A Hardened Heart

Rob Salvato opens this Sunday message from Exodus 4:21-23 by tackling one of Scripture's most troubling statements — "I will harden Pharaoh's heart" — organizing the study around five questions: what the hardening means, how and why God did it, whether it still happens today, whether believers should worry, and how to avoid it. The answer hinges on God's stated purpose through every plague — that Egypt would yadah him (know God in relational experience, 2 Peter 3:9's "not wishing any to perish") — and the realization that God's hardening was ultimately a judicial act of Romans 1: after Pharaoh's repeated self-chosen resistance, God gave him over to the direction he had already been heading. The closing challenge comes through the Parable of the Sower applied to the believer's own heart: every Christian carries multiple soil types simultaneously — welcoming grace while resisting servant leadership, submission, or tithing — and whatever we resist stays unsanctified and stunted, with the remedy being daily Scripture, openness to the Spirit, and the willingness to pray Psalm 139:23-24 when something we hear makes us uncomfortable.