Israel and the Kingdom in Prophecy
Gary DeMar writes: "There is not a single verse in the New Testament that supports the claim that there is prophetic signifiance in Israel’s restoration as a nation. Beyond A.D.70, Israel as a nation plays no prophetic role. The New Testament only addresses Israel’s near destruction never its distant restoration" (DeMar,"Last Days Madness", p. 398).
The futurists argue that there remain outstanding promises made by the Lord to Israel and therefore those promises will have to be fulfilled in the future.
Gary DeMar writes that "The Bible tells a different story…God kept all of His promises to the letter. God is not obligated to do more than He pledged" (Ibid., p. 388).
Let us look closely at Gary DeMar’s writings in regard to the "land" and "Israel". Here we can see that Gary DeMar employs a "literal" interpretation in respect to the Lord’s promises to Israel concerning the "land". First he quotes Joshua 21: 43-45 and then he makes comments on those verses:
"So the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it. And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand. Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass" (Joshua 21: 43–45).
"All the elements necessary for the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant as related to the land are present in these verses: God gave the Israelites the land He had promised to give; they possessed and lived in the land; they had rest; their enemies did not stand before them; not one of the promises God made to the house of Israel failed" [emphasis mine] (DeMar,"Is Israel’s Land Prophetically Significant?" ;http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/09-30-05.asp).
Gary DeMar then mentions other verses from the era of "Judges" in regard to the land, and again takes a "literal" reading of those verses:
"What about Judges 3: 1–4? While the land was possessed and was in the hands of the Israelites before Joshua died, some nations were left ‘to test Israel . . . to find out if they would obey the commandments of the LORD’ (Judges 3: 1, 4). It was Israel’s disobedience that put the land back into the hands of her enemies" (Ibid.).
Even if Gary DeMar is correct that all of the land promises concerning the Abrahamic covenant have been fulfilled he has not taken into account the "land" promises in regard to the Davidic covenant issued not many years after the era of "Judges":
"Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David…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 beforetime" (2 Sam. 7: 8, 10).
"And move no more"! This promise according to the Davidic covenant is restated later by the prophet Jeremiah:
"For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up" (Jer. 24: 6).
"And not pluck them up"! The prophet Amos says the same thing:
"And I will bring again the captivity of my people …And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God" (Amos 9: 14, 15).
There is no reason why these verses should not be interpreted in a "literal" sense. Since Gary DeMar took a literal reading concerning the land promises at Joshua and Judges then if he is going to remain consistent then there is no reason why the land promises in regard to the Davidic covenant should not also be taken literally. After all, there is nothing that happened between Judges and 2 Samuel that would give anyone a reason to abandon a literal interpretation.
Therefore we can understand that the Lord has made promises to Israel in respect to the promised land that have not yet been fulfilled.There has never been a time when the children of Israel have been brought back to the promised land and have not "been pulled up out of their land" (unless that is being fulfilled now). So it is obvious that not "all" of the promises made to Israel in regard to the promised land have been fulfilled. Despite this Gary DeMar states:
"Non-dispensationalists like me would say that all the promises made to Israel have been fulfilled, and the redemption of Israel according to those promises made it possible for Gentiles to be grafted into an already existing Jewish assembly of believers that the Bible calls the Church" ( DeMar,"Answering the ‘Replacement Theology’ Critics", Part 4; http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/10-14-05.asp).
Since Gary DeMar believes that all of the promises made to Israel have been fulfilled then perhaps he can tell us when the land promises made under the Davidic covenant were fulfilled.
"I Will Not Lie Unto David"
The promises concerning Israel’s "land" under the Davidic covenant have not yet been fulfilled. And these same promises will be fulfilled in the future, as witnessed by the following verses:
"I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant…Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David" (Ps. 3, 33-35).
The Lord says that He will not "alter the things that have gone out of" His lips regarding the promises that He made to David.Therefore it is certain that in the future the children of Israel will be brought back to the promised land and "they shall no more be pulled up out of their land".
However, Gary DeMar’s eschatology has no place in the future when these promises can be fulfilled. He stated that "not one of the promises God made to the house of Israel failed." Since these promises have not yet been fulfilled and he has no place for their fulfillment in the future then he must believe that these promises will indeed fail.