Romans 11:7-10

This little inset in verses eight through ten is important to understand. Israel has zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. God has not cast away His people. He is still going to save them, but He lets us know why things are the way they are. He has given them over to being deceived; He has permitted it. This is why it says that God gave them a spirit of stupor. He permitted it even as He permitted Adam and Eve to be tested in the Garden.

These scriptures show that Israel's spiritual diet was what was misleading them. Their table had become a snare. A table is a symbol of where we eat. It is literally where we eat physical food, but spiritually, it is a symbol of that which is providing our mental and spiritual nourishment. What is he saying here? It was what they were feeding their mind that was so distracting them to the degree that they were not able to see the truth when it was presented to them.

Romans 11:7-10

We find if we look further, it is not that God has actually put blinders on people's eyes, but rather that He has just allowed things to develop without His intervention. Therefore, people become blind, simply because God does not intervene in their lives.

Now, this "callous" that I mentioned, metaphorically, it means to make the heart dull and insensitive. And so by God's simply not intervening, the mind, which at birth would be open to receiving the truth of God, but since God does nothing, then society, through the parents first and then society at large, begins to impress upon the child things that are not true about God. And the callous begins to develop on the mind, until metaphorically, they are insensitive to the truth of God. That has happened to every single one of us since Adam and Eve.