Passage: Exodus 7:1-13

The Big Idea

Exodus 7-11 is about the power of the Redeemer. The real battle is spiritual, and spiritual power is always greater than physical power. God makes weak Moses strong and sends him to Pharaoh, warning that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Who hardened it, God or Pharaoh? Both: God foreknew, Pharaoh hardened himself, and God confirmed what Pharaoh chose. Egypt’s sorcerers can copy a sign, because Satan has real power, but Aaron’s staff swallows theirs. Satan is mighty; God is almighty. The only thing that keeps us from God’s power is a hard heart.

A New Section: The Power of the Redeemer

Chapters 1-6: the need for redemption
Chapters 7-11: the power of the Redeemer (the plagues)
Chapters 12-18: the way of redemption (the blood of the Passover)
Chapters 19-24: the new life of the redeemed
Chapters 25-40: the tabernacle

This section is all about power, spiritual power.

God, angels and Satan and his demons are spirit. Invisible.
Human beings are flesh, living in the physical world, and also spirit, able to connect with the spiritual world.
Spiritual power is always greater than physical power. The physical world often mirrors what’s happening in the spiritual, because they’re connected, but the spiritual is higher.

We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

Israel was enslaved physically, but also spiritually. That’s why it isn’t enough to break someone’s physical dependence on alcohol or drugs if their heart simply finds a substitute. They need to be redeemed both from the substance and from the spiritual pull behind it.

Like God to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1-2)

The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. You’ll say everything I command you, and Aaron will tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave his land.”

What a change from the end of chapter 6! There Moses was feeble. Here God’s grace has made him strong and spiritually equipped.
That’s how grace works. We confess our weakness, and God supplies His strength. It’s a move from unbelief to faith, from weak faith to strong faith.
“Like God” means God’s ambassador, carrying His authority to speak His word and will to Pharaoh.
“Aaron will be your prophet” shows us the biblical idea of a prophet: someone who speaks the words of God.

“I Will Harden Pharaoh’s Heart” (Exodus 7:3-5)

“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply My signs and wonders in Egypt, he won’t listen to you. Then I’ll lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My divisions, My people the Israelites, with great acts of judgment. And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.”

Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?

Some ask, “Why would God punish Pharaoh for refusing to let Israel go if God made him do it?” The deeper question: does God make people sin and then punish them for it?

Scripture gives three clear examples of God hardening hearts:

Pharaoh: stood against God and His people, and was destroyed.
Sihon, king of Heshbon: refused Israel passage; God made his spirit stubborn so He could deliver him into Israel’s hand (Deuteronomy 2:30).
The Canaanite cities: all except Gibeon came out to fight Israel, because the Lord hardened their hearts so they would be destroyed (Joshua 11:19-20).

In every case, these were people already set against God and His people.

What about Romans 9?

“He has mercy on whom He wants, and He hardens whom He wants” (Romans 9:18). Read alone, that sounds like God’s will stands in a vacuum. But God’s will never operates apart from His foreknowledge.

Look at the verse before it: God told Pharaoh, “I raised you up for this very purpose, to display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Romans 9:17).

God knew Pharaoh. He knew he was stubborn and would reject mercy. He knew every decision Pharaoh would make.
So God raised him up to be king of Egypt at that moment.
Why? For you, so you can be confident that no matter who stands against you, God’s power will overcome them to deliver you.

Paul also says God’s purpose in choosing stands “not by works but by Him who calls” (Romans 9:11). And at the end of the chapter he explains the difference: the Gentiles, who weren’t pursuing righteousness, obtained it, the righteousness that comes by faith. Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, didn’t reach it. Why? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, but whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame (Romans 9:30-33).

God has chosen that salvation will be by faith.
Many in Israel didn’t receive God’s righteousness because they wanted to prove their own. They wouldn’t accept what God was freely offering in Jesus.
And anyone can respond. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

As I understand it, God foreknows who will respond to His call in faith. Those who insist on being right by their own efforts, apart from God’s way of grace, never obtain righteousness, because no one is good enough for a perfect and holy God.

God never violates Pharaoh’s will. He doesn’t make Pharaoh do something he doesn’t already want to do. Pharaoh hardened his heart in spite of the evidence, not because of it. God made it abundantly clear that Pharaoh was wrong, and that He would show mercy if Pharaoh turned.

What Exodus shows us

Watch the pattern through the plagues:

God foreknows. Before anything happens, God says He will harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 4:21; 7:3).
Pharaoh hardens himself. Again and again we read that Pharaoh’s heart was hard, or that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 7:13-14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7).
God confirms it. Only after that do we read, again and again, that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8). Even in between, Pharaoh “sinned again and hardened his heart” (Exodus 9:34).

So who hardened Pharaoh’s heart, God or Pharaoh? Yes.

God knew Pharaoh would harden his heart.
Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Then God confirmed Pharaoh’s choice, making him more of what he insisted on being.

That’s why you should never plan to wait until your deathbed to turn to God. You don’t know whether your heart will still be soft.

Eighty and Eighty-Three (Exodus 7:6-7)

Moses and Aaron did exactly what the Lord commanded. Moses was eighty and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

My only comment: they’re old!

Just kidding. Notice verse 5 again: God wanted the Egyptians to know that He is the LORD. Why? Because He loves them too. He wanted the whole world to know that He is God and their gods are not. If the LORD is more powerful than my god, I should serve Him instead.

Everyone serves somebody. If you think you’re serving yourself, you’re really siding with the enemy, because you’ve been called to serve God and you’re refusing.

If an angel watched your life, what would it say you’re spending it on? Your kingdom, or God’s?

Snakes vs. Snakes (Exodus 7:8-12)

The Lord told Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says, ‘Perform a miracle,’ tell Aaron to throw his staff down before Pharaoh, and it will become a serpent.” They did. Aaron threw down his staff, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned his wise men and sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their secret arts. Each threw down his staff, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

How could sorcerers do that? Isn’t magic just movie stuff?
Remember, this is about spiritual power. Satan has real power, greater than people imagine. He can perform signs and let people perform them (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
Just because something is miraculous doesn’t mean it’s true, or from God. Test everything by God’s Word.
Satan doesn’t want to lose his people. He loves being worshiped, so he empowered his servants to imitate God’s sign.
But God showed He is stronger. His serpent ate theirs.
The magicians will copy the first plagues, but they’ll never be able to take them away.

Satan is mighty. God is almighty.

Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hard, and he didn’t listen, just as the Lord had said (Exodus 7:13).

Nothing Too Hard for Him

Jeremiah prayed, “Ah, Lord GOD! You made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for You.” And God answered, “I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:17, 27).

God can deliver you from your sin, your sorrow, your doubt and your fears. From addictions, self-sufficiency and self-centeredness. From your failures, your pain and your sickness.

The only problem is our hard hearts. We won’t believe God’s promises or experience His power while our hearts are hard.

Ask yourself: Do I have a hard heart? Do I doubt that God’s love and power are for me? Do I proudly think I don’t need Him? Do I refuse to admit how broken I really am?

A hard heart grows out of pride and disbelieving God’s Word. And a hard heart only gets harder, like a callus. A callus loses feeling. It goes numb. The psalmist says the proud have hearts as unfeeling as fat, but he delights in God’s law (Psalm 119:70).

Paul warned believers not to live like those who are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the hardness of their hearts, who become callous and give themselves over to impurity (Ephesians 4:17-19).

A hard heart isn’t what believers are meant to have.
It leads to giving up and giving in to sin. Have you been giving in?

Here’s the solution: “But that’s not how you learned Christ!” Paul says, if you have heard Him and been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: to put off the old self, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, created after God’s likeness in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:20-24).

It’s personal connection with Jesus: learning Christ, hearing Him, being taught by Him.
His cross is our cross. Our old nature and its penalty were nailed there with Him.
Then we rise with new life, His resurrection life, and His law is written on our hearts.
No one can learn the Law well enough to keep it. It can only be implanted in the humble heart that joins Jesus at the cross by faith.
Jesus teaches us by His grace to put off the old and walk as new creations.

Jesus melts the hardened heart. He takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26): soft, humble and ready to believe all His promises.

Hard heart = pride and unbelief.
Soft heart = humility and faith, and it comes by the grace of Jesus.

The Christian satire site The Babylon Bee once ran a story about Jesus, after years of knocking gently at a man’s heart, finally breaking the door down with a battering ram and starting a remodel, replacing stone walls with living tissue. It’s a joke, but don’t make Him knock forever. Open the door.

Grace Takeaway

The battle for your freedom is spiritual, and the enemy is mighty. But God is almighty, and His staff swallows every counterfeit. He makes weak people strong, and He can deliver you from anything. The only thing that keeps His power out is a hard heart. Don’t harden yours. Humble yourself, believe His Word, and let Jesus replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

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Mighty vs. Almighty