Let us not pass this admonition carelessly by without trying to understand its meaning.... Why did the Lord permit Jerusalem to be destroyed by fire the first time? Why did he permit his people to be overcome by their enemies, and carried into heathen lands?—It was because they had failed to be his missionaries, and had built walls of division between themselves and the people round about them. The Lord scattered them, that the knowledge of his truth 12might be carried to the world. If they were loyal and true and submissive, God would bring them again into their own land....
(SpTB06 11.3)