DAY 23

HARD AND DEFILED HEARTS

Exodus 7 & 8 and Matthew 15:1.20

We read today about hearts: Pharaoh’s that was hardened and from Jesus’ lips that the heart is the source from which evil can flow. Many, in fact most, who read this Exodus text wonder why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Was Pharaoh a mere pawn, controlled by God? If so, then is this not fair? We need to be careful as we read the Scripture, not demanding that God pass all of our tests. Yet at the same time we need to read the Bible intelligently and ask questions. My perspective is that we need to be respectful (we should really be that way towards everyone.) If we are I imagine God can handle our questions. So here we go:

Exodus 7-8 starts with God telling Moses and Aaron, “You shall speak all that I command you”, but “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” And God does. We read of the first four plagues: blood, frogs, gnats, and flies.

As I indicated in yesterday’s post, sometimes we need to wrestle with some of the more difficult parts of the Scripture in order to prevent the all too familiar trend that we see today of people “picking and choosing” what they accept from the Bible.

What do we make of the phrase that we might summarize as “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart”? A close read of these and the subsequent chapters will show a few different phrases. In 7:3 it says "I (God) will harden Pharaoh's heart", but in verse 8:15 it says "He (Pharaoh) hardened his heart and would not listen. One author, John Stott, writes, "We do not have to choose, for God hardens those who harden themselves". Further, if we go to the original language, Hebrew, there is even more. In the Hebrew language there are several terms, three, which we might translate as “stubborn” or “harden”.

Further in the Egyptian language and culture of the day, the heart was the place where sin resided. Pharaoh is not without sin. Think back to Exodus 1 how the Egyptians feared the Israelites, and how they killed the Hebrew sons. Pharaoh’s sin against God and against God’s people seems to be extreme, complete you might say. 

Therefore God’s deliverance will be equally complete. Which is where the text takes us…it takes us to a complete refusal on the part of Pharaoh, and not just of Pharaoh, but of the Egyptians, the land of Egypt, and the gods of the land and the Egyptians. They completely reject God and his people.

Is this God making Pharaoh this way? The text says “yes.” Is Pharaoh a pawn with no control? I would say “no”. Pharaoh by his own free will has been persecuting the Israelites for years, generations even. Pharaoh is not some permanent robot. Yet in this situation we can see the text communicating that sovereignty of God. John Stott's comment makes sense to me in this context. We will see this idea of God’s sovereignty again and again in the Old Testament. Couldn’t God have “made Pharaoh” give in sooner? In Old Testament sovereignty language the answer is “yes.” The point is that God is in control and God will provide the victory. It will be a complete victory; over everything.

This Exodus, this path to freedom was not a little victory over a small part of the earth. It was the freedom march of God’s Covenant People, the people he described in Exodus 4:22 as his first born son.

Yesterday I commented that we need to appreciate that this Exodus, this deliverance of the people God made a Covenant with, is a serious business. Said simply, God is serious about keeping His Word, and He promised Abraham, even despite Abraham and his descendents that he would keep His part of the Covenant.

Matthew 15:1-20 “What goes in doesn’t defile, but what comes out…comes out from the heart…” Jesus is responding to criticism of his disciples not washing their hands. His point however is much deeper. The evil we do comes from our heart…you might say our hard hearts.

My prayer today is that God will not only soften the parts of my heart, the parts of me that contain sin, but also deliver me from them…for this business of being his people is a serious business.