“I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” (Romans 11:11)
Noah pleaded with those in his day for one hundred and twenty years that those in his time would heed the truth revealed to him by the Almighty. But I can recall very few if any places in the Scriptures where the children of Israel sent missionaries out into the known world in an attempt to reach them for the glory of God.
In fact, even the Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples not to go to the Gentiles.
If one came to them in the Old Testament times, they were welcomed, with extreme limitations, Rahab and Ruth are good examples of this. But it makes me wonder, which was the overriding factor, that they did not want to share, if you will allow me to use that word, their God, or that God, for reasons of His own, left the Gentiles to their own devices for so long?
“For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” (Matt. 13:15)
Jealousy, in this regard, means my God is better than your god, and I do not want you to know Him.
Now, you who are hid in Christ, I ask this question of you, since every person on this planet serves some form of a “higher power,” a god either or their own design or one they have been deceived into believing is “the god,” are you prepared to tell them that the god they serve is not the True and Living God? That they worship that which is false, a lie, or at best, a misinterpretation of who the Almighty actually is?
Are you prepared to provoke them to jealousy?
That is what we are doing you know when we expound upon the truths of the Word of God, we are, by intention, informing them that the God we serve is the only God, and that if it is not the Lord Jesus Christ they serve, love, honor, extol, obey and submit fully to, then they are either deceived or being deceived.
You are telling them that my God is better than your god. I am right and you are wrong.
Do you understand now a little better why it does not go so well sometimes when you are witnessing to some people?
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” (John 15:18)
Most of them don’t care, some of them will want you to prove it, and others will openly rebuke you. And some will persecute you for these words of truth.
False religious systems do not always just die out or fade away my friends, they modify themselves, they add to their lies and dispense with others. The amount of “churches” in the area you live in should be proof enough of that truth for you. And when you bring the truths of the Scriptures to them rarely will you hear, “You are right, and I am wrong.”
No, instead, you will provoke them to jealousy which is really nothing more than another form of hatred.
And so, most times, Galatians 4:16 will become a truth in your life.
“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”
Our God is greater than all their gods combined, for He alone is the only True and Living God.
Sheep among wolves my friends, sheep amongst the wolves.
If they preach another doctrine, they are accursed, yet perhaps not given over to a reprobate mind. We are not just planting seeds, we are attempting to destroy strongholds, trying to tear them down, by the grace of God, false ideologies. Revealing the only true Light that can destroy that jealousy.
