Hard Hearts and a Holy God

Well good morning everyone. Today we are talking about a topic, “hardening hearts” that is a virtual landmine for pastors. Because if you say one thing, then you get shot from the front, then if you say another you get shot from the back. I wanted to have metal detectors installed to keep you from bringing guns in, but the elders told me I have to take what is coming to me. But in all seriousness, this is a difficult topic to discuss and address today. And I think part of what makes it hard is that all of us know people who fall into this category. Everybody here has a friend or a family member who has rejected God, and their heart is so hard. So we don’t like to talk about it and we don’t like to think about it. But the Bible, and the book of Exodus, talks about hard hearts so much that we cannot really ignore it. We cannot relegate it. We cannot push it out of the way. It’s right there. But, I think that as we will see it really is a big benefit. Because as we will see that God has grace even for hard hearts, and this really gives us guts to pray, and it really gives us reason to hope. So I do not think that it is wise for us to try to escape it, and apparently neither does Scripture.

Now, let’s also say this as we start out our sermon today. Part of the reason that we preach through, beginning to end, of books of the Bible most of the time, is that it forces us to talk about hard texts. Most of hte time, we wouldn’t want to talk about these things given our choices. And some pastors send their careers jumping from easy text to easy text like jumping from kiddy pool to kiddy pool, without ever teaching their people to swim. But preaching straight through books of the Bible forces us to deal with the hard passages. IT forces us to learn how to swim.

So, to start off, I’d like to talk about these 13 verses, and I’d like to give you a overview of them. Then we will expand our topic and we will say, well, wait a minute, what does the whole Bible say abbout hardness of heart. Then finally we’ll find out what it means for us today. So what does this passage say, what does the whole Bible say, and what does it mean for me today.

Narrative

So let’s walk through this.

Exposition: This passage is directly on the heals of our discussion last week. Last week we talked about how God brought Moses to the land of Egypt to deliver Israel from their slavery. ANd we talked about how Moses was just totally distraught because he couldn’t deliver Israel on his own. So God made 10 promises to him about how he would save Israel: he would reveal, he would covenant, he would hear, he would remember, he would bring them out, he would deliver, he would redeem, he would bring them in, he would give, and he would defy. So this passage starts off right on the heels of that last week.

Inciting Incident: Now, this story starts off with a speech from God. And this speech basically has three parts. It has a command: God tells Moses to take Aaron with him to tell Pharaoh to let his people go. Then it has a warning: God tells Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that even though God will show Pharaoh all these things, Pharaoh will not listen. But it has a promise: that after God has laid his hand on Egypt, that he will bring his people out of Egypt by great acts of judgment so that all Egypt will know that he is the Lord.

Rising Action:

1.So Moses and Aaron do what God tells them to do. They go before Pharaoh. Now, God tells Moses and Aaron, when they go before Pharaoh bring their staff to turn it into a serpent when Pharaoh asks if they are going to do any miracles.

2. So they go before Pharaoh just like God tells them to do. And Aaron does what God tells him, he throws down his staff and it becomes a serpent.

3. Now there is a bit of a twist at this point. The Egyptian magicians, by their secret arts are able to do the same, they cast down their staff and they become serpents. Now, by their secret arts, it’s really not clear if this is talking about supernatural ability or trickery. but what is clear is that they have an answer to Aaron, so what we can do the same thing as you.

Climax: Now, if you have watched the movie, the Prince of Egypt, in this scene in that movie I believe, Moses and Pharaoh and everyone are arguing, and while nobody is watching Aaron’s serpent eats the serpents of the Egyptians. But that’s not really the tenor of this passage. Because this is the high point, the climax of this entire little story. It’s that the magicians have done the same thing apparently, turned their staff into snakes. So there is this Pokemon type battle between the two sides, one serpent against theirs’. And everybody is watching. But it’s not really a match. Because Aaron’s serpent “swallows up” the staffs of the Egyptians. So nobody is really doubting who the winner is at this point. Pharaoh and his magicians have been defeated and Moses and Aaron triumph in the name of Yahweh.

Conclusion: Now, here is the entire point of this passage. Because you would expect that after having suffered this clear defeat, after having been demonstrably humiliated, after having been emasculated, that Pharaoh would have humbled himself and softened his heart. But that’s not what happens is it? Look at vs. 13: Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as teh Lord had said.” You see, the point of this whole little showdown, the point of this whole story, the point of this whole chapter so far is how stubborn Pharaoh is to God’s way and he will not repent and he is hardened.

Now, what makes this story hard to explain is not that. It is what happens at the beginning of the chapter. Look way down in vs. 3-4, God says “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart...” Now notice what God doesn’t say. He doesn’t say Pharaoh’s heart will harden, he doesn’t say that I will allow Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened, he doesn’t even say that Pharaoh will harden his own heart, he says “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” God says that he is the one who hardens Pharaoh’s heart. In some sense, the reason that Pharaoh’s heart is hardened is because God has hardened it.

That is a challenging concept and a challenging idea. ANd here is the point where you get shot as a preacher if you try to talk abbout it. Because we don’t really know what to make of it. So I thought it might be wise to spend the rest of our time together talking about hard hearts in Scripture. What does it mean and how can Pharaoh harden his heart, and what does it mean that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart?

Hardness of Heart in Scripture

What is hardness of heart? So, it would probably be wise to ask what does it mean by hardness of heart? Well, in the Bible, the heart is at the core of who you are as a person. You might say, the heart summarizes everything that you are outside of your physical bbody. Your identity, your mind, your decisions, your values, your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations, your intentions, all of these are part of your heart. Now, God had created us so that this heart was in constant communication with God. That is what it means that we are made in the image of God. And this worked in two ways. First, the communication was meant to make us totally dependent on God. So God has created us in such a way that we look to him to find all our hopes, all our dreams, all our joys, all our love, all our intelligence, everything that we are and everything that we will be was supposed to be dependent on God. And secondly, we were created so that we would reflect this image of God to everybody around us. We were created so that we would each and every one be proclaimers of the glory of our Creator. But sin has cut off both of those ways that our heart was supposed to be in communication with God. Because of sin, we no longer depend on him as we should, and we no longer reflect him as we should. Our hearts are “hardened”. Now, to “harden our hearts” means that we try to push God further away. It means that we try to depend on him less, trust him less, believe him less, and that we try to his glory and his majesty from going out in all the earth. That is what it means when we “harden our hearts” it is to push God further away from who we are. The bible uses a lot of language about this “hardness, sometimes it is called being hardened or having a hard heart, sometimes it is called bbeing stiff-necked sometimes it is called being uncircumcised in the heart. In the New testament, this is clearly ligned up with unbbelief (), unrepentance ((2 Romans 2:5).

1. Because of Sin, all people’s heart are hardened: So before we say anything else about hard hearts, we need to say that because of sin, all people’s hearts are hardened. Now, some people have said that sometimes in Scripture, in particular talking about Pharaoh, that they are special circumstances. Bbut not everyobdy has a hard heart like Pharaoh. But that’s just not true. In fact, in the book of Exodus, the children of Israel are more often described as being hardened than Pharaoh. They are often called a “stiff-necked” people, that word “stiff-necked” is essentially equivalent to being hard hearted. Probably teh best Scripture that talks about this is … Look at the progression in these verses: Gentiles walk in the “futility of their minds”, because they are “darkned in their understanding” because they are “aliented from teh life of God” because of their ignorance, which is due to their.... hardness of heart. So all people, prior to the grace of Christ have a hard heart.

2. Hardness of Heart is not only opposition to God, hardness of heart is self-destructive: says, “Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.” So hardness of heart is self-destructive. It brings calamity on people. In fact, in , it says that Jesus grieves over people’s hardness of hearts. Because it hurts them. When we harden our hearts to God, Jesus grieves for us.

3. God hardens our heart, and we also harden our heart. As we can see from this morning, God is sovereign even over this. And God does things that he knows will harden our hearts. Yet, that does not mean that we do not harden our hearts. Bbecause, like Pharaoh, we all willingly harden our hearts at times. We all willingly say, “No God, I would rather decide who I want to be than you. I would rather not follow your rules. I would rather not obey your ways.” You see, in our minds, this seems to be a big conflict right, is God sovereign or am I responsible for my actions? Well the Bible would just say, “yes.” God is totally sovereign over every aspect of the universe, and yet, we are totally responsible for our actions. These two things that seem to be such a big conflict to us are no conflict at all in the words of Scripture.

4. Yet, God also softens our heart. So God does not only harden our hearts, but God also softens them. God also gives light and he softens it and he makes it love him. This is what God promises to do when he says in .... There he says that God will put a new heart in them and he will remember their sin no more. So God not only hardens, but God also softens, God gives us a new heart, he changes us from the inside out.

5. The same Scripture that hardens our heart softens it: So, how does this work? How does God work to harden some people’s hearts, and soften others’? Well, the puritans used to have a saying, “The same sun that bakes the clay melts the ice.” God hardens and softens hearts in the same way: through his word. When God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet he tells him, “Go and prophesy. And some will hear and some won’t.” (). The same word that hardens our hearts softens our hearts. So God either hardens a heart or softens a heart to him every single time his word is spoken.

6. God softens our hearts by his good will: Now, you might say, wait a minute, how does God decide which hearts he will soften with his word and which will he harden? Is it just arbitrary, is it just random? Is it based off of something good in them? says that God loves his people in spite of the hardeness of their heart. It is not based on anything good in them. So what is it based on then? says this.... It is based on God’s good purposes. God decides who he will harden and who he will soften. In teh case of Pharaoh, God raised up Pharaoh so that his name, his fame, his glory, his power, his salvation would be preached among us. God makes this decision based on his own good wills and purposes.

“Press”: So this word means “press” or “hard-pressed.” When referring to the heart it often means “stubborn.” It means “obstinate.”

7. God has the right to harden some to magnify his grace to others: Now, this might seem just awful, right? I mean, how can God harden some and not others? Well Paul goes on to ask this question in … And basically what Paul says there is that God shows wrath to some in order to magnify his grace to others. And that he has the right to do that. You see, what this comes down to is the question, what does God have the right to do? Does God have the right to save? Yes. We are still responsible to believe, we are responsible to repent, but the only way we can repent is if his grace is working in our heart to magnify the light of Christ unto us.

“

Principles

Now, I have said this before, and I will say it again, this is true. But that does not make it easy. IT is hard to think abbout these things. It is hard to wrestle with these things. It is hard to make peace with these things. And at some level we will never understand these things, at some level, this is a mystery to us. This is a hard teaching isn’t it? I mean, this is difficult to come to terms with. It is hard to wrestle with. I have gone through several periods in my life where I have wrestled with these truths very intensely. So I want to conclude these words with some comfort for you.

this is a hard teaching isn’t it? I mean, this is difficult to come to terms with. It is hard to wrestle with. I have gone through several periods in my life where

God is good and gracious: We must never lose sight of this. God is good. He is so good to us. We dont’ deserve it. We don’t earn it. Bbut he has been so good to us. says that every good and perfect gift is from abbove, coming down from teh Father of lights with whom there is no shadow or variation due to change.” it says something about God that he is good even in this. I love what C.S. Lewis says in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” - CS Lewis. When this conversation comes up, it is enevitable that we want to ask, “How could God just soften some and not others?” But what is really incredible is not that he saves some, but that he saves any.

God grieves at our hardness of heart: I think we also have to recognize, that God loves and grieves for those who are hardened towards him. In we see that Jesus is grieved at the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. God is grieved by that, and wants them to repent, he wants them to change. We can say that with perfect integrity. They need to repent.

Don’t assume that you have a soft heart: One of the warnigns that comes up again and again and again in Scripture is not to assume that you have a soft heart. , says… here is God speaking to the Israelites. And he says, you call yourselves holy, you say that God is your stya, your hope, your refuge. but I know what is really going on, I know that you are obstinate and stiff-necked. says to, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in teh faith.” Dear friends, one of my greatest fears for you, is that you might sit here week in and week out, and think that you and God are alright, but you have never repented of your sins, never put Jesus on the throne in your life, never ever confessed your need for him. You ahve just assuemd that God will save you because of how amazing you are. One of my greatest fears for you as a pastor is that you live and end your life thinking you and God are at peace when in reality you have lived your lives in rebellion against him.

It is never too late to repent: One of the favorite Psalms of the New Testament is … And that passage says, “Don’t harden your hearts.” Don’t respond to this by digging in your heels. Don’t push God away. How long are you gonna keep running from him? How long are you going to keep pushing him away? How long will you stand in rebellion against him? Why don’t you humble yourself now, he is good to forgive, he is good to save. Turn to him now that your sins, though they be as scarlet be clean as bleach.

Nobody is so far gone that God cannot save: Now here is the good news in all this. Because if we were saved because of how good we were, then we are in trouble. but if we are saved because of how good God is, none of us is too far gone. Dear friend, the reason that you can go out and share the gospel with confidence is not because of how strong and mighty you are, not because of how intelligent and persuasive you are, not bbecause of how clever you are. The reason that you can share the gospel with power and authority is because of how good God is. Because there is nobody who is too far gone. There is nobody who God cannot turn around, nobody who God cannot save, nobody whom God cannot show mercy to. THat includes the crustiest, meanest, most violent man or woman that you know. ANd that includes you too. Let’s pray.

Related Media

Related Sermons