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My idols have separated my heart from Him and have made me a stranger from Him. When I separate from Him, set up my substitute sources of control in my heart and keep them before my face, and then pressure the prophet to give me a word from the Lord, I will bring my own guilt and sin on that person and cause them to suffer the same guilt and estrangement I am suffering. But then He says this will happen in order that I will no longer stray from Him or defile myself with all my sins. I will be one of His people and He will be my God.
Repeatedly I am asked to repent and let go of these foreign gods. Chapter 20 says God chose me, made Himself known to me, swore to me, brought me out of bondage, gave me wonderful principles of life, informed me, offered me intimate time with Him every Sabbath – all this that I might really comet to know Him.
But the idols, big or small that I have allowed or have been victim to, have always distorted my perception of Him. The idols lie to me about God's motives and intentions toward me and I continue to give them more credibility than God's testimony about Himself. So I rebelled against Him, am not willing to listen, did not aggressively throw out the lies and the pleasure-producing substitutes that I look to for satisfaction.
God is wrestling against His own nature through all of this to protect me from Himself while still trying to seduce and allure me to fall in love with Him. One part of Him resolves to pour out His passion on me and overwhelm me right where I am in the land of “Egypt” where I feel comfortable. But if He did I would misjudge His passion to be wrath and anger and would further withdraw from Him. So the other side of Him restrains His overwhelming longing and desire for me and determines to act unilaterally for the sake of His own reputation and to personally remove the stumbling-blocks that clutter the way between us. He overrules His own passion repeatedly and even resists and protects me from the full consequences of my idol worship while (v. 33) He promises passionately that He will be my king, He will bring me out... and gather me with great might and power and passion. He will bring me to the wilderness where there are no distractions and will enter into full disclosure with me face to face. He will initiate me and bring me solidly into His blood covenant. He will purge me of rebellion, He will bring me out of my wandering so that I will know in my heart that He is my Lord and my God like Thomas did. In verse 39 He tells me to be honest and serve my idols, but later I will listen to him and will profane His reputation no longer.
He takes responsibility for fixing this hopeless problem. He says that on His mountain in the wilderness I will serve Him and He will accept me and seek my gifts of love to Him. He will prove Himself holy in me. Then I will remember the hopeless condition that He rescued me from and all my profanities and hypocrisy against Him and I will loathe myself, but I will know that He is the real Lord because He did all this for me for His name's sake, not at all according to how I acted or thought. God will shower me clean and remove my hardness and implant the passion of love inside me – all for His name's sake so that everyone will know the truth about Him.
