Jonathan Cahn. The Josiah Manifesto. Front Line, 2023.
This past year we happened to see a television interview with Jonathan Cahn on his latest book, The Josiah Manifesto. It sounded intriguing, and when we saw that one of the local libraries had a copy, we were able to read it. It certainly suggests something about the power of God, and that He truly observes what is going on in the world.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part is largely a study of the biblical concept of Jubilee and how that applies to things going on today. The second part is the titular manifesto, a call to action based on the figure of King Josiah in the Bible.
The concept of Jubilee is that every fifty years the nations of Israel and Judah were to restore things to their original state among the people. That meant property that had been bought and sold was to revert to its original owners, that any slaves or indentured servants were to be released, and that any debts were to be forgiven. Cahn basically sees this as a restoration to the way things were and a way to start from the point that God intended.
Without going into too much detail, he notes a couple of “jubilees,” fifty year restorations of justice from injustice. The most important which he discusses at length is the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the court ruling that legalized abortion on demand in the United States. The restoration of protection for the vulnerable babies in the womb was fifty years after the original ruling.
He notes also that in 1970 the first two states in the Continental United States legalized abortion: New York and Washington. In 2020 they were the two states most in the news over Covid-19. The first case in the country was in Washington and the most and deadliest cases were in New York. To him this is not coincidence.
As a biblical parallel, he notes that the first of the ten plagues of Egypt under Moses was the Nile River turning to blood. This paralleled the drowning of babies in the river when Moses was a baby. “…the waters of the Nile would turn to blood just as the blood of the Hebrew children had once reddened its waters.” (126)
He notes that the United States and a few other nations finally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, fifty years after Israel began ruling there in 1967. Cahn also speaks of an interesting series of events after fifty years of Communism in Cuba, events which he observed.
The second part is the actual Josiah Manifesto. Cahn sees King Josiah of Judah as a leader of a nation in a condition similar to that of America and most of the Western world. When Josiah became king, the nation had been ruled by a succession of ungodly rulers who promoted idolatry—including child sacrifice—and persecuted and killed the prophets. Josiah rediscovered the Hebrew Scriptures and restored worship of the true God and a just government.
King Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, had embarked on a campaign to further the worship of foreign gods, to erect pagan shrines and altars, and to bring the practices of the pagan world into the land. In its initial stages it could be championed in the name of tolerance, acceptance, freedom, and openness to the new.
But once things were legitimized, established, and enshrined, the banner of openness and tolerance was withdrawn and replaced by an iron rod of coercion, oppression, persecution, and cultural totalitarianism. It is no accident that Manasseh is recorded as having “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another.” [see II Kings 21:16] It was the inevitable flip side of the coin. It was inevitable that the same culture that called evil good would call what was good evil. If one embraces evil, one must end up waging war against the good. (194)
The Josiah Manifesto, then, becomes a study of Josiah and how people in today’s world, especially the West, can promote justice and recover a lost worldview. Throughout, it exhorts the reader to trust in God. There are few specifics, but a general call to be courageous and stand for the truth.
The more a culture departs from the ways of God, the more revolutionary it will be to walk in them. Every godly act will become a revolutionary act. Every godly word will become a revolutionary world. And every godly life will become a revolutionary life. The people of God must increasingly live as a revolutionary people. Those who follow Messiah must increasingly return to their first of all states, the state of revolution. (206)
A culture that has fallen from God will always seek to justify its altered state by altering standards, redefining values, and reframing reality. (225)
But, as Joshua would have said, the righteous are to “be strong and of good courage.”
The righteous must ultimately be defined by that which they stand against but by that for which they stand. Their lives must bring forth healing, restoration, salvation, and redemption. Their impact on the world must be positive. They must love in the face of hatred, bless in the face of persecution, return good for evil, and manifest heaven in the face of hell. (239-240)
It is impossible for a universe to come forth out of nothing, for a sea to part in two, for a man to shut up the heavens, for a virgin to conceive a child, for the dead to rise to life, for a weak and broken band of disciples to change the world, and for a nation that has been dead for two thousand years to come back to life. But God is the God of the impossible. And those who follow Him, especially in times of adversity and impossibilities, must live against the odds, above the laws of the natural, and by the power of the impossible. With God all things are possible, and nothing will be impossible. (271)
May it be, Lord. May we be found faithful.
The last chapter brings the two parts of the book together. Without creating any spoilers, let us just say that it reminds us that, regardless of what seems to be going on, God is still on His throne.