In a conversation with a Canaanite woman somewhere near Tyre and Sidon, Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," (Mat. 15:24). His mission was to go to the nation of Israel, preach the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, and perform miracles to confirm His message. This was in accordance with God's covenant with Israel to be their God and them to be His people. It was also a colossal and monumental honor to that nation. It therefore became a tragedy of the greatest order when Israel, for the most part, turned its back on Jesus as the Messiah and rejected Him as the Son of David who would sit upon the royal throne forever. This rejection is summarized in the report that "He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him," (Jno. 1:11). He came to Israel with favors and blessings incomparable, but by belief and stubbornness the Jewish people rejected them all. Their blindness of heart denied them gifts that would have been to their eternal glory. In the statement preceding the text above Jesus had explained, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!"
Because Israel was persistent in her rejection of Jesus, He at last turned His face away from her. This is what He meant when He said, "See, your house is left to you desolate." It should be no surprise that within forty years the country of Israel had been destroyed, the temple lay in ruins, and the people disenfranchised of their homeland.
There is a profound lesson here for all people today. Through the gospel and the church the Lord calls men to come unto Him for salvation, for membership in His family, and for a life of useful service in His cause. Some people wisely take note of this call and respond to it. As a result they reap the glorious rewards of salvation, sonship, and identity in Christian activity. But most people go through life with a deaf ear to the divine invitation. They pursue their own interests, satisfy their own desires, and follow their own will. Many of them think, "Well, God is always there. When I get ready, His invitation will be extended to me and I can accept it then." But the flaw in this attitude is that sin hardens the heart and makes it increasingly more difficult for the individual to want to answer the Lord. At last the time comes in one's life when "[his] house is left to [him] desolate." He is then a reprobate who is unlikely to turn to God, who will then turn away from him.
In describing the degenerate downslide of the Gentiles in the centuries before the advent of Christ, Paul in the first chapter of Romans stated three times that they turned away from God, (vs. 21-23, 25, 28). And likewise, three times the apostle stated that God in response turned away from them, (vs. 24, 26, 28). The withdrawal of God's influence from them for good left them without a conscience sensitive to discern moral difference. Consequently, they plunged headlong into the practice of every evil imaginable, (vs. 29-31). When one excludes God from his life, he abandons himself to the same downward course into moral blindness and gross unrighteousness. A large segment of contemporary society takes pride that it has slipped the harness of Christian discipline to live as "liberated" people. They look with pity or contempt at those who are still bound as "fundamentalists" and "conservatives" in their submission to religion. But the warning stands in the Scripture from the lips of Jesus and the pen of the inspired Paul that those who reject God will be rejected by God. We appeal to everyone, therefore, to turn to the Lord in faith and serve Him zealously while His call can still be heard.
