When I read in the book of Exodus, how God hardened the heart of Egypt’s Pharaoh, I always wondered why. Why would God harden anyone’s heart towards Him, when we’re told that, “God so loved the world that He gave His Son, so that anyone who believes on Him would not perish but have everlasting life.”
How many times have you heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Did you believe the first time you heard the Lord’s message of salvation?
I remember back when I received Jesus Christ into my heart. I had heard about Jesus Christ many times before. When I was a little girl, I went to church with my grandmother many times, but I never believed ‘unto salvation.’ I never acknowledged that I was a sinner, asking Christ to forgive me and come live in me, any of those days of growing up. And BOY was I a sinner, sinning my life away!
Grandma would read to me and my two sisters from the Bible at the breakfast table when we would come to stay with her. She read the stories about Jesus. But I never felt in my heart, in those days, what I felt in my heart many years later when I was 22 years old.
The first time I went to church with my fiancé, again I heard the salvation message, but I didn’t go forward to receive the Lord. It wasn’t until my sister-in-law (to be) invited me over for a Bible study, that I received the Lord Jesus with her – by my sincere confession and commitment to my Savior. I began reading the Bible every day for hours. I wanted to KNOW the ONE who loved me and had given me a new heart and life. I was hungry for this life – that I had never known. I wanted to KNOW what my Father in Heaven required of me now. I wanted to please Him. I’m still learning how to please Him; to die to myself and live for Christ.
I believe that if I had not responded to the invitation then – that my heart would have hardened to the Lord completely, like Pharaoh’s. How do I know that? Because of what the Bible tells me: “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” (Ecclesiastes 3:8) God is the giver of life, both physical life and spiritual life. There is a time He set for me, knowing when I would be ready to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. God is the God of the beginning, the present and the future.
So, what about Pharaoh, of whom it is said that his heart was hardened by God? Each time God sent Moses to Pharaoh with the message “set My people free,” Pharaoh’s heart got harder and harder because he refused to obey the Word of God and submit to God’s messenger. Sure Pharaoh, a few times, with the curses that really hurt him and his nation, gave in to Moses’ demand, but then reneged. Why? What made him change his mind?
Well, we read that he changed his mind out of fear of losing all those Hebrew slaves (God’s chosen people, Israel). He feared that once they got out into the wilderness to worship God – they would not return to Egypt to serve him. Even after Pharaoh finally gave in to the demand of God to let His people go, and they left with much plunder to live on, Pharaoh changed his mind again, and he went after them with his army. This was after the last judgment/curse with the angel of death taking all Egypt’s firstborns, both human and animal. The angel of death passed by the homes of the Hebrew slaves because they obeyed God by applying the sacrificial blood over their doors. We know the end of that story with the parting of the Red Sea, and the closure of the sea on Pharaoh and his army, drowning them all.
When God’s grace comes to anyone, to invite them into His salvation through the forgiveness of sins by way of His Son’s cross, what makes a person reject or receive? Is it about God’s selection only – as some believe, or about our own God-given freewill to receive or not? There is a lot of controversy on that.
If by “selection” then one could say that it is God who hardens a man’s heart unto salvation; he has no choice. If by our own freewill, then we harden our own heart by rejecting the message of salvation each time we hear it. But I tend to believe that the love and wisdom of God is so beyond anyway for us to fathom, except to see His love for us in Jesus Christ message and death and resurrection. How can we understand why God does anything?! His thoughts and ways are so far above ours. Good thing too!
“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:5
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts….they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised.” Romans 1: 24-25
I think Jesus put it so clearly when He said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For, whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and for the gospel – will save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:34-36
I am constantly challenged with denying myself, and the temporal things of this world; all God’s people are. But we must keep at it!
What is so great about this world – that we would deny the love of God that calls us into the life that is truly LIFE that God’s Word tells us about? We WILL suffer now, but we will rejoice forever with the LORD our GOD, and all those who love Him wholeheartedly.
Now is the day, for ‘time’ is winding down for what is due us. “For the grace of God has appeared to all men, bringing salvation to everyone.” Titus 2:11
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts!” Hebrews 3:7