The Stream’s Nancy Flory recently sat down with author and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn at National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) conference to discuss his new book, The Return of the Gods. Jonathan spoke about his book, spiritual warfare and signs of the end times. Here’s what he had to say.

Nancy Flory: At what age did God give you the wisdom to connect the judgments on Israel to the current judgments on America?

Jonathan Cahn: Well, it was only after I was saved that I could see that, because growing up I didn’t know the Lord. But when I came to the Lord, it was pretty clear to me. And I came when I was 20 years old. So, it was pretty clear to me what was happening in America and that it was following this path. I spoke about the judgment of America long before 9/11, but when 9/11 came, right away I knew, ‘Okay, there’s something here.’ 

And then it was later on when I was standing at the corner of Ground Zero, I saw this tree that had been struck down. Something said, ‘There’s something here. You have to seek it out, and there’s going to be something revealed.’ And that is how The Harbinger became the first puzzle piece. That became the first book that I wrote. 

Nancy Flory: What prompted you to write this book? And why now? 

Jonathan Cahn: I think the year after I did The Harbinger, I did a message called “The Dark Trinity.” It’s about the dark trinity of gods from when Israel fell, these were these spirits. People said, ‘You gotta write it up.’ I didn’t do anything. But years later, when COVID happened, I was praying about the next book. I always pray, ‘What do you want me to do?’ The thing is, this is so relevant to everybody. The changes that are taking place in our culture are crazy, bizarre, accelerating [and] affecting our children.

[These spirits] are behind all of it. It’s accelerated, and it’s only going to accelerate apart from the hand of God. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by where you don’t see something that links to this. These are behind all this. The Harbinger was the sign of the last days of Israel. The paradigm was the events and the people replaying the last days of Israel in America. These forces and powers and spirits that were in the last days of Israel are now affecting America, changing everything.

We Cannot be Afraid. We Cannot be Silent.

Nancy Flory: What do you want readers to take away from this book?

Jonathan Cahn: Well, one, we are in a war. And if you’re in a fight and you don’t know you’re in a fight or you don’t know what you’re fighting, most likely you’re not going to win. What we’re dealing with are the same [spirits] that were dealt with in the days of the Bible. [They’re] back. These are biblical times. [Two], that we need to stand. We have a power that’s greater. What’s happening is not out of control, even though it looks like it’s out of control. These are the same things that Elijah dealt with, that Moses dealt with, that Paul dealt with. But we’re dealing with it. We have to stand. We cannot be silent. 

We cannot be afraid. We cannot be intimidated because we have a much greater power. If the darks are getting darker, it’s time for the lights to get brighter.

Just to give an idea, the overall premise is that the Bible says that behind the gods of the angel were actually spirits. In the Hebrew, they’re called shedim. In Greek, they’re called demonia or demonic. But then the Gospel drove out the gods, that’s why the world changed. … So, it was the greatest mass exorcism in history.

What happened to the spirits? They don’t die. And that’s [like] the parable that Jesus gives — the spirit leaves the man, looks for a place. If he doesn’t find a place, he goes back to the original house, brings seven others and it’s worse, People think it’s about a person, but at the end, he says, ‘So shall be with this generation.’ The warning or the premise is this: Any nation or civilization or culture that has been delivered of these things, like Western civilization was, if it should ever turn away from God, and the very powers that delivered it, those same spirits that were cast out are coming back into it, not just to a person, but to the whole culture. And they come back to repossess it and to paganize it.

It’s Pagan. It’s Repossession

If we want to understand what happened in the last half-century of America, we started to say, ‘Let’s take God out of here.’ Well, this is all back. It’s pagan. It’s pagan, it’s repossession. I’ll say that if we could actually know the actual spirits or gods — and we can, the Bible gives it to us — that’s what I call the dark trinity. One of them is called the enchantress. She was the goddess of sexuality of sexual immorality. Well, that’s taken over America as we turned away from God. But it says in her ancient inscriptions, ‘I am a woman. I am a man.’ She says she has the power to, it says in her inscriptions, to turn a man into a woman, a woman into a man. This is what is in our culture, this spirit.

It blends male and female — confuses it, changes it. She had an ancient priesthood that were men who walked around her temples, dressed up in the clothing of women who would dance and perform, and parents would bring their children. She actually had them surgically transitioned. She was the goddess of parades. She had parades of men dressing as women through the city streets. And there was one month of the year she especially possessed. It was the month of June. One of her signs was the sign of the rainbow. This has affected even Supreme Court decisions. They happen according to the calendar of this goddess. It’s affecting us all over.

We’re in a Spiritual War

That’s why even nonbelievers are saying ‘This is not natural. What’s happening is not natural.’ Well, it’s not. We’re in a spiritual war. We war not against flesh and blood. If these things were cast out by the Gospel by believers, they come back with a vengeance. They want the Gospel out of America. They want the Word of God out. They target believers. When they come into a culture, it’s in the name of tolerance. ‘Be open, everybody do your own thing.’ That’s the only way they can get into a Christian culture. But once they get a foothold, then it changes from ‘tolerance’ to ‘every knee shall bow, every tongue woke,’ you know, wokeism, cancel culture. That’s where we are.

But to me, it’s an exciting time because when the dark gets darker, the lights get brighter or have to get brighter. And the thing is, that if the bad is going from bad to worse, we’ve got to go from good to great. These are really the days that actually produce the great testimonies. Great believers, great. Paul didn’t live in a Christian culture. They lived in a culture like this. Like a mystery, if everything’s kind of going back to where it was at the beginning of the age, the culture is going from a Christian culture back to a pagan culture. Then we, the people of God have to go back to where we were at the beginning, which is the Book of Acts. That’s what God is calling for. The Spirit is greater. The name of Jesus is greater. God is greater, but we’ve got to rise. If we don’t use the power we have, how can we win? But if we use it, how can we lose?

The Greatest Power

Nancy Flory: How can Christians prepare for the return of the gods? 

Jonathan Cahn: They’re here. The answer to the gods is God. The answer to the spirits is the Spirit. The answer to the mythology, which now we call wokeism and all this irrationality, is the Word. Think of all the people in the Bible who dealt with spirits. Moses stood against the gods of Egypt. Elijah stood against the gods of Canaan. Paul stood against the gods of Rome. The Maccabees stood against the gods of the Greeks. They all had to be. You can’t stand against  unless you’re plugged into what you’re for. 

The more you strengthen your connection with God, daily in His presence, in His Word, daily, [applying] the words to your life, that’s the greatest antidote you have. That’s the greatest power you have.

Congratulations. You’re There.

For all you guys who’ve been praying, ‘I wish I could live in Bible times,’ congratulations. You’re there. These are not days not to fear, but these are exciting. When people make a movie, the most exciting part is the last 15 minutes. Well, God has put us in the most exciting part. And so it’s time to rise to that. The Return of the Gods is kind of pulling, removing a veil, which the Bible reveals, but it’s now we’re dealing with what the Bible said thousands of years ago.

It’s actually happening. The thing is, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. But now we have to stand. Our God is stronger. Our Savior is better than any savior. Yeshua, the name of Jesus is stronger than any name and we have victory, but we cannot be afraid. We cannot cower. Elijah did not cower before Baal. And Moses didn’t cower before the god of Egypt and Paul didn’t cower before [Rome]. We are not to cower. We are to stand. No matter what it looks like, we truly are on the winning side. We have to go through our thing, we know that. But in the end is the winning side.

This interview was edited for clarity.

Nancy Flory, Ph.D., is a senior editor at The Stream. You can follow her @NancyFlory3, and follow The Stream @Streamdotorg.