I titled the message The Hardening of the Heart. The Hardening of the Heart. There is much said in the Word of God about the
heart. It's the seat of affection. whatever or whoever has our heart
has us. Our Lord said this in the Gospels
and in Matthew, I believe it is, where your treasure is, your
heart is. That's where your heart is, is
where your treasure is. THE HEART SPOKEN OF HERE IS NOT
THAT MUSCLE THAT BEATS IN OUR CHEST THROUGH
WHICH BLOOD FLOWS. THE HEART HERE IS THE VERY SEAT
OF OUR BEING. I LOOKED UP THE HEART IN THE
SCRIPTURES, AND I MEAN IT IS SO, SO, WAY MORE THAN I COUNTED. I WASN'T GOING TO COUNT THEM
ALL. when the scripture speaks of the heart. Give me your heart, Solomon said,
Son, give me your heart. He said, Son, keep thy heart
with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. You know, when Adam fell, the
heart of man turned from God to self, it turned to itself. God is not the center of our
affections, we are. We are the center naturally of
our own affections, me and mine, that's the center. of our affections. You know, it's written in Deuteronomy,
it's written in several places, but we are to love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul. That's what that
young man said, that's the greatest commandment. The Lord said, what's
the greatest commandment? He said, to love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, mind, and soul, and thy neighbor as thyself.
And you know, the Lord said to him, you're not far from the
kingdom of God. It doesn't mean you're in it, but you're not
far from it. But man's affections now is about
HIMSELF, it's HIMSELF. God's not the object of our worship,
not naturally, we are. We are. Man fell in love with
HIMSELF and out of love with God. Matthew 15, verse 8, These people
draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, honoureth me with their
lips, but their HEART THE HEART IS FAR FROM ME. THE SEED OF ALL EVIL IS FOUND
IN THE HEART, ISN'T IT? IT'S NOT MY ENVIRONMENT. WE MAKE
OUR ENVIRONMENT. WE MAKE IT. Matthew 15, 18, 19, But those
things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart. That's where they come from.
And they defile the man, not what you eat, not what you drink.
That's not what defiles you. You could drink 15 cases of beer
and that won't defile you. You drink 15 cases because you're
defiled already. Your heart's defiled. That's
the problem. The problem is with the heart,
it s not in pills, it s not in drugs, it s not in alcohol, it
s not in things, it s in the heart, the heart, the heart,
the heart. And God sees the heart. For out
of the heart, Matthew 15, 18, 19, For out of the heart proceed
FIRST, FIRST evil thoughts, because every action starts with a thought.
It starts with a thought. Proceed evil thoughts and notice
what they lead to, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies. Solomon said, As a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he. So is he. The Word of God says in Jeremiah
17 9 THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS, DESPERATELY WICKED,
WHO CAN KNOW IT? Well, if I know my heart, well,
that's the last thing you really know. It's deceitful. It's deceitful. It says it's
desperately wicked. Who can know it? Only God can
know it. Only God can really know the
heart. The last thing that we truly
know is our heart. Only God can see what's in the
heart. We only see what's on the outside. We see actions,
you know, we don't see what's going on on the inside. Listen
to what God said to Samuel. Remember when he went to pick
a king? But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature,
TALL, DARK, AND HANDSOME, because I have REFUSED HIM. For the LORD
seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. That s where He looks, He looks
on the heart. He sees the CHARACTER of the
man or the woman, that s what He sees. Now in verse 1 and 2,
the Lord tells Moses that He has made him and Aaron greater
than Pharaoh. He said, I've made thee a god
to Pharaoh. I've made you greater than Pharaoh.
You know, there is no one greater on this
earth, and I'm trying to be careful here because I don't want to
set up those who preach as up here on a pedestal, I don't want
to do that. But there's no leader on this
earth greater than God's man. That's the truth. God said to
Moses, remember Moses was making excuses, I can't talk very well,
send somebody else in there. And he said, I'm sending you
in there, you're my man, and you go in there and you command
YOU TELL PHARAOH, LET MY PEOPLE GO! Don't you be afraid, don't you
be intimidated. Don't you be intimidated. I told Jeremy yesterday, he's going
to have a business meeting Monday at Seaman's and he's taking his
wife and she's all nervous as can be. And I said, well, walk
in there with confidence. Just walk in there with confidence.
I said, they can't read your mind, but they can read your
body language. So walk in with confidence. But I did tell him,
but here's what I told him. I said, since I've met God, since
I've met God and I've come to know the Lord, I said, I believe
I can say nobody intimidates me. Really? Do you know God? How can you
be intimidated by anybody? How can we be intimidated? God is our God. We've dealt with
God. We've dealt with God. How can
you be intimidated? I don't care the man's position,
the woman's position, their education, it doesn't matter. How can you
be intimidated? When you realize who your FATHER
is, and who your God is, you walk with your head up and your
shoulders back into any room. I don't mean arrogance, I'm not
talking about arrogance, I'm talking about confidence. There's
a difference between confidence and arrogance. And he's telling Moses here,
Moses making all kinds of excuses, you and Aaron go in there, I've
made you gods, you're greater than Pharaoh. That's a little
G, but I've made you gods. don't you be afraid now here he says in verse three
and this had to be when moses heard this i don't know what his reaction
would have been but god said you go and explain him tell him
to let my people go and i'm going to harden his heart and he's
not going to do it and i will harden pharaoh's heart
to multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of egypt You know
Paul writes of this in Romans 9 17 for the scripture saith
unto Pharaoh you notice how he says the word of God says to
Pharaoh because this word right here is God speaking this is
God speaking we read of God speaking back in Exodus 7 telling Moses
what to say to Pharaoh and here in Romans he says the scripture
says to Pharaoh because the scriptures is God's it's his word it's his
word The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose
have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that
my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will harden.
But he said, I have raised Pharaoh up for this purpose. Now, this
is one of the most sobering Scriptures to me in the Word of God, and
I'm not going to try to water it down, so that people won't
be offended or charge God with folly. I'm going to bow to it. I'm going
to declare God's Word just as it is. I know that the judge
of the earth will do right, he can do no wrong. I can't comprehend
the ways of God. I can't know the infinite wisdom
of God, the infinite knowledge of God. Am I going to sit in
judgment on that? I don't think so. I am going
to bow to it. I'm going to bow to it. But we know this and we'll see
this as we go on through Exodus and it says Pharaoh hardened
his heart. Pharaoh hardened his heart. The heart is desperately wicked
and that means every heart, every heart coming to the world like
that. That's the way we're coming to the world. the heart of the
king, as well as the heart of the criminal. No one is born
with a pure heart. We don't get a wicked heart at
a certain age. You know, here the age accountability. We don't get it at a certain
age, we get it from conception. I was born in sin, David said,
and shaped in iniquity. I got it from my parents. And
it's all the way back to Adam. That's how I got it. It says in Genesis 6, 5, And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil. continually. And you know what?
It hasn't changed. Education hasn't changed it.
Higher education doesn't change it. It may disguise it a little
better, but it doesn't change it. How does God harden a heart?
It says here that God is going to harden his heart. How does
God harden a heart? Well, I know this. I can't answer this fully.
I DO KNOW THAT ALL THAT GOD MUST DO TO HARDEN THE HEART IS LEAVE
ME ALONE. LEAVE ME ALONE. You know, everybody
here hearing the same gospel, you hear the same truth, and the only thing God has to
do to harden your heart is LEAVE YOU ALONE. Just leave you alone. It's like
taking a piece of clay and putting it outside in the sun. If you don't put any water on
it, guess what's going to happen? It's going to get hard. If you
don't moisten it, if God doesn't moisten you by grace, it's just
going to get harder. It's hard. It's hard. THAT'S HOW HE DOES IT. IF GOD
LEAVES MEN AND WOMEN TO THEIR OWN WISDOM AND DESIRES, IF LIGHT
IS NOT GIVEN, DARKNESS WILL REIGN. DARKNESS WILL REIGN. You know,
the Lord never stops anybody from coming to Him. NEVER! You
know, He said to the Pharisee, YOU WILL NOT COME TO ME THAT
YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE. YOU HAVE A WILL PROBLEM, AND
YOUR WILL IS NOT TO COME TO ME. THE WILL IS NOT TO COME TO THE
LIGHT BECAUSE LEST MY DEEDS SHOULD BE REPROVED, MADE MANIFEST, FOUND
OUT. You know it says over in Acts
2.23, HIM BEING DELIVERED, that is the Lord Jesus Christ being
delivered by the DETERMINANT COUNSEL FOR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD,
YOU HAVE TAKEN. YOU'VE DONE WHAT YOUR WICKED
HEART WANTED TO DO. YOU'VE TAKEN BY WICKED HANDS
AND YOU'VE CRUCIFIED AND That's what you wanted to do
and God let you do it. The same means, now here's, it's
sobering, this is sobering. The same mean that results in
life and mercy to the sheep becomes stumbling stones and a means
of greater condemnation to the lost who reject and despise the
Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 2 But we are unto
God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved, and in them
that perish. 3 To the one we are the savor
of death unto death, and to the other a savor of life unto life.
Paul said who's sufficient for these things? I'm not sufficient
to stand here this morning and handle this. God's our sufficiency. But you'll notice in Exodus as
we go through it, every time God hardened Pharaoh's heart,
there was a trial. There was a trial involved. Here it starts out first as the
magicians come and God lets Satan mimic the miracles. He lets him mimic them. And by
doing that, Pharaoh is like, well, what's your God? My magicians can do the same
thing. Not realizing his heart has been hardened by his own
delusion. Every time there was a trial,
trials have a hardening effect on the heart where grace is absent.
You know, no matter what trial or how hard it is that God will
put you through, if grace is present, it will always bring
you to Christ. It will always run you to Christ. It will do
it every time. But if grace is absent, you will
get offended, like the parable of the sower, that one that was
the heat of the sun and the seed on that rock. The answer to that, they were
offended. Those who believed, they thought,
they thought, well, everything's going to be okay. I'm going to
be happy now. And then when trials and hardship
and heartaches come, they get, they're offended at God. But
you're not offended at God. You bow to Him. You bow to Him. That doesn't mean you hurt and
you can be confused. That's what Job said in Job 10.
I'm full of confusion. I don't know why this is going
on, but I know who sent it. And you bow to that. Now sometimes
we wiggle around and squirm and get a little fussy, but the Lord
knows how to bring us around to where we just bow. We say,
Lord, Thy will be done. That's where we end up at. But
the unbeliever is offended and leaves. He's offended at God. And don't think that Pharaoh
would have repented if God had not hardened his heart. on later
on it says Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart. You see where grace is not given
to save, sin hardens the heart, it just gets harder. And this
shows us that everyone, everyone is shut up to the sovereign mercy
of God, AREN'T WE? WE ARE SHUT UP TO GOD'S SOVEREIGN
MERCY, AND I THANK GOD WE ARE, BECAUSE IF NOT, NO ONE WOULD
BE SAVED. NO ONE WOULD BE SAVED IF GOD DID NOT HAVE MERCY ON
US, BECAUSE NOT A ONE OF US WANT HIM. WE DON'T WANT HIM. BUT NOW HOW DOES THIS SPEAK TO
ME? HOW DOES THIS SPEAK TO ME? Do I find myself charging God
with folly? Do I find myself seeking mercy? Lord, have mercy on me. Don't leave me alone. I can't tell you how many times
I've said that since I've heard and believed the gospel. Lord,
don't leave me alone. When I've sat and I've listened
to the preaching, Lord, let me hear. Give me ears to hear. apply this to my heart. I'm not sitting there saying
apply that to so and so over there, they need it. I need it. I need it. Don't leave me alone. This verse is sobering to me
because I know I was born with the same heart Pharaoh was born
with. You know that? I was. I was born with the same heart. And God could justly leave me
alone. That's the one thing that just GOD USED WHEN THE LORD SENT
THE GOSPEL TO ME, WHEN THE LORD SAVED MY SOUL, THE ONE THING
HE USED WAS THAT HE COULD LEAVE ME ALONE. HE COULD LEAVE ME ALONE, HE DIDN'T
HAVE TO SAVE ME. THANK GOD HE DID. HE DIDN'T HAVE TO. Now, seeing that I have the same
heart, same kind of heart, my greatest need, you know what
my greatest need is? A NEW HEART. a new heart. I need God to give me a new heart. That's what I need. You see,
salvation is a heartwork. Listen here to Ezekiel 36, 26. God says this, A new heart also
will I give you. A new heart will I give Give
you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh And I will give you a heart of
flesh. I'll give you a new heart You know when I read that I say
Lord give me that new heart Give me that new heart He'll give
it to anybody. Yes, that's for whosoever. I HE SAYS, I'LL GIVE YOU A NEW
HEART, AND I KNOW THIS, HE'S GOT TO GIVE YOU A NEW HEART BEFORE
YOU'LL ASK FOR ONE! HE WILL! GOD HAS TO SAVE YOU
BEFORE YOU'LL ASK HIM TO SAVE YOU! YOU'LL NEVER DO IT! YOU'LL NEVER ASK THE LORD TO
FORGIVE YOU UNTIL YOU FIND OUT THAT HE CAN FORGIVE YOU! HERE'S WHAT I KNOW! I need a
new heart and God can give me one. God can give me one. And it's not going to be a used
heart from someone else. It's going to be a new one. We have a nephew that had to
have a heart transplant. He was just in his forties. He
was given a heart from someone else. But now that heart's failing
and they've got to have another one within a year. They said
give him about a year and they got to have another one, a used
one, another used one. The heart that God gives me has
never been used. It's a new one. It's a new heart. It's a pure
heart. It's a pure heart. And this happens
in regeneration. This is where it happens. And
the new birth. And the new birth, you know,
we just had a birth here, Jet. I named it Parker, but Rhonda
straightened me up. I had it in the bulletin as Jet
Walker and Parker. That's what an impression they've
made on me. But anyway. When that child was conceived,
it had everything it needed. Arms, all that was in that seed.
Arms, its heart, its lungs, everything. In the new birth, we have everything
we need. A new heart, a new spirit. We have all that in the new birth.
when we are begotten it says with the word of truth the seed
is with the word of God with the word of truth and in that
seed is everything we need we got it all and in that new birth in that
new birth there's no defects in it now I still have the old
nature that's where the defects are but not in the new birth
Not in a new heart. God said that's a pure heart.
Blessed are the pure in heart. Where did I get that pure heart?
He gave it to me. He gave it to me in Christ. I
have it in Christ. I need a new heart. God can give
it to me. David said in Psalm 51 10, Create in me a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit. Only God can create a new heart. Only God can do that. I need a heart that worships
God in spirit and in truth. The old one I was born with won't
worship God at all, never has, never will. I need one that will,
and He can give it to me. It says in Romans 10, With the
heart man believes to righteousness, and that heart's of God, and
that pure heart's of God. Listen to Psalm 24, verse 3,
WHO SHALL ASCEND INTO THE HILL OF THE LORD, OR WHO SHALL STAND
IN HIS HOLY PLACE? And then He gives the answer,
HE THAT HATH CLEAN HANDS AND A PURE HEART. Oh, I know this is speaking of
Christ, but this is us in Christ also. This is us. When do we get these
clean hands and pure heart? In REGENERATION. That's where
we get it. And then in verse 4, and I'm
going to close. But Pharaoh, he said, Here shall I hearken
to you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine
armies, and my people, the children of Israel, and the land of Egypt,
by great judgments. You see, God's purpose is tied
to this. He says, I'm going to bring my
people out of Egypt by great judgment. But great judgment
is going to fall on Egypt. These things have got to happen
first. That's what's going on today. all that God's purpose
is happening, and His judgments are going to fall on this world,
but all that God's purpose has got to take place. It has to
take place. Israel and Egypt are going to
see the mighty hand of God. Now listen, one's going to see
it in mercy, one's going to see it in judgment. One's going to
be a vessel of mercy. One's going to be a vessel of
wrath. That's the truth! That's the truth! That's why
it's so important to go verse by verse like this. You don't
skip over these truths. And the Egyptians shall know
that I am the LORD when I stretch forth mine hand
upon Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among
them. THIS WORLD IS GOING TO KNOW THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD. Do you know that? One day, just
like He's saying right here, and the EGYPTIANS SHALL KNOW
I AM THE LORD. I can put it this way, AND THE
WORLD SHALL KNOW I AM THE LORD. They're going to know Jesus Christ
is the Lord. He's Jehovah. He's Jehovah, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And Moses and Aaron did as the
Lord commanded them, so did they. Until the Lord comes back, may
we stand BOLDLY with the gospel in our day, and may we do as
they did, do as the Lord said. As I stand here week after week
preaching the gospel, glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, and feeding
the sheep until He comes. And last of all, And Moses was
four score years old, eighty years old! And Aaron was eighty-three
years old when they spake unto Pharaoh. Now why did the Holy
Spirit take notice of their age? You know, when you read that,
you just pass over it, don't you? You just read it. It's part
of the text. He lets us know here that it's
evident it was not by their power They're too old, they're just
too old codgers, too old men, too old men walking into Pharaoh's
presence saying, let my people go. The Lord said, let my people
go. Here's a man standing there at
80 and 83. Well, it's evident it's not by
them. It's not by them. That's why he just let those
little details like that. We see that the Lord lets us
know salvations of the Lord. Salvations of the Lord. Salvation is not of me. The Lord
might let me sit here and preach till I'm 83 years old. I don't
know. I think David Pledger is 85 and he's still going strong. But you know what? Salvation
is not of me. No matter how long I preach, it's not of me. It'll
always be of God. Always. Here's what I need. Here's what
you need. Lord, give me a new heart. Give
me a heart to love you and to worship you in spirit and in
truth. Give me that heart.