The Harbinger, page 2
“The prophet would receive the word through impartation—a vision, a dream, an utterance, a sign. He would then be responsible to deliver the word to the nation, either by proclaiming it or by committing it to writing or by performing a prophetic act.”
“And how would the nation know if a word came from God or not . . . if it was authentic? How would you recognize an authentic prophet?”
“It wouldn’t be by his appearance,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. He wouldn’t necessarily look any different from anyone else, except that he was called. He could be a prince or a farmer, a shepherd, a carpenter. He could be sitting right next to you, and you’d have no idea you were sitting next to a prophet. It wasn’t about the prophet but about the One who sent him.”
“So then how would they know if the message was from God?”
“It would contain the mark, the fingerprint of the One who sent it.”
“Like a seal.”
“Yes, like a seal . . . and the word would come at the appointed time—when the nation needed to hear it, in critical times and in times of apostasy and danger.”
“Danger?”
“Of judgment,” he replied.
“And would they listen to the prophets?”
“Some would; most would not. They preferred to hear pleasant messages. But the messages of the prophets weren’t meant to make them feel good but to warn them. So the prophets were persecuted . . . and then came judgment . . . calamity . . . destruction.” He handed me back the seal.
• • •
“It was him,” said Ana, breaking her silence. “The man on the bench . . . he was the prophet.”
“Yes.”
“He was letting you know that when he said, ‘He could be sitting right next to you.’”
“Exactly.”
“What did he look like?”
“Somewhat thin, dark hair, a closely cropped beard. He was Mediterranean or Middle Eastern looking.”
“And what was he wearing?”
“A long dark coat. He was always wearing the same coat every time I saw him.”
“So he handed you back the seal.”
“Yes, and I asked him, ‘So why would anyone want to send me an ancient seal?’
“‘A seal,’ he said, ‘bears witness to a message that it’s authentic or that it’s of great importance.’
“‘But what would that have to do with me?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have anything to do with messages of great importance.’
“‘Maybe you do and just don’t know it.’
“‘You’re very mystical, you know.’
“‘Or maybe,’ he said, ‘you’re about to receive one.’
“‘What do you mean?’
“‘A message of great importance,’ he replied. His left hand had been resting on his lap for the entire length of the conversation . . . closed. That’s when he opened it. In the middle of his palm was a seal.”
“No!” said Ana, now leaning forward in her chair. “How could he have?”
“But he did.”
“ . . . a seal like yours?”
“Like mine, except with different markings.”
“But how did he . . . ?”
“Exactly. That’s what I wanted to know.”
• • •
I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t process it. My heart was pounding, and my voice grew tense. “What’s that?” I asked. I knew what it was, but I didn’t know how else to say it.
“A seal,” he replied.
“What I meant was, what are you doing with a seal?”
“What am I doing with a seal? The question is, ‘What are you doing with a seal?’”
“How did you get that?” I countered.
“I told you, it’s my hobby. I collect them.”
“You collect seals?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the one!” I said, my voice filled with tension and rising. “You’re the one behind it. You’re the one who sent it to me. What is this all about?”
“It’s all about finding out what it’s all about.”
“How did you do this? How did you manage to . . . You’ve been following me?”
“Following you? I was the one sitting on the bench. You’re the one who came after. Are you sure you weren’t following me?”
“I don’t even know you.”
“Nevertheless, you were the one who came after.”
He was right, of course. He couldn’t have been following me. He was already there. I was the one who sat down next to him. And yet in his hand was a seal just like the one in mine, as if he knew I would come, as if he’d been waiting. But it was a rare thing for me to go there. It wasn’t planned. And I was the one who chose to sit down at that particular bench and to take out the seal at that particular moment. I asked him again, “What is this all about?”
“You’ve been given a seal,” he said, “Where there’s a seal, there must be a message. Do you have a message?”
“No,” I replied, almost defensively, “I don’t have any message.”
At that he paused and just stared for a few moments into the distance. Then he turned to me and, looking directly into my eyes, uttered his reply. “But I do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“But I do have a message.”
“What message?”
“I have a message . . . for you.”
At that point I was almost shaking. I got up from the bench. “I don’t think so,” I said in a voice now tense with anxiety. “I have no idea how you managed to do this, but it has nothing to do with me.”
“It’s the time,” he replied.
I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I was torn between two impulses—the urge to get as far away from that bench as I could and the need to hear what he had to say. I was frozen. And then he spoke again.
“It’s the time, Nouriel.”
“Nouriel!” I replied almost shouting, “How did you . . . ?”
• • •
“How could he have possibly known your name?” Ana interjected.
“A good question, but he never answered it. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the distance ahead and continued speaking. ‘It’s the appointed time, but not for an ancient nation. It’s time for the word to be given . . . for the mystery to be revealed . . . for the message to go forth. It’s the appointed time—but not for an ancient nation.’”
• • •
“This has nothing to do with me,” I said again.
“Then why were you given the seal?” he asked.
“Who are you?” I countered.
He didn’t answer that but just looked at me. It was a silence as intense as anything else that took place that day. I couldn’t stay there any longer.
• • •
“So you left him?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And what did he do when you left?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look back.”
“So how did you make sense of all that?”
“I didn’t. I went home. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For days it was almost impossible to sleep. I picked up a Bible to look for anything I could find on the prophets and their messages. Days went by, weeks, and I could hardly think of anything but that encounter. And then I returned.”
“To the bench by the Hudson.”
“Yes, but not exactly to the bench, but near it, to where I could see it from a distance.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him again.”
“But you did want to see him again.”
“Again, I was torn. I knew that if I didn’t see him again, I’d never know the answer. At the same time I was afraid of what that might mean. And yet, still I was drawn back. I had to return.”
“And . . . ?”
“And he wasn’t there. I returned a second time. And again he wasn’t there. And then a third time.”
“And . . . ?”
“The third time he was there just as he was the first time, sitting on the same bench on the same spot, in the same long dark coat.”
“And . . . ?”
“And then it began.”
Chapter 3 Kingdom’s Eve and the Nine Harbingers
I was standing behind the bench and to the right.
“You returned,” said the prophet, without any movement of his head, but still maintaining his gaze into the distance. He couldn’t possibly have seen me, but he knew I was there. It was something I could never get used to . . . being with someone you felt could, at any given time, see through you.
“Why?” he asked, still gazing toward the waters. “Why did you return?”
“Because,” I replied, “you’re the only one who can give me the answer.”
“To what?” he asked.
“To the problem.”
“To what problem?”
“To the problem of you.”
“I’m the only one who can answer the problem of me?” he said with a hint of playfulness in his voice. “I don’t know, Nouriel; it sounds like a paradox to me.”
“Am I wrong?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “You’re not wrong.”
I joined him on the bench. It was only then that he broke his gaze to look at me. “But are you ready?” he asked.
“For . . . ?”
“The answer.”
“I hope so.”
“Then let’s begin. You’re a journalist; did you bring a notepad or a recording device?”
“A recording device.”
“Good,” he said. “I thought you would have. Turn it on.”
I removed the recorder from my coat pocket and pressed record. From then on I was even more careful to make sure I never went anywhere without it, just in case.
• • •
“So then everything the prophet said, you recorded?” asked Ana.
“Virtually everything.”
“Recordings of the Prophet . . . not a bad title for a book.”
“As soon as I turned it on, he returned his gaze back to the waters and slightly upward, focusing on no particular object as far as I could see. Then he began to speak as if recalling some distant memory.”
• • •
“They had no idea what was coming. They thought it would all go on as it always had, as if it would never change. They had no idea what was about to happen or what it was all leading to. Everything they had ever known, up to that point, their entire world, would vanish.”
“Who?”
“An ancient people . . . an ancient kingdom. Israel, the northern kingdom, eighth century B.C. They should have known. It was all there from the beginning, but they forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“Their purpose, their foundation, that which made them unique. No other nation had been called into being for the will of God or dedicated to His purposes from conception. No other people had been given a covenant. But the covenant had a condition. If they followed the ways of God, they would become the most blessed of nations. But if they fell away and turned against His ways, then their blessings would be removed and replaced by calamity, as they did, and as it was.”
“But why would they turn away if they were given so much?”
“It’s a mystery,” said the prophet, “a kind of spiritual amnesia. When it began, they were still using God’s name, but with less and less meaning behind it. Then they started merging Him, confusing Him with the gods of the nations. And then they began turning against Him—subtly at first, then outright, then brazenly—driving Him out of their national life and bringing in idols to fill the void. The land became covered with idols and altars to foreign gods. They rejected their covenant, abandoned their standards, and exchanged the values they had always lived by for those they had never known—spirituality for sensuality, holiness for profanity, and righteousness for self-interest. They cut themselves off from the faith on which their nation had been established and became strangers to God. And as for their most innocent, their little children, they offered them up as sacrifices.”
“Literally?” I asked. “They literally killed their own children?”
“On the altars of Baal and Molech, their newfound gods. That’s how far they descended. Everything was now upside down. What they had once known as right, they now saw as outdated, intolerant, and immoral. And what they had once known as immoral, they now championed and celebrated as sacred. They had transformed themselves into the enemies of the God they had once worshiped and the faith they had once followed, until the very mention of His name was banned from their public squares. And yet in spite of all this, He was merciful and called to them, again and again.”
“Through the prophets?”
“Through the prophets—Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, and Amos, pleading with them, warning them, calling them to return. But they rejected the call and declared war on those who remained faithful. They branded them as troublemakers, irritants, dangerous, and, finally, enemies of the state. They were marginalized, vilified, persecuted, and even hunted down. So the nation grew deaf to the call of those trying to save them from judgment. The alarm would have to grow louder and the warnings more severe.
“More severe?”
“They would enter a new stage. The words of the prophets would now be joined to the sound of calamity. God would remove the hedge.”
“Remove what hedge?” I asked.
“The hedge He had placed around them, the hedge of protection, of national security that had kept them safe up to that point. As long as it was in place, they were safe. No enemy kingdom, no empire, no power on earth could touch them. But once it was removed, everything changed. Their enemies could now enter, breach their land, and enter their gates. It was a new phase, much more dangerous than before. Thus began the days of calamities and shakings . . . the days of final warning.”
“And when did this all happen? When was this hedge removed?”
“732 B.C.”
“Maybe I’m missing something,” I said. “But what does all this, what happened two and a half thousand years ago, have to do with anything . . . with now? What does it have to do with why you’re here and why I’m listening to all this? When we first met, you said it wasn’t about an ancient nation. But so far all you’ve talked about is an ancient nation.”
“I said, ‘Not for an ancient nation.’ That’s different.”
“But why are you talking about an ancient nation?”
“Because unless you understand what happened then, you’ll never understand what’s happening now.”
“Now? So it’s some kind of key?”
“A key for the appointed time, for the word to be given and for the message to go forth, but not for an ancient nation.”
“Then for what . . . for what nation?”
He was silent.
I asked him again, “Then for what nation?”
It was only then that he voiced it.
“America,” he said. “Now for America.”
With that, he got up from the bench and walked over toward the water.
I couldn’t let it go at that. I followed him there. “All this has to do with America?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s the appointed time for America? For a mystery to be revealed and a message to be given to America?”
“Yes.”
“But what does America have to do with ancient Israel?”
“Israel was unique among nations in that it was conceived and dedicated at its foundation for the purposes of God.”
“OK . . . ”
“But there was one other—a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception . . . America. In fact, those who laid its foundations . . . ”
“The Founding Fathers.”
“No, long before the Founding Fathers. Those who laid America’s foundations saw it as a new Israel, an Israel of the New World. And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning its rise or fall would be dependent on its relationship with God. If it followed His ways, America would become the most blessed, prosperous, and powerful nation on earth. From the very beginning they foretold it. And what they foretold would come true. America would rise to heights no other nation had ever known. Not that it was ever without fault or sin, but it would aspire to fulfill its calling.”
“What calling?”
“To be a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God’s purposes, a light to the world. It would give refuge to the world’s poor and needy, and hope to its oppressed. It would stand against tyranny. It would fight, more than once, against the dark movements of the modern world that threatened to engulf the earth. It would liberate millions. And, as much as it fulfilled its calling or aspired to, it would become the most blessed, the most prosperous, the most powerful, and the most revered nation on the earth—just as its founders had prophesied.”
“But there’s a but coming, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” he replied. “There was always another side to the covenant. If ancient Israel fell away from God and turned against His ways, its blessings would be removed and replaced with curses.”
“But wasn’t Israel surrounded by nations far worse,” I asked, “with no concept of God or moral code? So why would Israel be judged?”
“Because to whom much is given, much is required. And no nation had ever been given so much. None had been so spiritually blessed. So the standards were higher, the stakes greater, and the judgment, when it came, more severe.”
“And America . . . ” I said.
“And America has done much good. And there’s no shortage of nations far exceeding any of its faults or sins. But no nation in the modern world has ever been given so much. None has been so blessed. To whom much is given, much is required. If a nation so blessed by God should turn away from Him, what then?”
“Its blessings will be replaced with curses?”
“Yes.”
“And has America turned away from God?” I asked.
“It has turned, and is turning.”
“How?”
“In the same way Israel turned. It started with a spiritual complacency, then spiritual confusion, then the merging of God with idols, and then, ultimately, the rejection of His ways. Just as with ancient Israel, America began ruling God out of its life, turning, step by step, against His ways, at first subtly, and then, more and more, brazenly.”
