Shortly after the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn says, he received a prophetic vision at ground zero. While standing at the corner of the World Trade Center, he saw the tree that had been struck down from the attack and felt compelled to search the Scriptures.
He soon came upon Isaiah 9:10 (KJV), a Scripture of judgment that says, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.” Cahn says this passage is linked to 9/11 and to ancient Israel.
That prophetic search eventually gave way to his book The Harbinger. In the book, Cahn uses fictional narrative to reveal truths about biblical prophecies linked to current events in the United States. That search has continued throughout the years, leading Cahn to write The Paradigm and now his latest book, The Oracle.
During his research for The Oracle, he came upon a link between that original Scripture he found in Isaiah and the United States government.
“After I started seeking with that tree, I was led to Scripture after Scripture,” Cahn tells Charisma. “But I had no idea until the end when I typed that Scripture in and instead of getting the Scripture, I got the Annals of the United States Congress.”
That was the very Scripture Cahn says he heard prophetically the day after 9/11. But he had no idea it was linked to the Annals of the United States Congress until God supernaturally led him to that discovery.
That Scripture reveals exactly how America responded after 9/11, Cahn says. Instead of truly repenting and turning to God after the devastating terror attack, the American people vowed to build themselves even stronger through their own efforts.
“They responded with a vow of defiance … where they said, ‘The bricks have fallen in that attack, but we will rebuild with hewn stone, with stronger stone. The sycamore trees have been stripped down, but we will plant cedars, a stronger tree, in its place,'” Cahn says. “In other words, ‘We’re not going to be humbled by this. We’re not going to learn anything.'”
Cahn says America mimicked ancient Israel’s attitude toward God’s judgment, which often came in the form of enemy attacks.
“All the signs—the nine harbingers—that appeared in the last days of ancient Israel now started appearing in America, from 9/11 itself to the fallen sycamore tree to the replacing of it to the hewn stones to the actual vows.”
Now, 18 years after the horrific attack on New York City, Cahn says America as a whole still hasn’t repented.
“Unfortunately, everything is following Israel,” he says. “We’re going in the wrong direction, the opposite direction, away from God in morality, in life, in the gospel—in every way. What The Harbinger is warning is that if we continue on that path, it means calamity. And if America doesn’t turn back, that’s where it goes.”
So what can God’s people do in response to this rebellion? Cahn says he cries out to God every day for revival. Without revival, America will not make the spiritual 180-degree turn it needs to in order to avoid judgment.
“We’re in a window of time where much is being held back,” he says. “If that window ends without a revival … it’s going to be a flood. Right now, we have the Equality Act ready to go in the moment Republicans lose the Senate or the presidency—and that will be devastating to religious freedom and to the gospel and to morality.”
Listen to the podcast to hear Rabbi Jonathan Cahn explain the prophetic significance of 9/11.