Heirs of The Promise

by the late Sheldon Emry

    Most Americans have in their homes a book of 66 books bound in one volume, called simply, "The Bible." This book is the religious book of 95% of all the churches in the English-speaking nations such as our own.

    Is the Bible a closed book to you? Or do you understand portions of it, while the rest remains a mystery? You do want to increase your understanding of the Bible, do you not? In the next few minutes, I am going to give you a key that will unlock the mysteries of the Bible. The Bible story begins in Genesis 1:1 — "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." In the rest of chapter 1 we are told of the creation of the animals and "all living creatures on the earth and under the sea."

    Chapter 2 is of the forming of Adam, placing him in the garden of Eden, of Eve, their disobedience, and removal from the Garden. In a few more pages we read of the flood, the saving of Noah and his household, and the spreading of their descendants across the land.

    On page 9 of my Bible, we learn of the building of the tower of Babel, its destruction, God's confounding of the people's language, and their dispersion across the earth.

    In only 9 pages. God covers many centuries, including awesome and terrifying calamities. Then on page 10 God speaks to one man, a man named Abraham, and from this page on, for over a thousand pages, the Bible is about Abraham and his descendants.

    On page 10, in Genesis 12:2:3, God says to this man:

       "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

    And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

    Then follows a number of meetings between God and Abraham. God later meets with Abraham's son, Isaac, and later with Jacob, the son of Isaac, and repeats the promises (or covenants) made with Abraham. All of these promises and covenants have to do with the future of Jacob's children.

    The rest of the Bible deals almost exclusively with these heirs of the covenants and the promises, called in the Bible, "The children of Israel."

    The Law, the doctrines, the warnings, and admonishments, are addressed to Israel. All of the Prophets are Israelites. All of the writers of both the Old Testament and the New Testaments are Israelites. In Amos 3 God said to Israel, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth. . ."

    Paul said in Romans 9:4 that the promises and the covenants pertained to Israel:

    "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises."

    Abraham, though dead 2,000 years by the time of Christ, is mentioned 69 times in the New Testament. When Jesus was born, Zacharias said in Luke 1 that Jesus had come to remember God's covenant and oath which God had sworn to Father Abraham. And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying:

    "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham..." (Luke 1:67-73).

    In Acts 3:13, Peter said the Father of Jesus was "the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers.''

    Stephen, the first Christian martyr, began his sermon in Acts 7: "The God of glory appeared unto our father, Abraham..."; and then he preached of God and Israel.

    Paul wrote in Romans 15:4, "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning..."

    So let us consider just that today — that the Bible is the Book of God and of Abraham's children — of one man's family, if you please — and that the things written of them aforetime were written for our learning. And let us turn to the covenants that God made with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, and with the children of Israel. God appeared again to Abraham in Genesis 15:

    "And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them; And He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness." Genesis. 15:5-6.

    This promise of great numbers of descendants is repeated several times.

    "And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for Me. behold. My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham: for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and thy seed after thee." Genesis. 17:3-7.

    "And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her; yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her." Genesis. 17:15-16).

    Now Abraham already had a son, Ishmael, by Sarai's Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, but this great covenant was not to be made with Ishmael, but with Isaac. This is made plain in verses 19 thru 21:

    "And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. [These are the 12 Arab nations]. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year." Gen. 17:19-2l.

    Isaac, the son of Promise, was born according to God's Word. Isaac later married Rebekah, and she was given a blessing in Genesis 24:60:

    And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, ''Thou. art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them."

    To Isaac and Rebekah were born twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, although the elder, sold his birthright to Jacob, who then became the rightful inheritor of these covenants. God appeared to Jacob to confirm these covenants in Genesis 28, including verse 14:

    "And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north, and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

    These and other verses make it plain that all the covenants pertaining to Abraham's blessings were passed to Jacob, whose name later was changed to Israel. In Genesis 35 God appeared again unto Jacob.

    "And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins." Genesis 35:10-11.

    Again we see this same thing repeated over and over again, that. these descendants of the patriarches of Israel would be a great number of people and would become a multitude of nations.

    While Jacob was yet alive, Joseph was sold into bondage in Egypt. A few years later the other 11 sons and their families moved to Egypt, where Joseph saved them from the famine. While still in Egypt, Jacob-Israel adopted the two sons of Joseph — Ephraim and Manasseh as his firstborn in place of Reuben and Simeon. This adoption as Israel's firstborn is verified in 1 Chronicles 5:l-2. In verse 16 of Genesis 48, Israel said,

    ". . . Let my name be named on them, and the name of my father Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."

    In verse 19, Jacob prophesied that Ephraim would become greater than Manasseh and that his seed would become a fullness of nations.

    After Joseph's death, Israel continued to multiply, but a new king rose up over Egypt, who put the children of Israel in cruel bondage. He attempted to reduce Israel by ordering all of the male Israelite babies killed in Egypt. Moses was saved by his mother, raised in Pharaoh's household, but eventually was driven from Egypt. We read in Exodus 2:23 that during Moses' absence . . .

    "And it came to pass in the process of time, that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob."

    God then sent Moses and brought the now 2 million or more Israelites out of Egypt with great signs and wonders and brought them to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness. There God made a covenant with these several million descendants of Abraham, saying to them in Exodus 19:5-8:

    "Now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord."

    God had said to Abraham, "I will be a God to you and to your seed after you." That covenant was formalized with Abraham's seed in what we recognize as a marriage ceremony, with the bridegroom saying, "Will you obey?" and the bride answering, "I will." Israel became God's wife. That the wife-husband relationship is correct is verified in several passages, including Isaiah 54:5 —

    "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called."

    God gave Israel the Ten Commandments in stone and several hundred other statutes and judgments, usually called God's Law. The first Commandment began,

    "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

    While Israel was in the wilderness, learning the statutes and judgments, God gave further promise of future greatness. In Deuteronomy 33 He gave a separate blessing to each of the tribes, with the greater blessing recorded for Joseph in verses 13-17 —

    And of Joseph he said, "Blessed of the Lord be his land. For the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and fullness thereof, and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush; let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren."

    This blessing can only mean that the descendants of Joseph were to have a land blessed with great agricultural harvests, wealth from the seas, and ores and minerals from the earth. The greatest portion of the Israel blessings would he fulfilled in the two sons of Joseph who had been made the inheritors of the Abrahamic covenants, as we read in Genesis 48.

    After 40 years in the wilderness, Moses died, and Joshua brought Israel into Canaanland and established them there as a nation. They had been commanded to observe God's statutes and judgments and to destroy the Canaanites out of the land, so they would not be tempted to follow their gods and participate in their abominations. This Israel did not do, and as a consequence, they suffered a series of captivities during the 400 years up to the time of David, as recorded in the book of Judges.

    David came to the throne in Israel in approximately 1050 B.C., and in 40 years of war enlarged and secured Israel as one nation in Canaanland, ruling them from Zion and Jerusalem. At one point, according to 1 Chronicles 21 , David had over one million, 500 thousand men under arms, which would indicate that God's promise of increasing the seed of Abraham was being fulfilled, with 10 to 15 million people living in Palestine at that time.

       When David died, his son Solomon ruled for another 40 years, establishing an era of peace and prosperity and building the great temple to Jehovah. The Israel kingdom was so blessed it became the marvel of that part of the world. It seemed as if God's promises and prophecies of great increase and material blessings were being fulfilled.

   But after Solomon's death came a terrible blow. The nation was divided. The 10 northern tribes established their capital in Samaria. Jerusalem now ruled only the southern half of Israel. The rivalry between the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel, brought wars, corruption, and sin — even worship of Baal and the other gods of the wicked Canaanites who still lived among them. God sent prophets to them, warning them he would send alien nations against them, who would take them captive into other lands.

    God called Israel's sin adultery and told her through Jeremiah and Hosea that he was divorcing her:

    "And I saw, when for all the causes whereby back- sliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce." Jeremiah. 3:8.

    God said to the northern kingdom in verse 2 of the second chapter of Hosea:     "Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband."

    The northern house of Israel, therefore, was divorced and no longer the wife of Jehovah.

    God sent Assayer to conquer the northern Israel kingdom. The wars and deportations are recorded in 2 Kings, chapters 16, 17, and 18. Here are a few pertinent verses:

    "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assayer took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assayer, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

    Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only." 2 Kings 17:6-18.

    This was bad enough, but the Israelites in the Judah kingdom were also following the corrupted ways of the Edomites and Canaanites, so 7 years later, we read in 2 Kings 18:13 —

    "Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assayer come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them."

    This would have left only a small remnant of Israelites in the fortified city of Jerusalem by 700 B.C.

    According to both the Bible and ancient historic accounts, these pagan empires used forcible evacuation as a means of preventing rebellion at a later date. They moved non-Israelites into the vacated land of the northern kingdom, according to 2 Kings 17:24 —

    "And the king of Assayer brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and placed in the cities thereof."

    So the two conquests of Assyria would have removed the vast majority of the Israelites into Assyria and out of the land of Palestine. The number removed would have been in the millions.

    The prophet Jeremiah continued to prophesy to the tiny remnant in Jerusalem; and in the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, he told these Judahites that because of their sin, God would abandon Jerusalem.

    "Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh." Jeremiah 7:14.

    Shiloh was the place of the Ark of the Covenant, which God had turned over into the hands of the Philistines, because of the sin of Israel.

    In Kings and Chronicles we have another 100 years of the history of the Judah kingdom, a history of continuance of sin, some revivals, but always turning away from the God of Israel. During that time, Assyria's power declined, and she lost control over much of her empire, and Babylon grew. The Judahites remaining at Jerusalem made a peace treaty with the king of Babylon, and they continued to sin against the God of Israel. They also tried to enlist the help of Egypt.

    God sent Jeremiah to tell Judah that Babylon would conquer them. They planned to resist, but Jeremiah told them:

    "And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire. Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not depart. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire." Jeremiah 37:8-10.

    And it came to pass. Jerusalem was destroyed in about 595 B.C. and the Judahites were taken into Babylon for the 70-year captivity prophesied by Jeremiah.

    "In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem." Daniel 9:2.

    All seems lost. What has happened to the covenants? What has become of the great promises of God?

    70 years later, Ezra did bring back from Babylon to Jerusalem a handful of Judahites to rebuild themcity and the temple. In Ezra 2 that number is given as less than 50,000.

    "The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore,

    Beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women." Ezra 2:64-65.

    This remnant of Judah and Benjamin provided the small Israelite community that existed in Jerusalem at the time Christ was born, 500 years later.

    But what happened to the other tens of millions of Israelites who never returned to Jerusalem? Are their descendants lost from the covenant promises of God?

    We must now ask the same question Paul asked 500 years later in Romans 11: ". . .Hath God cast away his people?" Paul answered,

    "God forbid; for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew."

    So the question boils down to this: What did happen to the millions, yes millions, of Israelites who were driven out of Palestine 700 years before Christ, and where were they, if they existed at all, at the time Paul uttered his statement of confidence in God's keeping His promises to Israel?

    Can we find out what happened to them, so that their descendants can be identified in the world today?

    For an answer to that question, we are going to call upon E. Raymond Capt, a Bible student and Biblical archaeologist from California. Mr. Capt has traveled and studied extensively in Europe and the Mideast. He lectures on the Dead Sea Scrolls, on the pyramids of Egypt and on other archeological subjects. Mr. Capt is the author of The Great Pyramid Decoded, The Glory of the Stars, Stonehenge and Druidism, King Solomon's Temple, Jacob's Ladder and Abrahamic Covenant.

An Interview with E. Raymond Capt

    Emry: As a minister, I know there is an abundance of prophesy concerning the destiny of Israel. But there is no Bible history of this portion of Israel referred to in 2 Kings 17:6- In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

    So Bible history of this major part of Israel ends here. And yet the prophets and the New Testament promise an increase in numbers, great blessings, and an eventual restoration.

    With the passing of 2,500 years since this Assyrian captivity, one might think that all hope of tracing these Israelites is lost. Ray, can archeology answer this question?

   Capt: Yes, Pastor Emry, it has. During the last hundred years a number of archeological teams have been working in the Middle East. They have unearthed and published the original contemporary accounts of the Assyrians, who took the Israelites captive. It is from these records that vital clues have come to light. In fact, these records are found in the form of cuneiform tablets. These tablets were found at Nineveh in 1900 and published in 1930. However, their relevance to Israel was overlooked then, because they were found in complete disorder and amongst about 1,400 other texts

    The tablets were Assyrian reports, dated about 707 B.C.. They describe the activities of the people called "Gamira," who lived in the land of "Gamir." The descriptions of Gamir described the area in which the Israelites had been placed just a few years earlier.

    One tablet stated that when the king of Urartu came into the land of Gamir, his army was routed, as the Gamira counter-attacked, entered the land of Urartu, and killed their commanders.

Assyrian Captivities

    "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." 2 Kings 17:6

    The first archaeological evidence to establish a chronological link in the contacts between Assyria and Israel are found on inscriptions on the side of a limestone stele found at Nimrud, known as the "Black Obelisk." The stone was inscribed with the records of Shalmaneser the third and an illustration of the Israelite king Jehu bringing tribute to the Assyrian king. An inscription above the illustration says: "This is Jehu (Iaua), the son of Khumri (Omri)."

Omri in Hebrew begins with the consonant, "Agin," formerly called "Gayin" which was pronounced with a guttural "H," that is "Gh" or "Kh." The Israelites would have naturally pronounced Omri as "Ghomri" which became "Khumri" in Assyrian.

    As this inscription was executed nearly a century before the captivity of Israel, we know now the reason secular historians found no mention of the exiled Israelites in ancient records. It was simply because the Assyrians who took the Israelites captive did not call them by that name. Historians are now aware of the fact that the Gamira were the same people, who, about 30 years later, during the reign of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, again were called Gimira. (Notice the slight changes in spelling).

    We find in another and later Assyrian tablet that in the second year of the reign of this same king, which would be about 679 B.C., the Gimira, under a leader named "Teuspa," sought freedom by moving north; but the Assyrain army pursued and defeated them in the upper Euphrates district. Nevertheless, they reported a large number of the lsraelites escaped to the shores of the Black Sea.

    The Greeks also recorded the same activity including an invasion of Sardis, the capital of Lydia, in 645 B.C. In their records they refer to the Gamira as "Kimmerioi," which we translate into English as "Cimmerian."

    About 600 B.C. the Lydians drove the Gamira, or Cimmerians, out of Asia Minor, where they settled in the Carpathian regions west of the Black Sea. We find them called in the second book of Esdras, the people of Ar-Sareth. 2 Esdras 13:40-44

    We now also know what happened to the larger body of Gamira or Israelites, that did not escape the Assyrians. They formed an alliance with Esarhaddon, the king, when he came under attack of the Medes and the Persians.

    This treaty allowed the Israelites to establish colonies in Sacasene in the north and Bactria in the east. With absolutely no help from the Israelites, Assyria fell in 612 B.C. Soon the Israelites themselves came under attack by the Medes.

    Now those that had settled in Sacasene moved north through the Dariel Pass into the steppe regions of south Russia. There they became known by the Greek name, "Scythians."

    The Israelites that had settled in Bactria were forced north and east, and in the records of the Persians they were called Massagetae and Sakka.

    Archeology has solved two of the greatest archeological problems: First, what happened to the hundreds of thousands of Israelites who disappeared south of the Caucasus; and second, what was the origin of the Cimmerians and the mysterious nomadic tribes, known as Scythians, who suddenly appeared north of the Caucasus — both at the same time in history. They were one and the same people. They were Israelites. Now may I point out what the Bible has to say concerning these same people:

    "For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." Amos 9:9

    Our history books pick up the story at this point, recording the westward migrations of the Scythians, as they came into collision with the Cimmerians, who had earlier settled west of the Black Sea. Their kinship lost over the centuries, the ensuing battles forced the Cimmerians west and north to become the Celts, Gauls, and Cimbri. By the end of the fourth century B.C., the Scythians had established themselves as the great and prosperous kingdom of Scythia.

    Later, the Sarmatians, these were a mixed, non- Israelitish people of Iranian origin. They in turn drove the Scythians northwest to the shores of the Baltic Sea. At this time in history, we find the Romans introduced the name "Germans" in place of the name Scythians, in order not to confuse the Scythians with the Sarmatians, who now occupied Scythia. Germanus, being the Latin name for "genuine," indicates the Germans were the genuine Scythians.

    During this time the Celts were expanding in all directions from central Europe. Some of the Celts invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 390 B.C. Another group moved back into Asia Minor, in 280 B.C., and the Greeks called them "Galatians," as they did another group of Celts that had settled in Gaul, or modern France. This also indicates that Paul's letters to the Galatians were written to his kinsmen Israelites, or at least descendants of the earlier Galatians.

    Some of the Celts moved into Spain and became known as Iberes, the Gaelic name for "Hebrews." Others poured into Britain to form the bedrock of the British race. Later, the Iberes moved into Ireland as Scots, and later into Northern Britain to establish the nation of Scotland.

    Your history books also record the Germanic tribes breaking up into many divisions - the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Vikings, to name just a few. Other Germanic tribes later poured into the lands vacated by the Celts and established the Gothic nations of the Vandals, Lombards, Franks, Burgundians, and others.

    The so-called "lost tribes of Israel" really, were never lost. They only lost their identity as they migrated westward over the centuries from the land of their captivity.

(End of interview with Capt)

    Pastor Emry: And there you have it, my friends. Mr. Capt has given us an answer to our question: "What happened to the millions of Israelites who were dispersed out of old Canaanland 7 centuries before Christ, and who never returned?

    They migrated onto the continent of Europe and were the ancestors of the white, European race. And in answering our one question about Israel's disappearance, Mr. Capt has given us the key to several other mysteries of world history.

    Mr. Capt has revealed to us why it was these people of Europe who became the great nations, and who were blessed by God above all other nations, not only with fertile land and abundance from the seas, but with arts, science, literature, inventions. and discovery.

    God bestowed upon that one race almost every invention and discovery that has improved man's condition and lot upon the earth. Certainly. God made these offspring of Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth.

    Mr. Capt has answered another question which is often asked of ministers, but seldom answered:

    "Why, of all the people of the earth, has it been only this white Caucasian race, these so-called 'Gentiles,' who have claimed Jesus Christ as their God, and who have taken the Bible as the foundation of their religion?"

The answer — the truth which is avoided and even denied by the clergy — is simple. These people are the Israelites, the children of Abraham, God's chosen people. And that explains why every true gospel preacher and missionary for Jesus Christ for over 1,900 years has been of this one race. They are dispersed Israel, fulfilling Bible prophecy even while blindness in part is upon them, blindness of their own identity as the Chosen of God.

Biblical promises have become historical facts.

    In the Old Testament God had promised to regather divorced Israel unto Himself:

    "My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out." Ezekiel 34:6,11.

    Jesus made it plain He was the instrument of Israel's return to God:

    "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Luke 19:10

    "But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matthew 15:24.

    The word "lost" appears 13 times in the New Testament in relation to Israel. The Greek word means "put away and punished." So Jesus was saying in Matthew 15:24, "I am not sent but unto the put away and punished house of Israel." In Matthew 10:6, Jesus instructed His disciples to go to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

    In Luke 1, Zacharias the priest, who was John the Baptist's father, said that Jesus came to redeem His people and ". . . To perform the mercy promised to our [Israel]  fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham." Luke 1:72, 73.

    Paul, an Israelite, wrote to Israelites in the dispersion in Galatia:

    "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law..." Galatians 4:4-5.

    Only the Israelites had been under the law. Romans 15 and verse 8 says:

    "... Jesus Christ was a minister for the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." Romans 15:8.

    These promises, as we have seen, were of great national development, a great increase in numbers, blessings of the earth and of the sea, that God would be their God, and they would be His people.

    After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His disciples carried the good news to dispersed Israel in Europe, beginning what we know as the Christian era. For 1500 more years Israel remained in Europe, continuing to grow in numbers as God had promised their Fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The New World

    Then God began to give them inventions, one of which was the printing press, which made the Bible available to all of the people, bringing with it the Age of Enlightenment, the Reformation, and the Age of Discovery.

    A new continent to the west, a New World, was discovered by Columbus and other explorers. Persecution of Christians in Europe began a migration to the New World, that began as a trickle and later became a flood.

    2,5OO years before that, while Israel was still in Palestine, God had told King David in 2 Samuel 7:10 —

    "Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as before time".

    The prophet Isaiah and others who had written of Israel's regathering made it plain Israel would be regathered into a new land as Christian believers. In Isaiah 11:12 we read,

    "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."

    Verses one through ten identify that Ensign as Jesus Christ, and verse 14 indicates their regathering would be toward the west.

    "But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west".

    Psalm 72 and Zechariah 9 describe that land of Israel's regathering as a land between two seas, and one that would run to the ends of the earth.

    In Hosea 2:14, God had prophesied to cast-off Israel,

    "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her."

    Our pilgrim fathers, who were Christian Israelites from Europe and knew God's promises, called this North American continent "The Wilderness" and "New Canaanland." They said they had come hither to establish the Kingdom of God.

    God turned Israel from Antichrists in Europe, and God took them one of a city and two of a family, and He bought them to Zion.

    "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." Jeremiah 3:14, 15

    He gave them Christian pastors who fed them with knowledge and understanding. In the early histories, they called themselves, "this wandering race of Jacobites, "a vine out of Egypt", and "the seed of Abraham." They named their children with Israel names, and God blessed them above their fathers in Europe.

    America is that new land, New Israel. America is the nation born in a day on July 4, 1776, exactly the prophesied 2520 years after Israel had gone into the Assyrian captivity. In America God made a little one a thousand, and a small a strong nation:

   "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time." Isaiah 60:22

    It is here that is fulfilled the promise to Joseph, "blessed of the Lord be his land . . ." Deuteronomy 33:13. It is in America that the wilderness and the solitary place was glad for them, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose Isaiah 35:1. It is in the North American wilderness that waters have broken out, and streams in the desert Isaiah 35:6. America is Hepzibah and Beulah land Isaiah 62:4; America truly is God's Country.

    The heathen look at America and say, "Certainly they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed" Isaiah 49:6. America is the nation from which the light of God's Word has gone to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49:6. You who are descendants of the people we have traced in the Bible and in history are Israelites, heirs according to the promise, and the Bible is about you and your race. Do not take what you have read lightly. True to His promise to our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel has redeemed us with His own blood. He has kept His Word to our fathers. He will most certainly keep His promise with us. their children, of the Kingdom of Christ upon the earth.

    I believe the time has come when God is casting down all lies, exposing the false prophets, and revealing the Truth to His Israel people. The key to understanding the Bible is the truth that we are Israelites, redeemed by Jesus Christ, heirs of the promise. Abraham's children.

Addendum

     Today the great Israel nation of America is surrounded and invaded by the socialist-Humanist Antichrist forces. The wicked of the earth, who are the enemies of Jesus Christ, have grown strong and arrogant in our land. They have infiltrated our schools, the news media, even churches and government in their attempt to keep you in ignorance of your identity as Israelites. They are attempting to steal your heritage that they may conquer America and take rule over the whole earth.

    But God Almighty has decreed the destruction of those who hate Jesus Christ and His true lsrael People. In a last battle they shall be defeated, we shall be delivered, and the earth will be prepared for the return of Jesus Christ and the great Kingdom Age. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

    God's children are like stars that shine brightest in the dark skies; lke the chamomile, which, the more it is trodden down, the faster it spreads and grows.

    "The glories of Christianity in England are to be traced in the sufferings of confessors and martyrs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and it was under the influence of Christian principles, imbibed at this very period, that the Mayflower brought over the band of Pilgrims to Plymouth...Weshould never forget that the prison, the scaffold, and the stake were stages in the march of civil and religious liberty which our forefathers had to travel, in order that we might attain our present liberty..."

    "Before our children remove their religious connections...before they leave the old paths of God's Word...before they barter their birthright for a mess of pottage - let us place in their hands this chronicle of the glorious days of the suffering Churches, and let them know that they are the sons of the men 'of whom the world was not worthy,' and whose sufferings for conscience' sake are here monumentally recorded."

John Overton Choules, August 12, 1843

Preface to the 1844 reprint of Neal's "History of the Puritans", 1731

    The historic moment so dramatically illustrated above was the beginning of the fullfillment of the Lord's promise, "I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion; And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." Jeremiah 3 vs 14-15

    Between 1620 and 1870 over 45 million Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Germanic, and other Israelites emigrated to America. God gave them Christian Pastors. God keeps His promises to Israel.