The Modern State of Israel (Part 2)

What Are We to Make of Israel — Steve Gregg

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The Modern State of Israel (Part 2)

What Are We to Make of IsraelSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg explores the historical context of the modern State of Israel, highlighting the influence of Zionism and America's involvement through dispensationalism. He emphasizes the role of figures like Theodor Herzl and Rev. William E. Blackstone in shaping the Zionist movement and garnering support, leading to the establishment of Israel. Gregg also discusses the controversial issue of land ownership and the conditional nature of biblical prophecies regarding the Jewish people. While acknowledging the atrocities committed during the War of Independence, he emphasizes the importance of justice and mercy in evaluating the actions of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Transcript

In addition to Zionism and America's involvement, we have the influence of dispensationalism. And this is where Christianity intersects with this thing. Dispensationalism is still a minority view worldwide among Christians, but it's the majority view among evangelicals in America.

It began in 1830, and it was the first time Christians began to be of a mind that the nation of Israel has to be restored in the last days. The founder of this movement was, of course, John Nelson Darby. If you look up Zionism in the Wikipedia article on it, one of the things that Wikipedia says, which, by the way, can be confirmed by a multitude of other sources, I just, this is an easy one to locate.

Quote, one of the principal Protestant teachers who promoted the biblical doctrine that the Jews would return to their national homeland was John Nelson Darby. His doctrine of dispensationalism is credited with promoting Zionism following his 11 lectures on the hopes of the church, the Jew and the Gentile, given in Geneva in 1840. Unquote.

John Nelson Darby, the founder of dispensationalism, gave 11 lectures, which is credited with founding the idea of Zionism in 1840. That's 50 some years, almost 60 years before Theodor Herzl started the Zionist movement. 60 years before that, Darby begins to get the ball rolling in the minds of Christian people that this is supposed to happen.

Anita Shapira, a history professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, suggests that the evangelical Christian restorationists of the 1840s, quote, pass this notion onto Jewish circles, unquote. This comes from the book Israel, a history published in London. Anita Shapira of the Tel Aviv University.

She says that it was the Christians of the 1840s, that's the dispensationalists, who passed the idea of Zionism onto the Jewish people, which is interesting. She's a Jewish historian. So Zionism didn't start with Theodor Herzl, it started with Darby.

Yet Darby didn't live anywhere near long enough to even see the first Zionist conference. However, his views brought about the support, especially of America, but also of Britain. Balfour, who wrote the Balfour Declaration, was a dispensationalist.

And so were a great number of Christians in America. David Brogge, in his book Standing with Israel, from Frontline Publishers, 2006, said, quote, dispensationalism has inspired millions of Christians to stand with the Jewish state of Israel, unquote. No question about that.

Millions of Christians have stood with Israel because of dispensationalism. Well, where did Christians stand before dispensationalism came along? Well, they stood in a place different, where the church stood for 2,000 years before, or 1,800 years before dispensationalism. We'll talk about that at a later time.

There is an alternative to dispensationalism, which, in my opinion, is more scriptural, more conservative, by the way. Many people think, oh, if you're not pro-Israel, you're not a conservative. I'll tell you, if you believe that Israel should be a state based on dispensational theology, then I'm more conservative than you are, because I'm sticking with what the church taught for thousands of years, not what they started teaching 180 years ago.

I mentioned there's a very important dispensationalist who had influence in America, and America had influence in the United Nations, which caused the state of Israel to come out. This man is named William Blackstone. He's not extremely well-known anymore, but he wrote in his time, in the early 1900s, a book called Jesus is Coming.

It was a dispensational book on Bible prophecy, similar to Hal Lindsay's Late Great Planet Earth, and similar in influence. Let me read you something about Reverend William Blackstone, which comes from a Jewish source. This is not a biography written by a Christian.

This is from Jerry Klinger, president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. It's an article called Brandeis, Wilson, and the Reverend Who Changed History. It has a lot to do with Brandeis, justice of the Supreme Court, Jewish leader of Zionism in America, and his connection with our friend William Blackstone.

I'm just going to read from this article written by this Jewish writer who's not Christian. Reverend William E. Blackstone was a premillennial dispensational Christian evangelist and missionary. He was the author of the hugely successful and influential Jesus is Coming in 1878.

His book, the veritable reference source of American dispensationalist thought, sold millions of copies. It was translated into 48 languages. Blackstone clearly laid out the biblical justifications for the return of the Jews and the reestablishment of the Jewish state as a precondition of the second coming of Jesus.

His efforts influenced countless millions of Christians to identify as Christian Zionists. Continuing, in 1891, Blackstone assembled a memorial to President Harrison. The memorial was signed, and later gave it to Wilson as well, was signed by 413 prominent Americans, business leaders such as J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, prominent congressional leaders including William McKinley, the later American president, Thomas Reed, speaker of the House of Representatives, religious leaders, Christian and Jewish editors and publishers of major American print media, and even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Melvin Fuller.

The memorial called for the American support in concert with the world community for the creation of a humanitarian solution to the Jewish suffering in Russia. His solution, permit the Jews to return to Palestine. The memorial was formally presented to President Harrison March 5, 1891.

The memorial was in the major American news for weeks. The complete text is printed in the Chicago Tribune. President Harrison did not move on the proposal, but 25 years later, in 1916, a similar memorial was presented to President Woodrow Wilson.

This document had an influence upon Wilson, encouraging his sympathy with the Balfour Declaration, Britain's first official endorsement of Zionism. Nathan Strauss, assistant to Louis Brandeis, wrote to Reverend Blackstone on May 8, 1916, and said, quote, Mr. Brandeis is perfectly infatuated with the work that you have done along the lines of Zionism. It would have done your heart good to have heard him assert what a valuable contribution to the cause your document is.

In fact, he agrees with me that you are the father of Zionism, as your work antedates Herzl. So Brandeis, the leader of Zionism in America, believed that William Blackstone, the dispensational evangelist, is the real founder of Zionism, not Herzl. So dispensationalism was a major factor in influencing the United States, and the United States was the major factor in creating the State of Israel.

Now, if I were to tell you that in the next World Series, such and such a team is going to win, and it did, you would maybe think I was a prophet, unless you found out that I had given $5 million to the quarterback to tell him to throw the game. Then you say, wait, you're no prophet. You made that happen.

Well, I don't have time to get into it, but if you study the foundations of Zionism and the working of Brandeis and these other influential leaders in Zionism on the government, and how they influenced them and so forth, and the money they contributed, Harry Truman, when he was campaigning for president, at one of the train stops, handed him a suitcase that had, I forget the amounts, $3 million in it, cash, as a gift from the Zionists. And lo and behold, Harry Truman influences the United Nations to favor the Zionist cause. We can say it's a miracle, but we have to say that even if it wasn't a miracle, it could have happened.

It could happen without intervention. Political things happen all the time. And this did happen.

One other factor that we have to consider that did lead to the creation of the Zionist state is that the British mandate was unmanageable to the Britons because of terrorism, much of which was Jewish terrorism. Let me read from a book by Timothy Webber. This is a Christian writer, but he's not dispensationalist.

His book is called On the Road to Armageddon, How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend. It's published by Baker Academic in Grand Rapids. If you know Christian publishers, that's one of the more respected evangelical publishers, Baker.

And it was published in 2004. This author said, in 1940, now it's eight years before Israel became a nation. In 1940, Abraham Stern, a Jew, founded Lehi, a terrorist organization with extreme elements from the Irgun.

The Jewish terrorists shot British policemen, set bombs in public buildings, hanged British soldiers in retaliation for executing Lehi operatives, and tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the British High Commissioner, Sir Harold Michael. When Stern was killed in 1942, Yitzhak Shamir took over. Yitzhak Shamir actually became the seventh prime minister of the state of Israel, who also led this, what's sometimes called the Stern gang, Lehi, a terrorist organization.

This same author tells us, Kym Weizmann was negotiating with Prime Minister Winston Churchill about a new partition plan when Jewish terrorists assassinated Lord Moyne, the British minister for Middle Eastern affairs in Cairo. In July 1947, this is of course just a year before Israel became a nation, the Irgun, under its new leader Menachem Begin, who became the sixth prime minister of Israel, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where British army was headquartered, killing 90 people and wounding 45." Now these are just some samples of the Israeli terrorism in the 40s, prior to the establishment of the nation, and these were not directed against Arabs or Palestinians, these were against the British. And these things led the British to say, we don't want anything to do with this anymore.

We're giving up this mandate, and that led the United Nations to come up with a partition plan to favor a Jewish state and a divided state. So we've got these factors, we've got Zionism, we've got American influence, we've got dispensationalism influencing America and Zionism, and we have Israeli terrorism. I may seem too one-sided in presenting only what Israel did, but I'm not trying to say that it's a one-sided thing.

What I am trying to say is we've heard plenty about Palestinian atrocities, that is, things that Palestinians have done. We have not been hearing very many things about what Israel has done. Interestingly, I mean, when Elizabeth Elliott can't get a Christian publisher to publish her book because it seems a little bit too pro-Palestinian, you can tell there's some kind of an information blackout in this part of the world.

For some reason, we have not been allowed to hear this kind of information, though it is out there and it's well-known by people who live in the Middle East, and probably by many other people who've made more of a study of it than I have. There's been a lot of other political developments we don't have time to go into right now, back and forth, Israel and the Arabs fighting each other, doing terrorist things to each other, things that we would condemn and that we should condemn on both sides. But the question then is how is the Christian to evaluate the establishment of the nation of Israel? Now, we know what a Christian should think about any individual acts of terror, of course.

An act of terror on the part of Israelis, we condemn. An act of terror on the part of Palestinians, we condemn. That's subsequent.

The Palestinians see themselves, at least, as freedom fighters. We might not see them that way, although if we were in their shoes, we might. I'm not here to substitute the word freedom fighter for the word terrorist.

All I'm saying is that both sides have done freedom fighting kind of acts of terror. And it's hard to say that our sympathies belong with one group more than the other. But if we evaluate the situation as we evaluate other situations internationally, there would be a case made that the Palestinians are the ones who have been wronged.

They're the ones who've been dispossessed of their land. But then the Jews were wronged too. They were wronged by Europeans, not by the Palestinians.

And many authors have pointed out that the Palestinians are made to suffer for the crimes of the Nazis. Because the Nazis led the international community to decide we'd better help the Israelis find a land of their own at the expense of the Palestinians. They didn't do anything particularly to deserve that, but they just, you know, I have to say, white Europeans don't feel much affinity for Arabs, generally speaking.

I know it's a racist statement, but I think it's a true statement. I mean, I'm not the racist. I think it's a racist attitude.

I think that when white Europeans see people in Arabic garb and think of Arabs, they think of Muslims. And of course, you're usually right, they usually are Muslims, not always. But I think that we don't have the kind of sympathy for people who look and act and think like Arab Muslims, as we do for people who migrated to Israel from Europe and look like us and have culture similar to our own.

And we have to be careful that we aren't the racists. Because although if you're not supportive of Zionism, someone's going to call you an anti-Semite. And anti-Semitism by definition is racism.

Now, obviously, being anti-Zionist is no more racism than being against Obama's policies is racism. Many of you would have voted for Ben Carson. He's of the same race as Obama is.

But if you oppose Obama, it's because you're racist. At least some say so. And the way that Zionism has intimidated people from speaking out against Zionism is they always play the anti-Semite card.

You'll even hear it among the churches here. If you just say, you know, I'm not a dispensationist, I don't believe there's unfulfilled promises to Israel. Someone's going to say, you're a racist, you're anti-Semite.

Believe me, I know, because I've been saying things like this for many, many years, for decades. And I know what people say. They say anti-Semite.

That card can be played against anyone who's anti-Zionist. And it works. It backs them down.

Oh, I don't want to be called an anti-Semite. That's like a Nazi. Even Jews who are not Zionists are called anti-Semite.

I have a quote here from the editor of Tikkun Magazine, a Jewish Hebrew magazine. His name is Rabbi Michael Lerner. And he says, quote, if a Jew today goes into any synagogue in the U.S. or around the world and says, I don't believe in God or Torah and I don't follow the commandments.

Most will still welcome you and urge you to become involved. But say, quote, I don't support the state of Israel, unquote, and you are likely to be labeled a self-hating Jew or anti-Semite, scorned and dismissed, says Rabbi Michael Lerner. He knows even Jews aren't allowed to not be anti-Zionist because they'll be called anti-Semite, which is ironic.

Now, of course, Christians, when they evaluate this, they have to. I'm going to suggest three ways it needs to be evaluated. One is prophetically.

And that's what most Christians do. We have to evaluate it prophetically. We have to evaluate it ethically.

And we should evaluate it politically, too. Finally, and this is what I'm going to do in the remaining moments we have. Prophetically, there are five things I want to say.

First of all, the prophets said Israel would lose their lease on the land if they were unfaithful to God. We know that God gave them the land, but the Bible makes it very clear it was conditional. Let me first of all turn you to Jeremiah, because Jeremiah makes a generic statement that applies to Israel and all nations.

In Jeremiah 18, verses 7 through 10, God said, The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck it up, pull it down, and destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. That's the first part. If God says he's going to destroy a nation, pluck it up and destroy it, he'll change his mind if they repent.

Do we know of any case in Scripture that's a remarkable instance of that? Nineveh. Jonah came and said, Forty days Nineveh will perish. It says the people repented and God repented and didn't do it.

Exactly what Jeremiah says God will always do. If he's going to judge a nation, he'll change his mind if they change their mind. By the way, Jonah didn't even say, Nineveh will perish in 40 days if you don't repent.

There are no conditions stated. What Jeremiah tells us is there's always conditions stated or otherwise. Even though Jonah didn't state the conditions, they were there.

And they were proven to be there when the people repented, God repented of the set. What do you do? Jeremiah says that's what God always will do. Then there's the other part.

And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning him to build and to plant it. Okay, here's the other way. If he threatens to destroy a nation, he'll change his mind if they turn and do good.

But if he says he's going to build and plant a nation, does anyone know of any nation God has ever said he would build or plant? In history, has there ever been a nation that God said he would build or plant? There's one that I know of, Israel. No others I've ever heard of. In the Bible, there's one nation and one only that God said he would build and plant.

It was Israel. Certainly, he must have them in mind. He says, the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it does evil in my sight so that it does not obey my voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

Also, it's all conditional. Whether the conditions are stated or not. Many times people say God made unconditional promises to Israel.

God said he doesn't do that. God himself says, I don't make unconditional promises. If I threaten judgment, I'll change my mind if they repent.

If I promise blessing, I'll change my mind if they go bad. That's what he says. Anytime.

Always. This is God's policy. That's Jeremiah 18, verses 7 through 10.

Now look at Leviticus 25, 23. Leviticus 25, in verse 23, this is actually giving instructions about the renewing of land to its original owners on the year of redemption and so forth. He says in verse 23, So whose land is it? God says, it's my land.

Well, what about Israel? What about them? You're a sojourner. You're a stranger on my land. You're squatters here.

I'm letting you live here right now. But look at chapter 18 of Leviticus. Leviticus 18, verses 24 through 28.

Now, by the way, I have no political extra ground whatsoever in this situation. I'm just interested in what the Bible actually says. I'm not twisting anything.

You tell me if I am. Leviticus 18, verses 24 through 28. Which I'm casting out before you.

For the land is defiled. Therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it. And the land vomits out its inhabitants, referring to the Canaanites.

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments. You shall not commit any of those abominations, either any of you, your own nation, or any stranger who dwells among you. For all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled.

Lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as I vomited out the nations that were before you. What's God saying? I let the Canaanites live there, but I had to get rid of them. The land had to vomit them out because they did these things.

Now I'm giving you the land. Don't do those things. Because if you do, the land's going to vomit you out too.

You don't have an unconditional lease here any more than the Canaanites did. I'm giving you this land. It's my land.

Your sojourners squatting on my land. Here's the covenant conditions. Meet those covenant conditions and you can stay.

Violate those covenant conditions and you're out just like the previous guys were. Now look at Deuteronomy 28. This is the most important chapter because it's very lengthy.

And Moses is telling the Israelites the conditions for their staying in God's good favor. And they have to obey, and if they do, they'll be blessed. In Deuteronomy 28, verse 1, he says, Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, and observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you. And he gives a long list of blessings up through verse 14. Then he says in verse 15, But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

And he lists a much longer list even of curses. And among those things, he says, look at verse 20 and 21. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, and all that you set your hand to do until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings, in which you have forsaken me.

The Lord will make the plague cling to you until it has consumed you from the land, which you are going to possess. That's if they are disobedient to him. Verse 61 through 63 in the same chapter, he says this, Also, every sickness and every plague, which is not written in the book of the law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.

You should be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing. And you shall be plucked off from the land, which you go to possess.

Did Moses give any hint that they have an unconditional claim to this land forever, no matter what they do? No, he said the opposite is true. If you do what the Cainites did, the land will vomit you out like it vomited them out. If you violate the covenant that God makes, God will bring every curse and sickness on you and bring you to nothing and cause you to be plucked up off your land.

Look even at verses 45 and 46 in this chapter. Verse 45 and 46, he says, Moreover, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God and keep his commandments and his statutes, which he commanded you, and they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and on your descendants forever. That word forever is interesting because many people say, well, God gave them the land forever.

What's that mean? You mean like without end? Yes, but not unconditionally. Because he says, if you disobey these plagues will cleave to you and your offspring forever. Same word, the same forever.

In other words, there's nothing forever unconditionally. Just because the conditions aren't always stated, just like Jonah didn't state any conditions for Nineveh to be destroyed, they were implied. God had those conditions in mind, though he didn't state it.

Likewise, he states outright that he has conditions upon Israel being able to have the land. Well, have they been faithful to God? Second point, the prophet spoke of a return of the faithful remnant after the Babylonian exile. There's many references to God saying, hey, he's going to bring the remnant of Israel back.

In Isaiah 11.11, he talks about bringing the remnant back. In Jeremiah 3.14, in Jeremiah 23.3, in Micah 2.12, in Ezekiel 37, verses 11 through 14. This is just a sampling, there's many others.

God, when he sends Israel into Babylon, Judah, into Babylon, he says he's going to bring back the remnant from there. Now, it's interesting that when people say, well, the Jews are coming back to the land today, and it was predicted, they always quote these verses that were about the Jews returning from Babylon. Do you know that after the Jews returned from Babylon and rebuilt Jerusalem in 539 BC, 538 BC, no further prophecies of this sort were ever given? There are no promises in the Bible, there's none in the New Testament whatsoever.

And in the Old Testament, there's none that were made after the fulfillment. In other words, God says, you're going to Babylon, and I'm going to bring back the remnant from Babylon, from all the lands I've driven you to, I'm going to bring you back and reestablish you in your nation. He did it in 538 BC, and he never predicted it again.

Aren't there multiple fulfillments of prophecy? Well, maybe sometimes, but you don't just decide whenever you want one. When the Bible said the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, he did that. We don't look for it again.

He's not going to come back and ride in a donkey. No one I know believes he is. When Micah said he'd be born in Bethlehem, that happened.

No one's looking for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem again. Why? Because a prediction is made, and it comes true. It's done.

Now, are there multiple fulfillments? Of some prophecies, apparently, but they are always identified for us in the Bible. The Bible does not identify another gathering of Israel back to the land after the return of the exiles from Babylon. Don't trust me about it.

I mean, you can if you want to, because I'm telling you the truth, but you definitely should do your own research. So, God did bring the remnant back. Third point.

Scripture defines the faithful remnant in terms of their embracing the Messiah. The true fulfillment of God bringing his people back is bringing them back to himself through Christ. And the Apostle Paul and other New Testament writers quote some of these passages from the Old Testament which speak of a return of the remnant, and they apply them to the Jewish Christians who were born again in Paul's day, and of course, no doubt subsequently.

The idea that the Jews are coming to Christ is the fulfillment. Let me give you an example. I don't have time to give you all the examples in my notes, but I just want you to see the kind of thing I'm talking about here.

In Isaiah chapter 10, Isaiah chapter 10, verse 20 and following, It shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, will never again depend on him who defeated them, but they will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return.

The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness. Now, this statement, though the children of Israel be as the sands of the sea, so only a remnant will return, Paul quotes that. He quotes that in Romans chapter 9. He quotes it in order to explain why so few Jews have come to Christ.

Because Isaiah said only a remnant will. And he quotes this verse, but he changes the last word. The last word is, a remnant shall return.

Paul quotes the verse and says a remnant shall be saved. Why does he interpret returning to be a spiritual thing, rather than a geographical thing? Well, look what it says in the passage. It says the remnant will return to the mighty God.

The mighty God is a term found one other place in the Bible. It's in the previous chapter to this. Isaiah 9, 6 and 7. Unto us a child is born.

That's Jesus. Unto us a son is given. The kingdom shall be upon his shoulder.

And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. The only other place in the Bible that uses the term the mighty God is in Isaiah 9, 7, the chapter before this statement. The Jewish remnant will return to the mighty God, that is to Christ.

Paul saw the Jews, the remnant of the Jews who accepted Christ, rather than the majority that rejected him, they were the fulfillment of God's bringing the remnant to himself. And other prophecies of this sort in the Old Testament are quoted similarly in the New Testament. And if I had time, I would read them all to you.

I have some in my notes, but I don't have time to read them all. I would suggest you look at Joel 2, 32, and Micah 5, 2-5, typical references to the Jews returning, or God returning, calling Israel to return, the remnant, and they talk about, well, frankly, the verses are quoted in the New Testament as fulfilled in the first century. So these verses, although it's popular for dispensationalists to say these are unfulfilled prophecies that have to happen in the last days, the Bible says this is something God would do through the Messiah.

The New Testament writers believe that the Messiah actually has come. His name is Jesus. And when he came, he did what the prophets said he would do.

He gathered the remnant of Israel to himself. We call them the disciples. The faithful ones who followed Jesus were the faithful remnant of Israel.

That's how the New Testament consistently interprets these passages. A fourth point, the physical land of Israel is merely a type and a shadow of the spiritual inheritance in Christ. We know this because of several places in the Bible, Hebrews 11, 13-16, particularly says that Abraham was looking for a country whose builder and maker is God, not an earthly country, but a heavenly country.

That's in Hebrews 11, verses 13-16. In the next chapter, Hebrews 12, verses 22-23, it says, You, Christian readers, have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Zion, Jerusalem, the city of God, we have come.

There's many references in the Old Testament prophets to people coming to Zion. They shall flow to Zion. The writing of Hebrews says we Christians have done that.

We have come to Zion. It's the church of the living God. Read it yourself.

Hebrews 12, 22 and 23. There's no other conclusion can be drawn from it without twisting it. This statement will surprise many, but not so much as you've heard these previous statements.

There is no passage in Scripture that clearly predicts an end times returning of unbelieving Jews to the Middle East or their establishment as a modern political nation. No statement in Scripture predicts unbelieving Jews will ever come back and form a nation in the end times. You know, dispensationalists today say differently, but in the 19th century, almost all dispensationalists said the same thing.

The dispensationalists of the 19th century, when it was created, said the Jews will come to God first, and then he'll bring them to their land. Now, when political Zionism caused Jews who are not believers to come to the land, dispensationalists began to undergo a revolution in their interpretation of Scripture. And initially a few, and then eventually the majority of dispensationalists came and said, no, the Bible says they'll come back as unbelievers, and then they'll become believers.

So the dispensationalist teachers today say the Bible teaches Israel in unbelief will return to its land, but will become believers eventually in the land. That's the opposite of what dispensationalism taught in the 19th century. Why? Why do you suppose they changed? Because dispensationalism practices what we call newspaper exegesis.

You interpret the Scriptures by what's actually in the newspapers, not by what the Scripture says, not by comparing Scripture to Scripture, but if there's something happening in the current events that look like something in the Bible, that's what we can make the Bible mean. That's dispensationalism all over. Dispensationalists are practically the creators of newspaper exegesis.

They change everything. You know, there's a program, I think it's on the same station I'm on here locally. It's been on for decades.

You know, it's some guy with an Oklahoma accent who's always talking about the end times and Bible prophecy and so forth, dispensational program. And I'm not talking about McGee. McGee actually, interesting, J. Vernon McGee, though he's dispensational, in his lifetime he said that the return of the Jews in the present time is not a fulfillment of prophecy because he was an old-school dispensationalist.

He said the Bible doesn't anywhere speak of unbelieving Jews coming back to Israel, only believing Jews. So this, he said, the establishment of the nation of Israel is not a fulfillment of prophecy, McGee said. Interestingly enough.

But this other fellow, who's always talking about Bible prophecy, I remember every time I turned it on, it's like the thing he says the most is everything that's developing in the world today is exactly what the Bible said it would. I heard him say this back in the 70s. And it was interesting when the communist block fell, when the Iron Curtain fell, I thought, well, that's a big change.

I wonder what he'll say now. He turned on his program the next day and he says, everything in the world is fulfilling exactly what the Bible said would happen. Well, really? So the fall of the Soviet Union was predicted in the Bible.

You just didn't see it until it happened. But now you see it in the Bible. And yet it's a tremendously different geopolitical picture than what happened the week before.

But that was exactly what the Bible said. Any scenario can be exactly what the Bible said if you're willing to practice newspaper exegesis instead of biblical exegesis. You let the Bible interpret the Bible.

You will not find a passage in Scripture that speaks of unbelieving Jews coming together as a nation, ever. Certainly not in the end times, but not any time. I said we have to evaluate the modern nation of Israel prophetically.

We've talked about the prophecies. There are more prophecies than we have talked about, but they all fall into the same category, says the one we've talked about. So you can do your own research if you want to.

To me, there is no prophetic reason to give the modern state of Israel a pass on atrocities that we wouldn't give to other nations. Christians will give Israel a pass on almost anything they do. You're going to wipe out the Palestinians? Well, why not? Joshua did that with the Canaanites.

Yeah, but Joshua was a believing man following orders from God, taking territory that God told him to take. Theodor Herzl, Menachem Begin, these are not godly men. These are not men following orders from God.

There's no parallel. If God tells Joshua to go and wipe out the Canaanites, you say, well, it's a bloody mess, but if God said it, I guess who am I to criticize Joshua? I think it must be right. But it's happening now, and no one has gotten orders from God to do it.

Therefore, we have to evaluate it as we would evaluate any nation that did a similar thing. And we might not be as quick to do so because our own nation is guilty of the same thing in this continent. Because we came here and consider that God has given us the right to take all this land away from the people who were here before us and drive them off into reservations.

I'm not saying we can undo that or should undo that. What can you do? That's how politics goes forward. That's how nations develop.

I'm not saying the nation of Israel shouldn't exist. I'm just saying in evaluating how it came to exist and what it does now, I need to be as objective as possible as I should be toward evaluating my own nation's crimes. We're not eager to do that.

In fact, some people are more willing to recognize America's crimes than Israel's. But we do have to evaluate it ethically as we would evaluate any nation's activities. We continually evaluate Iraq's and Iran's and Russia's actions on an ethical basis.

Maybe we should be consistent and look at Israel's too. Israel's law in Exodus 20 said things like, Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet your neighbor's house or anything that is your neighbor's. That's the law of God.

That's the law that God said they had to keep unless they wanted his curses to come upon them and be destroyed and have the land taken from them. Interestingly, the same law, Exodus 22, verses 21 and chapter 23, verse 9, say, Do not ill-treat the alien or oppress him, for you are aliens in Egypt. Well, to Israel, the Palestinians are aliens, although the Palestinians are really the natives, the Israelites were the aliens coming in.

But now Israel controls it. The Palestinians are aliens. They are told not to ill-treat the aliens.

Let me read some things from Israeli author Simcha Flepan in his book, The Birth of Israel. Quote, For the entire day, April 9th, 1948, Irgun and Lehi, soldiers carried out the slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion. The attackers lined men, women, and children up against walls and shot them.

The ruthlessness of the attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from their homes all over the country. The same author said that David Ben-Gurion's ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab population as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted. If only from the variety of means he employed to achieve his purpose, most decisively the destruction of the whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants, even if they had not participated in the war and stayed in Israel hoping to live in peace and equality.

This comes from the Jewish writer Norman Finkelstein in the book, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. Quote, By 1948, the Jew was not only able to defend himself but to commit massive atrocities as well. Indeed, according to the former director of the Israeli Army Archives, quote, In almost every village occupied by us during the War of Independence, acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, such as murders, massacres, and rapes.

Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli military historian in 1948 war, goes one step further maintaining that, quote, every skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs, unquote. I didn't know that until recent times. These are Jewish Israeli writers about the history of the birth of Israel.

It sounds like maybe that's a violation of some of the commands God gave to Israel about mistreating foreigners and killing and coveting people's homes. Here's another law from Moses in Deuteronomy 19, 14. Do not move your neighbor's boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God has given you to possess.

Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone. Do you know what that's about? That's about property boundaries. Moving your neighbor's boundary stone was to give yourself some of his property, like sneak out at night and move the boundary stone over to give you some of his land.

That's forbidden. I mentioned Brother Andrew, God's smuggler. Most of you, I hope, know who he is.

It's a tragic thing that he's forgotten by the modern Christians. Tremendous hero, a Dutch Christian man who pioneered the outreach to communist countries with the gospel smuggling Bibles, the first to do so as far as we know. This is Brother Andrew writing.

After the slaughter of Deir Yassin, a few men were left alive and driven around to other villages to tell the story. Then those men were killed too. The result was a panic.

That's why so many Palestinians fled. Entire villages were emptied, which is exactly what the Israelis wanted. They just took over those people's homes.

This reminds us of what Elijah said to Ahab, who killed Naboth to get his vineyard. He said, this is what the Lord says. Have you not murdered a man and seized his property? Then say to him, this is what the Lord says.

In the places where the dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood. Yes, yours, says Elijah to Ahab. Why? Why did Ahab come under such a curse? He coveted another man's property and killed him to get it.

He wasn't the last to do that. In a book called Our Roots Are Still Alive by the People's Press of Palestine Book Project, it says, quote, in the winter of 1949, this is during that war of independence at the beginning when Israel was declared a nation. In the winter of 1949, the first winter of exile for more than 750,000 Palestinians was cold and hard.

Families huddled in caves, abandoned huts or makeshift tents. Many of the starving were only miles away from their own vegetable gardens and orchards in occupied Palestine, the new state of Israel, unquote. Richard Falk, the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, has called Israeli policies in the occupied territories, quote, a crime against humanity, unquote.

Falk also has compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. Falk has said, quote, I think the Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world, unquote. Who's this guy? The former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

He thinks the Palestinians are the most victimized people in the world. So as we look at the state of Israel ethically, we'd have to say, as we would about many nations, there's a lot of things there that Christians cannot put their imprimatur upon. Does this mean we can turn the clock back and say, OK, all you Jews shouldn't be there? You should all land back to the Palestinians, go back to Europe or wherever.

No, you can't do that. They've got to find a way to seek justice in the present situation. Unfortunately, not everyone is committed to that, because the Palestinians are still in refugee camps, being ignored in many cases by the Israeli policies.

Politically, what are we supposed to think? This is where most people who would say the things I'm pointing out have a political agenda. Usually it's a pro-Palestinian agenda and so forth. And I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to take sides with Israel or with the Palestinians.

I'm a Christian. I'm for everybody. I'm not a racist.

I'm interested in justice, however. Now, as a Christian, we have to realize something that I'm not sure the dispensations fully understand. And that is that Jesus said to Pilate in John 18, 36, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. But my kingdom is not from here. Christians are part of a kingdom that's not of this world.

That means that our concerns are transcendent concerns. We're not here to support the interests of any political nation. We're here to support the interests of a transnational, global kingdom of Jesus Christ.

He's the king. We obey him now. We may be Americans by nationality or some other nationality, but we are citizens of the kingdom of God.

In Philippians chapter three, it says our citizenship is in heaven. And that means that we can look at every nation and evaluate them on the basis of God's kingdom's principles. Now, Jesus criticized the Jews of his time in Matthew 23, 23, where he says, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, for you neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, faithfulness.

Jesus, as our king, evaluates even his own Jewish people and certainly all other people, too, by standards of justice, mercy and faithfulness. As we look at any political situation, including the Middle East situation, instead of having some kind of nationalistic favoritism or a racial favoritism toward one group over another, we have to have a kingdom of God perspective. God loves Palestinians as much as he loves Jews.

Anyone who doesn't believe that has really gone too far in the direction of dispensationalism. God doesn't have favorites. Paul makes that very clear.

He's not a respecter of persons. Paul says it three times, and every time he's talking about Jew and Gentile. God doesn't respect Jews more than Gentiles.

As a matter of fact, Palestinians, as I said, there's far more Christians, people who are the beloved of Jesus, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, has larger representation in the Palestinian population than in the Israeli Jewish population. I'm not against non-Christian Jews or non-Christian Palestinians. I'm just saying we can't favor a race because of their race or else we are racist.

It's ironic that those of us who don't want to be racist are the ones who are called anti-Semitic because we won't say one race is better than another race. That's bizarre, but it's a ploy. It's a rhetorical ploy to silence opposition.

We have to actually use critical faculties informed by Jesus Christ. The weightier matters of the law are justice and faithfulness and mercy, and those are the weightier matters that we must judge all nations, our own and Israel and all other nations by. Israel does not get a pass.

Israel doesn't have any unconditional promises made to them. No nation does. Well, let me quote a Jewish author about this.

This is Henry Sigman, rabbi and director of the U.S. Middle East Project. Rabbi Sigman said this, quote, Israel, he means the state of Israel, has crossed the threshold from the only democracy in the Middle East to the only apartheid state in the Western world. We usually think Israel, that's our ally, they're the only democracy in the Middle East.

He says, no, this rabbi says, no, they've crossed the line from that to being the only apartheid state in the Western world. Paul S. Allen is a Christian who wrote for the Alliance Witness, Christian Missionary Alliance magazine. He was a Christian.

He said, If Israel's reactions to probing along its borders seem out of proportion to the provocations suffered, admittedly a two eyes for an eye policy of retaliation, the Christian is duty bound to apply the measuring stick of moral values as he knows them, unquote. Now, you might say, I don't understand what he just said. He's talking about the fact that the Israelis have, in their conflict with Palestinians, applied a two eyes for an eye measure of retaliation.

Much of what Israel has done in recent years has been retaliatory against Palestinian terrorism. But when a Palestinian does something and he gets caught, his whole village is level. It's not an eye for an eye, it's two eyes for an eye.

Very famous incident that was in the news as a young Palestinian teenager threw a rock at an Israeli army tank. He was arrested. His father was put in jail.

His sister, who was a teacher, was deprived of her job. And the whole family was made to leave as their house was bulldozed. And they were sent to live in a remote area near Jericho.

Why? Because a teenage kid threw a rock at an army tank. So the whole family suffers. This is not an eye for an eye.

This is two eyes for an eye, maybe 10 eyes for an eye. And that's what this Christian author is saying. If Israel's applying this kind of standard, we need to evaluate and apply the measuring stick of moral values as we Christians know them.

Even the dispensationist Charles Ryrie, everyone knows probably who Charles Ryrie is. He was a professor at Dallas Theological Center, editor of the Ryrie Study Bible. Strong dispensationist, strong Israel supporter.

In Christianity Today in 1969, he wrote an article, Perspectives on Palestine. Even he said, quote, likewise, the state of Israel is not relieved of its obligation to act responsibly in the community of nations, even though the secret purpose of God may be brought to fruition through its actions, unquote. So even a dispensationist who does see the restoration of Israel as a fulfillment of prophecy says, they are not off the hook when it comes to being judged by the same moral standards as other nations.

And when you do the research, you'll find out exactly how they come out by that measurement. Now, their enemies are doing bad things, too. So we're not like anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, per se.

Christians need to be pro-Jesus, pro-Kingdom of God, pro-justice, because that's what Jesus is. That's what God is. There's nothing God expressed more passion for in the Old Testament than justice, and more complaints against Israel than their abuse of justice.

And frankly, he drove them out of their land in 70 AD because they rejected Jesus Christ. They still reject Jesus Christ. Why does somebody think that God changed his mind all of a sudden? Oh, it's okay, you reject Jesus.

You can have the land back now. Why? Because some prophecies said he would. Which ones? Find them.

I'd love to see them. I certainly know which ones are alluded to, but I also know the context. I know the New Testament application of those prophecies, and that's why I'm no longer a dispensationalist.

But I'm not here to turn you against the state of Israel. I'm here to give you a side that you probably haven't heard, so that you can evaluate everything in the Middle East justly, and not give any nation, Palestinian or Israel, a pass to do whatever they want to do. We'll just support them because they're God's people.

Are they? Of course, the Jews who accept Jesus, we know what the Bible says about them. They're Christians. There's no Jew or Gentile in Christ.

We don't care about racial distinctions in Christ. What we're talking about is what about those who are outside of Christ? Jew or Gentile. Is there a difference? Jesus didn't seem to know of one.

The Pharisees were certainly Jewish. He said they would not be able to escape the damnation of Gehenna because of their wickedness. So we need to be aware of the degree to which racism has been a part of our eschatology.

This is only because of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism created evangelical Zionism, evangelical prejudice against Palestinians. It's inappropriate.

Inappropriate for Christians to have racist attitudes.