THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

108 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
Chapters XXV-XXXIII are occupied with prophecies
of judgments that were to come upon various nations,
Tyre, Egypt, Babylon, etc.
Chapter 28, verse 25 contains the following promise :
"Thus saith the LORD GOD; When I shall have gathered
the house of Israel from the people among whom they are
scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of
the heathen in their land; and they shall dwell safely
therein" etc.
This promise might have been fulfilled to them in
a material sense after their return from the Babylonian
captivity ; but inasmuch as they did not meet the stipulated
condition for God was not "sanctified in them
in the sight of the heathen in their land" the promise
was forfeited.
Chapter XXXIV contains one of the clearest of the
0. T. prophecies of the coming of the Saviour. The
chapter begins with Jehovah's reproof of the shepherds
of Israel, because they had shamefully neglected
His sheep not healing the sick, or bringing again
that which was driven away, or binding up that which
was broken, or seeking that which was lost. "My flock,"
says He, "was scattered upon all the face of the earth
and none did search or seek after them" (v. 6). What
then is the promise of God in view of that state of
things? Will God re-establish the nation in the land
of Palestine in prosperity exceeding the palmiest days
of David and Solomon ?
So say the teachers of modern
dispensationalism ;
whose leading authority puts it
thus: "When Christ appeared to the Jewish people,
the next thing in the order of revelation as it then
stood should have been the setting up of the Davidic
kingdom."