Sep
28
Written by:
Bob Flynn
9/28/2009 8:37 AM
The Lord will not save those whom He cannot command. He will not divide His offices. You cannot believe on a half-Christ. We take Him for what He is—the anointed Savior and Lord who is King of kings and Lord of all lords! He would not be Who He is if He saved us and called us and chose us without the understanding that He can also guide and control our lives. (A. W. Tozer)
So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. (Romans 9:18 NASB)
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. (Romans 9:18 KJV)
So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. (Romans 9:18 NET.)
So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and He chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen. (Romans 9:18 NLT)
Remember what it says: "Today when you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled."
(Hebrews 3:15 NLT)
We often get wrapped around the axel when we focus to closely on the painting. We see each stroke of the brush upon the canvas and appreciate the methods used by the artist to help our eyes see depth where there is none. I believe here is a place where we ought not get caught up on the hardness of Pharaoh's heart but decide if we have in fact hardened our own! Are walking in the footsteps of Christ and following after His perfect will for our lives? Perhaps we are misled into thinking that salvation and Lordship are somehow compartmentalized. Perhaps we think we have freedom instead of liberty. Perhaps we think we can do well in one part of our life and be a slave to sin in another and be batting .500 like in baseball. The reality is we are in sin and rebelling against the Lord who saved us! There is NO room in our hearts for disobedience and unbelief (Ephesians 2) if there is to be room for the Spirit of Christ to live in fullness! He is either Lord of all or not Lord at all! However, as you travel around Christendom today, I am sure you can find someone who will be willing to argue the point! Sadly, they will be arguing from the cesspool of besetting sin! If Jesus Christ is Lord, then your life will show it everyday in everyway! If not, run to your prayer closet and confess! Unless of course you have some objection to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control. Then by all means continue to lay in the ditch of arrogance where self-righteousness rules and self-deception abounds!
2Th 2:10-12 He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil rather than believing the truth. (NLT)
This is the apostle’s conclusion from the facts already laid down: that God, according to his own will and wisdom, in perfect righteousness, bestows mercy; that is to say, his blessings upon one part of mankind, (the Jews of old, and the Gentiles of the present time), while he suffers another part (the Egyptians of old, and the Jews of the present day) to go on in the abuse of his goodness and forbearance, hardening themselves in sin, till he brings upon them a most just and exemplary punishment, unless this be prevented by their deep repentance and general return to God through Jesus the promised, the real Messiah. (Dr. Adam Clarke)
And whom he will he hardeneth; which is the just and natural consequence of what is contained in the latter; for if God could, or he did, without any injustice, raise up Pharaoh, and harden his heart against him and his people, that he might rise up against him and destroy him by his power for his own glory, then he may harden any other person, and even whom he will: now this hardening of men's hearts may be understood in perfect agreement with the justice and holiness of God: men first harden their own hearts by sinning, as Pharaoh did; what God does, is by leaving them to the hardness of their hearts, denying them that grace which only can soften them, and which he is not obliged to give, and therefore does them no injustice in withholding it from them; by sending them both mercies and judgments, which through the corruption of their hearts, are the means of the greater hardening of them; so judgments in the case of Pharaoh, and mercies in the case of others; see Isaiah 6:10; by delivering them up into the hands of Satan, and to their own lusts, which they themselves approve of; and by giving them up to a judicial blindness and hardness of heart, as a just punishment for their impieties. (Dr. John Gill)
He hardeneth (sklērunei). Pharaoh hardened his own heart also (Exodus 8:15, Exodus 8:32; Exodus 9:34), but God gives men up also (Romans 1:24, Romans 1:26, Romans 1:28). This late word is used by the Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates. (Word Pictures in the New Testament by Archibald Thomas Robertson)
Copyright ©2009 Robert Flynn