Dave Hunt's shadow

Dave Hunt was a friend of mine. The Bible teacher went to be with the Lord recently. He will be missed by his friends and his followers.

He was truly a Berean, in the best sense of the word, so his newsletter was aptly named – The Berean Call.

The Bereans were admired by the Apostle Paul because they just didn't accept his teaching. They went home and studied the scripture daily to ensure that what he said was true.

Unfortunately, Dave's protégé and successor at The Berean Call does not live up to the reputation. I say this as a friend of T.A. McMahon who played a role in one of the true miracles of my life. We had spoken at a conference together and took the same flight out. I had a history of kidney stones and got a terrible attack on the flight. I was miserable – in terrible pain and discomfort. There's nothing worse than being strapped up in a plane, even a relatively short flight, in agony from kidney stones.

Having experienced this before, I knew what would help – Tylenol extra strength. I didn’t have any on me. I didn’t know how difficult it might be to find it in the airport when we landed, and I had another long flight to follow that stop in Minneapolis.

I asked Tom McMahon if he would help me off the flight and help me locate some.

And here's where what I call "the Tylenol miracle" comes in.

McMahon walked me off the plane when it landed – I was desperate to find extra strength Tylenol. We walked off the ramp, and the very first vending machine we saw, not more than 100 feet into the terminal, was the miracle – something I had never seen before or since: a giant Tylenol dispensing machine. We had a good laugh about that, even though I was still in pain.

I believe that was the last time I saw McMahon.

But I've heard a lot from him in the last year.

McMahon is on a vendetta of some kind against the most successful and insightful Christian writer of 2012 and 2013, Jonathan Cahn, the author "The Harbinger" and the inspiration behind the most successful faith movie of the same period, "The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment," which I had the privilege to produce.

Nearly every issue of The Berean Call includes a new attack on "The Harbinger" and "The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment" – each one more preposterous and slanderous than the next.

He accuses Cahn of being a Kabbalist. He accuses him of being a replacement theologian. He accuses him of all manner of heretical teachings. None of it is true. In fact, it's all preposterous.

I know Jonathan Cahn's teachings inside out. I have read everything he's written. I have listened to dozens of his sermons. I've spent many hours with him. He is a humble, prayerful messianic Jew who loves the Lord and is faithful to the scriptures.

So you have to wonder what motivates Tom McMahon – and a handful of others like him – to spend so much time attacking a man who has glorified the Lord and delivered what may be the most important teaching for America today.

I hate to judge motivations. I'm sure McMahon actually believes what he writes. But he is completely off base, misguided, wrong. Some of what he has said and written would be actionable if Cahn weren't a public figure.

So I will do something here I hate to do: I will speculate as to the motivations behind these fallacious attacks.

McMahon has a legacy to live up to – the big legacy of Dave Hunt. He is attempting to do that with a "holier than thou" attitude toward the superstar of American evangelicalism today, Jonathan Cahn (and occasionally myself because of my close association with him).

It's pure jealousy, in my opinion. It's envy. It's the temptation to pick on someone with a big following to attract attention from a much more limited following.

Can you even imagine running a Christian teaching ministry in a day of near total apostasy in the mainstream church and make your No. 1 target a man with the gifts and humility of Jonathan Cahn, whose simple message is repentance, salvation and redemption – a pure Gospel message?

I can't.

Yet it continues in his most recent issue of The Berean Call – which should perhaps be renamed so as not to besmirch those heroes of scripture study cited by the Apostle Paul.

If you haven't yet read "The Harbinger" or seen "The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment," I urge you to do so and make up your own mind.