What happened when God sent Paul out among the pagan Gentiles?

Les explains that Israel rejected and crucified the Messiah, and continued rejecting Him in the early Acts. Finally, when Israel proved they would not believe, God raised up Saul of Tarsus, the rebel who hated Jesus of Nazareth, and saved him by grace. Before Saul even got out of Damascus, God told him he would be sent far hence to the Gentiles. Israel would go into spiritual blindness, but Paul would go to the Gentiles. Because Israel rejected the Old Testament promises and her Messiah and King, the windows of heaven opened for Gentiles whose forefathers were pagan, steeped in idolatry, the occult, and mythology. Israel alone had the true knowledge of the true God, but God did something totally different: He sent this apostle among pagan Gentiles, and they suddenly began to swarm to the Gospel. They had a spiritual hunger Israel could not comprehend. In Acts, wherever Paul preached and the Jews rejected the Gospel, the pagan Gentiles embraced it and were thrilled. The Jews then hated them and became the chief opponents of Christianity, and later Gentiles began to hate Jews in return. Les ties this to verse 11: through Israel's fall, salvation came to the Gentiles to provoke the Jew to jealousy. He illustrates it with high school dating, where after a falling out one dates somebody else to promote jealousy. God turned to the Gentile so Israel would get jealous and wake up.