Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Pharaoh's Heart Pharaoh's heart has been part of the Exodus
00:05storyline so far, and, at first sight, it is a puzzle how on one hand the Lord hardened
00:11his heart, and on the other blamed him for having a hard heart.
00:16It seems impossibly unjust, and we need to think carefully about it.
00:20Now, in fact, Exodus here, while recounting the seventh plague, says three distinct things
00:26about Pharaoh's heart.
00:28They are all true and must all be kept in mind, and are all found in Exodus 9 verse
00:3334 to Exodus 10 verse 1.
00:37He hardened his heart, together with his officials.
00:40His heart became hardened and God proclaimed, I have hardened his heart.
00:45So first, Pharaoh hardened his heart.
00:49Pharaoh set himself to disobey.
00:51His heart-hardening was his own deliberate, willful refusal of God's word.
00:56As a result of this decision, secondly, his heart was hardened.
01:01That's what always happens, a decision made becomes a predisposition to go that way again.
01:07This is something we all know about, it is called habit forming and sadly it can most
01:12easily be illustrated in the case of bad habits.
01:16A first experience proves attractive, and makes another try more likely and easier to
01:20submit to.
01:23First and second combine forces to make a third, and then a fourth easier still until,
01:28somewhere along this line of trial and temptation, we are hooked, a point of no return has been
01:33reached.
01:35We can never see that point coming, we only know it by hindsight.
01:39Yet the all-righteous God knows it in advance.
01:43It is his decision, we have toyed with sin long enough, now we must pay the penalty.
01:49So it was for Pharaoh when Moses confronted him.
01:53We are not told Pharaoh's prehistory, we are only informed that Moses' call for obedience
01:57was his point of no return.
02:01One more refusal to go God's way would seal his fate by the moment of irreversible heart-hardening.
02:07God hardened his heart.
02:09The act had become a habit, the habit a divine judgment.
02:13That is what we see thirdly in Exodus 10 verse 1.
02:17Think about the words of this hymn.