“Hard Hearted”

The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, August 19, 2007
Exodus 4:19-21
James 1:13-15

And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead." So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

"…I will harden [Pharaoh's] heart, so that he will not let [my] people go." These are very difficult words. The overall story should be familiar to you: Moses, a Hebrew child who was raised in the household of Pharaoh himself with all of the pleasures and privileges that go with it; ultimately driven from the land after the murder of an Egyptian he found mistreating a fellow Hebrew; and then, up to the time where our text this morning starts, the forty years as a shepherd in the land of Midian drawing to a close.

Now Moses is being sent back to Egypt by God to prepare and secure the deliverance of Israel from 430 years of slavery. His mission is clear, but it is the details that are troubling: Moses will seek their release, but upfront, God says he will "harden" Pharaoh's heart so that the king will be stubborn to the point of his own ruin.

On the surface, it looks like Pharaoh is going to get a raw deal from God. He's cooked before the encounter even begins. The decree from heaven has been issued, and the result is that Pharaoh seems to become a pawn sacrificed in God's Divine Drama. Throughout the subsequent ten plagues from the hand of God, this hardening of Pharaoh's heart is mentioned no less than eighteen times.

Perhaps your initial reaction is, "That's not fair!" If God made him do it, then why is he to blame? When the apostle Paul talks about God's sovereignty in human affairs in Romans 9, he frames the question this way: "You will say to me then, 'Why does [God] still find fault? For who can resist his will?'" (Rom. 9:19).

Straight up, there is no question that the Sovereignty of God is front and center here. In Egyptian mythology, Re, the sun god, was said to "exercise absolute control over everything by means of his heart."* And Pharaoh was believed by all to be the divine incarnation of Re.
From an Egyptian point of view, "Pharaoh's heart was the all- controlling factor both in history and society." And so, the plagues that unfolded in increasing intensity during that eventful time in Egypt just before the Exodus were in fact, a meaningful judgment from the hand of God on Egypt. Only God is God. Only God is sovereign. Only God can determine, plan and shape history. It is certainly not Pharaoh! Pharaoh's will has nothing to do with it.
(* This quote and others in this paragraph are cited from Dr. Greg Beale's excellent essay, An Exegetical and Theological Consideration of the Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart in Exodus 4-14 and Romans 9; Trinity Journal 5 NS [1984] 129-154)

Therefore, unmistakably, it is God who hardens Pharaoh's heart. God owns the king's heart. Proverbs 21:1 puts it memorably, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will." (I understand that the proverb itself is an indication of God's control of the king's heart for the good of the king's subjects; but the reverse is just as true!)

Exodus 9:16 says it, and Paul later on in the New Testament confirms that it was afterall "for this very purpose I have raised you up [Pharaoh], that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Ex. 9:16; Rom. 9:17)

SO WHAT?!
But here is where I want to turn from a very difficult theological concept to understand in our limited-ness, and focus on how we are to respond to this teaching. I want you to remember our New Testament reading from James 1:13-15,

"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one." "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

Here is the end of all things as I see it: God does not make you sin. God is not to blame for your poor choices. God is not the author of sin; for as James says, God makes no one to do what is wrong. Quite the opposite, a person "is tempted when he [or she] is lured and enticed by [their] own desire." That human desire; that longing for what you really, deep down want to do, gives birth to sin after a weakening of resistance, and that sin left unchecked leads to death.

In chapters 4-14 in Exodus - the chapters that record the pre-Exodus confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh, I find it intriguing that of those 18 references to God hardening Pharaoh's heart; three references, right in the heart of the narrative, say that it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart and would not listen (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34). This is a subtle reminder that in some way, Pharaoh's disobedience springs from his own character. It springs from something that he himself desires to do.

From this, I hear Paul in Romans 1:18-22 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men [and women]…. For his [existence has] been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made…. Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…."

Pharaoh did what he really wanted to do! Pharaoh chose to be deceitful. Pharaoh chose to be cruel. Pharaoh, through his own evil desire, did not want to let Israel go. Pharaoh did not want to lose his free, forced labor. Pharaoh brought on his own ruin.

Over and over again throughout Scripture, we are warned that our hearts are susceptible to becoming callous. Unguarded, they can lead us down the wrong path to our own death, in the extreme.

Jeremiah 17:9-10 says,
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds."
Ecclesiastes 9:3-4 says,
"…the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion."
Jesus say in Mark 7:20-23,
"What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

But as "the Preacher" in Ecclesiastes so clearly reminds us, as long as we have breath in our body, there is hope! Living dogs are better than dead lions! While there is breath, we can still work on guarding our hearts. We are able to present ourselves as living sacrifices; to sharpen our discernment; to learn how to make godly decisions; to learn how to repent - to turn away from the wrong path when we are straying.

Understanding this, we can then approach Paul's admonition in Ephesians 4 with hope and fortitude. "...Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24).

It's not impossible. Many of you have failed in some way this week. Perhaps you have made a bad decision. Or you have lost your temper. Or you have not kept a promise to someone. Perhaps you have even experienced some kind of moral failure that's bothering you. We could, in truth, substitute many different things in that space.

The bottom line is that these are the first steps to a calloused, unbelieving heart. I exhort you not to go there. There is no reason to go there! God loves you too much. God is always there waiting for you to turn back to Him. Never forget the story of the prodigal son!

"I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.'…But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate." (Luke 15:18-24)

May we never grow so weary and hardened, that we forget our God.

Prayer:
     Almighty God, we give thanks for your sovereignty. We do not fully understand it. We cannot get our minds around how you are both sovereign and yet at the same time, you hold us accountable for the choices in life that we make; whether they be careless or foul.
     We pray that you would give us tender hearts. Create in us, as David says (Ps 51:10), a pure heart that we would seek you in all places and in all circumstances. In good times and in bad. In good health and in bitter health.
     We thank you for your love that ever pursues us in Jesus Christ. That finds expression in our daily lives through the Holy Spirit.
     May we live out your good and righteous counsel that you gave through the prophet Isaiah: That we might truly see your open arms with our eyes, that we might hear your Good News with our ears; and ultimately understand with our hearts your good intentions for us, and so to turn and be healed. (Cf. Isaiah 6:10)
Amen.