Allenby's Campaign As Laid Down in the Bible

Mr. President and Gentlemen, The late war gave opportunities to many men, and I happened to be one of the many; I happened to get into a groove that I knew--and that was not very customary in the army. (Laughter)

In addition to road-building and a few other etceteras I have made somewhat of a study of the Bible for forty years, and since I returned from the late war have given it greater study. I am not a theologian, and do not pose as one, but I have always had a nose for facts, and I find in the Bible many facts that make it what it purports to be, "the living Word of God." To most of us it is a dead Word, but when you get the key to the Bible and realize that the bulk of it is about our British Empire, you have something that makes it exceedingly interesting.

Our National Anthem, which we sang a few minutes ago in honour of King George, has a very good reason behind it, for our King George is as clearly descended from King David, the first king of Israel, as you are from your grandfather. (Laughter) I have not time to prove that statement, but you can figure that that is a true statement of fact. Our Royal family are well aware of it, and have been for centuries. Our present Prince of Wales was christened David in anticipation of what is going to be his portion in the years to come. "My servant David" is going to rule from Jerusalem, which will be the head of the British Empire-the God-chosen Empire. (Applause) The king has, in Windsor Castle, a scroll made up in the 14th century, showing that the Royal family of Britain goes right clean back to David, and since then it has been very easy to trace up the balance of it.

The House of David in the Bible is promised an enduring throne "as the sun and the moon before me." You know that the sun and the moon are still doing business on this round earth, and the seed of David is as surely ruling over Israel. I wonder where they can be? It cannot be in Germany, can it? These promises were made to our forefather, Abraham, in 1921 B.C. That is a long time ago, even before the Church of Rome--a covenant was made with Abraham our forefather, as we say in the Church of England Prayerbook. "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great." Now, how did we get the name "Great Britain?" It happens to fulfill this prophesy, and our name is "great."

When we get along to our forefather Jacob we find that the promise is amplified to include a nation and a company, or a multitude of nations. Have we got the nation and the multitude of nations today in the British Commonwealth? That was promised by God to Israel. How do we happen to get it? There is only one reason, friends, and that is because we are Israel.

Moses promised in B.C. 1451, "And the Lord hath vouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath promised thee, and to make thee high above all nations." Is there any good looking for the Israel people among the Afghans, or the Armenians, or any of the small peoples? We must look to those put high above all nations. There must be a multitude or a company of nations. They must possess the sea. They must possess the gate of our enemies, and the sea is the gate of every enemy that Britain has ever had. That promise was given by God to Israel. "God hath brought forth out of Egypt; He has, as it were, the strength of a Unicorn; He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and break their bones. He coucheth as a lion, as a great lion, and who shall stir him up? Blessed is he who blesseth thee, and cursed is he who curseth thee." That promise was made to Abraham, and we are his children, the same people. Because of that promise we have the Lion and the Unicorn on our British Coat of Arms.

So much for the Old Testament. When Christ came to earth; whom did He come to save? The average man thinks He came to save the world. What did He say Himself--"I come but to the lost sheep of Israel." What did He tell his disciples their commission would be? "Enter not into so-and-so, but go ye in to the lost sheep of Israel." Those lost sheep were our forefathers. It was predicted that they would be lost, that they would be scattered among the Nations, but that not a grain of the seed would be lost, but the God that scattered them would gather them; and God set aside a place for them which they would leave no more. I wonder where that place was? The Bible says it was in the Isles of the Sea, north and west of Palestine. The House of David was promised an earthly throne forever, and they have it; "and I will ordain a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, and they shall dwell in that place, and shall be moved no more." That was the British Isles. In other places in the Bible it speaks of it as in the west, and we were planted, starting from 1700 B.C., as the Iberians. The Israel people have been planted in Britain. The different invasions of Saxons and Danes and the rest of them from afar, i.e., from across Europe, have all broken into the place set apart for them. If you want some interesting reading in the Bible, just start in about the 40th chapter of Isaiah. In the 41st you will see something like this; "Keep silence before me, oh Islands, and let the people renew their strength, let them come near, let them speak." "The Isles saw and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid and drew near." Now, this is speaking to the islands; "But thou art my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, and the seed of Abraham, my friend. Speaking to the people in the islands, "whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and have called from the chief men thereof, and have said unto them, thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away. Fear not, for I am with thee, and be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee."

The Israel people were in the latter days to take Palestine. Sitting one day in a house at a little village called Clarques, about seventy-five families in the village-we occupied an old chateau that had had the windows blown out and the roof off, but being a dealer in stone, in pit props and planks, I was able to trade them off for glass, and we finally got our old chateau into good shape-there were twelve of us there, two being parsons. They always put me in the mess where the parsons were. I don't know whether it was for their education or for mine; but believe me, both got some of it. (Laughter) One morning early I was going to this mess, and Colonel Talbot was there, he is now Bishop of Pretoria. He was head of the army services at that time, and was looking very blue. He was six feet six with his shoes on, I christened him "Long Tom," and the christening stuck. I went in and asked him why he was looking so blue, and he told me that Fritz was doing us in, and he read me a list from the "London Times" of submarine sinkings for the last two weeks. I said to him, "Now, look, Talbot, we are Israel, and it is promised of Israel, 'No instrument formed against thee shall prevail or prosper.' These subs are not going to do us in, neither are the Zepps." He replied, "Oh, I never could understand that stuff of yours." I said, "No, you couldn't; you haven't the brains to understand in the first place, and your Oxford training has muddled your original endowment." (Great laughter) We had a few words, and I wound up by saying, "If I knew as little about road-building as you know about the Bible I would go and join the Cavalry." The Cavalry at that time had been eating their heads off in the back areas for about three and a half years. (Laughter)

Now, what I told the parson that day came true, as he saw afterwards--no instrument that is ever formed against the British Empire is going to succeed. Neither the submarine nor the Zepps did us in. (Loud applause) Our empire is the kingdom set up in Daniel second. Danied was speaking to Nebuchadnezzar, and mentioned the Babylonian Empire and its successors as they were going to come, and he went on to say, "In the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom." That kingdom was to have four characteristics: It was never to be destroyed; it was to smash all those Babylonian kingdoms that Daniel had mentioned, the four of them; it was not to be left to other people; the same people were going to occupy it right along; it was to last forever. Forever! That is a long time. Where is the kingdom today? There is only one place where it is, and that is the British Empire, and it is there just as sure as you have a head on your shoulders, because it fulfills the Bible specifications. One night, in that little village of Clarques, to make a little conversation during dinner I said something about the Jews. Somebody sitting next me whispered that Major Leon, (who was sitting on my right) was a Jew! I said, "Yes, Major Leon is a Jew, he is a first cousin of mine, because I am a Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin. And by the way, Major, did you know that we are going to take Palestine, and that we are going to give it to you hook-nosed people for a national home?" (Laughter) Well, the Major would not have any. In the first place he claimed the Jews did not want Palestine, and in the second place they would not go there. I replied, "You ought to be an authority on the Jews, Major, but I have the Bible authority that you are going back there, one of a city and two of a family; there will be two Leons there, and two Moses and two Benjamins, and all the rest of you are going back there representatively." But he would have none of it. About six months later, when Leon and I were still in the same mess, we captured Palestine, and the Zion Society of Palestine and London started to holler for a national home. They put it up to Mr. A. J. Balfour, and were turned down flat in the House of Parliament. The next morning Major Leon shook the "London Times" at me and said, "Well, Colonel, you don't get your national home for the Jews in Palestine." I said, "You bet your last pair or socks we do." (Laughter) He said, "But didn't you see what Balfour said about it?" I replied, "Look, Major; for forty years I have watched British Premiers turn somersaults, and eat their words absolutely every time they get off the track laid down in prophecy. I saw Gladstone in Egypt in 1882 make the statement, 'We will clean up this mess and get out of Egypt,' but did he get out? Not on your life. He broke his word to France time after time. He promised that twice, but he absolutely broke his word. Salisbury succeeded him and said, 'We will clean up the mess and get out.' But did they get out? They did not, and never have until recently, and then they only got out of a part of it. Now, I know the Word of God is true, for I have seen it come true time and time again. Those men come and pass before the screen and have their little day, but the Word goes right on, and you can bank on it from Genesis to Revelation; it is what it purports to be, "The living Word of God." (Applause) I said, "Major, the Jews are representatively going back to Palestine." He said, "Well, I will not." I said, "You don't have to go, and thank God I don't have to either, but your people will go."

Well, inside of two weeks Arthur J. Balfour got up on the floor of the same house, where he had said they would not give them Palestine for a national home, and ate his words and said that the British Empire would use all her influence to make a national home for the Jews in Palestine. The United States followed suit, France followed suit, as did other nations.

When I came home in the spring of 1919 I clipped out of the "Globe" one morning, a statement that the Zionist Societies of the Western States had met in Chicago and had decided to send representatives over to Palestine to look over the land. And how had they done it? Just exactly as the Bible said they would do it--one of a city and two of a family. They picked one and two from the various cities, towns and villages as representatives and sent them over there. In the same "Globe" was a wire from the British Foreign Office stating that the Zionist Societies of Palestine had cabled the British Foreign Office not to allow so many Jews to go home, as they did not have accommodation for them, as they were flocking in. I cut those two things out, stuck them on a piece of paper, and wrote below in lead pencil, "My dear Leon, we used to have some conversations about this matter in 1917; what do you think about it now?" I addressed that to Major Leon, formerly Deputy Director of Supplies, 5th Army, care of War Office. Two months after I had a reply. Leon was still in Lille, where I had left him. He said, "My dear Colonel, I have been waiting to see this Palestine mess cleaned up before I wrote you. Sir Herbert Samuels has gone out as GovernorGeneral; his leading advisor is an uncle of mine and a very strong Zionist. I only hope they don't give them the country to govern for themselves, as they will make the same mess of it they did when the Jews last governed it" (Great laughter) He added, "As for me, I am going to sell boots to the Pilgrims going over there." (Laughter)

Now, friends, there is that thing that we have to note-that the Word of God is true. Get on to the right track, and the track for you men to get on is that whenever you see "Israel" in the Bible you can safely read "the British Empire." That is a broad statement to make, but I make it as a business man who has gone carefully into it. The British Empire inherits everything promised to Israel. We have got it today. We are in possession! How our churches get around this I don't know, because we have got in the British Empire every single thing promised to our forefathers, and the first Britisher was Abraham, our forefather.

The word "Brit" in Hebrew means covenant, and the "ish" means man; and Abraham was one of the first men God made a covenant with, and he is British, and our land is Britain-the covenant land. God said He would set aside a place for Israel, where He would plant them, and move no more, and where these enemies would not afflict them as in former times, and He gave us the covenant of the deep, and that is the Britannia--the covenant of the ships. We have them all, and we are going to keep them. (Applause)

Listen: One hundred and twenty six years after Israel was scattered and dispersed--many of our churches say they were lost--we find Isaiah making this prophecy concerning Israel: "Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God, although I have cast thee afar off among the heathen, and although I have scattered thee among the countries, yet I give to thee a regular sanctuary in the countries to which they shall come. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I will even gather you from the people and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel." Have we got that? We have; we took it in 1917 by General Allenby.

Now, friends, when Jerusalem was destroyed it was foretold that in seven times Jerusalem would be taken again. Dr. Gratten Guinnes in 1875 published a book, "Light for the Latter Days," in which he stated that in 1917 there was something big coming to Judah and to Israel. He figured it would be the taking of the Holy Land away from the Turks by Britain and placing of the Jew there. In 1917 that was made true. That year was 2520 years, seven times of 360 years from the year that it fell, and it came true. The fact that those things are put down means that you can read them if you know how. "Hear the Word of the Lord, oh you nations, and declare it in the Isles afar off," I wonder where they can be? "and say to the Isles afar off. He that scattereth Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd does the flock, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of a stronger than him. If this ordinance (of sun and moon) disappear from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before me forever." We have the ordinance of sun and moon. Where is Israel a nation today?

Israel must be a nation. Who are Israelites today? That was asked in Paul's time, and answered in this way; "Who are Israelites to whom pertain the adoption and the glory and the covenant and the kingdom, and the law and the service of God and the promises." Who are they? The answer is in the same message-"Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called."

Now, if you want to know who Israel are today you have got to have them called in Isaac. How do we fit in? There are no vowels in Hebrew, and the word Isaac in Hebrew is "Saar." When the Hebrew people, our forefathers, started on their long pilgrimage they called themselves Saac-sons, and in different ways-there are thirty-two different waysthis is found on monuments that were found in the Crimea where those Saac-sons went. Today we have it "Sax" instead of "Saac," but we are the same people. "Angle" in Hebrew is "Bull" and when our forefathers marched out of Egypt they marched under a banner with a bull's head on it; there is where we got our John Bull from. (Laughter) Those people, when they marched across the continent, still were called the "Angles," and they continued it when they went into Britain. If you want to know where the Israelites are you have to have them called Saxons--Saac's sons.

When Christ was in Jerusalem and they were expecting to take on His Kingdom and make Him a King, He made this statement, speaking to the Jews

"The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given" to the Church? Oh, no, "Given to a nation." The specification for the quality of the nation it was to be given to was; "A nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Therefore, if you want to find where the Kingdom of God is on earth today you have to find a nation that is bringing forth the fruits of God's teaching, imperfectly, because we are all imperfect-but still that is bringing forth the fruits of God's teaching and carrying the Gospel to the world. If you will get that anywhere outside of the British Empire and her offspring, I don't know where you find them.

"Thou, Israel, art my battle-axe, and weapon of war. With thee I will break in pieces the nations, and with thee I will destroy kingdoms." Friends, God has used our old British Empire for that purpose down through the ages. The Israel people smashed Nebuchadnezzar. The Israel people smashed the Persian outfit. The Goths smashed Rome. Who were they? "Goti"--God's people--still Israel. The British people smashed Napoleon; and the British people smashed the Kaiser, even if our friends the Americans did it, (laughter) it is still the British people, because fifty-five per cent. of them are our people.

Now, the campaign under Allenby is a very small one in the Bible, but it is there just the same. In the latter day Edom was to be in possession of the Holy Land when it was redeemed. Edom is O'theman of the Bible, and the 0'theman of the Bible is Turkey. That can be proved, but you will have to take my word for it, as I have not time today. They were to be in possession of that land for 1335 years, and on the 1335th year of the Ottoman hegira they changed their coins and they adopted A.D. 1917; I have seen the coins with it on; the mark is there. They were to be in possession of the Holy Land until 1335th year, and then, "I will bring my vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel." Friends, who was it brought on by? Allenby, and only British people. There was no French army there; there was no Italian army there; there was no Belgian army there; John Bull and John Bull's sons from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Newfoundland, and the other sections of the Empire were the people who smashed the Turks and redeemed the Holy Land. God said it was going to be done by "My people Israel." We, therefore, are the Israel of God. The kingdom to whom our Lord is to come and rule over, after armageddon is fought in a few years.

Now, when it came to taking Jerusalem, how did we take it? Those of you who were at the front will know that in the late war there was not any city, town or village within fifteen miles of the front that was not smashed to pieces. Was Jerusalem smashed in that way? Not on your life. Not a shell-mark in Jerusalem. Why? Well, this is the reason why: "God said He would defend it," Isaiah 31:5, "As birds flying so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending it also He will deliver it, and passing over He will preserve it." He, God, with His battle-axe and weapons of war, brigades of the British Empire, did the job as predicted.

There is a definite statement of how Jerusalem would be taken, and I hunted up passages written by W. T. Massey in two books to see how it was taken, and I found that that is identically the way we took it. There was neither shot nor shell fired into Jerusalem. We charged it neither with cavalry nor with infantry, nor with tanks, but "as birds flying," they put the fear of Almighty God into the heart of the Turk, and he beat it out. (Laughter)

There is a very interesting fact told about that. Allenby didn't know what to do about bombarding Jerusalem, and he cabled Lloyd George, and Lloyd George said, "You are Johnny on the spot; it is up to you." Allenby was not satisfied with that, and he cabled home to the King, and the King suggested, "Make it a matter of prayer." The highest authority on earth passed it to the highest authority over Israel above, and the morning before the attack on Jerusalem was to be made, Allenby and his staff got down on their knees and in prayer at HeadQuarters asked God's guidance. Friends, as they got off their knees, the Patriarch of Jerusalem walked in with a white flag and gave them the keys to Jerusalem. Now, the Bible says, "Before they ask I will answer." The answer was on the way before Allenby got on his knees.

Now, look; here is something about the Germans. See he was like a lion coming up from the swelling of Jordan, and it says, "I will be sly with them; I will break through and assail them from behind, and who is the stout hero of Edom who can stand before me, or who expects me?" Did we do that? "We did, absolutely to the letter. While they were holding the line on the front, our cavalry broke through thirty miles away, drove in thirty miles and rounded them up, and shattered them from behind and smashed the whole outfit, practically taking them all prisoners.

I think I cannot do better than close with these few words of Kipling:

"God of our Fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine,
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget! Lest we forget!"

(Loud and continued applause)

PRESIDENT HEARST: I am sure we are all deeply indebted to the speaker of the day for his very original and interesting and instructive address. I have visions before me of many dusty Bibles being produced to-night in order to check up the Colonel's references and to see how they fit in with views of the British Empire. (Applause)

The audience rose and gave three cheers to the speaker for his address.