The Harbinger II Read online

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  THE HARBINGER II by Jonathan Cahn

  Published by FrontLine

  Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

  600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.

  Scripture quotations marked GNT are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version—Second Edition. Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

  Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

  Scripture quotations marked NET are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2016 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

  Scripture quotations marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

  Septuagint quotations are taken from Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: English Translation (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1870).

  Copyright © 2020 by Jonathan Cahn

  All rights reserved

  Visit the author’s website at jonathancahn.com and booksbyjonathancahn.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.

  International Standard Book Number: 978-1-62999-891-6

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62999-892-3

  Contents

  Part I: THE RETURN

  1 The Return of Nouriel

  2 The Girl in the Blue Coat

  3 The Return of the Prophet

  Part II: THE UNREVEALED

  4 The Gate

  5 The Towers

  6 The Wall

  7 The Selichote

  8 Foundations

  9 The Night Address

  10 The House by the River

  11 The Mystery Ship

  12 The Parasha

  13 The Birds of Prey

  14 The Watchmen

  15 The Land of Two Towers

  Part III: THE MANIFESTATIONS

  16 The Man on the Hill

  17 The Harbingers

  18 The Babylonian Word

  19 The Withered

  20 The Ninth of Tammuz

  21 The Hidden

  22 The Image

  23 The Handwriting on the Wall

  24 The Judgment Tree

  25 Tophet

  26 The Convergence

  Part IV: THE COMING

  27 The Children of the Ruins

  28 The Shakings

  29 The Plague

  30 The Return

  31 The Winds of April

  32 The Western Terrace

  33 The Island

  34 The Lamb

  35 The Day of the Watchman

  About Jonathan Cahn

  Notes

  What you are about to read will take the form of a story, but what is revealed in the story is real.

  Chapter 1

  The Return of Nouriel

  WHERE DO WE begin?” he asked.

  “How about at the beginning,” she replied, “with the seal. You come into possession of a small clay seal with ancient inscriptions. You have no idea what it all means. You begin searching. In the midst of your search, you come across a mysterious man. You don’t know his name or where he comes from. You don’t know how he knows things he shouldn’t or couldn’t have known. You speak of him as ‘the prophet.’

  “He tells you the meaning of the seal. And so the mystery begins. How am I doing so far, Nouriel?”

  “Perfectly. I don’t think you have any need of me.”

  “He gives you a second seal in exchange for the first. You have to try to unlock its meaning until you see him again. Your encounters with the prophet happen by what appears to be coincidence or some supernatural agency. But one way or another, he’s always there at the exact time and place. And in each encounter the full significance of the seal is revealed. Each seal leads to another revelation, another puzzle piece in a still larger mystery. All together there are nine seals, nine mysteries, and nine revelations.”

  “Keep going,” he said.

  “The mystery centers on nine harbingers, nine warnings of coming judgment, calamity, and destruction, the signs that appeared in the last days of ancient Israel. But the mind-blowing thing is that those same nine harbingers have now reappeared in modern times . . . on American soil, some in New York City, some in Washington, DC, some involving objects, events, utterances, even American leaders, and with eerie precision and without anyone orchestrating them. And as in ancient times, they give warning . . . now to America.”

  She paused for a few moments, waiting to see if he would interject. But he was silent, so she continued.

  “At the end of all the encounters, mysteries, and revelations, the prophet reveals that you were born for a purpose now to be fulfilled. He charges you to spread the word, to reveal the mystery, to sound the alarm.”

  “The call of the watchman,” he replied.

  “And that’s where it left off, what you told me that night.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you did what the prophet charged you to do. You spread the word of it. You committed the revelation to writing . . . in the form of a narrative.”

  “The narrative was your idea, Ana . . . to change the names and details of what happened until it became a story through which the mystery would be revealed and the warning delivered.”

  “And you had never written a book before.”

  “No. I had no idea how to do it. But it was as if the book wrote itself. The words just flowed onto the pages.”

  “Most books never get published, but yours did. I never heard how it all happened.”

  “The week I finished the manuscript, I was scheduled to fly out to Dallas. The flight had a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina. While waiting for the connecting flight, I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and prayed for God to intervene, to send the message to the world.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I opened my eyes. There was a man sitting to my left. He wasn’t there when I closed my eyes. He turned to me and said, ‘So what’s the good word?’”

  “A bit mystical for an opening line.”

  “A bit mystical of an encounter,” he replied.

  “So what did you talk about?”

  “It was small talk . . . a
t first. But then his tone changed. He stared intently into my eyes and spoke with a sense of intense urgency. ‘Nouriel,’ he said, ‘God has given you a message . . . and a book. It’s from Him.

  And He’ll send it forth to the nation and to the world. And your life will be changed. And you’ll be known.’”

  “It sounds like your encounter with the prophet,” she said. “It’s what you wrote about in the book, at the beginning of the story. You’re sitting down in a public place with a man sitting to your left. He turns to you and starts a conversation. Then he speaks to you prophetically. And it leads you to bringing a prophetic word to the nation.”

  “Yes, except this happened after the book was written.”

  “And he couldn’t have known?”

  “No,” said Nouriel. “No one could have known. No one had read it yet.”

  “So who was he?”

  “A man of God, a believer, who just happened to have been scheduled to be on the same flight and who just happened to sit down next to me the moment I prayed that prayer.”

  “But how could he have known what he knew?” she asked.

  “How could the prophet have known what he knew?”

  “Did he ever tell you why he gave you that word?”

  “He told me that when he sat down next to me, the Lord told him to give me a message. He was reluctant but finally spoke.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “Not long after that encounter, I received a communication from the president of a publishing house. He told me that the man at the airport had shared with him of the encounter and of the book I had just written. He had no idea what it was about, but he was interested.

  “And that’s how the book went out to America and the world—not by the hand of man, but by the hand of God.”

  “So it was by a supernatural encounter that the revelation became a book and went forth to America. So how many people read it?”

  “Many.”

  “How many?”

  “I’ve been told millions.”

  “And everything changed for you, Nouriel, just as the man at the airport told you it would. Suddenly you’re known. You’re speaking across the nation. You’re being interviewed. You’re appearing on television and all over the web. You’re in Washington, DC, speaking to leaders in government. Pretty heady stuff. It could make one forget his humility.”

  “No,” he said. “I know it’s not my doing. If anything it humbles me.”

  “That’s good,” she replied, “because it doesn’t just happen. A man who doesn’t know how to write books writes a book about nine harbingers of judgment, and millions read it. It doesn’t just happen.”

  “None of it just happens,” he replied.

  “But it had to,” she said. “It was what the prophet told you would happen. It had to happen because the word had to go forth as it did in ancient times.”

  And then she was quiet, as was he. She reached over to grab a cup of coffee that was resting on the edge of her desk, brought it to her lips, and began sipping on it. But she didn’t take her eyes off of him. She was hoping to see some reaction, some trace of an expression that would convey more than she was getting. There was a cup of water on his side of the desk, but he wasn’t touching it. He was staring into the distance as if in deep thought. And then, finally, he spoke.

  “OK, Ana, why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you ask me to come? In all the years since I first came here to tell you what happened, you’ve been reluctant to broach the subject.”

  “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The whole thing was so beyond anything I had ever heard of. It was like dealing with a sacred object. I felt I shouldn’t touch it. But I watched everything from a distance. I read your writings. I watched you on television. I searched for you on the web. I just felt I couldn’t approach it.”

  “All the more, it begs the question ‘Why now?’”

  “Because,” she said, “I had to know.”

  “You had to know what?”

  “You did what you were supposed to do. You completed the charge. The word went forth. . . . So what now?”

  “What now?”

  “The book revealed the signs and warnings of a nation in danger of judgment. It was the beginning. There has to be more. Where are we now?”

  “You want me to reveal what’s not in the book?”

  “Have there been other revelations?”

  “Nothing other than what the prophet told me.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since then? And there’ve been no more mysteries, no more revelations?”

  He didn’t answer that, but put his left hand below his chin and looked downward. His lack of response intensified Ana’s interest. She held back from saying anything, waiting instead for a response. But instead of answering her, he got up from his chair and walked over to the huge glass window, through which the light of the afternoon sun was streaming in, and just stood there, staring out at the skyline of the city.

  “So there’ve been no more revelations?” she asked again.

  “I didn’t quite say that,” he said without turning his gaze from the window.

  “Have you heard from him, Nouriel? Since you finished writing the book, have you heard from the prophet?”

  It was then that he resigned himself to the possibility that telling her might be part of the plan.

  “One might say that,” he replied.

  “One might say that you’ve heard from him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?” she asked.

  Finally, he turned to her.

  “He returned.”

  Chapter 2

  The Girl in the Blue Coat

  COME, NOURIEL,” SHE said as she got up from her chair. She led him out of the office and down the hall. At the end of the hall was a door that opened into a large meeting room with a long table of dark brown wood in its center. Its outer wall consisted almost entirely of glass, and beyond it, a vast panorama of skyscrapers.

  “Please,” she said, motioning him toward the seat at the head of the table, “sit down.” So he did. She took the seat to his right, with her back to the panorama.

  “It’s more secure in here,” she said. “It’s soundproof. May I get you something to drink?”

  “Just water,” he replied.

  She pressed the button on the intercom at the head of the table.

  “A glass of water and a cup of coffee, please.”

  A minute later a woman appeared with a cup of coffee and a glass of water.

  “Thank you,” said Ana. “Hold off all calls . . . no interruptions.”

  “For the remainder of the meeting?” the woman asked.

  “For the remainder of the day or until I say otherwise. No interruptions.”

  Ana didn’t touch her coffee but just sat there and watched as Nouriel drank his water. When it looked as if he was done, she spoke.

  “So, Nouriel, how did it begin?”

  “It began at a book signing.”

  “I imagine you’ve done many.”

  “I have. This one was at the end of a speaking engagement. I was sitting in back of a long table. Most of the time when I do a signing, everyone waits in a line with their books. But this time was different. There was no line. It was chaotic. The table was surrounded by a thick crowd of people handing me their books in no particular order. I signed them and handed them back, hopefully to the right person.

  “I was about halfway through when a girl appeared in the midst of the crowd, directly in front of me on the other side of the table. She had to have been about six or seven years old. She had wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a light blue coat. There was something about her.”

  “What?”

  “For one thing, there didn’t appear to be anyone accompanying her, no mother or father, just a little girl standing in a crowd of people on her own. And there was something about her
that I couldn’t put into words.

  As the others pressed in to get their books signed, she just stood there as if separate from the rest of the crowd. She never pushed for me to sign her book but stood there, looking at me, with a gentle smile.

  “I realized if I didn’t say anything, she would end up the last to get her book signed.”

  “Would you like me to sign your book?” I asked.

  “That would be good,” she answered.

  Stretching her hand across the table, she handed me her book. I opened it to the title page and lifted my pen to sign it.

  “Your name?”

  “You don’t have to put down my name,” she replied, “just yours.”

  So I signed it.

  “Here you go,” I said, handing it back to her.

  At that, she gently took hold of my right hand, turned it so my palm was facing upward, and placed in it an object.

  “And here you go,” she said.

  “What was it?”

  “A small circular object of reddish-golden-brown clay . . . ”

  “A seal.”

  “Yes.”

  “An ancient seal?”

  “It appeared to be.”

  “Like the seal the prophet gave you?”

  “Yes,” said Nouriel, “just like the seals of the harbingers.”

  “Maybe she read the book and made the seal to look like those in the story.”

  “No. It was too exact; it was identical to the seals of the prophet . . . in every detail.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know how.”

  No one around the table realized what was going on. I imagine they figured the girl had given me a gift, a token of appreciation. And then she spoke.

  “Nouriel,” she said, “you’ve done what you were entrusted to do. You have delivered the message with which you were entrusted.” The words were no longer those of a little girl.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve given warning. And now the time is coming to an end.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Your time of not seeing . . . and the first part of your mission.”

  “Why are you saying this?” I asked. “Who told you to say it?”