The Hardened Heart – Romans 9:17-18 (Joshua 11)

 As I have often said, one of the purposes and blessings of an expository study such as this one, is to give ourselves the opportunity to look at a variety of subjects. Perhaps we’d not be looking at this theme, if we weren’t confronted with it right here.

Tonight I’d like us to think about how God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. This is basically a Bible lesson this evening. And since it’s a very important, complex and perplexing lesson, I’m going to go rather slowly.

This is one of those apparent contradictions in the Bible, and I stress the word “apparent.” Some “contradictions” are used by people to do exactly what we see happening in these verses. They use these apparent contradictions to harden their own hearts against the God of the Bible. And in fact, this is one of the problems which people have against the doctrine of election. The particular conundrum to which I refer this evening is this: James 1 :13-15 says that God is not the author of sin. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err (in this matter), my beloved brethren.”

In contrast to this there are several scriptures which seem to say that God does cause men to sin. For example there is Joshua 11:18-20 – “Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses.” I Kings 12 describes how Rehoboam forced the division of the nation through his greed. Verse 15 says, “Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.” Judges 14 describes Samson’s love for a Philistine woman, definitely contrary to the law of God and therefore a sin. When Samson asks his parent’s permission to marry this heathen woman, they were confounded. But verse 4 says that it was of the Lord. We could cite some other examples which seem to say that God is the author of certain men’s sins. And then there is Exodus. 4:21 – “And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.” It was a sin on Pharaoh’s part not to obey the command of the Lord. But God says that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart to deny God’s command. So does that make God the author of Pharaoh’s sin? How can a holy God be the cause of unholy actions? Or how can a sovereign God NOT be charged with all that goes on in His creation?

These are tough questions. These are questions that probably no man can adequately and completely answer. How does God harden sinners’ hearts to bring about their own judgment? And what are some of the principles of heart-hardening.

First, let’s remember WHAT WAS HAPPENING in this case that caused Pharaoh’s hardness.God was being gracious towards Israel. He was going to bring Israel to the land that had been promised to them, but which they had not yet possessed. In other words, God was showing His kindness to others, but not to Pharaoh. The same thing could be said in regard to the Canaanites in Joshua 11:20 – “For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses.” The Lord was determined to bless Israel, but not to bless the Canaanites – or Pharaoh. If things had been turned around, what would the Canaanites reaction have been toward’s God? For example, what if the Lord had made those idol-worshipers wealthy? What would they have thought of Jehovah if He had given each city a flock of geese each one laying a golden egg every morning? Would they have been angry with the Lord? I’m not sure what emotion they would have shown, but they wouldn’t have grown hard against Him. BUT the Lord was not being gracious to Canaan, and so their hearts were hardened. And God wasn’t been gracious toward Pharaoh either.

Still in regards to the Canaanites, the Lord had shown grace towards the city of Gibeon. The people of Gibeon, Kirjath-jearim and a couple of small neighboring villages had been saved. Sure, those folk became servants of God, but that should be the desire of all the redeemed. When Adonizedec, king of Jerusalem heard that God had spared Gibeon, he brought his army of the south in order to destroy the fruit of grace. The Lord’s mercy to some people made the hearts of other people that much harder. What was a blessing to one group was a curse to the other.

Third, God was displaying unmistakable, miraculous power. Pharaoh was passing through the ten plagues, most of which were difficult to explain naturally. And when the Lord eventually sheltered Israel from plagues which devastated Egyptian cities just a few miles away, Pharaoh was confused and even infuriated. The Canaanites of Joshua 11 had heard about the Red Sea and the Jordan. They knew about the fall of Sihon and Og, and the destruction of Jericho. They witnessed the inexplicable long day, which guaranteed Israel’s victory over the enemy alliance. They probably had heard about the avalanche of hail which brought down some of their neighbors. These people knew about the awesome power of God, and yet they still hardened their hearts against Him, attempting to thwart His will for Israel. It’s not God’s power that makes people hard, it’s their reaction to the power of God. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart simply by letting him see the blessings that fell on Israel, while disaster fell on his own nation.

Now, consider Pharaoh’s hardened heart.Neither Pharaoh nor the Canaanites were honestly and humbly seeking peace with the Lord. It might be argued that God was not behaving in a peaceful fashion, so these people had no choice. But the reply is that this is the same God with Whom Israel, and the Gibeonites found grace and peace. God never hardens the heart of a man or woman who wants to be softened.

Pharaoh was not a righteous man whom God forced into hardness of heart. He was a man without the morals of God or the Bible. Look at how he made promises to let Israel go and then broke his promises without the least bit of embarrassment. And look at the Canaanites reaction to the peace accord struck with the Gibeonites. These people are almost cannibalistic in their attack against their own people. And Pharaoh, seemed not to have the least bit of care towards the common people of his nation. Those people were all idolaters, and many had sacrificed their own babies to appease their demonic idols. They don’t show the least bit of goodness or righteousness, because they don’t possess any. God never hardens the heart of a righteous man. There are other examples and references, to hard hearts in the Bible. There was Sihon, King of Heshbon, who attempted to hinder and slaughter Israel during their forty years in the wilderness. Then along came the prophets of Israel and Judah who accused those nations of hardening their hearts against God, raising up idols and practicing all kind of wicked abominations. The New Testament talks about the Jews’ reaction to Jesus’ miracles, saying that they hardened their hearts against him. Acts 19 talks about the same response to the gospel and miracles of Paul. In every case, the only people hardened against the Lord are already predisposed against Him. The Lord never hardens the heart of an righteous man.

In what way was GOD RESPONSIBLE for the hard hearts of these Canaanites?God is the author of the laws which did the actual hardening. Let’s say that I was particularly depressed because none of you praised my message this morning. Let’s say that tomorrow I took my ladder and climbed up onto the roof of my house. And from there I threw myself off – in an attempt to kill myself. In all probability, I couldn’t kill myself by jumping off my roof, unless I landed really weird. So let’s make this a twelve story office building instead. There is a marvelous law, created by God, called gravity. This is one of the laws of physics; it’s not a rule or a suggestion, it’s a law. It says that small objects are always drawn towards larger objects. To be more precise, “gravity is the natural force of attraction between any two massive bodies, which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.” Are we agreed that God created the law of Gravity? If I threw myself off a twelve storey building, and I died when I hit the pavement below, what killed me? Would a court of law blame the pavement? How about the paver who put the pavement there? Was it gravity that killed me? If it was gravity wouldn’t that make the Lord guilty, because he created gravity? No – I killed myself by forcing gravity to do what gravity always does. When Pharaoh deliberately chose to oppose the Lord, it was like he was jumping off the top of one of those pyramids of his.

Let’s think about another law of the physical universe called inertia. This law simply says that things in motion tend to stay in motion. If I had a string with a metal nut on the end, and I tied it to the ceiling, and pushed that nut, it would swing back and forth. If it wasn’t for the friction of the air around it, and a couple of other factors, that nut would swing back and forth forever, or until someone stopped it. That is the law of inertia.

Not only is inertia a law of mechanics, it is also a law of morals. When a man’s heart is bent towards sin, it will stay bent until something greater than itself comes along to straighten it up. The heart of man is desperately wicked and horribly deceitful, even towards itself. There is only one way to correct that wicked heart and that is through the miracle of regeneration. Turn to Romans 1. Paul is here describing the general wickedness of mankind. Let’s begin reading in verse 19 through to the end of the chapter. “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” God gave them up, He turned them over, He let them have their way, and thus they were hardened. Since it was of the Lord to harden Pharaoh, all that He had to do was not stop him in what he was doing.

God hardened Pharoah by creating and sustaining the spiritual laws of gravity and inertia. In all these cases the evils were man’s, but the results were God’s. God’s hardening of the heart doesn’t cause sin, it’s the result of sin.

On the other hand, God is the author of the grace which softens or actually changes the heart. There is not a heart in the chest of any human being which is not already and always in the midst of the hardening process. The only way that Pharaoh would come to the Lord is if the God didn’t first halt the calcification process. In the case of the Gibeonites of Canaan, the Lord softened those people and therefore they bowed in humility before Him. What Joshua 11:20 is saying is that God chose not to soften the hearts of the rest of the Canaanites. In regard to Pharaoh, God chose to glorify Himself, by raising that wicked and stubborn man to the place of national leadership. And His reason was that He intended to show grace towards another bunch of unworthy people in Israel. Applying Joshua 11:20 to Pharaoh, “It was of the LORD to harden his heart, that he should come against Israel, that he might destroy him and his army utterly.”

Now let me conclude with an extremely important exhortation.Never, not for a moment should you show any stubbornness toward the Lord. There is another law, but this one comes from chemistry. When certain ingredients, including lime (calcium oxide), water and a couple of other things, are mixed together they tend to solidify. If a man puts his foot into a mixture of fresh cement, he can easily pull his foot back out. But the longer that he leaves his foot in that cement, the more difficult it is to remove.

The wicked heart of man is prone to calcification – hardening. Pull it out and put it in the hands of the Lord before it becomes too late.

Yes, it might be said that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh in order to accomplish His will. But ultimately, the fault lay at the calcified feet and heart of the King of Egypt. Don’t let this same thing happen to you.