“For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee” (Romans 11:21).
God is patient and long-suffering, but unrepentant sin inevitably brings unsparing judgment. First of all, “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (II Peter 2:4). These fallen angels had not only followed Lucifer in his primeval rebellion, but had also possessed the very bodies of the ungodly in Noah’s day.
When worldwide evil and violence in the world followed the sin of the angels, God “spared not the old world, . . . bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (II Peter 2:5). Then, from the remnant that survived the flood, He eventually chose Israel to be His peculiar people.
But when Israel finally rebelled and long persisted in their sin, as our text says, “God spared not the natural branches” and grafted in the believing Gentiles. To a considerable degree, we here in America have inherited God’s special blessing, but now His word is warning us, too: “Take heed lest He also spare not thee.” We have departed far from the faith of our fathers and, like Noah’s world, our world is rapidly filling with violence and is fast heading for judgment.
God spared not the fallen angels, He spared not the wicked antediluvians, then He spared not the chosen people Israel, and soon, when His patience ends, He will spare not the whole Gentile world.
But for those who repent and desire His forgiveness and salvation, God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). In order to spare us, Christ died for us, now lives for us, and soon will come for us! “What shall we then say to these things? . . . He that spared not His own Son . . . how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31,32). HMM
