What is the Promise of Restoration? | thebereancall.org

What is the Promise of Restoration?

January 8, 2006
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Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. Dave Hunt’s latest book Judgment Day! Islam, Israel, and the Nations is the topic for our discussion in this first segment of Search the Scriptures Daily. We’re finishing chapter 11 titled “Rebellion and Judgment”, which focuses on prophesies to be filled in the last days. 

Now, Dave, before we get to chapter 12, you write in chapter 11 that God’s integrity is tied to the ultimate restoration of Israel to her own land, never to be displaced again. And you quote Jeremiah:46:28: “Fear not thou, O Jacob…. I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.”

Dave: Well, Tom, there are so many promises like that in the Bible—literally hundreds. We had mentioned in the very beginning when we started to study this book in our first segment of the program: anti-Semitism. It is one of the prophecies in the Bible, one of the great proofs. God said these people would be hated and persecuted and killed like no other people, and it came to pass. We explained what anti-Semitism is. Why? It’s satanic, and that can be very easily established by logic and from the Scriptures. As soon as God said to Satan, the serpent in the garden, “The seed of the woman is going to bruise your head…” in other words, “You will be destroyed by a virgin-born Man, born of a woman, somewhere down in history,” Satan began to look for this Person. We find this all through history, and we don’t have time to document that. But whether it was Haman, who would wipe out all the Jews in the days of Esther, whether it was Herod who was going to make sure he killed the Messiah, all down through history we’ve had this happening. 

Now, if Satan—even though Christ came, the Messiah came, defeated Satan on the cross—if Satan could somehow wipe out all Jews today, could destroy Israel, then he has won his battle with God, because, as you began, God’s integrity is tied to the ultimate restoration of Israel. The Messiah will return to His people brought back to their land, and rule over them on His throne.

Tom: Dave, let me just quote another verse with regard to what God says about this, how He lays it out. This is Jeremiah:31:35-37: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord; if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” 

So is the sun going to rise tomorrow? If it ceases to rise, if the moon ceases to appear…I mean, that’s the condition.

Dave: Well, Tom, if you’ll allow me to repeat something, I found it quite interesting: A preacher put an ad in the paper that he was—his topic was “How to Destroy Israel.” Wow! The Muslims showed up. There were several rabbis there with members of their congregation—in fact, sitting on the front row. And he took that verse as his text. And one rabbi poked the other one, and said, “I think it’s going to be ok.” As the preacher began to say, “You want to destroy Israel? Okay, tear the sun out of the sky, take the stars out, and stop the whole natural order, then you can destroy Israel. If you cannot do that, you cannot destroy Israel.” 

So God’s integrity is tied to Israel. Two hundred and three times He is called the God of Israel, nine times the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If Israel ceased to exist, that would be quite an anomaly, wouldn’t it? He’s the God of Israel, and Israel no longer exists. And yet, tragically, many Christians are claiming that Israel is finished and has been replaced by the church.

Tom: Dave, this is stunning to me, because it isn’t just those verses that we’ve quoted; there are literally hundreds of verses. Yet the faculty of Knox Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, issued an “Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties: The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the Gospel.” That was the title of their document. Now, it was signed by—well, the head of Knox Seminary is D. James Kennedy, signed by R.C. Sproul, signed by Michael Horton…

Dave: And another 70 or so prominent evangelical leaders.

Tom: Right. Dave, let me quote two sections from this document. It declares: “The inheritance promises that God gave to Abraham do not apply to any particular ethnic group, but to the church of Jesus Christ, the true Israel.” This is section nine: “The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in the Middle East called the ‘Holy Land’ cannot be supported by Scripture. In fact, the land promises specific to Israel in the Old Testament were fulfilled under Joshua.”

Dave: Well, Tom that is so incredible—dare I say “stupid?” It is so contrary to the Bible. We just read it—I mean, the promises that God gave of the land were to whom? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “…to your descendants forever.” Let me just turn quickly to 1 Chronicles 16, and let’s read it there.

Tom: Dave, we expect you to go faster today, because now you have your Bible. You were using foreign Bibles before.

Dave: I do have my Bible. Okay, here we are. Listen to what God says—1 Chronicles:16:14-18: “He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth. Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan….”

Tom: Now, I didn’t hear the church mentioned in those verses.

Dave: Tom, if you went to Genesis:17:7: “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant…” Sounds like an ethnic group of people, the descendants of Abraham. “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of…” Palestine? No, it didn’t even exist. That’s another lie that I think we’ve probably dealt with, “…all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession….” That sounds pretty everlasting to me. 

Now, Tom, let me read, with reference to what they say: “Oh, it was all fulfilled under Joshua.” Really! Now, this is an everlasting covenant, and Joshua died at the age of 110. So I don’t see how an everlasting covenant could have been fulfilled in the brief life of Joshua. 

Furthermore—you know, I love the Bible; you’re not going to come up with anything that the Holy Spirit has not already taken care of in advance. So we go to Jeremiah 23, and notice v. 7: “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.” Now, that’s what happened under Joshua. And Knox Seminary, D. James Kennedy, and all these faculty, and so forth, these great Christian leaders, say, “Oh it was all fulfilled. Well, that’s—oh yes, the promises of restoration of the land…” Wait a minute, you’re going to restore land? They didn’t restore land when they came out of Egypt. They didn’t bring them back from many countries into that land when they came from Egypt, they only came from one country. 

So that’s what happened under Joshua. Now listen to what He says: “It will no longer be said, blessed be the Lord, or the Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth which brought up, and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the North country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.” 

Now, if D. James Kennedy is listening (which I’m sure he isn’t), if any of these men are listening, if anyone who believes this is even listening—you probably don’t listen to this program—I challenge you: you make the exodus from Egypt, turn that into, “The Lord liveth, which brought the house of Israel out of the North country, from all countries whither I had driven them.” He hadn’t driven them anywhere at that point. You simply cannot do it, and this is a form of anti-Semitism. You do not like Israel. 

Now, they say, “Oh, well, I’m not anti-Semitic, I’m just anti-Israel.” You’re anti-Israel, you are anti-God, because He is the God of Israel, and the Bible is full of such promises of this. 

And, Tom, when He talks about “led them out of the various countries,” it didn’t happen under Joshua. Jews from more than 100 countries have come back and are living in Israel today. It’s a fulfillment of prophecy. 

As we have often pointed out, prophecy is unique to the Bible, the major subject of prophecy is Israel, and this is the major proof God offers of His existence, that the Bible is His Word, and so forth; and these people are pulling out from under us, from under the Scriptures, from under the Lord God of heaven—they’re denying Him the major proof that He offers to the entire world. And in this book Judgment Day, that’s one of the things that I point out right on page one: If God’s promises to Israel are not true, then shut down every synagogue, shut down all the Christian churches, because if any part of the Bible isn’t true, how can we believe the rest of it? How could we trust what God says about our redemption through Christ if what He says about the redemption of Israel, and their restoration to the land, and the Messiah returning to rule over them isn’t true? 

So if Satan could destroy the Jews, if what these men say is true, then there’s no Second Coming, because there is no Israel left. But the major purpose of the Second Coming, Christ comes to destroy Antichrist and his kingdom, and to set up His own kingdom on the throne of His father David, ruling over His people Israel. And if there’s no Israel, there’s no Second Coming; the whole thing is a lie, and God has had the moral ground pulled out from under Him. He’s a liar like Satan, and He couldn’t punish Satan, and this world belongs to Satan. Tom, we’re not just talking about some moot point of doctrine, this is absolutely foundational to everything we believe.

Tom: Dave, again, this is an evangelical organization, this seminary, and these people—again, this was an open letter to evangelicals and others that we’ve just documented. 

Yet, Dave, we have to go back to the roots of replacement theology, and interestingly, as these Calvinists, these Reformed theologians, coming out of the Reformation against the Catholic Church, why they would be the standard bearers of replacement theology, which came out of Roman Catholicism…I mean, that is stunning in itself.

Dave: Now, Tom, as you know, there is a great deal of Catholicism that clung to the Reformers, such as infant baptism for salvation. Every Lutheran church today on the face of the earth follows a small catechism of Luther, and they all get baptized as babies, and when they do they get a baptismal certificate that says, “In this act of baptism you have been forgiven your sins and made a child of God.” That simply isn’t true. Now, this is what you were taught when you grew up: you had infant baptism as a Catholic.

Tom: Exactly.

Dave: But the popes were the first ones to put the Jews in ghettos…

Tom: Dave, let’s go through that. This is actually—we’ve taken our listeners from chapter 11. We’re into chapter 12 now titled “Some Important Distinctions,” and I think one of the distinctions is—again, we’re going back to the roots of replacement theology, but also, anti-Semitism, how this developed through the Roman Catholic Church; how the Jews, sadly, don’t make a distinction between Roman Catholicism and biblical Christianity, which is what we want to address here.

Dave: Yeah, that’s a tragedy, Tom, and I’ve tried to address it in many books, because many Jews today say, “Well, we’re not going to become Christians, because it was the Christians who persecuted us down through history.” In fact, it was not Christians. A real Christian would not persecute a Jew; he wouldn’t persecute, anyway.

Tom: Well, these are the brethren of Jesus Christ, the ultimate Jew, right?

Dave: Right, right, but it is the Roman Catholic Church—the first crusade for example, organized by Pope Irvin II. He gave indulgences to the knights and knaves who went to the so-called “Holy Land” to claim it for the Jews to whom God gave it? No, to kill the Jews and to take it for the Church. He said, “Go, and take that land for yourselves.” And he promised any who died in that crusade, they would have instant forgiveness of sins and go immediately to heaven—they could even bypass purgatory.

Tom: Sounds like Islamic jihad, Dave.

Dave: Exactly, and that was one of the reasons he did it, because the Muslims, who were holding that land, they gave paradise to those who died as martyrs in jihad. 

But jumping ahead, in 1904, Theodor Herzl in his diary, (that was the day of his death), and we have copies of it…

Tom: He was the founder of the modern Zionist movement.

Dave: Right. He asked Pope Pius X for help in establishing the Jewish settlers back in their land, and he records what the pope said: “We cannot prevent the Jews from returning, but we could never condone it.” 

In 1919, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State for the Vatican, confessed: “The thing that frightens us the most is the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.” Now, why would that frighten them? I mean, it has to be—we’ve read some scriptures; these people must be restored to their land. 

Now, here is the pope, here’s the Catholic Church—they claim to be the one true Church, the pope claims to be the Vicar of Christ…

Tom: They claim to believe in the sacred Scriptures.

Dave: Yes, and they are absolutely opposed to the hundreds of promises that God gave that He would restore these people to this land. So you’re correct in saying this is a carryover from Roman Catholicism. The 1933 Vatican Concordant that Pacelli—this is Eugenio Pacelli; he was papal nuncio to Germany. He became Pope Pius XII—this concordant that the Vatican made gave the Nazis legitimacy, and when Pacelli…and as you know, we’ve reported it and documented it, it was Vatican money that Pacelli passed on to Hitler that helped fund the Nazi party in its early days. So when Pacelli became Pope (this is Pope Pius XII), he sent a condescending message to the Führer, assuring him of the Vatican’s good will. In part it said: “To the illustrious Herr Adolph Hitler, Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich, we recall with great pleasure the many years we spent in Germany as apostolic nuncio, when we did all in our power to establish the harmonious relations between church and state. Now, how much more ardently do we pray to reach that goal?” 

You would think that the Vicar of Christ (this is what he calls himself) would have more discernment than that. This was 1939, and Hitler’s abuse of and intentions for the Jews had been fully exposed to the world. He made it very clear in Mein Kampf he was going to bring war; war would result in the extermination of the Jewish race. 

Tom: Mm-hmm. Dave, you’ve jumped from the 1900s—1904 to 1939, right in that area—but the Roman Catholic Church has a long history of anti-Semitism, and by that we’ve made the distinction before, really, anti-Jew is the way that turns out, because there are many Semitic people other than the Jews. 

Now, Pope Benedict XIV (this is 1740-1758), he decreed that a Jewish child, though baptized against its own and its parents’ will, was nevertheless a Roman Catholic. That created some problems down the line, didn’t it?

Dave: Well, we give a number of examples. For example, in 1851 a Catholic maid, without the Jewish parents’ knowledge or consent, secretly baptized their baby son shortly after his birth. When the boy was seven years old, Pius IX ruled that he was Roman Catholic, and ordered the papal police to take the child from his parents and put him in a Catholic boarding school, never to return him to his family. 

Now, I’ve been criticized for talking about the anti-Semitism of the pope, the Catholic Church, and people have said, “Well, yeah, but there were some good Catholics,” and I don’t deny that, of course.

Tom: And some popes who were in favor of preserving the Jews.

Dave: Right. So some Jews were rescued during WWII by individual Roman Catholics, but not generally by the church. And the authors of Shoa, a book that I would recommend, point out, “Even when the church engaged in isolated rescue activities, the motive seems to have been to bring the rescued Jews into the bosom of Christianity.” That makes… See, this is a Jew that writes that. This is Catholicism, this is not Christianity. 

The Catholic Church—please understand this—murdered, slaughtered, persecuted far more real evangelical Christians than they did Jews down through history. Millions, actually. 

But anyway, I’m continuing to quote Shoa: “Thousands of Jewish children were taken into monasteries, and after the war many were not returned to their people in faith, even after relatives pleaded for their release. 

And so, Tom, I guess what we’re trying say is anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism, is satanic. It is a phenomenon that is unique to the Jewish people. No one else even comes close. And of course we point in the book that although there were a lot of slaves, for example, between Africa and the United States or England, died. Many other people have died. The Armenian people, about a million or more, were slaughtered by the Turks. But never with the intention of exterminating a race! The Jews have been persecuted and slaughtered with the satanic intention of exterminating a race, because these people hold the promises of God, and His integrity is tied to their ultimate restoration in their land.

Tom: And, Dave, you cannot be an anti-Semite, you cannot be anti-Jewish, and really call yourself a biblical Christian.

Dave: Right.

Program Number: 
0206a

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