Yesterday, I waited with my dad at a hospital in Colorado. The temperature was 75 degrees colder than Houston the day before. We started at 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Even being outside felt dangerous to me. Everything was frozen and hard. Doctors operated on my dad’s heart to replace his aortic valve. Hearts are tricky. When they work hard, they enlarge. Medically speaking, it is not good to have a big heart. I suppose hearts, scarred enough, could become sclerotic and hard. Spiritually, we could have sclerocardia – hardness of heart. Eternally speaking, a hard heart is more dangerous than an enlarged heart.
Why was Pharaoh’s heart so hard. In verse 7:3, God says he will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Later, in vv. 13-14, we realize that Pharaoh has hardened his own heart. What are we to make of this? Often, the scriptures attribute everything to God. We call this doctrine, “The Sovereignty of God.” We mean by that that God is sovereign. He is certainly never surprised by the events in our world. But we know his heart can be troubled by choices people make.
Does God cause everything in our world to happen? Does he cause each earthquake, like the one in Turkey and Syria? What about lightning? Is he directing each bolt? Does God cause us to sin, when we sin? My answer is, “No.” My uncle asked me recently how God could allow so many people to die in Ukraine. It is a good question. I told him I believed that Putin had hardened his own heart and was willing to see people die to realize his own political ambitions.
I wonder if we can resist God for so long that God just gives us over to what we want? God created us with the free will to harden our own hearts against him and his purposes in our lives. This becomes disastrous for us and others. Still, God superintends all of our actions to accomplish his greater purpose in the world. So he can work all things together for good. But we are always responsible for our own actions. When we sin, there is no use in saying to God, “Why did you make me like this?” This is why the writer of Hebrews echoes the Old Testament, “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8). We can even encourage each other so that we do not have sinful, unbelieving hearts (Hebrews 3:12-13).
