20:30,31
The common human reaction is to blame others or God. The correct response is to examine ourselves first. This applies when we are blaming other people, as Jesus told us to take the speck out of our own eye first, before we embark on correcting others. With God it is doubly true as God does not need correcting! So God has just given them a quick rundown of their history, and their present state is not different. They were still sacrificing to idols, even sacrificing children, it seems. So the elders did not need to be enquiring of the Lord, they needed to be examining themselves.
20:32
“We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the world”. This had been their problem for a long time. In the days of Samuel they wanted a king (1 Sam 8:5). Even now they still wanted to be like the nations. Often the church goes down this path as well. This is a most foolish thing to do. Why do we want to be like the nations? Why do we want to remain lost in our sin? It is also a symptom of having forgotten who the Lord is. Choosing the world over God really is the daftest thing a person or nation can do. “But what you have in mind will never happen”. Now this is a quite amazing statement and vital for our understanding of the Lord. Israel wanted to continue going down the sin road to death, but God would not let it happen. Now we also need to realise that He was prepared to let them go an awful long way down that deadly road, but it would not be forever. Likewise with the church. Israel belongs to God, the church belongs to God, we are not our own. So God will not allow the church to apostacise forever.
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