Why Would God Harden Someone's Heart?

At the time that God sent Moses to Egypt, to the fair of Egypt, and said, let my people go, it's hard for us to really grasp and understand that Egypt was the superpower of the day.

The grandeur of Egypt, we get glimpses of it when we look at the pyramids and some of the ruins, but what Egypt was was beyond what we can even imagine. It takes Cecil B. DeMille to capture Egypt. It's very interesting. In the last few years, they've done some satellite imagery of Egypt. They had a satellite go over that part of the world, and they programmed it to be able to bounce off and pick up images from underneath the sand. What they found shocked them. You know, you think of Egypt as the Nile going up to this delta and this long, skinny sort of country that's about a mile on both sides of that river.

What they found out was, if you go back two to three thousand years, that country went for many, many miles on both sides of that river. They found hundreds of huge cities. There were at least twelve to seventeen pyramids they didn't even know existed. Now, they're still in a ruined state. They're not in an actual pyramid, but these pyramids are in a ruined state. So, they've actually went and dug one of them up. There is the outline of a pyramid, the whole courtyard, and it's a long ways from the Nile River. But there was a time period when the water reached then, when the climate was different at that time, and it was a much larger place than they even imagined.

If you think of the pyramids and the statues and the buildings that existed at the time when the Israelites were slaves there, but we see now it's just a fraction of what that country was. And the person in charge of that country, Pharaoh, owned everything and everybody in the nation. Throughout the time of history, there are very few individuals who had as much power. I mean, we think of dictators. We think of people who have enormous power throughout history. But Pharaoh was a god. He literally was worshipped as a god. And he was seen as favored by the gods, and he was the gods incarnate.

And so he was worshiped wherever he went. The power that he had was enormous. And they were the super power. I mean, up until the time of the Roman Empire, we're talking about 200s, 300s, 400s AD. Not at the time of Moses. We're talking about a long time later. You start to realize how rich Egypt was when Egypt was the breadbasket of the world.

One of the reasons the Romans conquered before them, the Persians and the Greeks all kept conquering Egypt was because they could raise enough wheat in Egypt to feed the world. Now, today it's hard to imagine Egypt is growing enough grain to feed the world. But that's one of the reasons why Julius Caesar was able to put together an empire. He had all the grain from Egypt. So at the time of Moses, we're looking at a super power that's at its peak. And Moses goes, and he has to face this man who actually believes he is a god, while millions of people worship him as a god.

You know, the Exodus, of course, and the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread are filled with all kinds of imagery. We understand that Egypt is a type of sin, and we, just like the Israelites, had to come out of Egypt and in slavery. We have to come out of the slavery of sin.

We understand that the Passover lay him. It was just a symbol of the true Passover who would come, Jesus Christ. We see all these imitories. We saw these important lessons we get from this time.

Now Pharaoh plays such an important part, and we know that Pharaoh is a type of Satan, because Satan is a god in this world. He wants to be worshipped. I want to look at the man, though, Pharaoh for a minute. What the Bible says about him, and we can go through who the Pharaoh of the Exodus was. It was probably Ammon Hoteb II, if you've ever done some study of Ammon Hoteb II. Among a class of people who were arrogant, he was even arrogant by Pharaoh standards.

The inscriptions about him that he left behind, the things that he did.

But we won't go through that today. I'm going to look at just what the Bible says about him, because there's an issue here that sometimes people ask about. We need to understand what's happening, because we need to understand the principle of what can happen to us. So this actually has an application to us. Let's go to Exodus 6.

Exodus 6.

Verse 28.

And it came to pass on the day that the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Lord, speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you. Now, Moses knew the power that Pharaoh had. Remember, he had been in the court. He knew that he had failed and been driven out of Egypt. Moses obviously believed that he was going to somehow become Pharaoh or overthrow the Pharaoh. There was some kind of power struggle going on. He's driven out of Egypt. It's 40 years later, and they say, oh yeah, just go talk to Pharaoh. You know, the guy that has a few chariots and a few couple of servants and runs around in a loincloth, right?

This is like, okay, let's go. We want you to go to the President of the United States.

Yeah, but how am I supposed to get there? How am I supposed to walk in the door? What am I supposed to do? Moses said, verse 30, but Moses said to the Lord, behold, I am in an uncircumcised lips. How can Pharaoh eat me? In other words, I'm not a good speaker. I'm not anybody that's well known. Why in the world would he ever listen to me?

Moses, of course, knew the power of this man, and he was a bit overwhelmed by it. Verse 1 of chapter 7, so the Lord said to Moses, See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. He says, You shall be as God to Pharaoh. You go back to Exodus 4, when Moses was before the burning bush, God basically tells him, I am going to speak through you. You are going to be my mouthpiece. You're going to stand before this God, and I'm going to tell you what to say, and you're going to go say, I'm going to tell you about the real God. Now, what was going to be Pharaoh's response to a man coming out of the desert? Of course, he would have known who Moses was, because they were both young men in the same court under top Moses IV. So, I mean, these two would have known each other. And here's this crazy man, had his brain baked out in the desert, and has gone from a prince of Egypt to some bumbling, crazy prophet. And he says, My personal representative, you're going to be like me there, speaking to him. And Moses just says, I can't do this. And then Moses has sold something that's got to really make his day bad. I mean, do you think it's bad up to this point? Because in verse 3, he says, And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my sins and my wonders in the land of Egypt. So Moses at this point said, Okay, okay, you know, you've shown me the things I'm going to do. He had already showed him that if he took his fist, put it inside his shirt, bring it out, it's going to be leperous, and put it back in, it'll be healed. Okay, I got this down. I got the idea. I throw my staff down, it turns into a snake. Okay, I pick him back up. I got this down. He's going to be really impressed. And Aaron's going to speak for me. And I'm going to sit there telling Aaron what to do, and he's going to speak. And he says, of course, guys, what I'm going to do is I'm going to harden his heart. He's not going to let you go. But wait a minute! What's the whole leperous thing? You know, I thought I had that worked out pretty good. That's pretty scary. I mean, Moses is probably the middle of the night going, Oh, good. You know, it only turns leperous when it's supposed to, right? And now he's faced with God telling him I'm going to harden his heart. Now, many people have asked me over the years about this hardening of his heart.

Does this mean that God literally hardens people's heart and takes away their free will? In other words, Pharaoh now was actually forced by God to do evil. Is that what happened? Does God actually force people to do evil? I'm going to look about this hardening of the heart and talk about it specifically about Pharaoh and then in a general sense. So then I would talk about us and how there is in the New Testament a warning tying back into the Exodus to the church. Using the Exodus as an example to the church. So Moses and Aaron go before Pharaoh and they demand to let the people go. Exodus 7 verse 8 says, And then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, Show a miracle for yourselves, then you shall say to Aaron, Take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh and let him become a serpent. So Moses and Aaron went into Pharaoh and they did so just as the Lord commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants and became a servant. Yeah, this will scare him. But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers, so the magicians of Egypt. And they did like man and with their enchantments. For every man threw down his rod and they became servants. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. But you know, all of a sudden Moses looks like he's doing a cheap parlor trick, right? Okay, your snake was a little bigger and swallowed their snakes. Everybody, Moses, does snakes. Okay, this isn't new. Everybody does snakes. You got something new in the hat? How about water buffaloes? Now that would be impressive. Snakes, that's such a big thing. Verse 13, and Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them as the Lord had said. When you see the Bible about a person having a hard heart, what it means is that the person becomes so self-willed and so stubborn that their heart is hardened. They will not listen to reason or open themselves up to any kind of emotional response. They are hard. They are going to do what they want to do. But we just read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. So does that mean that this man was going to give in? Somehow he was going to let Moses go, but God kept him from knowing him. Well, when you go through all of Exodus 7 and 8, 9 and 10, you go through all the plagues that followed. Now we have the second plague, which is the plague of frogs. Now let's look at Exodus 8.15. Exodus 8.15. Now this is very important, but when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, because all the frogs all died. And in the verse before it says, they started to just sweep these frogs up. And of course, frogs don't smell good when they're alive. You get millions of dead frogs and it says that it stank. One of the great understatements of the Bible. It smelled real bad. But they're dying. See, here is Pharaoh about to crumble, but the frogs start dying. Oh, the plague's over. Looks like Moses is God only has a certain amount of power. So it says, but when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hearted his heart and did not heed them, as the Lord had said. He hardened his heart. Something very important to understand about God hardening someone's heart. Never in the Bible will you find someone who had a good heart, and God hardened it. You'll never find a person that was soft and compliant to God, that was obedient to God, that was responding to God. And God says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to harden your heart. You can't find it. What you can find is men like Ammon Hoteff II, who was so arrogant, he thought he was a God. He thought he had power over God.

He really thought he had a divine power. He already had a hardened heart. And there are times when a person becomes so stubborn, so vicious, so rebellious, that God says, I will now give you what you are. I will let you be as hard as you can be.

And we'll see in the Bible, at some point, he says, I give them over to this. I give them this. You want to be that way? Okay. So this is very important understanding. Pharaoh wasn't a nice guy that God hardened his heart. He was a hard man. And God said, okay, you want to be hard? I'll make you so hard that I'll pound you into the ground before you will finally give. He finally gave. But at the price of destroying the great superpower on the face of the earth. Look at verse 16 of chapter 8.

But they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magician said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. Okay, the Nile turned into blood. They could make up something. Okay. We can sort of explain that. We turned our rods into snakes, too. Frogs, that was just a natural phenomenon. Come on, we get plagued with frogs every once a while. But hitting the ground and having the dust turn to lice can't do it.

This is beyond parlor tricks here. We're beyond natural happenstances. And they finally say that to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them just as the Lord had said. So once again, it is important to understand that God doesn't take a good person and harden their heart. He will take a hard person and say, you want to fight, I'll make you just as hard as you can be, and then we'll fight.

You don't know how overmatched you are. You think you're hard? I'll make you even harder, and then we'll have our combat.

So it's important to understand that God did affect this man. That it was because of who he already was. God never takes a good person and hardens their heart. They have to already have a hard heart for that to happen.

God desires all people to come into a relationship with him.

So why would God use somebody by hardening their heart? Jesus makes a very important point in John 12. Let's turn here. I'm going to read a little longer. You know, read through this. You can say, well, what does this have to do with what we're talking about? But I'm going to get to the place where John applies a passage. He does some commentary on what Jesus said. Applies a passage from Isaiah. And then I want you to notice something at the end of what we're going to go through that we usually don't attach to the story flow here, but it's very important. Let's go to John 12.

So God took a hard, stubborn, mean-spirited man. And he said, I'll make you even harder, and then I will destroy you. In other words, the Pharaoh always had the opportunity to soften his heart, but he wasn't going to.

Because of who he was. Let's pick up the story flow here, because there's a reason this passage goes where it is. So start in verse 23 of John 12. Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified. Unless, surely, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am there, my servant will also be. For if anyone serves him, me, him the Father will honor. Now, you have to understand how arrogant this would have seen the people who did not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

Listen to me in verse 36 again. If anyone serves me, and he didn't save God, he said, Me, he's talking about himself, let him follow me. And where I am there, my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my Father will honor. So he says, you want to be honored by God? Serve me. You can see why people are upset.

Can you imagine a human being saying that?

If you want to be honored by God, serve me.

If they didn't understand who he was.

Verse 27, now my soul is troubled, Jesus says. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. For this purpose I came into this hour. Father, glorify your name. He says, I'm troubled. Remember, this is right before, this is that time period right before he had to pass over service with his disciples.

He's thinking ahead, he says, these guys have no idea what's going to happen. And I'm telling you people, I'm the Messiah, and you have to serve me. And people are rejecting him.

He says, yet I'm here to die for all of you. I'm troubled over this, but this really is no choice. I made the choice to come here a long time ago. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have glorified it and will glorify it again.

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said, it had thunders. Others said, an angel had spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. Speaking of Satan. And if I have lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. Now John makes a commentary here in verse 33. This he said, signifying by what death he would die. In other words, he'd be nailed to a stake and lifted up.

John says he was telling us right then how he would die. Now John didn't understand it when he said it.

The people answered him, we have heard from the law that Christ remains forever. And how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Well, what were you saying? The Son of Man is going to die. Well, who is the Son of Man? Can we read about the Son of Man in the Old Testament? But the Messiah rules forever. What do you mean you're going to die? Be lifted up.

So they must have understood that this had to do somehow with his death. Jesus said to them, a little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he's going. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them. But although, now here's what John did, here's what John derives from this what we just read. But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke. The Lord has believed, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? So he goes back to Isaiah 6, and John says, you know what? We were told people would not respond to the Messiah, that their hearts would be hardened. Verse 39, therefore they could not believe, they could not believe, because Isaiah had said, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw the glory and spoken it. In other words, when we start to understand the hearting of the heart, the whole world is hardened.

God has to soften someone's heart for us to respond to him. He has to soften us up. He has to help us get to the point where we will respond and surrender and obey.

The world is already hardened. When Adam and Eve go, were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, from that point on, human beings have a hardened heart. God hardened their heart. He said, I will not be in relationship with you because you sinned. Therefore, you will be hard.

So we all had a hardened heart. We all had a heart that was hardened against God. We are here today because God, in that miraculous mercy of His, reached down, touched you, and softened your heart. And you began to respond. You began to obey. You began to do what you were supposed to do. Here, He says, they can't. Until God does something, they can't believe. But I want you to notice, verse 42, because there were some people that did believe. There were some people whose hearts God did. And when I say their hearts, you know what I mean? Their minds, their motivations, the core of who they are. And sometimes we use hearts just to mean emotions. That's sad because that's not what the Scripture is talking about.

It's talking about your whole reason. It's talking about what motivates you, your driving your life forces, why you do what you do. So emotions are part of it.

But notice verse 42, Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now you realize what John just said. He said, lots of people heard Jesus Christ, but did not respond because their hearts were hardened. And they could not respond. God had not done something to them so they could respond. He said, there were others that God did open their hearts. He did give open their minds, and they did understand that Jesus Christ was or Jesus was the Christ. And those people hardened their own hearts.

Which shows that it is possible for God to reach down and open us up to Him, and for us to harden ourselves against Him. See, we're already all hardened when God calls us. We already have a hardened heart. Pharaoh already had a hardened heart. And it wasn't going to abandon God. He said, okay, I'll make you harder. You want to fight me? You better get real hard. God came into our lives. We all had a hardened heart. We could not understand. We could not respond unless He began to work with us. So He began to work with us. We began to respond.

And so here we are. Is it possible to go back to a hardened heart?

Why would God harden a person's heart? We find two reasons. What is it, Matthew 13, where Matthew here has also quotes from Isaiah 6? So let's go to Matthew 13.

We have the parable of the sower.

In the parable of the sower, the seed is thrown out, and it falls on different kinds of ground. And there is a certain kind of response from all four of these grounds that it falls on, but only one actually produces fruit. Three out of the four responses just give up. They don't really follow God. Eventually, they start down the path, but they don't go anyplace. The disciples weren't sure what this meant. So they come and they ask Jesus, Why do you teach? Verse 10. Why do you speak to everybody in parables? Nobody knew what it meant. I find this very interesting because they obviously didn't know what it meant either. The reason I say that, why do you speak to the people in parables? He then explains to them why he speaks in parables, and then he says, Okay, let me tell you what the parable was about. They didn't get it either. But they would come and say, Hey, we don't know what you're talking about. So these people don't know what you're talking about. Why isn't it more plain?

Verse 11. Jesus answered and said to them, Here's why I speak in parables, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. In other words, he says, there are people who I speak in parables because I'm going to help them understand the meaning. There are people I speak to in parables so that they will not know the meaning. He deliberately hid the truth from certain people. You know, God is not converting the world. You realize God is making no attempt to convert the world? He's sowing seed. In the arbitrary message, we sow seed.

We just sow seed.

It is not our job to convert the world. It is our job to tell them, okay, and to tell everybody, and it's our job to sow seed. We start thinking we can grow a church through using these marketing concepts. We're in real trouble.

We sow seed. We just sow all the time. And Jesus said, most of the people will be blinded to the truth. Their heart is hardened and I'm not going to soften it up. Then I am going to soften some people up, but three out of four of the people that I start to soften up won't stick. Well, that's real encouraging. That's what we're told.

He says, verse 12, For whoever has, therefore will be given, and he will have abundance. For whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand it. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, Hearing you will hear, and shall not understand, and seeing you will see, and not perceive. It's the same passage that John had quoted from. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed. Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts in turn, so that I should heal them. But bless do your eyes, for they shall see, and your ears, for they shall hear. The blinding of these people was partly God, but why? Was He blinding them because they were all good people? Was He hardening their hearts because they were all good people? No, it wasn't time for them to be called yet. And there is one reason, there's two reasons, why God will harden someone's heart. One is you have to understand, it's already hardened. The world's already hardened. You and I were already hardened. He just decides whether to start when He starts giving us a soft heart. And our calling is now. Your neighbor's calling may be in the future. Your neighbor isn't being eternally judged right now, either. You and I are. We are being eternally judged. Why? Because God reached inside and softened us up. And we responded. And because we responded.

The death of Jesus Christ was applied to us. Because we responded. He's taking the leavening out of us and putting the unleavened bread of the character of Jesus Christ into us.

That's an enormous work. That's an amazing thing that He's doing. That's what He's doing.

So it is our time. That softening is taking place. So we can respond. We have a relationship with God and with Jesus Christ.

But it's not happening to everybody. It happens when He chooses with different people at different times. The majority of the world will not have their hearts softened until after Christ returns. How hard will the world be when Christ returns? They try to kill Him again.

How will He have to deal with the hardness of that heart? He literally has to kill thousands of people. The world will be that hard. Satan will have made them that hard.

So sometimes we have to realize a person has a hard heart. Your neighbors, many have a hard heart. They can't understand God's way because God hasn't softened it yet. Their time will come. So it's our job to be a good example. It's our job to preach the gospel to them in everyday life. Everything we do to show them what a softened heart is so that when God calls them, maybe your example will make the difference.

So He's not softening everybody's heart now. God had no plans to take Ammon Hoteb to second and give Him His Spirit.

He was a hard man that was going to do battle with the Almighty. So God just made him a little tougher. He was already a hard man.

Which brings us to another point about God hardening a person's heart. He gives them over to something. I'll show you what I mean. Let's go to Romans 1. Romans 1.

This famous passage where Paul just attacks the entire Roman culture. Everything that was about the core of what that Greek-Roman culture was, he just hits right at it. The thing is, you and I live...

The United States is an extension of Europe, to a certain degree. And Europe is an extension of a Greek and Roman culture.

So we're evolving back into this culture. Because it's at the seed of who we are.

Most people don't realize it. They don't understand where we're going.

But look what it says in verse 18.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

God says, you look at the heart and the heart of this world, and I have shown them me.

So He has to open their minds. In other words, there's a point where all humanity has to take responsibility for their own heart and heart.

So, okay, God can only soften me up, but we all have to go back to some point, you know. Every one of us, what we repented, had to admit, yeah, I am a heart and heart. We have to take responsibility for that. God looked at the hardened world, that He has not softened their heart and says, you still have to take responsibility for the hardness of your heart. Remember, God said, I will harden Pharaoh's heart. Remember the one verse we read? Pharaoh hardened his heart. He had a choice in this.

He says, for since the creation of a world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. When Jesus Christ comes back, the reason He so violently fights back against humanity is because He says, you know, I didn't soften your heart, but I also showed you, God showed you who He was in the creation. Every day, that creation showed you God.

And here Paul says, so you know what? That hardened person is going to have to deal with that.

That they would not respond to God because they were hardened. Because they were hard, God did not soften them. It wasn't their time yet. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, or were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. But those human beings are designed to want to know God. We're actually designed with a need for God. Teaching a human being that there is a God should be the simplest thing.

Why isn't it?

Well, professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the inter-corruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. The creative religions, the whole concept of paganism, the whole concept of idolatry, the Merions of gods and goddesses. I mean, you talk about a weird religion. Study the religion of Egypt. It was a religion of death.

Robe, well, all Robe did was took everybody's religions and said, oh, they're all okay. You can do anything. You can have any religion. It's all okay. Just pay us your taxes.

That's all we care about. Live by Robe and law and pay taxes.

But notice what he says, verse 24, Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their heart to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

He goes on and he talks about because of these manmade religions, God gave them up. In other words, he said, okay, if you want to be that way, go ahead. I will pull back my restraints and I will let you become exactly what you want to become. I believe that's happening to our country. I believe God is pulling back his restraints and saying, you want to be that way? Go ahead. I will give you up. You want to be hard? You want to follow homosexuality, which this chapter attacks?

Go ahead. I will give you up to it and you will like it and you will support it. Go ahead. But you're going to have to get real hard when the day of battle comes.

You want to be hard? I will harden you. You want to be soft? I will soften you.

Verse 26, for this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.

Look at verse 28, even though they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do things which are not fitting. 2. Emmonotep II was such a vile, arrogant, hard man. God said, if you want to be hard, I will give you hardness.

If the man would have won a repentance, God would have given him repentance.

That's what's so important to understand. God doesn't make us do evil, but God will give us over to it. He'll say, you want to be that way, I will let you be that way.

And you better get hard, because someday we have to face it.

The society, the Roman society that is described in Romans chapter 1, is just us. That's all we are.

A violent, greedy, self-willed society. That's what we are. Just like they were. God has given us over to that. So it will only get worse. To come out of it will get harder. That's why, as I said in my pastors' update here last week, our new scripture for the coming year, because we always get a new scripture that's going to drive a lot of sermons and drive hopefully a lot of discussion and personal Bible study, is about coming out of the world. That's what this next year is going to be about, coming out of the world.

Okay. That's the world. You and I have had our hearts softened.

We had hard hearts. God didn't make ours harder. He softened it. And here we are today, celebrating that. We're celebrating that God took us out of Egypt. Pharaoh is going to get left behind by the end of these days, right? Because as they left, eventually, Pharaoh got left behind when that sea closed.

I don't know whether Pharaoh survived that or not, because Egyptian history would always get rewritten. It's hard sometimes to tell exactly what happened. It is interesting that Ammon Hoteb II did go out into the desert and lost an army. He came back and ruled for many years, but it took him a while to rebuild an army. It's also interesting that 40 years after Ammon Hoteb lost his army, the Egyptians get these tablets from the Canaanite cities telling these Haberai people. That means Hebrew. Actually, it does it. It's a Canaanite word for bandits. There's hordes of bandits coming out of the Sinai. Send us an army, and the Egyptians won't even answer. It's like, nope, that's what those people 40 years ago, you can have them. We don't want them back. Just hordes of bandits coming out of the Sinai. We don't know what to do. We can't stop them. So please send an army. Or, Sam and Hoteb II was dead by this point, but they had a memory of what had happened. Look at Psalm 95. You and I have a soft heart. That soft heart gives us the ability to obey God to submit to him. When you think about it, I will take out your heart of stone. The new covenant is, I'm going to remove your heart of stone. I'm going to remove your hard heart. Because of that, not only do we have this ability to submit to God, we have the ability to love what that really means of giving ourselves to others. There will be the ability to love God, which is the first great commandment. God even has to help us do that.

But you know, God doesn't possess us and make us do these things. God softens our hearts so that we have the ability to do it. But here in Psalm 95, verse 6, David says, O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God. For we are his people and his pasture, and the sheep of his hand, and this is a soft heart.

Let's just worship God. Let's follow God. Let's do what he says. Let's just strip our lives of all this other stuff. This is a soft heart.

For he is our God, and we are his people and his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear his voice. Now, there's an important comment here. The writer of the Psalm says, you know, we are like sheep, but God will take care of us. There's a soft heart, but today, let's not forget this. Let's not forget what he is doing with us.

Do not hearten your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness. When your fathers tested me, God says, and they tried me, though they saw my work. For forty years, I was grieved with that generation who said, it is a people who go astray in their hearts. They do not know my ways. So I swore my wrath that they would not enter my rest.

See, here we have a Psalm where the Psalmist says, do not hearten your hearts. Remember the people who left Israel. God took a hard man and destroyed an entire nation for them to leave, and they couldn't get Egypt out of them. He could take the slave out of Egypt. He never got Egypt out of the slave.

He said, so they didn't enter the rest. They didn't enter into the Promised Land. Very powerful Psalm, but also very important because this Psalm is quoted in the New Testament. Let's go to Hebrews 3.

Hebrews chapter 3.

And let's start in... Yeah, let's go ahead and start in verse 7. Hebrews 3 verse 7.

See, if you recognize what's being quoted here, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, do not hearten your hearts as in the rebellion. He's quoting Psalm 95.

In the day of trial in the wilderness where your fathers tested me and tried me and saw my works for 40 years, therefore I was angry with that generation and said that they shall not go astray in their hearts and they shall not have known my ways. So I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter my rest. Now notice what the writer of Hebrew says to the church, beware, brethren.

Beware, brethren, lest there be any of you of an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God. Beware lest you harden your heart. We all had a hardened heart. He says beware lest you go back to that. Keep ourselves humble and soft before God. You know, we talked about before in the days of unleavened bread how leavening puffs up. The whole thing about leavening is its vanity. The whole thing about leavening is we're all just big balloons in the Macy's parade, right, thinking we're real important. And look, I'm puffed up bigger than you are. I'm Snoopy and you're Lucy. Okay. We're just big balloons.

He says beware lest you harden your heart. Verse 13, but exhort one another daily. Exhort one another daily. We go to God every day in prayer. We come to services and we hear sermons and sermonettes and messages. We sing praises to God, but we're also to exhort one another.

We pray. We should pray for one another. We should help one another. When one's down, there should be two or three others picking that person up. And everybody's down sometime. So we'll all take turns being the person that's down and the person that picks up.

We have to exhort one another daily. We're all just called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. That's a real, real important statement there. We become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. In other words, we actually begin to believe Egypt is the solution. This world is the solution. What the world has to offer me is the solution. Our political system is the solution. Our economic system is the solution. Our educational system is the solution. No, it's not. They're all failures and they all will be failures because God is not in them.

The deceitfulness of sin that keeps telling us Egypt is good.

He's talking to the church here, remember? And what's the example he's using? The people whose hearts were supposed to be softened. How did God soften their hearts? Well, let me see. I'll turn all the water to blood.

Frogs, lice, hail, fire. I'll kill all the firstborn but yours. I'll actually open the Red Sea for you. Is your heart soft yet?

He's given us His Spirit to soften our hearts. And here's the writer of Hebrews who says, now be real careful because Egypt is still there. But somehow we think if we could go back across that desert, the solutions are there in Egypt. He says, verse 14, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. While it is said, he goes back to Psalm 95, today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, says the rebellion. For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not those who sent his corpses fell in the wilderness? To whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. They just would not trust God. Therefore, since the promise remains of us, of a remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For neither God was preached to us as well as to them. For the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. He goes on and talks about it. It ties it into the Sabbath keeping.

But the point is, he's showing and he's telling us, don't harden your hearts. God performed a miracle. He took out your heart of stone and he put in a heart of flesh. Right? Isn't that what Jeremiah says? Isn't that what Ezekiel says? When we receive God's Spirit, that's what happens to us? He's like, think of that heart of yours. It's not going to be like, oh, but Odech the second. His was hard, so I just poured a little concrete around it. Okay? I'm going to take yours out and put in a new one. Don't go back and try to grab that old rock and put it in there again.

Because the rest, the Promised Land, the Kingdom of God is given to us.

It's given to us. Just as sure as the Promised Land awaited those people, they just couldn't see it. Canaan was there the whole time. They wanted to round through the desert. It was always there.

They just didn't believe it.

Passover season of the Feast of Elohim and Bread is a wonderful time, a happy time. The Passover is sobering, but afterwards there's always this freedom, this release that we can begin to have again.

As we realize, Pharaoh doesn't own me anymore, although he keeps telling us he does.

Oh, yes I do, he says. I still own you. I'm still your Pharaoh. I'm still your God. No, he doesn't. He doesn't own us anymore. We forget it. And he tries to control us. He is a stubborn being. He is a hard being. And he does not have your best interest at heart.

But he does like to own you.

Pharaoh doesn't own us anymore. We forget that. Where we went through our Red Sea, baptism, we forget that. We're ingesting the unleavened bread. We ate the Passover just like they did. Only this Passover we understood was a person. He's already done that for us. He already died. We just got to get across the desert. And all along the way, there will always be somebody that says, I'm going back to Egypt.

There's always somebody going, I've been at this a long time. And along the way, there's always somebody that says, I'm going back to Egypt. And they go back. I don't know if they get back. They start back across the desert.

I'd rather have Pharaoh. I'd rather be a slave to Pharaoh.

There's one last warning I want to give you. Interesting warning. It has to do with the world in the future that we're facing. I don't mean to end on a negative, but I just want you to think of this, because this is going to be part of our theme of the next year. And like I said, probably half our sermons will have this kind of theme in it. Not all sermons, obviously, but as we start to talk about the world coming out of the world, let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2. Not a passage. We usually read on the Days of Unleavened Bread, but 2 Thessalonians 2.

The chapter of 2 Thessalonians 2 is about the great time of the end when we have the false prophet, the beast power, and this deception that goes on. This grand deception where the whole world shifts even more towards Satan than it is now. And it's going to go there. Every country is going to go there. Our country is not going to be there. Everybody is headed in the same direction. Because Pharaoh, the Pharaoh of this world, still has a time left that he gets to rule.

And he's taking humanity. He's taking his slaves where he wants them to go. And he's taking those who have this hard heart, but you don't have a hard heart. How could the world do this? You know, they're still good in this world. You know, when you and I look at the people around us, we don't look at everybody, oh, they're all evil. We see the good in people. Everybody is a mixture of good and evil. And there's a lot of people that have a lot of good in them. Right? There can be an atheist that you will see good in. Because we're all a mixture of good and evil.

We look at this world and we think, how can it get that bad? How can people go where the Bible says they're going to go? What's interesting, when you read through this passage, you get to verse 11. Because it talks about the lawless one that's going to come. Verse 11 says, For this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie. People are going to want the lie so much. God's going to say, you want to be hard. I will let you be hard. I will give you up to this. I will not restrain anything anymore. God is going to pull off all restraint soon. He's going to give the world over to where its hardness wants it to go.

You and I have to make sure we don't go there. God has called us out of that to be protected from that, to be saved from that. This isn't like a negative thing. Oh, good. The world's going to go bad. Woe is me. No, the world's going to go bad. Thank you, God, that I'm not going to go there. Thank you, God, that Pharaoh doesn't have any power over me anymore. I am not a slave anymore.

Thank you that I am the follower of the true God, the Almighty God.

Folks, keep Egypt in the past. One of the lessons of this whole Days of Unleavened Breath. Keep Egypt in your rearview mirror. Keep it in the past. God will take you to the promised land.

He promises on one condition that we do not harden our hearts as those who did so in the Day of Rebellion, that we remain and have a soft, pliable heart. Not that heart of stone, but the heart of flesh. He says He gives us through the New Covenant. We stay that way in simple belief, trust, surrender, but obedience to Him. And we do that, and He will take us where He promises to take us.