You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it,
“You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter,
“You know nothing”?
- Isaiah 29:16
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
- James 1:22-25
Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
it may be an everlasting witness.
For these are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.
They say to the seers,
“See no more visions!”
and to the prophets,
“Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.
Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!”
Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern.”
This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.
You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill.”
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
- Isaiah 30:8-21
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
- 2 Timothy 4:1-4
The Boilerplate
My wife took a Bible Study in 2011. (There was a note in the study guide that identified September 2 and that the study was being held on Friday mornings, or I might not have ever figured out what year.) My wife had become a Christian in 2000. She greatly respected the pastor’s wife who was also a pastor. The pastor’s wife spent time as the interim associate pastor, and this Bible study might have been during that time.
My wife passed away in March 2023, and I found this study guide as I was cleaning up. It is a Beth Moore study guide. Most of the questions are close-ended, mostly fill-in-the-blank. But my wife was eager to learn. She wrote her thoughts in the margins, sometimes encouraged to do so by Beth Moore. I will use her comments as I did once before, calling this a “with a little help” series in that my wife contributes. There is more to follow in that she wrote Scriptures and prayers in a notebook. Probably what she found in her personal Bible study, giving her encouragement through the long illness that took her life.
So, instead of writing about a topic at random, I am going to write on my wife’s comments in the Study Guide. It may follow the study guide topics, but it may not.
Discussion on this topic
What does James 1:22-25 say to you?
“Don’t be double-minded. Believe in God’s Word and you’ll get freedom.”
- My wife’s response
I might say believe in God, but what do we know about God’s promises and His ability to fulfill those promises other than God’s Word.
This next series of lessons is on establishing who is the potter and who is the clay. And our world these days is trying to convince us that there is no potter. They will find out soon enough that they are wrong.
Isaiah 29:16 talks of a marred pot. What is God’s point here?
“We aren’t the Creator (the potter). The clay (us) can’t know what or how we will become.”
- My wife’s response
I think I got the last word right, but it seems something is missing. The verse talks about the clay not being able to say that the potter does not exist, but that does not stop people these days. The pot cannot say that the potter knows nothing. If we think we are in any way equal to the potter, we are on dangerous ground. God has made us like Sons of God, through adoption. In the next life, with our sin nature gone so we do not have crossed purposes with God at times, we might conjecture. But while in this world, our sin nature will trump us every time.
My wife adds a comment here. She paraphrases the entire 38th chapter of Job by saying, “When God speaks to Job, “And where was Job when the world was made.”
Why do some Christians, those that really think things through, have such a problem with millions of years and evolution, and it comes down to these kinds of arguments. When there is no Creator, when we think we got here by accident and by accident we are the top of the food chain due to our advanced sentience, then we can think that there either is no potter, or the potter is old and senile and insignificant. But the last time that I saw a pot, it had little to say. A real pot knows there is a potter. The figurative pots who think there is no potter are delusional. Where were they when God made the world?
Before the next question, Beth Moore writes three principles relating to God’s sovereignty. He has the right to rule. He sets a high price for rebellion. He pours out safety and blessing for obedience. (Beth Moore, Breaking Free). In the margin, my wife wrote my mother’s name. I have mentioned it before that my brother died earlier the year this Bible study was done. Three weeks later, almost to the hour, my Dad died. And then the one that had been ill for some time hung on for two months. She was very busy, deeding all the property that was worthwhile to my sister and my brother’s wife. The brother’s wife getting the ancestral home. What was secretly deeded to me was some swamp land between the other two pieces of land. Nothing on which a house could be built. Essentially writing me out of the will. Yes, my mother felt the right to rule and the vengeance and high price for rebellion was that you simply were not a part of the family. I got a little money once everything else was taken care of, but there were things that I might have wanted to keep that were in the house. For one, my Dads extensive photographs from his many journeys around the western hemisphere: Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico. No, blessings went to the obedient, and since my employment was too far away for me to commute from the ancestral home, I was not family. Yes, a year before all this happened, my mother demanded I quit my job, regardless of how deep my debt was, that was my problem, and be her full-time caregiver, even though my sister lived a half mile away and was retired and the sister-in-law lived across the road, or I would not get anything from her. My problem was that if I said anything, vengeance would be everlasting, so I kept my mouth shut and hoped she would eventually calm down.
But then again, in 2011 we were just seeing the seeds bursting from the ground of the present madness where no politician can define what a woman is, just as one example of many.
How did the people of Israel rebel according to Isaiah 30:8-21?
“They were deceitful, unwilling to listen, ‘Stop controlling us.’ ”
- My wife’s response
And that is why the secular world calls Christianity a religion of hate. They ignore the love God shows and they focus on rules. Those rules might mean that they are not in control, and they cannot have that.
In the past week or two, what have you done to show love for someone else and show you belong to God?
“Opening the door for a handicapped woman and professing my belief in Him to another.”
- My wife’s response
It would be soon after this, only three years, when my wife would be the handicapped woman.
And in private, what have you done that might not be indicative of belonging to God?
“Arguing with a loved one.”
- My wife’s response
Note: I talk about our arguments in this morning’s Babs and Harold Conversation. Odd how I wrote that before I saw this answer.
In 2 Timothy 4:1-2, what was Paul’s charge to Timothy?
“To preach the Word always. Great patience and careful instructions. Correct, encourage, rebuke.”
- My wife’s response
She did not elaborate. Preaching is okay. Instructing is wonderful. Encouraging is great. But do people want to be corrected these days? “Obviously, you are wrong in your correction, for I have never been wrong.” As someone totally absorbed by the secular world once told me. And rebuking? I think pastors are afraid of that one. If they reject correction, what would happen if you take that a step further?
Then again, the secular world thinks there is no potter, and the church wants to look like the secular world because people do not come to church anymore. Maybe the problem is that the church has forgotten its foundation in Christ. If we look just like the world, why not just stay home?
We need to snap out of this upside down world and realize that God Created this world. Forget Evolution in that there is scientific proof it could never have happened as Darwin postulated. There is a Creator, and we are the created. Once that soaks into our craniums, we can talk about the rest of it.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
Leave a comment