Lessons From a Hard Heart

Exodus 7
¹ 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.” 

Theme #1: God wants to be .
(7:17; 8:10; 8:22; 9:14, 16, 29)

“…that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.” (Exodus 10:2)

God’s name is made great through both his and his .

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.

• Obey the Lord in situations.

⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹ “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Prove yourselves by working a miracle,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.’” ¹⁰ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. ¹¹ Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. ¹² For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. 

Theme #2: God’s supremacy over .

²² But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. (7:22)

⁷ But the magicians did the same by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land of Egypt. ⁸ Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people… (8:7-8)

¹⁸ The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not… ¹⁹ Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” (8:18-19)

“On [the Egyptians’] gods also the Lord executed judgments.” (Numbers 33:4)

³⁴ Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? ³⁵ To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him (Deuteronomy 4:34-35)

Application: Don’t trust in gods.

• What is it that gives you hope or confidence about the future?
• What do your time and money indicate is most important in your life?
• What determines how you spend your time and money?
• What do you orient your life around?
• How do you decide what’s right and wrong?

¹³ Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

Theme #3: Pharaoh’s hard heart.

hardened Pharaoh’s heart (4:21; 7:3; 7:13; 8:19; 9:7; 9:12; 9:35; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27)

hardened Pharoah’s heart (8:15; 8:32; 9:34; 10:3)

“But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” (9:16)

Application: Don’t your heart.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…”
(Psalm 95:7-8)

Evidence of a hard heart:

• obedience (8:25; 10:9-11; 10:24-25)
  
• obedience (8:18, 15; 8:29-32)
  
• repentance (9:27, 34)

“Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong…But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants.” (9:27, 34)

heart is too hard to be .