Part 1

Acts 13:40-41:

And by Him (the Lord Jesus raised from the dead as Saviour) all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets. “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish; for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you”

Habakkuk 1:5

Behold ye among the heathen, and regards, and wonder marvellously; for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told to you.

Habakkuk 2:4: Behold, the soul that is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

This thunderous warning, “behold, ye despisers and wonder and perish” was first spoken to the Israelite people of Habakkuk’s time. The prophet warned that because of Israel’s idolatry God would raise up the Chaldeans – “that bitter and hasty nation” - to conquer and destroy them.

But Israel did not heed the warning and in consequence in 587 BC the Chaldean emperor Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and destroyed both city and temple killing many but taking the cream of the nation captive to his capital Babylon.

So, what did it mean when the Apostle Paul repeated this prophecy to Jews in the synagogue at Antioch in A. D. 46? No Chaldeans were then available to attack Jerusalem. However, the Roman Empire and its armies were.  Thus, in A.D. 70 four Roman armies under Titus, son of the Emperor Vespasian, besieged, then destroyed both Jerusalem and its temple,, He went on to slay or crucify a third of its people and sold the rest as slaves.

But for the Israelites there was an even harsher punishment for their collective refusal to accept their Messiah despite the miracles He performed in his life on earth and later by his Spirit in the Pentecostal Acts period. This dread penalty was the ending of the chosen nation’s role as the instrument of God’s salvation.

Acts chapter 28 tells the sad story of God’s final appeal to the recalcitrant nation. It was made through the Apostle Paul speaking to Jews in Rome who quoted the Isaiah 6:9-10 prophecy to Israel that:

Hear ye indeed, but understand not, and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

This dire prophetic warning was repeated seven times to Israel down the centuries of the chosen nation’s history. The Old Testament prophets repeated it and when on earth the Lord Jesus reiterated it. Then through the mouth of the Apostle Paul the Lord declared the prophesied doom fulfilled in the dismissal of the once chosen nation pronounced. In short, through Paul, He pronounced it as a divine decree in Acts 28:27-28.

Simply put this sentence of divine judgement meant that Israel was set aside for the foreseeable future dismissed from having a part in carrying out his salvation purposes. As Paul pronounced in Acts 28:28:

Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it.

This dire edict dashed any lingering hopes Israelites had of being restored as the preeminent nation under God. Worse still, the divine call for the nation as the seed of Abraham to be a “blessing to all nations” (Acts 3:25) was revoked in that “salvation” was not only “sent to the Gentiles” but the proclamation of it from now on would be their responsibility not Israel’s.

One must ask, was this temporary casting away of Israel just a spiritual matter or did it have real effect in the world? The answer is clear. Since the passing of the Israelite apostles and Paul not a single Jew has emerged in history to lead a Christian revival, regain overlooked biblical truth or so proclaim gospel truth that it has changed society. All those that have done so from Martin Luther through to the Wesley brothers and George Whitfield have been Gentiles.

And today it is Gentiles, not Jews, that are on the forefront of dispensational advance in making better known the full blessings of the “dispensation of grace” (Ephesians 3:1-4), the “unsearchable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8-9) and “the fellowship of the mystery”.

You see, while the Apostle Peter in Acts 3:26 told Israelites that “unto you (the Jews) first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you (Jews) in turning away every one of you from his iniquities, later in his second letter he had to warn:

“…beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness”.

Concurrently, the Apostle Paul in his letter to the “Hebrews” warned that time was fast running out both for the nation and even for the small handful of its true believers.

… the earth (i.e. Israel) which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is nigh unto cursing: whose end is to be burned (Hebrews 6:4-8).

Israel, Paul said, had in the Acts period “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come (i.e. the Day of Christ); they had also tasted the heavenly gift which was to be made partakers of the Holy Ghost. (As an aside, note that it was only a “taste”; the full seven-course meal of miracles, healings, resurrection and dramatic conversions in amazing power was yet to happen in the “world to come”, the kingdom era that Jesus and proclaimed and Paul later heralded as the “Day of Christ”.

In his message to the Hebrews the apostle warned that if those who had experienced such wonders fell from their faith it would be impossible to renew them to repentance. I hasten to say this warning applied only then in the dying days of the Pentecostal Acts dispensation. It most certainly does not apply in the current “dispensation of the grace of God” in which repentance is not even required for salvation, for today it is by grace that we are saved;

Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins [God] hath quickened us (made us alive to Him) together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) - and that without repenting. (Ephesians 2:4-7).

This “all of God, nothing of man” salvation was not available to Acts period Jewish people. For them it was a case of, having been saved, to “shape up or be shipped out”. And the “shipping out” of Israel as a nation with its kingdom promises forfeited for the foreseeable future, was indeed the work that God worked in their days. The work that “despisers” would not believe, even though a man (Paul) told them about it.

(To be continued).

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: johndaldworth42@gmail.com