Romans 9:14-17 (NIV) 14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
Exodus 9:12 (NIV) 12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.
If God has it in for you, what chance do you have? That is the way it appears for Pharaoh. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Does God at some point give up on us? Does it get to that point where we have done wrong for so long that God calls it quits in trying to reach us and to teach us the way we ought to live?
For many of us the thought that God would give up on us is almost unthinkable, and certainly unbelievable. But, whether we like it or not, believe it or not, the question is “Is it true or not?”
The word “hard” literally means “strong”, and carries the connotation of rigid strength or barrier that cannot be penetrated. The word “heart” obviously does not refer to an organ in the body, but to the whole personality. A hardened heart refers to someone who is intellectually rigid, willfully obstinate, and emotionally unresponsive to the Word and workings of God. This is the condition that God inflicts upon Pharaoh, so the second question is “How and why did God do such a thing?
Hardness of heart develops by persistent resistance to God’s Word and work, and by God allowing us to win, to succeed in keeping His word and work from penetrating our life. It is God’s passive judgment, His permissive will. He does not intervene or interfere in our lives, but allows us to have our own way.
Why then does God abandon us to self-willed lives? Certainly it is not because of indifference to us. Nor is it because He has finally lost patience with us. God abandons us to our self-willed lives out of respect for our freedom to do so and for us to exercise that freedom and to see where it gets us. His abandoning us to our self-willed ways has been called “God’s savage grace.” It is the experience of love by way of judgment. It is education by way of disappointment. It is illumination by lostness. His savage grace is love that feels like opposition, forgiveness that wounds our egos, grace that breaks our pride, victory that feels like surrender. God’s savage grace is brokenness that gives wholeness to our life. And nowhere is God’s savage grace more obvious than in the Cross of Christ. The Cross shows us what we do when we insist on having our own way. The resurrection is what happens when we allow God to have His way.
Preached June 18, 1989
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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