Created Questioning the Creator?

God also said, "Can the vessel ask the Potter?"

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, Romans 9:19-23 NASB

"Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles'?...  Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: "Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward," says the LORD of hosts. Isaiah 45:9, 11-13 ESV

It is okay to ask God questions-

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? "Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:7-11 NASB

And, if we don't understand, we can ask God-

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. James 1:5 NASB

God wants us to understand-

Wisdom is the main thing; get wisdom, and with all your getting, get understanding. Proverbs 4:7 LITV

There is a time we need to be quiet-

You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, "He did not make me"; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, "He has no understanding"? Isaiah 29:16 ESV

We can be asking too many questions and enter into insubordination-

For he says: "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones. My hand has found like a nest the wealth of the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped." Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! Isaiah 10:13-15 ESV

We are the instruments of God; He is not our instrument.

We are proud, haughty, high-minded, judgmental, and out of line.

We keep asking questions because we want answers, but there comes a point where we need to shut our mouths and start doing something (not just "something", but specifically what God sends us to do!).

Check this out-

always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes's and Jambres's folly was also. 2 Timothy 3:7-9 NASB

"rejected in regard to the faith"???

Does that scare anybody?

Better is a dry morsel with quiet... Proverbs 17:1 ESV

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6 ESV

Here's the clincher-

therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern." For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." But you were unwilling, Isaiah 30:13-15 ESV

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Circumcision, Ew!

This was something that came to me late Thursday night-

it was when Moses' wife circumcised their son, threw the foreskin at his feet, and called him a bloody husband.

Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him [Moses] and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me." So He [God] let him alone. At that time she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood"--because of the circumcision. Exodus 4:24-26 NASB

With everything that is going on, God is calling us to repent.

God is saying- get yourself in order.

God is saying- get your marriage in order.

Circumcision? What's that got to do with anything?

We as husbands have let our homes get in quite a disarray.  Our children, our heritage from the Lord, our future... it's out of hand!

Moses was on his way to Egypt to set the Hebrew children free. He was doing what God told him to do. But he was still disobedient in that he had neglected some of the basic things. Thank God for Zipporah! God was going to kill Moses!

We husbands have left our job to our wives. Thank God for spiritual wives! But, we need to set things right!

Now, put away your flint knife and no cutting anything!

Circumcision OF THE HEART has to do with repentance and a turning away from stubbornness and rebellion.

God is calling us to holiness and that includes our children.

Dads, it time to be the dad that God has called you to be...

... get your house in order.

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 "So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer. Deuteronomy 10:16 NASB

"Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. Deuteronomy 30:6 NASB

"Circumcise yourselves to the LORD And remove the foreskins of your heart, Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Or else My wrath will go forth like fire And burn with none to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds." Jeremiah 4:4 NASB

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God...  For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.  26  So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?  27  And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?  28  For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.  29  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God. Romans 2:5, 25-29 NASB

and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ;  Colossians 2:11 NASB

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, Colossians 2:13 NASB

for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, Philippians 3:3 NASB


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