The Consequences of a Hard Heart

So Proverbs chapter 29 verse 1 states a biblical principle, it says,

Proverbs 29:1

a man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy.

We have been looking at some of the things that Pharaoh went through in his.

Fighting of the Israelites, his refusal for the Israelites to leave Egypt and go and worship God.

And I'm not going to go through the whole Pharaoh rap, the plague rap again,

but you understand some of these things, you'll see some of these things where,

where God has seemed to, according to Scripture, it says after the sixth or the

seventh plague, one of those, it says, and God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why would

God harden Pharaoh's heart? We don't understand that, but we understand that,

over the course of time, Pharaoh's heart has actually, he's actually hardened his,

own heart. This morning we're going to examine the consequences of a hard heart,

the story of the plagues, and the deliverance of Israel's a hard telling for of what happens when one hardens his heart against God. And we we don't know

when that happens, when a person actually their heart has actually been hardened

completely against God. I will say this, the fact that you're listening online or

watching on television or here in person probably means that your heart hasn't

been hardened. And that's a good thing. You know, if we're here listening to the Word of God and,

looking at the Word of God and wanting to grow and learn and become changed by the Word of God,

we can understand that our heart has not been hardened. I've been asked by people.

What is the sin that causes somebody to be alienated from God to the point that God no

longer acts on them, and we don't know that. But the fact that God is still

convicting us, God is still working on us, the fact that we're still

interested in seeking God's ways means that we have an heart in our heart against God, and that's a good thing.

The hardening of a person's heart begins when they take on the sense that they are God and need to answer no one else.

We understand this from Egyptian culture and all of that, as we looked at last week.

There are hundreds of Egyptian gods that they worshipped, created things that they thought were in charge of certain things,

even to the point that Pharaoh was—the title Pharaoh means son of God, son of Ra, son of the Ra, the sun god.

And so even in that, we see that the plagues, as we looked at last week, the plagues were

direct confrontation against the Egyptian gods, basically whittling down the Egyptians'.

Faith, knocking them down, their faith in all of these other gods.

It was system by system, systematically destroying their faith in all these other gods.

And then when it came to the last one, the firstborn death of the firstborn male, we,

We understand this is the culmination of all of them.

God was saying, you're going to know that I am God because I'm going to destroy everything

you have that's your God.

Even to the point that he destroyed Pharaoh's own firstborn son, who would be the next Pharaoh.

Interestingly enough, we don't know if it's this time, but there are some tombs, or there,

are tombs and structures that go with the tombs over there in Egypt that are

of a female pharaoh in Egypt. Now go figure, they wouldn't have thought of

that before. There's some indication that it's very possible that after this time

they didn't have a male heir to take over the place as pharaoh, so a daughter.

Of that pharaoh had to become the pharaoh. I don't know if they call her pharaohoess or pharaohette.

But I'm just making that up. Anyway, but there's some indication

that there was a female Pharaoh at some time.

And so we understand that all of their culture was destroyed by that time.

Like I said, the hardening of a person's heart begins when they take on the sense that they are God,

and they need to answer to no one else.

Pharaoh had hardened his heart and resisted the authority of God over his life,

basically because Pharaoh thought he was God.

And he had blinded himself and refused to recognize God,

and in so doing, he incurred the wrath and judgment of God.

Some are quick to point out that it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart,

but the truth is that we are told numerous times before this that Pharaoh had hardened his heart,

and we just think that probably at that point in time, God said, okay, if you're not gonna come to me, that's it.

You don't have a chance to come back. And so if you choose to reject God long

enough, or to put him off long enough, he will eventually grant your wish.

Only after Pharaoh had proceeded to harden his own heart knowingly, willingly, and simply

did God do so on his part.

And this morning I want us to look at four responses of a hard heart that are consequences of a hard heart.

The first response is this. the first response of a hard heart is one of blatant disobedience.

Now, none of us would think that I would have a thought in our mind that I'm gonna go out today,

leave church, and purposely disobey God.

We're not gonna do that, right? But this is one of the first signs of a hardened heart.

You will remember that Pharaoh's initial response was blatant disobedience.

Moses and Aaron had stood before Pharaoh and delivered the message of God.

They said, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, let my people go so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.

What was Pharaoh's response? Who is the Lord, Yahweh, that I should obey his voice?

In other words, I'm God, I don't have to listen to him. Or to put it another way, who does Jehovah think he is?

To tell the Pharaoh what he must do. Instead of obeying the God of Israel, Pharaoh increased the burden,

of the children of Israel. From now on they would have to make the same number of bricks,

but in addition they'd have to go out and harvest their own straw to mix with

the mud to make the bricks. More and more bricks.

Moses left the presence of Pharaoh dejected and depressed, the people even blamed Moses and Aaron for the increase of their

workload.

So Moses took his burden to the Lord where God reassured him of his unchanging,

purpose. He told Noah, told Moses, they will see what I will do.

Pharaoh is going to see what I will do. God tells Moses that he is to go back to

Pharaoh and tell him once again, he must let my people go.

And God explains to Moses what's gonna happen in verses one through five, as Joanne read for us.

He said that Pharaoh's gonna decline this.

Pharaoh's gonna turn it out. He's not gonna let you, but eventually,

he's gonna kick you out, make you leave, and that's when you will leave.

And so, as God said, Pharaoh ignored the signs done at the hands of Moses.

In Exodus chapter seven, verse 10, we read this. So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh

and did just as the Lord commanded, Aaron threw down his staff in front of Pharaoh

and his officials and became a snake.

Pharaoh was not convinced that the miracle that he had just witnessed possessed any uniqueness

to that which the magicians in his court could explain,

or duplicate because they did the same thing, his magicians did that,

threw their staff down and they became snakes.

Just how the magicians were able to do this is a matter of conjecture,

whether they were able to perform some kind of optical illusion,

used a sleight of hand, or actually worked through the miraculous power of a satanic movement.

Argued by biblical scholars, but the one thing we do know is that whatever they

did seemed to satisfy the heart of their wicked king. In Exodus chapter 7, 14 tells us that,

Exodus 7 · chapter mention

"...then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is unyielding, he refuses to let the

people go." Even though Moses' rod, now turned serpent, devoured the snakes of

magicians. He watched that in plain sight, and he still was hardened. He had resisted

all the efforts of Moses to get the people of Israel released, and now the issue had to be

forced. It would take ten plagues before Pharaoh would give in and let the people go.

And so the plagues would begin. As the plagues progress, Pharaoh's heart becomes increasingly

hardened. Now, when God begins to destroy the idols in our lives, our natural response

is to grab on harder to what it is. I used to work as a volunteer EMT in the farm country

in southwestern Minnesota, and one of the things we were taught in disentanglement from and farm equipment.

That when a corn picker is working and a corn picker gets jammed, when somebody's trying to pull the corn out, if the corn picker all of a

sudden just jams up and grabs tighter, your first response when you're pulling that out is to grab even tighter and that's when the people are getting

caught in the corn pickers. So you know they're taught to disengage everything,

before they loosen it up.

But our natural reaction when we are faced with some kind of opposition is to grab on tighter

to that which we have.

And that's kind of the way Pharaoh was in this. He understood that his way of life,

his way of religion was being attacked, and so his natural reaction was to harden his heart,

and to grab on even tighter.

The first of God's judgments against the waters of Egypt, the plague of the Nile turned into blood.

In verse 23, we're told that Pharaoh's heart became hard and he turned and went into his palace,

and did not even take this to heart.

That plague lasted seven days, long enough probably for most of the fish

in the plant life to die in the river.

It was a harsh judgment, but the Bible says that Pharaoh's heart was even hardened

and refused to let go.

Even in this, we understand that there was blatant disobedience in all of this.

When the land was covered, all of the water in the land was covered as blood,

even to the point they could not even dig down and find fresh water was blood

when they dug down. I don't know about you, but that would make me kind of question some of the thoughts I have

in life.

Just the first one. The second response of a hard heart is that of insincerity.

The second plague that God brought on Egypt was the plague of frogs. Aaron,

stretched out his hand over the water of Egypt and frogs frogs came up out of the

water and covered the land. This is especially significant because, as I said,

the frog was considered sacred in Egypt and could not be killed. If you

stepped on it, it could be cause for execution.

The consequence of the fact that frogs were God was that there was nothing that the Egyptians

were allowed to do to these frogs.

They could not get rid of them.

They were not allowed to kill the frogs.

You can imagine that some of the Egyptians came to hate these symbols of their worship,

when they came up into their houses and their beds and their ovens.

That's biblical scripture. Magicians were again summoned and asked to perform

the same miraculous act which they did.

But the fact that the magicians could produce even more frogs could hardly have been of any comfort.

Why would they want more frogs when their land was already covered with them?

When times got tough enough, however, Pharaoh yielded to God verbally.

We will see that he later changes his mind when things were better.

So in Exodus 8, verses eight through 10, we find that Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron

and said, pray to the Lord that the frogs, to take the frogs away from me and my people

and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord, to Yahweh.

Moses said to Pharaoh, I will leave you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you

and your officials and your people.

That you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.

So in Pharaoh's reactions, we see the mistakes that individuals make today when things get difficult in their lives. They put God off, don't they?

When things are hard, we want to turn to God, but then when the bad stuff is taken

away, we kind of turn back away to our own thing. So he said, take them away

tomorrow. So in times of crisis, people cry out to God, and then when they have.

Exhausted every human possibility, they turn to God in prayer, and when the relief

comes again, they turn away from God again. They forget God, and that's what

Pharaoh did. That's what happened after 9-11, 2001. Churches were flooded with people coming

to worship God and to ask God for deliverance from all that the terrorists were bringing

on our land, but two weeks later, the churches were empty again. How soon we forget. How,

soon we turn away. Exodus 8, verse 15 says, But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief,

Exodus 8:15

He hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.

It's not any different today.

Many people, when faced with difficult situations, with troubles and trials and illnesses and

all of that, many pay lip service to God, never intending to fulfill their vow.

The movie, I believe it was Burt Reynolds, the Lord, if you save me, I will do this for you.

Lord, if you save me, I will do this for you. Lord, if you save me, I will do this for you.

Help me out, help me out.

Closer he got to relief, the less his confession was to deliver to God, to commit to God. Because of the Pharaoh's heart being hardened, they had

to put up with another plague, commonly called the plagues of gnats. Now I don't.

Know about you, but I can't stand it when I'm outside and the gnats are buzzing

around. They're kind of like those little yippy dogs. They just bark and yip at you,

nip at you. You can't do anything to them because they get away faster than you can

do anything. By the way, if you have a little yippie dog...never mind.

The exact identity of these insects are not known, in fact, we talked about it a little,

bit last week. They could have been gnats, they could have been a form of sand flea or lice.

They dig underneath your skin and they cause itching and pain.

Significance of that third plague was that it was for the first time that the magicians,

of Egypt were not able to perform to produce these gnats.

First time, third plague, first time they were not able to reproduce the plague.

This was convincing enough to provoke some of the magicians to say, this is absolutely

the finger of God, of Yahweh, this is not our doing, we can't fix this one.

And yet we understand in all of this, even in this, when Pharaoh said that he would give,

in, it was very insincere and he changed his mind.

The third response of a hard heart is bargaining with God.

Offers four different bargains to God, the proposals that the Pharaoh offers to

God are the same bargain that Satan offers to many Christians today. The.

First one of this, the first bargain he offered them was serve God but stay in

Egypt. Says then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said go

sacrifice to your God in this land or in the land. Same temptation is offered

today. Be a Christian, but also be in the world and of the world. Don't change. You,

can be forgiven, just don't leave your life of sin. Yet the New Testament warns us in

Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of

Romans 12:1

God that you present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which

is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed

by the renewing of your mind that you may prove

what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

It's okay to come to the altar and ask God to forgive your sins,

but don't let it change your life.

That's the way of many today.

That's the thought that many have today.

We can continue to live the way we've always done as long as we're saved, we're forgiven,

doesn't matter what we do.

God, but stay here." The second thing we see is, don't fully commit yourself. Verse

You.

28 says, so Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord

your God in the wilderness, only you can't go very far away. First he said stay in the land, then he said, okay, you can go, but don't go very far away, and if

you do, intercede for me, ask your God to help us. So you may go into this,

world worship to God, leave your options open, don't jump in over your head, don't,

go too far away from Egypt, the land of sin, live with your eyes on your past way

of life, which will be more enticing when the trials come." By the way, what did they,

look for when they went into the wilderness? They finally got into the wilderness, they were out there, and they found the hardship of the wilderness,

what'd they say? Oh, I will wish we were back in the land of sin. They didn't say

that. They said, I wish we were back in Egypt, where our pots of food were full.

They didn't say, I wish we were back in the land of sin, land of Egypt, where

we were beaten every day by our slave traders. We reworked ourselves to death

for a foreign god. Three more plagues were necessary to convince Pharaoh of his

error, yet another plague befalls Egypt, the plague upon the livestock. As a,

As a result, almost all the livestock of Egypt were destroyed, wiped out.

Since wealth was measured largely in terms of cattle, this was an unparalleled economic,

disaster for the Egyptian people.

Sixth plague seems to have followed quickly upon that plague that affected livestock.

It was the plague of boils on people's bodies.

There's no pause in the terrible judgments, they seem to come run right after the other at this point.

Is the plagues of the storms or the plagues of hail. And then came the plagues of the

locust or the plague of the swarms, as it called it, that devoured everything that was

left standing. The boils harmed the people, although it didn't harm the Israelites, but.

They harmed the Egyptian people. The locust came and ate everything that was still standing

after the hail had destroyed it. And yet, Pharaoh seems to harden his heart. He's still,

unwilling to appear unmoved by the plight of the people. And then we look at the third thing

force your beliefs on others. Says, okay, Pharaoh says, okay, the Lord be with you

if I let you go along with your women and children.

Clearly you are bent on evil. No, have your men go and worship God,

but leave your women and children here.

Don't let your beliefs be affected onto the women and children.

Pharaoh offers to let the men go, but not the women and children.

He knows that if he can let the men go into the desert to worship the Lord,

And because their hearts are still in Egypt, they'll come back for their women and children.

They're really not going to leave completely.

Today, the devil is still trying to convince believers, let your children make up their own minds.

Don't try to teach your children about God. Don't try to influence your children to attend church.

Let your children be part of the world so that they can have all of its advantages.

World today is trying to be our children's teachers. In fact, the government is trying

to be our children's teachers. They've taken over the ownership of our children's minds

and hearts, not the parents. When these plagues struck Egypt, Pharaoh confessed his sins and

asked Moses for forgiveness and asked the plague to be stopped. But his confession wasn't

sincere, so a new plague, the plague of darkness, came on the land. Darkness was so intense

for that three days they could not get out of their beds because they couldn't see anything

around them.

We talked about this last week. You know, it's like when you're in absolute total darkness, you're afraid to take a step

forward because you don't know what's out there.

Unless you're familiar completely with that room, you don't know what's there.

Your wife may have changed the furniture around again, or you might be stepping off into the

abyss. And then the next thing is, don't commit everything to God, keep something for yourself.

Pharaoh called Moses and said, go serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be kept back.

Their flocks and herds, the Israelite flocks and herds, were not affected by the plague on the livestock.

He said, let your little ones also go with you, but serve God without a sacrifice.

Serve God without giving everything to him.

Hold something back. Does that sound familiar?

But don't give them every room in your life. Keep some of the things for yourself.

And then the fourth response of a hard heart is conviction without commitment.

As a result of the plague of the storms that was mentioned earlier,

Pharaoh saw the error of his ways.

Chapter nine, verses 27 through 30, it says, and Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron

and said to them, I have sinned this time. Just this time?

I have sinned this time. the Lord, Yahweh, is righteous, and my people and I are wicked,

entreat the Lord, or beg to the Lord, that there may be no more mighty thunder and hail, for it is enough.

I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer. And as soon as, Moses said,

as soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord,

the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the Lord's, or Yahweh's.

But as for you and your servants, I know that you will not yet fear the Lord God.".

Pharaoh was convicted, but he made no change.

People can sit in a worship service with tears streaming down their face

because of the deep conviction of their sin,

but that doesn't save them. It's until we act and commit on those convictions,

that God will do His work in us.

I remember years ago, and I need to get moving here, I remember years ago we were in Miami, Oklahoma,

and yes, it's pronounced Miami, it's spelled Miami.

Anyway, we were in Miami, Oklahoma, attending a Nazarene church. I was working for Bayliner

Marine Corporation, and I won't get into names and faces, but there was a time I'd been talking

with our plant manager about God, and he had grown up in a church. In fact, actually he,

had attended a Free Methodist Church as a child, Sunday school. But one weekend we had

some revival services at the Nazarene church, and I invited him to come, and he finally,

relented to come.

Actually about where Paul and Carol are, not saying that you guys are him, but

about where Paul or Carol are in the in the church at that point in time. He was

sitting there and I was sitting over in the middle toward the back and I was

watching him and while the evangelist by the name of John Knight, he was a general

superintendent of the Nazarene Church, while he was preaching I saw this man, I

almost said his name, saw this man completely under conviction so much to

the point that he was gripping the pew ahead of him so tight that his knuckles

were white. After the service, I didn't say anything to him because I thought, how do you do this as the employees say you need to come to the

altar? But one lady in our church came over to him and said, sir, she said, I saw,

that you were under conviction. Would you like me to go pray with you? This man

said, no. He said, I have too many wild oats to sow before I change and give my

life to Christ. I'll wait until I'm ready to die and then I will give my heart to

Christ." Conviction without commitment. I don't know where he is now. I don't know,

if he's ever accepted Christ and come back to faith. I don't know what the,

situation is with him, but I do know that at that point in time he put it off. One time I was in Indianapolis for some meetings learning about coaching.

And mentoring from a gentleman by the name of Dr. Bob Logan, and he said something that still resounds in my heart and my mind today. He said this,

unfortunately, the church today is filled with non-following believers.

Unfortunately, the church today is filled with non-following believers. These so-

called Christians are like the Pharisees. They believe in God and even willingly

acknowledge for themselves the forgiveness of God before the punishment their sins, but there's no transformation of the thinking of their lives. They do

not go on to be on mission with God, they're simply satisfied to have that eternal fire insurance. They do not become true followers, they do not go on

to grow and become life like Christ in their actions and thoughts. Non-following

believers. It's quite a concept.

Oxymoron if you think about it. The Scripture says that even the demons believe in God, yet they're unchanged. I would submit to you that if anyone is

truly following Christ, surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit, and actively becoming like Christ, then if they're not truly following

Christ, not surrendered to the power of the Holy Spirit, not following Christ, not

trying to become like Christ, then maybe they're not even real believers at all.

Like I said, they've just paid for the life insurance by coming up to the altar.

Because there was no true change in Pharaoh's heart, we read in Exodus 9, verse 35,

Exodus 9:35

"...so the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children of Israel

go as the Lord had spoken to Moses."

Pharaoh was a thoroughly modern man in his responses to God.

He was a man who reacted to each new situation of his life. purposes, his principles, if he had any, were this, sin when you can get away with,

it, ignore God when it's convenient, and repent only when you have no other,

choice. In other words, repent when you're caught. Eventually Pharaoh lost and Egypt.

Was in ruins. What are the consequences of a hard heart? If you follow it to the

extreme, your life is ruined. Not just for the hereafter, but even for the here,

now. Writer of Hebrews chapter 3 verses 7 through 11 warns us, so as the Holy

Hebrews 3:7–11

Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in

the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness where your fathers,

tested and tried me and for 40 years saw what I did. That is why I was

with that generation, I said, their hearts are always going astray and they have not known my ways.

So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.

So not only was Pharaoh's heart hardened, but even the Israelites after they left Egypt,

their hearts became hardened in the wilderness to the point that those that left Egypt

were not allowed to enter into the promised land.

Friends, let's make sure our hearts aren't hardened. Let's keep trusting in God.

Let's keep seeking His face.

Let's keep looking for Him to transform our lives. Renew us day after day, over and over continually.

Paul said, I die to self daily.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. And even as we see these lessons of the hard heart of Pharaoh, oftentimes our minds are

looking at it, oh this is somebody way back when. But Father we know that in,

this day and age it is too easy for us to just watch things and not be changed by them. So Father I would ask that you would help us as we see the

goodness of God, that we see the blessings that you've given, but also the the protection that you give us, the opportunity that you give us to worship,

you. I would ask that you would help us not to harden our hearts but even more,

so to look to you, and even as was said earlier, just to praise the Lord in,

everything, even in the hard times. In Jesus' name, amen.