ISAIAH 9:11
ISAIAH 9:11
Sunday, September 6, 2015, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
As we approach the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the United States, I felt today we should remember the warning of God to our nation. Like Israel of old, we continue to defy God and have not repented of our sins. Instead, our sins have escalated and our woes as a nation continue to spiral.
The 9/11 attack was to correct, to wake up the U.S.A., to repent, and to turn the people back to God, for the purpose of redemption and to fulfill our Kingdom destiny as a nation.
Not only has the soul of the people of this nation not turned back to God, but this nation has stubbornly rebelled more aggressively against God. American has a lot of problems, but our primary problem is spiritual.
This past month we have seen our nation humbled to a new low on many fronts. Week after week the moral free fall plunges. Miley Cyrus brought womanhood to a new low. A Christian woman is jailed because of her faith that according to the Word of God, marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Aborted baby parts are being sold.
In Houston, TX, we buried a deputy sheriff shot down in cold blood by the spirit of lawlessness. In the Middle-east, refugees are fleeing northern Syrian and from elsewhere in the Middle-east by the millions. This administration signed a bad deal with Iran empowering them to obtain nuclear capabilities to further threaten Israel and the U.S.
The stock market has been plunging. The Chinese, Russia and North Korea are taunting the United States and our allies.
The Lord continues to give us warnings. As we continue to ignore the warnings, the warnings become prophetic of judgment.
“Righteousness exalts a nation…but sin is a reproach to any people.”
America, a nation, more blessed by God than any other world power has turned away from God into apostasy and hypocrisy.
George Washington spoke a prophetic message over America on the day of his inauguration in Federal Hall on April 30, 1789:
“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”
The eternal rules of order and right mean God’s unchanging standards of morality. If America upholds God’s eternal standards and follows His unchanging ways, then it will be blessed with His favor…His protection…His prosperity…but if America should depart from the ways of God, if it should disregard His eternal standards, then the smiles of heaven, the blessing of God will be withdrawn…The day America turns away from God will be the day that begins the removing of its blessings.” (The Harbinger, Jonathan Cahn)
Like ancient Israel, America has removed the Ten Commandments from public places. God has been driven out of our schools and government buildings. The public mention of the name of Jesus is a cause for embarrassment. Our media openly profanes the name of God and the name of Jesus without apology. That which was once sacred is now treated as profane.
Idols of greed, success, materialism, lust, pleasure seeking, spirit of acquiring, self-worship – manifest in the abundance of “selfies”. We have even given the worship of ‘self” a name.
Unashamedly pornography fills our family rooms even in commercials. Ten years after removing prayer and Scripture from public schools, the nation legalized the killing of its unborn. Israel sacrificed thousands on the altars of Baal. American has sacrificed millions of babies. Never has a nation so blessed sinned so grievously against God.
I have had The Harbinger in my library for several years. I even started reading it, but never got past the first couple of chapters. Yesterday afternoon I started reading the book again. I believe it is timely in view of the 7-year cycle of judgment which began on 9/11/2001.
In the book, the author identifies the boasting, defiance and arrogance of the United States with the boast of Israel after they were attacked by the Assyrians in 732 B.C. The first attacks were warnings, but when Israel did not repent, the Assyrians were used as the rod of God’s anger to destroy Israel.
Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with hewn stone; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will plant cedars in their place.”
“Instead of pausing for a moment to reexamine their ways, confess their sins and repent, they boast of their resolve. It wasn’t about rebuilding at all. It was about ignoring the warning and rejecting the call to repent and return to God. So they missed their warning.
They did more than just miss it. They defied it. They weren’t vowing just to rebuild what was destroyed, but to make themselves stronger than before, to become invulnerable to any future attack. So what they were saying is, “We will not be humbled. We will not repent of our ways and consider the possibility that we have sinned against God as a nation and a people. Instead, we’ll defy the calamity. We’ll undo the damage as if it never happened.”
It has now been 14 years since the Assyrians attacked the United States of America. I knew and surely every other Bible literate Christian knew that grace had been lifted off of America and it was judgment. The Lord has always used the Assyrians as his instruments of judgment.
The Assyrians spirit is and has always been a spirit of terror. “It is in his heart to destroy.”
“O Assyrian, the rod of My anger
And the staff in their hand is my indignation.
I will send him against a hypocritical nation…
Yet he does mean so,
Nor does his heart think so,
But it is in his heart to destroy,
And cut off not a few nations.”
(If the Assyrians will receive Jesus Christ, like every other nation and people, the Lord can change their heart and give them a new heart.)
Surely the Church of America will recognize these warnings. If, the ministers of the gospel do not call our nation to repentance and confront the sins of our nation, America will be destroyed in judgment. Ministers of the Gospel, God did not call you to be popular. He called you to be faithful to preach the uncompromised Word to the people. Without the preaching of the Word, the people will perish.
As I considered these things, I turned to Isaiah 9:11, because of the “stoutness (arrogance and pride) of the heart of the people” (9:9)
9:11-13:“The Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin (King of Syria) against him (ungodly nation), and join his enemies together; the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel (apostate nation) with open mouth. God’s anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. For the people do not turn to Him who smites them, neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts.”
Friday I opened my Bible and started reading Jeremiah 49. I had the television on Fox News, but it was muted. After finishing reading Jeremiah 49: 23-26, I looked up at the TV and saw the scripture being fulfilled before my eyes---thousands of Syrians fleeing Isis and confounded.
“Concerning Damascus, Hamath (northern Syria) is confounded, and Arpad (northwestern Syria); for they have heard evil tidings; they are faint-hearted; there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet. (We saw a toddler lifted out of sea). Damascus is waxed feeble, and turns herself to flee, and fear has seized on her; anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail…therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be cut off in that day, says the Lord of hosts.”
Isaiah 9:10 was fulfilled in exact detail from the Sycamore tree which was cut down from fallen debris and replanted with a Cedar ( Erez Tree). The scripture was proclaimed by the Speaker of the House on 9/12/12 on the steps of congress in defiance of the judgment of God. Then three years later, the Democratic candidate for Vice President, confirmed that Isaiah 9:10 had been fulfilled and would be fulfilled in the rebuilding. None of them knew that they were speaking judgment on America.
The vow of Isaiah 9:10 became our nation’s foreign and domestic policy. In ancient Israel, “we will rebuild” meant they would repair the damage, rebuild their fallen buildings, towers, homes and their walls. They would rebuild their walls and fortify their defenses so as to become invulnerable to future attacks. In the same way, the U.S.A. embarked on a campaign to rebuild its walls of protection, to strengthen and fortify its systems of defense. We established the Department of Homeland Security, the launching of a global war against terror, and two conventional wars abroad.
We would say all of this is good except our nation continues in spiritual decline and rapid departure from God. God was calling us back, allowing us to be shaken, to wake up, to save American from judgment.
Seven years after 9/11, on September 7, 2008, the American economy collapsed, triggering a global economic implosion. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the American economy took place over the course of one week. It was the anniversary week of 9/11. The collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac happened on 9/7. Two days later on 9/9 the collapse of Lehman Brothers began. It was on Sept. 11, 2008, that a second fall indicated another American calamity.
“The financial house of cards was slowly built following the 9/11 attacks. As the U. S. government tried to revive the economy by repeatedly dropping interest rates, families lunged at the opportunity to refinance their mortgages. The collapse of the mortgage market was felt around the world.
On 9/11, the New York Stock Exchange closed down for six days. When it reopened on 9/17/01, it suffered the greatest loss in its history up to that day. The crash of September 2008 was an after shock of 9/11 – two shakings.
Both of these stock market crashes happened on the 29th day of Elul on the Hebrew Calendar. This is the last day of the Jewish year of Shemittah which occurs every 7 years. This year is the seventh year from 2008 and it will occur on September 13th.
As long as Israel continued its descent from God, the progression of judgment had to continue, so too with America. The voice of God continues to call our nation back to Him. If the nation doesn’t listen, there are continued calamites: economic disintegration, military defeat, disorder and division, collapse of infrastructure---a collapse of an empire.
Isa. 9:11: “Therefore the Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and spur his enemies on. They shall devour Israel with an open mouth. For all this His anger is not turned away. His hand is stretched out still…the land is burned up…what will you do in the day of punishment, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help?
As Rezin was the King of Assyria this is also symbolic of the spirit of the anti-christ which has become a strong hold in the United States of America.
America we can still repent and turn back to God. How shall they know without a preacher? The remnant church is holding-back total judgment on this nation. We cannot be lukewarm and compromising. There must be a righteous Remnant who are pressing in and seeking the Lord with their whole heart.
2015 is not only the seventh year Sabbath in the Jewish calendar, but it is also the Jewish year of Jubilee. For the Christian, Jesus declared that he was the fulfillment of the Jubilee and all the blessings of Jubilee are in him continually.
However because of the prophetic sign of 9/11/2001 and again on 9/11/2008, we must approach September 13th in prayer and repentance for our nation.
In Galatians 4:10, Paul is admonishing the Christians who have slipped back into Judaism to not return to the bondage of observing days, months and times and years.
I am very careful with this. However, I believe the Lord led me to bring forth this exhortation to be aware of the signs of the times, and again call the church and the nation to repentance.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. I entered into the labors of Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Brother Cahn.