Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But He wanted His own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves. Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it. I am saying all this especially for you Gentiles. God has appointed me as the apostle to the Gentiles. I stress this, for I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have, so I might save some of them. For since their rejection meant that God offered salvation to the rest of the world, their acceptance will be even more wonderful. It will be life for those who were dead!
Romans 11:11 -15
This is the last of the rhetorical questions. All of the other rhetorical questions have received a resounding, No. There is no change with this one. Have the Jews fallen beyond recovery? “No, of course not.” says Paul. This has happened so that the Gentiles may be grafted into the family of God. We will pick up on this point in the next Gem. This has happened so that it would spur Israel to do something about their plight. God wants to make His people jealous so they will come back to Him. It is like the clock in a game of chess. Israel’s clock has stopped while the Gentiles have their turn. But don’t think for one minute the time for the Jews has passed. As Paul says this is the time for God to offer salvation to the rest of the world. When the time comes for their (the Jews) acceptance it will be even more wonderful. It will be like life from the dead. Like the rejoicing that surrounded Lazarus’s coming out party.
The time for Israel is still to come. There is much to say about this topic but I won’t spin it out. But suffice to say the chess clock will switch to Israel again. Those who think that the time for Israel is over and the church is now the new Israel are wrong. Israel will have her time again. We will move on to Paul’s very important point for all of us in the following Gem.
The only thing worse than training employees & losing them is not training them & keeping them.
Zig Ziglar
When you go through disappointments, you may feel like you’ve been buried, but the fact is, you’ve simply been planted. you’re coming back!
Joel Osteen