Paul in examining if the message of the Gospel has reached Israel, offered up four questions and we take up our notes now to examine the second: It's not is it, that Israel didn't understand? (Rom 10:19)
"Well, true God we heard the message but our minds and hearts were darkened so we couldn't possibly understand it therefore we couldn't believe it." Is that their defense? Is that the unmentioned defense made by proponents of such a system?
Paul's answer is once again grounded in Scripture after phrasing the question in such a way that it demands the negative.
As early as Moses, the Jewish writings taught that God would make them Jealous by means of a nation without understanding and Isaiah boldly states that God was found by those people that didn't seek Him and He became manifest to those who didn't ask for Him yet to Israel He says that He's been waiting, with outstretched hands, to a disobedient and obstinate people.
In other words, the Gentiles were being converted by droves and the Israelites were witnesses of this as well. Indeed, their Bible said this was going to happen and if anyone would understand it they did because it was provoking to jealousy. These same Gentiles that were formerly pagans were now worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These same Gentiles were now calling on the name of the Living God and worshipping a Jewish Messiah as Lord.
And what were they doing? They were being disobedient while God in His longsuffering mercy and compassion stretches his hands out—look at the picture like a father with a disobedient and wayward child—all day long, waiting for them.
Oh the words of the Lord Jesus when He stood before Jerusalem and wept before entering in "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"
 |
Rey's Studies (Topics) 
Subscribe to this comment's feed