President Bush has Christian friends and advisors who tell him that Israel has been replaced by the church and therefore, that Joel 3:2, which pronounces judgment upon those who divide the land, no longer applies. To maintain that idea, hundreds of biblical prophecies that foretell a final restoration of Israel in her land would have to be denied or spiritualized. Consider only one of those prophecies:
“I will do better unto you than at your beginnings; and ye shall know that I am the Lord … I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land … A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you … so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord.”