Ep. 22 | Hard Conversations About a Hard Heart

Text: Exodus 7:1-7

And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. 5 The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.” 6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the Lord commanded them. 7 Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.

To UNDERSTAND the Hardening of Pharoah’s Heart and the ANATOMY of a Hard Heart we need to ask a few questions:

(a) WHAT is the goal of the EXODUS?

(b) IF GOD WANTS PHAROAH to let the people go, “Why harden his heart when Pharaoh says yes?”

(c) IF GOD DOESN’T WANT Pharoah’s consent, “Why ask him at all?”

THREE THINGS TO CONSIDER

1. Stative Confusion (debate and Stative verbs)

2. Source of the Hardening (Who is the actor—look at the ORDER)

3. Selection of Words: Look at the Hebrew (three words for hardening)

D.L. Moody: ”Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody; then he spent forty
 years on the backside of the desert realizing he was nobody; finally, he
 spent the last forty years of his life learning what God can do with a
nybody!”