Washington warned is no longer theoretical. As of June 26, 2015, with the Supreme Court’s striking down of the biblical definition of marriage, it has now arrived. We are there. We have gone where we were told never to go and we have crossed the line we were warned never to cross.

From the moment I first shared of the mystery of The Harbinger, I have warned that the same prophetic signs that appeared to ancient Israel in its last days before destruction are now reappearing in America, the warning signs of a nation heading for judgment. The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah have gone out to millions, and many have come to repentance and salvation. But did I believe that as the result of the message going forth that America would avert judgment? No. Did I believe that there would be a mass revival? No, not yet. Rather, before God brings judgment, He sends warning.

In the wake of 9/11, millions flocked to houses of worship, and it looked for a time that there might be a national revival. But there was no national revival. There was no repentance. And without repentance there can be no revival. And so not only have we not turned to God since 9/11, we have radically departed from Him—so radically and blatantly that we have now broken the most basic order of God’s creation, the union of male and female. And not only have we broken it, we have celebrated its breaking and basked in its destruction.

One of the last signs preceding a nation’s judgment is that of desecration. The rainbow is a sacred vessel of God, a holy sign of His covenant. But we have now taken that sacred sign of covenant and desecrated it, using it as a vessel to desecrate the covenant of marriage—a desecrated sign for a desecrated covenant.

And while our first president warned America to never disregard God’s eternal rules of order, our most recent president not only advocated our doing this very thing, but caused the walls of the White House to be illumined in the colors of the rainbow, heaven’s sacred sign, to celebrate the desecrating of heaven’s sacred order. The American White House has now become a vessel of desecration.

The Harbinger reveals the biblical template that played out in the last days of ancient Israel—that of a nation responding to God’s judgment and mercy with defiance. The rainbow is a sign of God’s mercy in the face of judgment. It has now become the symbol of our defiance of God. How much more can we do in the face of God to provoke His judgment?

Make no mistake: What happened in the Supreme Court this summer constituted a seismic change that will hold profound ramifications for America’s future, not concerning the realm of marriage, but culture, society, law, education, religious freedom, persecution, apostasy and judgment. It was a tectonic event—enough to provoke a tectonic judgment.

I believe a great shaking is coming. Does that mean that there’s no hope for America? No. God’s necessity is judgment, but His heart is salvation. Rather, America has so deafened itself to the voice of God that the only way it can now hear is if God shouts. There is hope. I believe that a great revival can yet come, even one of the greatest revivals in world history. And yet I don’t believe it will come without shaking, but rather through shaking. And if 9/11 was the shout of heaven to wake up a nation in danger of judgment, God help us if now, in our much deeper and brazen state of apostasy, the needed wake-up call will make the shout of 9/11 look like a whisper.

We must pray for revival—that no matter what it takes, revival will come. And we must not only pray for revival, but we must also live in revival. When the night grows darker, it is then that the lights of God shine their brightest, and then that they light up the world. If the world is going from bad to worse, then it’s time for God’s people to go from good to great. These are the days that produce greatness. It is time for us to commit to standing stronger, more uncompromised, more consecrated, more single minded and more on fire for God than we ever have before, that we might shine as lights in the darkness to proclaim the only name given by which we must be saved—Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah, the Light of the World, the Glory of Israel and the only hope America and the world still have.

Jonathan Cahn is the New York Times best-selling author of The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah, president of Hope of the World ministries and senior pastor and Messianic rabbi of the Jerusalem Center/Beth Israel in Wayne, New Jersey. His teachings are widely known for revealing the deep mysteries of God’s Word.

Jonathan Cahn explains how legalizing same-sex marriage will elicit God’s judgment at samesexmarriage.charismamag.com.