Why did God harden Pharoah's heart (Ex 4:21)?
Much of what I know about God gets challenged with this passage of Scripture. My understanding of justice make me doubt God would do that.
I notice I'm quick to love on Pharaoh, to
be his District Attorney before God. What God did to him seems unjust.
My opening statement would be like: "God the world is hard enough,
Pharaoh's no angel but doesn't he get a fair shake at knowing the living
God. Besides You are supposed to be unchanging and therefore good all
the time. How is hardening someone's heart good?"
Pharaoh (probably more so that most unbelievers) saw God's work and had the chance of humbling his power under God's. God knew Pharaoh's leadership consisted of changing his mind.
God hardened His heart purposefully. So that all of Egypt/the world will know:
"By
now I could have stretched out My hand and struck you and your people
with a plague, and you would have been obliterated from the earth. However, I have let you live for this purpose: to show you My power and to make My name known in all the earth" (Ex 9:15-16).
Certainly He could harden my heart even as the Holy Spirit indwells, I can become despondent to the point of being a hard-hearted Christian. It is possible. That is why I fear the Lord.
I fear the Lord because He hardened Pharaoh's heart and chose to soften mine.
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