The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 629

;

XXXIII.

The Hardening

in the

Sacred Scripture. "He

hath hardened their heart.'*—

John

The

Scripture teaches positively that the hardening and

ening of their foolish heart" This

xii. 40.

is

is

a divine, intentional

"

dark-

act.

plainly evident from God's charge to Moses concerning

Thou shalt speak all that I command thee harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not harken unto you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Egypt

the king of

and

I

will

that

I

am

to

Moses

the "

:

"

Lord" (Exod.

vii. 3-5).

Before this the Lord had said

When

thou goest to return unto Egypt, see that thou those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine :

do all hand; but I will make his heart stubborn, that he shall not people go" (Exod. iv. 21).

The

principal person in the Scripture in

whom

Why

let the

this awful truth

him we can not And, instead of looking down on him from the heights of our own imagined piety, we should rather remember the word of the obtains

its

clearest revelation is Pharaoh.

in

tell.

apostle:

"

And whom He

will

He

hardens."

However, the subject of this terrible judgment of hardening is not the individual Pharaoh in his private life, but the king, the mighty prince and sovereign, the ruler and despot, who in the majesty of his crown and scepter represented the supremacy of the

first

g^eat world-empire over the nations of the earth.

Egypt occupied the position subsequently attained by Nineveh, Babylon, Macedonia, and Rome it was the embodiment of all the luster and glory which the natural, sinful, and GodIn those days

;

rejecting world could create.

Egypt men reveled

In the cities of

Upper and Lower

in the refined pleasures of life.

From

all

the

surrounding countries gold came pouring into Egypt. The rulers built themselves great cities and strong fortresses, sphinxes and

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