The Old Testament reading is Exodus, Chapter 6:28 – Chapter 7:13. And this is the inerrant and infallible word of God. On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you.” But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”

And the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh. And your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. 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. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. And though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 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. 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.”

Moses and Aaron did so. They did just as the Lord commanded them. Now, Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh. Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “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.'” 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. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Still, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

Our New Testament reading is Romans 9:14-24. So Romans 9:14-24. What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means. For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose, I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed and all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory? For vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Let’s turn back to Exodus, chapter six and seven for our passage this morning. Many years ago, when I was a new Christian, a brand new Christian, one of the first books that I read about the Christian faith and theology was a book that I’m sure many of you are familiar with, a book called Knowing God by J.I. Packer. I imagine that some of you have read that book. If you haven’t, it is a classic, and I certainly commend it to you. And you can gather from the title of the book, Knowing God, that the theme of it is just that, how we can come to a true knowledge of God, the Creator, the living God, how we can come to know him as he makes Himself known to us in His Word and in His Son, Jesus Christ.

And at the beginning of the book, Packer writes about how there is no greater cause or no greater endeavor or purpose that we can devote ourselves to than seeking to grow in the knowledge of who God is, His nature, his character, his purposes. And Packer writes this at the beginning of the book. He says the highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy which can ever engage the attention of a child of God is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings and the existence of the great God, whom He calls His Father. And I believe that is 100% true, that there is no greater work that we can do than to grow in the knowledge of God.

But one of the challenges that we face when it comes to knowing, thinking about the nature of God, the character of God, is that we tend to focus only on particular aspects of God’s character. And usually it’s those aspects of his character that appeal to us most. And so we often think of God almost exclusively in terms of his love, his grace, his mercy. And of course, there is everything right about dwelling upon the mercy, the love and the grace of God. Because God is love. He is gracious. He is the author of our salvation. He is abounding in steadfast love and mercy. And I hope that every Lord’s day that we will leave here with a joy in our hearts, having been reminded of the love and the mercy that God has for us in Jesus Christ.

But the book of Exodus reminds us that God is not only a God who works salvation for those whom he loves, but he is also a God who brings awful judgment upon those who are unrepentant in their sin and unbelief. He judges those who refuse to submit to him and to respond by faith in the truth that he reveals. So God is not only a God of love and mercy and grace. He is, but he is also a God who is just, a God who is holy in all his ways. And Exodus reminds us of this because it tells us the story not only of how the Lord and His mercy brought this great salvation to his beloved people, the people of Israel, but how he brought these terrible judgments upon the people of Egypt because of their sin, their unbelief, their rebellion.

As we go on in the book of Exodus, we’ll read about these terrible judgments that God brings upon the land of Egypt, the 10 plagues, the destruction of the armies of Egypt in the Red Sea, and so on. These were all acts of God’s righteous judgment. The one Egyptian in particular who was the special object of God’s righteous wrath and judgment is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh will stand for all time as the preeminent example of the judgment of God that falls upon the one who refuses to believe in him, who rejects the testimony of God about himself. And in showing us God’s dealings with Pharaoh, the Book of Exodus reveals to us aspects of God’s character that we must understand and appreciate, even as we understand and appreciate the love and the mercy of God. And those other aspects of God’s character include his justice, that he is perfectly just, his holiness, that God is uncompromisingly holy, his sovereignty, that he is absolutely sovereign over the hearts of men, both those who believe and those who do not.

And as we look at this passage this morning, we’re going to consider what we might call one of the hard teachings of Scripture, and that is God’s hardening the heart of the unbeliever. This is not a subject that we would want to dwell upon every Sunday, but it is something that we need to wrestle with a truth that we need to think about, because the Scripture teaches it. It is part of the whole counsel of God that the Lord has given to us in his word. And so, as we look at this passage this morning, we’ll focus on the Lord’s dealings with Pharaoh, especially his hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. And first, we’ll consider what it means that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. And secondly, we’ll consider what that looks like. What does the hardened heart of Pharaoh, how does that show itself?

And so first, we’ll consider what it means that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart at the beginning of our passage. In verses 28 and 29 of chapter 6, the passage begins with a reminder of what we read earlier in chapter six, which we read last Sunday. And that is, the Lord commanded Moses to go to Pharaoh to tell him to let the people of Israel go. And Moses’ response to that commandment is something less than ready obedience. He says in verse 30, Moses says to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?” We might expect that the Lord would respond to Moses’ reluctance by rebuking him for his unbelief. But God’s response is very patient, very gracious. And his response is what we read in verses one and two of chapter seven. And it’s essentially this. The Lord says to Moses, “Moses, I am sending you with the full backing of my own divine power and authority. You will represent me to Pharaoh. In fact, you will be God to Pharaoh. You will go in my name and with the full backing of who I am as God that it is, though you are yourself God to Pharaoh, and Aaron will be your prophet. He will speak for you.” And so, in this way, the Lord reassures Moses that because he is going at God’s command, because he is the Lord’s servant, that his errand, his mission, will ultimately be successful, no matter how hesitant or reluctant he may be at that moment. And so the Lord reassures Moses that he will go in God’s name and with his, and with his authority and power behind him.

And then, after those words of reassurance and encouragement, the Lord reminds Moses of what he will do to Pharaoh. Namely, he will harden Pharaoh’s heart. He will make it so that Pharaoh will not listen to Moses, he will not obey the words of Moses, he will refuse to let the people go. And so the Lord says to Moses in verses three and four, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. And though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh will not listen to you.” Now I say that God here reminds Moses of what he will do to Pharaoh in hardening his heart. Because back in chapter four, the Lord already told Moses that that is what he plans to do to harden his heart. In Moses, or rather in Exodus, chapter 4, verse 21, we read this. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I’ve put in your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.'”

And this truth reoccurs throughout Exodus as we go on. In reading Exodus, as we go on through the 10 plagues, we will see time and time again. The Scripture will say that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. And so that raises the question, well, what does that mean? What does it mean that the Lord hardened his heart? Well, basically, it means just what it says. In some way, in a way in which the Scripture does not explain to us, but in some way, God will so act upon Pharaoh’s heart that he will stubbornly refuse to obey the word of the Lord. He will refuse to let the people of Israel go. God will act to ensure that Pharaoh will continue in his unbelief, his wickedness, despite the fact that he will receive testimony after testimony of the truth of who God is and the signs and miracles that he will do, despite the fact that he will hear again and again the word of the Lord through Moses, and God will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will dig his heels in, and he will refuse to obey the word of God. He will not let the people go.

And when the Lord says this, when the Scripture says that God will harden his heart, the question that comes to our minds is this. If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, does this not suggest that God is at least partly responsible for Pharaoh’s sin and his unbelief? Does this not implicate God somehow in the sin of Pharaoh and make him, that is God, somehow the author of sin? Well, we know the answer to that question. The answer is obviously no. That is not the case. Because it is impossible that God, who is infinitely holy, God, who is righteous, who is just, who does no evil, and it is impossible for him to be the author of sin or the source of sin in any way. God does not tempt anyone. God does not directly or immediately cause anyone to sin.

And in order for us to preserve this truth, that God is incapable of sinning, that he is in no way the author of sin, we might say what it means when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart is that he simply allowed Pharaoh to harden his own heart. In other words, we might say that God took a purely laissez faire or hands off approach when it came to his dealings with Pharaoh. By his inaction, by his passivity, God permitted, or he allowed Pharaoh to harden his own heart. And there is much truth to that that is not altogether false, but there is truth in that, as we’ll see in Exodus, the Scripture tells us that not only did the Lord harden Pharaoh’s heart, but that Pharaoh himself hardened his own heart. And so Pharaoh, not God, bears the responsibility, the guilt for his own stubbornness, an unbelieving heart and his sin. And so whatever else is true here, Pharaoh himself and not God, is to blame for his own hard heart. And so, yes, it is true that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

And it’s also the case that elsewhere in the New Testament, the Bible describes God as giving up sinners to their own sin. In other words, as an act of judgment for sin and unbelief that is already present in the heart of the sinner. God may simply allow that sinner to continue in his natural course, which is of course to become more and more entrenched in sin. And in this way God brings, or in this way, God brings his judgment down upon the person by giving him over, giving him up to his sin. However, in this case, to say here that the Lord’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart was only or merely allowing Pharaoh to continue in his unbelief doesn’t really do justice to what this passage tells us. It doesn’t do justice to the plain meaning of the words that we hear here in Scripture, and that is that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s hearts. Remember, before we even read of Pharaoh hardening his own heart, or before Pharaoh even hears the word of God, God promises Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s hearts. And so, although yes, Pharaoh was a sinner by nature, although he hardened his own heart, God’s act of hardening his heart wasn’t purely in response to Pharaoh’s own sin, but in some way, God took an active initiating role in that hardening of his hearts.

And so we have to say, as difficult as it is for us to accept, according to our human wisdom and reasoning, that the teaching of Scripture here is not that God simply gave Pharaoh over to his sin, or that he simply permitted or allowed him to continue to harden his own heart, but that in some way, by God’s initiative, by his predetermined will he and his sovereign power pardon the heart of Pharaoh. And this is consistent with what the New Testament teaches us as well. This is why we read from Romans chapter 9. This is some divine commentary on what takes place in Exodus. The Apostle Paul says in Romans in his dealings with Pharaoh that God sets Pharaoh as an illustration, an example of his sovereign dealings with his sovereign will in accomplishing what he will in the hearts of the lives of individual human beings. And so Paul says in Romans 9:18, “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.” And so Paul looks at what the Lord does to Pharaoh in Exodus. He ascribes it to the sovereign purposes of God, that he is merciful to whom he will, that he will harden whom he will.

As chapter nine goes on in Romans, Paul answers the questions that he knows that will inevitably be raised. When he says that God has mercy on whomever he wills, and that he hardens whomever he wills, Paul tells us that the question that will be raised is this. In verse 19 of Romans 9, “You will say to me, ‘Then why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?'” And you’ll notice that in his answer to that question, Paul does not appeal to the justice of God. He does not appeal to the fact that God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart was a work of justice. Rather, what Paul says is this. He says, “Who are you, O man, to question God’s ways?” In other words, Paul doesn’t say the reason why God. The reason why we cannot find fault with God is because he is just in giving Pharaoh over to his sin. But rather, what Paul says is God is sovereign. He can do what he wants. “Who are you to answer back to God?” And so in verses 20-21, Paul says, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what does molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” And so what Paul sees is the right of God as God the creator of all, as the Lord, who is perfectly good and wise and just in all his ways, his sovereign divine right to do what he will with his creatures, to have mercy on whom he wills, and to harden whom he wills.

Still, we’re left with the question, does that not mean that God is somehow responsible for Pharaoh’s sin and unbelief? Again, it cannot mean that. If the Bible is clear about anything, it is clear that God is holy and righteous. It is absolutely impossible that he would be the author of sin or evil in any way. And so what we are confronted here is with a mystery, the mystery of God’s sovereign dealings with this creature. Because on the one hand, in a proactive way which the Bible does not divulge to us, but in some active way, God is hardening the heart of Pharaoh. But on the other hand, Pharaoh is guilty, and sinners are guilty before God for our unbelief, for our sin. It’s a mystery that’s somewhat along the same lines of the mystery of how can a good and holy and just God ever allow for the existence of evil in his creation? How can he ever allow for the intrusion of evil into what he has made? There is mystery to that, and there is mystery to how God can harden the heart of a sinner. And yet that sinner is 100% responsible for his own sin and unbelief.

But what isn’t a mystery is God’s ultimate purpose in his sovereign dealings with man. And that is whether it is in salvation or whether it is in judgment, even in hardening Pharaoh’s heart or hardening a sinner’s heart. God’s purpose, his ultimate aim in all of that, is to bring glory to himself, to magnify his greatness, to exalt him as God, worthy of glory and honor and worship. In Romans 9:17, Paul quotes from Exodus 9:16. “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'” And so God’s purpose in hardening Pharaoh’s heart, as hard as that is for us to read, as hard, impossible as it is for us to understand how this all fits together, God reveals this to us, that God does his sovereign will. He carries out his purposes upon Pharaoh for this purpose in order to bring glory to himself, to show that he is God, that He is the great and almighty God worthy of our worship. And you see that right here in our passage in Exodus. In verse four, the Lord says, “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.” And then he says, why he will do this in verse 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.” In other words, God is saying, “I will rescue my people. I will bring my people out with these great signs and wonders, even in the judgments that I will bring upon the people of Egypt, so that they will know that I am the Lord, so that they will acknowledge me as God, so that I will receive the glory.” And so here is God’s purpose and in all of this that he might be acknowledged as the true God, worthy of worship.

Now, one lesson that we can take from this teaching of Scripture, this teaching that God has mercy on whomever he wills, that he hardens whomever he wills. One lesson that we can take from this is that if God is absolutely sovereign in all his dealings with all people, what it means then is that as a Christian, it means that your salvation is absolutely dependent upon. It is the result of God’s grace and mercy. It is because of God’s sovereign will, because it pleased him, not because of anything good in you, not because of anything that he saw in you that was worthy of salvation, but simply because it was God’s will, His purpose for you. To show you mercy, to be gracious to you, to bring you to Christ, to not harden your heart, to not give you over to your own sin and unbelief, but to be merciful and to bring you to salvation. Even your faith, especially your faith, is a gift of God’s grace. If this passage teaches us anything, it is that we would not believe in the word of God. We would not believe in Christ, we would not come to him for salvation. If God does not open our heart and give us mercy and show us the truth concerning Christ, that we may come to him for salvation. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. And so that’s the first lesson that we’ll take from this passage. The meaning of God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart.

The second is, the second lesson is, what does that look like? What does Pharaoh? How does he show himself to be one whose heart is hard? In verse nine and chapter seven, the Lord tells Moses and Aaron that Pharaoh will demand proof that their word, that their message is truly a word for from God. And the proof that they are to give Pharaoh is one of these signs that the Lord gave to Moses and Aaron that they were to show in Egypt to demonstrate, to prove that they were truly sent by God. And that is, the staff of Moses would turn into a serpent when it was thrown to the ground. Now, there’s a reason why the staff of God would become a serpent. And I suppose it could. God could have made it become any kind of creature. He could have made it become a worm or a caterpillar or something like that. But there’s a reason why the staff of God became a serpent. And that’s because for the Egyptian pharaohs, the serpent, the snake was a symbol of their power, of their royal authority. In fact, the serpent was a symbol of the supposed deity of Pharaoh himself.

I’m sure you’ve seen pictures, maybe some of you have even seen the real thing, but at least you’ve seen pictures of the mask of King Tutankhamun. I think it’s in an Egypt or in a museum somewhere in Egypt. But you remember, if you can picture that mask, that above Tutankhamun’s head, there’s a cobra. There’s a cobra, looks like it’s poised to strike. And the reason for that, of course, is because that was a symbol of his royal dignity and authority and even of his deity as the king of Egypt. And so what God was doing here as he causes this staff to turn into a serpent, the Lord was declaring to Moses. Well, actually, he was declaring to Pharaoh. The Lord was declaring to Pharaoh, “I am God. I am the one who can control creation. I am the one who could turn a staff into a serpent and a serpent back into a staff. It is not you, Pharaoh. It is not your gods, O Egyptians, but I am the true God.” And so the Lord gave Pharaoh this amazing testimony of his truth, this miracle, before his very eyes.

But Pharaoh didn’t believe. Rather, he called his wise men his sorcerers. Together. The text refers to them as the magicians of Egypt. And by their secret arts, they somehow performed the same miracle. Now, the passage doesn’t tell us how these wise men and sorcerers were able to seemingly perform the same miracle of turning their staffs into serpents. But there can be no doubt that what was at work here was the power of the evil one. That there was demonic power that was used by these magicians in order to somehow give the appearance of a true miracle, of turning the staff into a serpent. Satan, he cannot do a true miracle. Satan has no creative power. He can only do something counterfeit. He can only deceive. He can only do something fake.

In the last book of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, The Last Battle, I believe that’s the last book, but it was my favorite when I read through that series. But if you remember that book, there’s the antagonist. The bad guy in that book is an ape, an evil ape by the name of Shift. And Shift comes across the hide, the skin of a lion, and he decides that he’s going to trick all the animals in Narnia by placing this lion’s skin on top of a donkey and then telling all the animals that this is Aslan, this is the true lion, the true king of Narnia. And of course, because a donkey covered in a lion skin is a poor imitation of the real thing, deception only works in the dark or in a little light when it’s almost dark. And so when the animals can barely see the fake lion, then they’re deceived into thinking that this is truly Aslan. But that is an illustration of the way that Satan operates. He deceives with lies and falsehood. He is, and he was a liar from the beginning. The New Testament says in Second Corinthians that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Satan doesn’t appear on the scene with pointy tail and pitchfork and all of that, but he comes as an angel of light. He comes in a figure of goodness, righteousness. Second Thessalonians says the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

And that’s exactly what Satan is doing in this passage here, through these magicians. The magicians seem to be doing a work of God, that they are turning their staffs into serpents. But their work was only what Thessalonians calls false signs and wonders, wicked deception in order to deceive those who saw it. And Second Thessalonians says that those who are deceived by the work of Satan are deceived because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. And so those who are deceived by the deceptions of Satan are deceived because they are willingly deceived, because they refuse to love the truth, because they reject the testimony of God before their eyes. And that’s exactly the case here with Pharaoh. Here’s what a hardened heart looks like. This is what it looks like when someone has been given over by God, or God hardens someone’s hearts. He refuses to believe the clear testimony of the truth that God reveals concerning himself. And Pharaoh’s unbelief is only intensified the more revelation that he receives.

Aaron’s staff, when it becomes a serpent, it swallows the other serpents. And could there be any clearer testimony to Pharaoh that the staff of God, the staff of Moses and Aaron, the spokesman of God, that this is truly God’s, these are God’s People, this is God’s work? His serpent swallowed up all the serpents of the magicians. And yet in verse 13 it says, “Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. He would not listen to them.” As the Lord has said, this is what someone with a hardened heart, this is how he responds to the testimony, the revelation that God gives about himself. No matter how plainly it is given, no matter how clearly it is given, he will not believe the truth.

We’re taught that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that Jesus taught in, in Luke’s Gospel, when the rich man is suffering in Hades, he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn his brothers about the torments of hell. And Abraham says to the rich man, “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” And the rich man says, “No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” And Abraham says, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced that someone should rise from the dead.” Even if someone should rise from the dead, they will not be convinced. They will not believe. And how true that was. And of course, Jesus was looking ahead to the resurrection of himself from the dead. And when Jesus was raised from the dead, still there were so many who refuse to believe the truth, who refused to come to him as the Son of God, who continued in their sin and unbelief.

And it’s the same today. A person whose heart is hardened against the truth of God will not believe in God. He will not believe in Christ, no matter how powerful, how clear that testimony is. And God has testified to himself in so many ways that he is God, that he is good, that he is wise and powerful. He reveals us to us through all that he has created. The creation itself declares to us the glory of God. God reveals himself to us in his word and in the testimony of Jesus Christ, his Son. God makes himself known to us in the preaching of the Gospel. God reveals himself to us even in the life of the people of God. And yet, for the unbeliever, this is not enough. None of this is enough. He will continue in his unbelief and sin and in his rejection of the truth of God.

The British atheist and philosopher Bertrand Russell, at one point he was asked what he would say if God met him after his death and demanded to know why he would not believe. And according to Russell, his response to God would be, “Sir, why did you not give me better evidence?” I have a feeling it didn’t quite work out that way. But the problem for the Atheist is never that. There is a lack of evidence for God and for Christ. The problem is that he refuses to receive, he refuses to accept the clear, the abundant testimony and evidence that God gives of himself and of his Son, Jesus.

What this means is that unbelief, the failure to come to Christ. This is not an intellectual failure. It is not a lack of information or lack of apprehension or ability to grasp the truth. But to fail to respond to God by faith in Christ is a moral failure, a spiritual failure. It is a heart issue. It is a heart that refuses to come to God, no matter how clear that testimony is. One minister that I met, a phrase that he would repeat is “the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.” And that is so true here with Pharaoh. And it is true for everyone who refuses to come to Christ.

And again, one lesson we need to take from all this and we are dwelling upon the unbeliever. And yet, as Christians, what does this mean for us? It means that if you believe in Christ, if you have responded to the gospel, if you have come to faith in Jesus again, that is the fruit of God’s grace, that is the work of his mercy, the fruit of his love to you, that you have come to know him. Because by nature we are all born with a heart that will refuse, will continue to refuse, will reject the truth, will not believe. Pharaoh. Here is a terrifying portrait of what we are apart from the grace of God. No matter how many signs and miracles, no matter how clear the testimony of the word of God, we would refuse to come to the truth. We would refuse to come to Christ apart from the grace of God.

And so if you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, if you believe in your heart that he came into the world to die for your sin, that God raised him from the dead, that he is exalted to the right hand of the Father in heaven. If you believe this, if you trust in Christ as your Savior, again, this is a gift of God’s grace. He has been merciful to you. And so the story of Exodus, then it’s a revelation of both the mercy and the judgment of God. This one event in the scripture, such a clear revelation of the character of God, both in his mercy and in his judgment. Here we see the mercy of God for his people Israel, and the awful judgment against Pharaoh and the Egyptians. And in the very same way, the coming of Christ into the world was a revelation of the mercy, the love of God, but also a revelation of the justice, the judgment of God. On the one hand, the coming of Christ into the world was the supreme act of God’s love and mercy.

John 3:16, 17. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” What a gracious and merciful God we have, that when he saw us, when he saw the world in our sin and rebellion and wickedness, he did not send His Son to us to condemn us, but that through faith in him we might be saved, that we might be forgiven. He sent His Son into the world to save us.

But for those who refuse to come to him as a Savior, the coming of Christ will become the occasion. The reason for God’s judgment to fall upon them right after John 3:16 and 17 is John 3:18. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” And what this means for you and me is that when our life in this world is over, when we come to meet our Creator, our God, the only question that will matter then, the question that will determine whether you will spend eternity in heaven or in hell is was the coming of Christ for your salvation or was it the occasion for your condemnation? And that question depends on did you believe? Did you respond in faith? Did you come to Jesus and submit to him as your Lord and Savior, as the gift of God’s love to you? Or did you refuse to come to Christ because your heart was hard? It’s just so.

Ask God to give you a soft heart, a tender conscience, an openness to his word. Perhaps for somebody here, perhaps your prayer should be for a new heart that God would enable you to believe, to come to Christ by faith and to trust in Him. And know that by faith in him, by trusting in him, your sins are forgiven, you have received the gift of eternal life. And that’s the reason why God gave His Son to us, that we may come to him for salvation and for life. And so let’s ask the Lord that He would always give us a heart that believes, receives the truth of the Gospel, and trusts in Christ as our Savior. Let’s pray.

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