believed not. After all this long waiting on the part of God, after all this ministry to them

which included the gospel of the circumcision, there is no sign of a unanimous

repentance and turning to God as they had been commanded to do (Acts 3: 19-26).

And this is where God's longsuffering finally ran out: "And when they agreed not

among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word". He now quotes

from a very solemn passage from the O.T.; It is from Isa. 6: "Well spake the Holy

Ghost by Isaiah the Prophet unto our (but if you read the R.V. `unto your') fathers saying,

Go unto this people and say, Hearing you shall hear, and not understand; and seeing ye

shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross (heavy, hard), and

their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with

their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be

converted and I should heal them". This is the same word that Peter spoke to them in

Acts 3:: "Repent and be converted"--turn again--but they refused to turn back to God

and truly repent. "Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent (or

`was sent') unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it". You refuse to hear it, they will hear

it--look at the difference! The poor, despised Gentiles whom the Jews looked on as

dogs, heard the Word gladly and received it, but the Jews would not do so, with the

consequence that they had become blind, deaf, and so hardened spiritually, that now they

are quite unusable by God and He lays them aside. As a race they have been in this

condition ever since. True, God has saved individual Jews, but racially they are still

Christ rejecters. They have been in the forefront of God's purpose since Gen. 12:, for

the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. Will this kingdom never come? Has God

finally cast away Israel? The Scriptural answer is `no'. On the basis of the New

Covenant of grace, they will yet be restored (Jer. 31: 31; Rom. 11: 25-29) at the

Second Coming of the Lord. Meanwhile God has been carrying out another phase of His

great redemptive purpose that affects the heavens, and men and women of this age who

are saved by grace. For them are unsearchable riches such as Israel never knew. These

lie ahead for our explanation by faith.

We finished our study last time at the end of the Acts of the Apostles; we saw that it

struck a tragic note because the plan of God, which embraced the whole world to be

reached through the Jewish nation, was temporarily brought to a halt through their

opposition and unbelief. God's longsuffering at last ran out with this people, and at

Rome, the Apostle Paul was commissioned by the Holy Ghost to quote from Isa. 6:,

and tell them that, like their fathers of old, they had got into such a terrible condition that

they could not see, hear, or understand God's truth, whereas the Gentile, the outsider,

would receive the message. The prophet Hosea had looked forward to this time, and

prophesied that God would call Israel, Lo-ammi, not my people. But not only that, He

says something even worse: "and I will not be your God". Can you think of anything

more terrible than that? Supposing God said to us, "I will not be your God", what could