God's Tree of Nations

Romans 11:11-24

Israel is not hopelesly lost but their stumbling has opened up salvation and all of God's gifts and blessings to the rest of the nations. This is meant to provoke them to jealousy and I, though a Jew, but an apostle to those nations gladly participate in this plan. I am excited about being a part of this new frontier because if God is using His blessed Israel in this way He will eventually being them around. Some of them will be moved to jealousy and accept God's plan His way. The little bit of "yeast' that is left will permeate all the dough. Or to put it another way, it is as if God's salvation was an olive tree and He broke Israel off because they were not producing. Then He took wild olive branches (you gentiles) and grafted them in. What a change! Once connected to the rich root of God's salvation you began to produce luscious fruit for Him. Keep in mind, though, you didn't do anything to make this happen and even your nourishment comes from Him. So don't be arrogant or proud about this. That is how the other branches got broken off and if He needs to He can do the same thing again.

So you can see that God can deal with a people regardless of the point they are at. If you respect His kindness He will nourish it. If you don't He will cut you off. As for Israel, if they repent of their unbelief God will graft them back in. You might say you were a branch removed from a wild olive tree and artificially grafted into a domestic one. It would be much easier for Him to replace you with the branches that came from it.