The Harbinger

First off, know this about me: I am simultaneously a man of intense faith and rigorous scientific/analytical background. I believe in God. I am also an computer engineer/scientist. My life is a constant journey toward understanding the harmony between spirituality and science.

Before deciding to read this book, I prayed. I asked God to give me guidance. If this was a deceptive work whose purpose was to entangle my mind in crazy, supernatural delusions (and their accompanying flights of fantasy), I asked that He turn me away. If, on the other hand, there was a message within worth hearing, I asked Him to give me the proverbial “eyes to see and ears to hear”.

The result? It's currently been 5 hours since I purchased the book. Between then and now, I stopped only to eat dinner; in every other second, I devoured this text. And now, having completed it, here I am, carrying a heart that simultaneously feels immense hope and incredible heaviness.

Without spoiling the particulars, this book details (in narrative form) the author's encounter with a man who makes statements befitting a slightly modernized Old Testament prophet. As his base of discussion, this man uses scripture found in Isaiah 9:10 (which details Israel's defiant response to the siege laid against it by Assyria); what follows is an amazing, heart-wrenching account of how those same events – and their consequences – have come to unfold in the United States.

10 pages in, I was interested. 50 pages in, I was slightly skeptical. 125 pages in, I began to consider the validity of what was being said. 150 pages in...and my eyes began to open. This is a grand story that teeters on the edge of impossible, but which, when considered carefully, strikes a chord that often accompanies the deepest truth.

Once I'd completed this, I went to my Bible. With apologies for how “do-this-for-me” my request seemed, I asked God to once more show me if what I'd read had any measure of truth. I asked Him to show me through Scripture (which doesn't conform to – and isn't bound by – fantasy or supernatural leaps of nonsense) whether this meant anything.

Somehow, I opened directly to Isaiah 9:10. I'm not one to believe in chance or happenstance; you be the judge as to whether this was coincidence.

For the reader who is brave enough to read this book, put its contents under the microscope of whatever world view he subscribes to, and merely listen, there is much to examine here. At its core, it is simultaneously a message of hope and ominousness, disobedience and repentance, rebellion and the call to return. Try, for a moment, to suspend the box into which you fit the world; allow yourself the opportunity to consider something outside of your everyday experience.

You won't regret it.

This was hard to rate!

The message? critically important. This is a wake up call to America, and a much needed one. I don't believe there is any time to spare.

The problem is, the author's chosen format for this book makes it seriously tedious reading. It's mostly dialogue, and unrealistic dialogue at that. If only he'd written the message as a straightforward account, I think it could have had an even greater impact.

That said, the point he's making has far reaching consequences. The warning makes me feel I should recommend this read in spite of the stilted writing.