The Harbinger II

by Jonathan Cahn

  “And what was it?”

  “It looked like an ancient Greek temple, and yet it was familiar. I counted out the number of columns that lined the building’s facade. There were twelve. I took out a five-dollar bill and compared it. It was as I suspected. It was the Lincoln Memorial.”

  “You had met the prophet there,” said Ana, “once before in your first encounters.”

  “Yes,” said Nouriel. “But it was a lot harder back then to know that I was to meet him there. This time the clue was much clearer.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “I believe, because there was now less time. So I took a train to Washington, DC. It was a breezy spring day in the capital city. I checked into a hotel, unloaded my baggage, and took a cab to the Lincoln Memorial. By the time I got there, it was midafternoon. I ascended the steps, scanning my surroundings for any sign of the prophet. I reached the top of the stairs, passed through the massive columns of the colonnade, and entered the building.

  “Because of the pandemic, I was mostly alone. But there, to my right, in his long, dark coat was the prophet. I could only see his back side, as he was turned away from me, gazing up at the words engraved on the memorial’s northern wall.

  “He didn’t see me come in or approach him. It was the first time that that had happened. I was standing in back of him and to his left, thinking of what the most appropriate greeting would be. But I never had the chance to give it.”

  “Nouriel,” he said without turning his gaze. “This is where we stood the first time we came here. And this is what we read, the words of his Second Inaugural Address, in which he speaks of the Civil War as the judgment of God on the nation’s sin of slavery:

  . . . until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’1

  “The war had turned farms into battlegrounds and cities into blood-covered devastations. As it approached its third year, the Union’s prospects were looking grim. Its highest generals were failing and being replaced, one after the other. In the east, the Union was suffering defeat before the Army of Northern Virginia, led by General Robert E. Lee. In the west, its campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg was, likewise, suffering repeated failure. There was no end in sight. And with many in the North growing weary of the war, the danger of defection and the defeat of Lincoln’s government, and thus the acceptance of the Confederacy’s secession, was growing. And if that had happened, the United States of America as we know it would have ceased to exist.

  “But then a stirring took place in the nation’s capital. Based on the template given in the Scriptures of a nation suffering the consequences of its sins and the promise of healing and restoration, the United States Senate called on Lincoln to set forth a national day of prayer and repentance. Lincoln issued a proclamation calling the people of America to do what was set forth in 2 Chronicles 7:14, to humble themselves, to pray, to seek God’s face, and to turn from their sinful ways, to repent. The proclamation ended in the hope of three blessings: that the nation’s prayers would be ‘heard on high,’ that God would grant ‘the pardon of our national sins,’ and begin the ‘restoration of our now divided and suffering country.’2 They were the exact three blessings promised in that scripture and cited in the exact order in which they were given: ‘then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.’3 So in the darkest days of that war, Lincoln called the nation to come in prayer and repentance before God.”

  “Historians are in agreement as to what year marked the turning point of the Civil War. Do you know what it was?”

  “No.”

  “1863,” he replied. “More specifically, July of 1863, with two battles: the most famous engagement of that war and the bloodiest ever fought in the western hemisphere, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the other—just as critical and decisive—the Battle of Vicksburg. They were both fought at the same time. The Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3. The Battle of Vicksburg ended the next day. The turning point of the Civil War came in the first days of July 1863. It would determine the victory of the Union, the defeat of the Confederacy, and the survival of the United States.

  “Do you know when the national day of prayer and repentance took place? In 1863, the same year. It happened at the end of April. And thus the turning point of the war came just over two months later. Gettysburg was the high-water mark of the Confederacy. General Lee’s plan was to enter northern territory and crush the Union Army so decisively that the North would give up the war. Thus the battle threatened to bring about the dissolution of the United States, but instead, it became the turning point of its preservation. Gettysburg was Lee’s greatest disaster. From that point onward, he would never mount a major offensive against the Union but would fight a war of defense. Gettysburg would begin the Confederacy’s decline and lead to its destruction.

  “Then there was the Battle of Vicksburg. The city of Vicksburg gave the South control of the Mississippi River and was known as the nail that held the Confederacy together. Lincoln saw its defeat as the key to ending the war. The Confederacy had attempted to divide the United States in two. But with the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1862, the Confederacy itself was divided in two, and its end was now only a matter of time.

  “The man responsible for the fall of Vicksburg was Ulysses S. Grant. The victory would constitute the turning point not only of the war but of his career and would ultimately lead to his being placed in charge of all Union Forces and bringing the war to its end.

  “The campaign to take Vicksburg had been underway since the winter of the preceding year. Grant had made five attempts to take the city. All of them had failed. But in the spring of 1863, everything changed as Grant led his men across the Mississippi River and, the next day, won the first victory of the entire campaign. It was called the Battle of Port Gibson, the first of five victories that would lead to the taking of Vicksburg. It was at Port Gibson that everything turned around. It was thus the turning point of the turning point of the Civil War.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “It happened on May 1, 1863. The national day of prayer and repentance took place on April 30, 1863.”

  “It happened the next day!”

  “Yes. The turning point of the turning point of that war, the day that led to the ending of the war and the healing of the land, took place on the day after the day of national prayer and repentance. In other words, April 30 was the day of ‘If My people. . . will humble themselves, and pray...,’ and May 1, the day that set in motion ‘Then I will . . . heal their land’4—the very next day.”

  The prophet then led me over to the colonnade, where we stood in between two columns.

  “There are all together thirty-six columns here,” he said. “Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “They stand for the thirty-six states that existed at the time of Lincoln’s presidency. The names of those states are engraved over the columns. This one stands for Pennsylvania.”

  “Pennsylvania,” I said, “Gettysburg. You told me about the turning point that led to the fall of Vicksburg. Was there a turning point that led to the Battle of Gettysburg?”

  “Yes. It was the Battle of Chancellorsville. On the surface, it appeared to be a great victory for Robert E. Lee. But the deeper picture was very different. It would ultimately prove catastrophic for the Confederacy and is considered by some to be the third turning point of the war. It caused four things to happen that would lead to disaster. First, it left General Lee depressed over its outcome, as he believed it accomplished nothing. It frustrated him, so much so that he became all the more determined to deliver a crushing blow against the Union on its own soil. Second, it bolstered his confidence that he could fully execute that crushing blow. Third, it gave the Confederacy the confidence to approve Lee’s plan. The Battle of Chancellorsville would l
ead directly to the Battle of Gettysburg, the Confederacy’s greatest disaster and the turning point of the war.”

  “You said there were four. You only told me three.”

  “When Lee entered Gettysburg, someone was missing—his greatest general and the man he referred to as his right hand: Stonewall Jackson. His absence at Gettysburg would prove critical.”

  “Why wasn’t he there?”

  “Because of the battle at Chancellorsville. It was nighttime. Jackson’s troops spotted the approach of soldiers on horseback. Taking them to be riders in the Union cavalry, they opened fire. But the approaching soldiers were their own. One of them was Stonewall Jackson. He was struck down by their fire. The injury was fatal. Lee was said to have commented that for the sake of the South, he would rather have been the one shot than Jackson. The death of Stonewall Jackson crushed the morale of the Confederate army and of the South itself and bolstered that of the North. And it removed one of the most brilliant commanders in American history from the Confederate campaign.

  “Historians have cited Jackson’s absence at Gettysburg as decisive in bringing about the defeat of Lee’s army and thus, in the end, of the Confederacy.”

  “And when was he shot?”

  “On May 2, 1863 . . . two days after the national day of prayer.”

  “The Battle of Chancellorsville set all these things in motion. So when did Chancellorsville begin?”

  “The battle began on May 1, 1863—the very day after the national day of prayer. One of Lee’s other generals, General James Longstreet, would mark Chancellorsville as the war’s turning point, when ‘the dark clouds of the future . . . began to lower above the Confederates.’”5

  “So it was the turning point of the turning point, just as was Grant’s first victory in the Vicksburg campaign.”

  “Yes. The two turning points, the Battle of Chancellorsville and the Battle of Port Gibson, each began on the same day—the day following the day of prayer.”

  “If My people humble themselves and pray . . . ”

  “And so they did. And the very next day, it all began to turn. And just over two months later, it would manifest to the world. It was all set in motion on that day, the end was sealed, and America would survive.”

  The prophet then led me back into the chamber and to the statue. We stood there gazing at the massive figure sitting on the stone chair, burdened down and lost in somber contemplation.

  “He is known for many things,” said the prophet, “but it was what he did in the spring of 1863, his calling America to prayer and repentance, that ultimately changed the course of world history. Think about it; what would have happened had he not issued that call and had they not humbled themselves and prayed and turned from their sinful ways and sought the face of God? What if Grant had not crossed the Mississippi that day and won his first battle, and taken Vicksburg, and cut the Confederacy in two? What if Chancellorsville had never happened and thus Gettysburg had never taken place? What if Stonewall Jackson had lived to fight at Gettysburg and the South continued its offensive wars against the North?

  “All these things would have led toward the nation’s dissolution. The United States of America, as we know it, would have ceased to exist. The South would have gone on as a slave nation. The North would have gone on as a remnant of what had once been the United States, with only a portion of its former resources and powers.

  “And what then would have happened, when the evil of Nazism began to rise and spread across the European continent, if the United States, as we know it, did not exist or was not strong enough to vanquish it? And what would have happened, when the darkness of Communism began to engulf the world, if the United States did not exist to oppose and restrain it? All those things turned on a single day in April of 1863 with the prayers of God’s people. All that darkness, all those evils, were, in the end, undone because of the prayers lifted up on that last day in April of 1863. The defeat of Nazism and the fall of Communism and countless other turns and repercussions of world history all began with the mystery of return and an ancient biblical promise given for a broken nation.

  “And it all goes back to Ground Zero.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Second Chronicles 7:14 was given as an answer to the prayers prayed by King Solomon on Israel’s consecration ground. America was consecrated to God at Ground Zero. And 9/11 brought the nation back to that ground. ‘If My people who are called by My name’—it was crying out from the ruins of Ground Zero.

  “Did you notice the date, Nouriel?”

  “Of the day of prayer and repentance?”

  “Yes.”

  “The end of April.”

  “April 30,” said the prophet. “Do you know what that date was? It was the date that America was dedicated to God in prayer . . . on its inaugural day . . . at Ground Zero! And it was the day that America was given that prophetic warning by Washington. It’s all connected . . . Lincoln’s day of repentance, America’s consecration to God, Washington’s prophetic warning, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Ground Zero, 9/11. It’s all joined together. And Ground Zero is the beginning of the harbingers, the warning, the signs, the progression. It’s all part of the same mystery. And we’re still in it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Who?”

  “Lincoln. What did he say in that proclamation?”

  “You want me to recite it for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here?”

  “Could you?”

  Aside from the guards assigned to protect the memorial, there was no one there but the two of us. The prophet turned around so that he was now facing away from Lincoln’s statue toward the colonnade at the memorial’s entrance. His gaze grew intense and distant, as if he were looking through the columns into the landscape beyond it. And it wasn’t as if he was reciting the words of a historic document—it was as if he, himself, was issuing the call, here and now, to a broken nation that had fallen away from God. I backed away toward the entrance so I could receive it as would an audience. He began to speak:

  Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

  And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

  We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

  It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

  Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religiou
s duties proper to that solemn occasion.

  All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.6

  And then there was silence. The prophet’s intense and distant gaze was gone. He began walking away from the statue toward the columns to exit the memorial. I joined him. We began descending the steps.

  “It’s amazing,” I said, “how much of what you just said could be said to America now. Could it happen again?” I asked. “Could there be a turning as there was then?”

  “When we stood in St. Paul’s Chapel, you asked me how America could return to God. It could happen this way.”

  “But that happened a long time ago,” I replied. “It’s a different America now. How would it happen today, in modern times?”

  “The Scriptures are eternal. The promise was given to Solomon, and yet three thousand years later it changed the history of America and the world. The Word of God is not limited by time.”

  We continued down the steps.

  “And it has happened,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It has happened in modern times.”

  “How modern?”

  “In your own lifetime, Nouriel. The mystery of return manifested—and again it changed history.”

  “If it happened in my lifetime, how would I not know it?”

  “It belongs to the secret things of God, to the hidden realm that lies behind history. That’s why you didn’t know. But soon enough you will.”

  Chapter 32

  The Western Terrace

  UPON REACHING THE bottom of the steps, we walked across the square, down still more steps, and along the Reflecting Pool.