10,000 ... but the Sanhedrin, No!

The Pharisees, No!

The Elders, No!

Nation, No!  Not at Pentecost.

Still God is loath to give them up.  He loved them and His purpose was

to use them.  He would have used the Jew as a means of bringing the Godless

Gentiles to a knowledge of the One True God.  The Children of Israel had a

knowledge of God already.  They should evangelize the world.  They should be

a nation of `Kings and Priests' unto Him.  But how can they be persuaded to

repent without compulsion?  Perhaps if they see the Gentiles seeking and

finding Him without their aid.  Perhaps that will move them.  Maybe they will

see their folly.  Perhaps they will be moved to emulation.

`Rise, Peter, kill and eat'.  `Not so, Lord'.  Ah, yes, but Peter has

the `Keys of the Kingdom'.  He must open the door to Cornelius.  He does, and

thus Cornelius becomes Gentile No. 1.

That happened at Acts 10.

The door opens wider.  Now Paul is being used, The apostle to the

Gentiles.  But he must go to the Jew first.  Wherever he goes on his

missionary travels he goes first to the Synagogue.  He reasons with the

Children of Israel from the Scriptures, and then goes to the Gentiles.  Even

so these Gentiles must be grafted into the parent tree (Rom. 11:17).  More

and more they come in.  Will the Children of Israel be penitent?  No!  They

are not penitent, they are angered.  Now Paul goes to Rome.  The last place

and the last chance.  Paul reasoned and argued.  So the Jews appointed him a

day.  From morning till evening Paul expounded, testified, persuaded, but all

to no avail.  `They agreed not'.  So the door was shut!  Once again the

Children of Israel are `Lo -ammi -- Not My people'.

That happened at Acts 28:28.

What now?  The tree is cut down and the grafting is finished.  What can

happen now?  Is there no hope for the world?  `Oh how great is the God we

adore'.  What boundless love!  What marvellous wisdom!  Paul can now reveal

his secret (Eph. 3:3).  A secret never before made known (Eph. 3:9).  The Jew

as God's chosen people is finished, for the time being, anyway.  The

prophetic clock has stopped.  The door is shut, but like the revolving doors,

as one shuts another opens and now it is `whosoever will', Jew or Gentile --

all One body in Christ.  What then is the special secret that Paul revealed?

Well here it is.  Ephesians 2:12, That we being in times past Gentiles in the

flesh ... That at that time we were without Christ, being aliens from the

commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having

no hope, and without God in the world!  But now in Christ Jesus we who

sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

What a glorious dispensation of Grace (for by grace are ye saved,

through faith).  Do we not partake then in the promises covenanted to Israel?

Abraham was promised a `seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand

which is upon the sea shore' (Gen. 22:17).  Do we not take our place with