God hardened his heart?

Rom 9:17
For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.”[j] 1
Verse 18 So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.

Of all the evil people in the world, The Lord removed his hedge of protection, totally, from around pharaoh. This removal brought about the total destruction of this pharaoh. We look at this evil pharaoh
and desire to see him judged.  Then, when we see the Lord judge him, it becomes our desire to see all evil men judged. In this life, evil men being judged would make our lives much more pleasant. It creates a peace that surrounds us, and the desire to keep this peace, or obtain this peace, becomes a motivation for wanting evil men removed.

But as it says in Romans chapter 9, God will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy.  Do we think that the Pharaoh was the only evil man at that time?  He was not. But the Lord chose him to make an example.

For the longest time, I wrestled with this section of the Scriptures.  I feared the Lord making a decision to hardened my heart as it says he hardened the pharaohs heart.  But I have come to understand it in a different way.

As a property manager, I have several tenants at one time who are late in their monthly rent. If I was legalistic, I could evict any of them 15 days after nonpayment on the first of the month of being late on their payments. .  They are in breach of a contract  Gratefully, the company I work for extends of lot of mercy to these people, giving them time to make a payment.  Every once in awhile, we go through a phase of where there are several late rents. Those tenets that come to the office and explain why they were late, make arrangements to make some kind of payments, and promise to get caught up, we do not evict.  Most keep their word, and we never have an issue.

Some however do not come to the office,  and they avoid management trying to make contact.  These tenants rise to a higher level of concern. They now become 'issues that must be dealt with.'

 If we have three tenants who are on the list to be "possibly" evicted, then we look closely at these and weigh the tenants and their circumstances.  Our practice is to choose one and start the eviction process.  Why did we choose this one particular tenant?

We could've chosen any of the tenants. We could have chosen all of the tenants.  But we chose one.  And when you choose one tenant to be evicted, they always seem to change their demeanor. All of a sudden, that nice person who has promised you over and over they would bring in the rent on Friday, now becomes a bitter and vindictive tenant.  Some even go as far as to say that their lack of payment and regard for park rules is the direct result of something the park has done. They immediately shift the blame.  They harden their hearts against us. But, we never refused their rent.  We never gave them the approval of breaking park rules.  We have stayed on them continuously about these things.  As we could've chosen any of the three who were delinquent and in breach of their contract.  The Lord could've chosen any evil man during the time of Pharaoh, but he chose Pharaoh because of the benefit this example of his power would mean to us.

It was the Lord's decision to pick pharaoh.  He was not wrong in picking Pharaoh, or had he picked any other evil ruler at the time, he still would not have been wrong. When Pharaoh was singled out for this judgment, must much like an eviction, it made him mad and his heart became hard against God.

As no one can tell me who to evict or who not to evict when they are people on the list that needs to be evicted, no one can blame our Lord for choosing pharaoh and making his heart hard.  I did not make them the "evictees."  They did it by not obeying the contract.  Any  tenant who is obeying the rules and paying their rent is not even considered for eviction.

So, the point is this:  We cannot look at Pharaoh and the Scriptures the way they are written using the word "hardened," and then blame God for making pharaoh's heart hardened. Nor do we, the obedient, need to fear this kind of action in our lives.



ihs