[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

The Moses incident came to mind because it is an example of someone saying "no" to God and God working around it rather than convincing him by other means, e.g. Jonah with the whale.

Of course there are always consequences. And as you say, Aaron thinking he could feast to the Lord in front of the molten calf was one of them. Big mistake.

And all the people brake off the golden earrings which [were] in their ears, and brought [them] unto Aaron. And he received [them] at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These [be] thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And when Aaron saw [it], he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow [is] a feast to the LORD. - Exodus 32:3-5

But I think the toughest consequence was that the Israelites were separated from God by yet another layer, the Levitical priesthood. And Moses became an object of devotion, when the glory belonged to God alone.

To God be glory, not man, never man.

[HarleyD]

"The Moses incident..."

Yes, but let's remember that Moses and Jonah were both believers. We need to be clear that believers do make choices which our loving Father will reprove us for if we stray. It is the way we grow. (I'm sure Aaron was very hesitant about making any more golden calves.)

But I haven't seen a case of God asking a non-believer to do something and they refused. My case in point was Balaam who, given the choice, would have loved to have cursed Israel. He told King Balak that he simply couldn't do it because God wouldn't allow it. As it was, Balaam caused enough problems.