Musing 103

Read Exodus 8-10 for the daily devotion today, and one of the things that stuck me tonight was how even before Pharaoh’s advisors had their hearts explicitly hardened, they said nothing in the face of obvious divine judgement.

Of course, for Pharaoh’s men, they too believed in the divinity of Pharaoh, and so who were they to interfere in a battle of gods? But at some point, it became clear even to them that opposition to God is a pyrrhic victory at best because even if they won, Egypt was destroyed.

But even then, they themselves were hardened in their opposition to God. Let that be a lesson to us - both God’s judicial hardening of sinners in their opposition and sin’s own hardening power will push us into absolute insanity.

Sin is destructive, and even the obvious destruction of the very people and land that gave Pharaoh power was not enough to shake sense into him.

For those who think simple “well, if God judges hard enough, they’ll repent!”, may they learn from this. Repentance is a gift from God that He has the right to withhold. May we repent before God turns such hardening onto us.