I think the answer to that question starts with the realization that Jesus of the New Testament and God of the Old Testament are one and the same, and God’s word is everlasting. The things He expected from the first Israel, He still expects from us. They were the type, we are the anti-type. One might say they were expressed in the physical, while it’s more spiritual for us. They had physical stones with the written covenant, and a literal land promised to them, ours will be Heaven. They had to slaughter an unblemished lamb to be passed over by the angel of death; we have the blood of the true lamb of God. Then think about the flood in Noah’s day. It was sent because the whole earth was corrupt. The water was sent to purify, and the wicked drown. So to be fully submerged, and re-emerge, we are born anew. We are told the second baptism will be by fire, so just as the water baptism ties to the flood; everyone will be tried in the fire. God is an unquenchable flame, so we are either purified into pure gold, or utterly destroyed by it. The world looks an awful lot like Sodom and Gomorrah now adays, and we know what happened to that region.