Exodus 10 -- God Continues To Harden A Heart

It has been really amazing focusing on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.  Here God tells Moses, “I have made him and his officers stubborn so I could show them My powerful miracles.  I also did this so you could tell your children and your grandchildren how I was hard on the Egyptians.”

 

Had Pharaoh’s heart not been hardened, he would have missed out on all of the great displays of God’s power.  And imagine these beaten-down Israelites who’ve been enslaved all their lives hearing Moses tell them that God was doing this for their children and grandchildren!  That gave them hope for a future many had never thought would come.

 

Moses and Aaron had to tell Pharaoh that refusing to be sorry for what he had done wasn’t paying dividends – it was very costly for his entire country.  The king’s officers even boldly asked him, “Don’t you know that Egypt is ruined?”  Pharaoh’s heart was so hardened that he no longer cared about his country.  He was consumed with rage toward Moses and his God!  After enduring the locust plague, Pharaoh surprisingly admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord your God and against you.  Now forgive my sin this time.  Pray to the Lord your God, and ask Him to stop this punishment that kills.”  In the midst of the consequences of his sin, Pharaoh needed God’s help.  But as soon as the heat was off, he relented.  And God then turned up the heat another notch:  “The Lord caused the king to be stubborn again …”  God was doing this for the purposes He’d cited earlier.

 

God then brought 3 days of absolute darkness to Egypt, while the Israelites next door in Goshen had all the light they normally had.  Pharaoh once again wanted to compromise rather than comply.  But with God, 95% obedience equals 100% disobedience, and “the Lord made the king stubborn again, so he refused to let them go.”

 

Our own hardness of hearts and stubbornness always comes at a terrible cost to us and we choose it despite the fact that it makes no sense economically or spiritually.  We kick at the goads even though God is in total control.  That’s the terrible effect of sin in our lives.

 

Father, help us to recognize this very human stubbornness – this wanting our way despite the fact that we’d be better off having it Your way.  Please help us to see when something makes no sense and reveal that our pride is doing the talking, and help us to shuck it off and let You be God.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford