Nuggets from "Judgment Day: Islam, Israel, and the Nations" by Dave Hunt | thebereancall.org

Hunt, Dave

Nuggets from "Judgment Day: Islam, Israel, and the Nations" by Dave Hunt

There are not only Muslims and atheists but also many Jews and professing Christians who say that today’s Israel has neither prophetic significance nor divine legitimacy. They stand in direct opposition to God and to His Word. Indeed, they are denying the major prophetic proof God gives for His existence and that the Bible is His Word. They must either repent or be punished for their opposition to what the prophets have foretold.

Romans chapter 9 and 10 make as clear a distinction between the church and the physical people known as Jews constituting the nation of Israel as could be made. Paul is willing to go to hell eternally fi that would bring about the salvation of his “kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites…of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came” (Romans:9:3-5). But one must be saved to be in the church – the church is composed only of saved people.

Moreover, there are Germans, French, Spanish, Australian aborigines, Zulus – in fact, people from every tribe and nation on earth in the church. How could this variety of races all be called “Israelites,” the “kinsmen according to the flesh” of Paul and Christ? Impossible! He goes on to say that his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Then how could Israel be the church? This teaching turns the Bible inside out!

Indeed, so perverse is this teaching that many who espouse it claim that Christ’s promise to return has already been fulfilled – that He came back in AD 70 in the person of the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem and to punish the Jews for rejecting Him. Well, the dead were certainly not raised at that time, nor were the living caught up to meet Christ in the air and taken to heaven as the Scripture declares (1 Cor15:51-57; 1 Thess 4:13-18). He is coming to rescue Israel, not to destroy her – and to rule the world from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

Even more astonishing, some of those who teach the “Israel is the church” doctrine even claim that we are in the Millennial reign of Christ. But the lion doesn’t lie down with the lamb and eat straw like an ox (Isaiah:11:1-9; 65:24-25) as Scripture foretells for the millennium; and it certainly could not be said that Satan is now locked up (Rev:20:1-3, 7-9). In fact, he still goes about as “a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter:5:8).

Tragically, from the days of Moses to the present time, Israel as a nation has been under God’s judgment, as her history proves – and will continue to be, though back in her land, until she repents and turns to the Lord. At the same time, however, she is under His protection, and woe to those who harm her! Jerusalem will continue to be “trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke:21:24; Rom:11:25).