God Dulled Israel's Insight

Israel, chosen God's own special race,

Was meant to be priests to the world by Him;

They brought nothing to His name but disgrace,

Succeeded only His light to bedim!

God dulled their insight, so that when Jesus came,

Instead of welcome, He was rejected;

Crucified by His own in open shame;

Now, still calloused, most have still not accepted!

But not for long! When Jesus does return,

Israel will mourn the years of neglect;

They will grieve His wounds by them; will not spurn

Him longer, but give Him love and support!

Their hearts will turn tender again, from stone,

And no more lack of insight will they own!

The Israelites had been out of Egypt little over 3 months when they showed God their obstinacy. While He was talking with Moses and engraving the Ten Commandments in stone on Mount Sinai, they got restless below and built themselves a golden calf to worship. Unfortunately, that kind of infidelity was to be their trademark. He freed them from slavery, defeated the enemies who faced them until they owned the Promised Land, fed and gave them water to drink in the desert, yet they drifted back and forth between short periods of obedience and disobedience for hundreds of years. He had intended them to be a nation that glorified Himself to all other races. instead they perverted His desire for all the world, claiming Him for themselves only. They misunderstood the spiritual meaning of everything He taught them, stubbornly holding to material understandings. In the time of Isaiah, 700 years before the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, He judged them unworthy, and dulled their insight further, so that they would certainly reject His Son's spiritual teachings.

"He said, 'Go and tell this people: Be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed!'" (Isaiah 6:9-10)

This is why Jesus taught in parables---so that the bulk of the people, the religious leaders would not understand the gospel. By that point, He did not want the Jews to fall en masse into accepting Christianity; they had clearly demonstrated their inability to carry the gospel to a world which they considered inferior to them; they had grown so puffed up because God had chosen them, they considered Gentiles unworthy. Had they accepted Jesus, all of us would have to be circumcised and follow all the Jewish customs plus the new ones brought by Christ. But some Jews, despite the judgment on the race, did understand and were saved; others have become Christians during the intervening years. When Jesus returns, Israel will accept Him en masse.