For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, (14) if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.  (15) For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?  (29) For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.  (30) For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, (31) even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.  (32) For God has committed them all to disobedience that He might have mercy on all.  

The apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Romans. In chapter 11 of Romans which we study today, we read of the dilemma Paul addresses:  Israel has rejected Christ Jesus as the Messiah and is now in conflict with God, while at the same time Israel is the one to whom God made irrevocable promises of blessing. However, God has a plan and purpose and is in charge. This plan will be executed by men who are free to make choices for which they are responsible – on the one hand God’s plan is foreordained but in the other hand men make real choices.

Paul praises God for His unsearcheable judgments and His unfathomable ways.  Paul tells his readers – the Gentiles – that the Jews, by their rejection of the gospel, caused him, Paul, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles And that this will provoke jealousy to the Jews and cause them to eventually to come to faith. Israel’s failure was not to be fatal and God’s plan of redemption is for all believers – all things will work together for good.

God showed mercy to the Gentiles (all non-Jews are Gentiles) and spread His word through the apostles and disciples to all nations until the fullness of the Gentiles at which time God’s redemptive plan calls for mercy on Israel with their conversion to Christ. All are guilty and all deserve judgment – mercy and grace are similar and both are free unmerited gifts of God. Both Jews and Gentiles are cut off from God at points of history and both will experience God’s mercy at one point in history. We are to rely on God’s faithfulness no matter what our circumstances are and are to live our lives in this awareness.  The message of our verses today is if we reject Christ we become the enemy of God.