Can you hear me now?

"And Pharoah hardened his heart..."

It is so easy for us to look at the story of Moses and to wonder at how Pharoah could continue to fight against God's obvious might and power. This morning I was reading Exodus 9 and was struck with the following passage:

Exodus 9:3-7
"Behold, the hand of the Lord will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks. But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die." And the Lord set a time, saying, "Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land." And the next day the Lord did this thing. All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one of the livestock of the people of Israel died. And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.

So after he was told that God would kill all of his nation's livestock but would not touch the livestock of the Hebrews, then all of Pharoah's livestock died. He sent scouts to determine the situation with the Hebrews livestock. And the report back was that the Jew's livestock was fine. And yet he hardened his heart and would not let the people go.

It seems that he was very hard-headed.

But I think we are that hard-headed many times as well. I know that I often hear what God says through his Word, but then I do my own thing anyway. I know that following what God has set out in His Word is the path of least resistance, so to speak, and yet I trudge off down the path that is strewn with logs, tar pits, and cliff faces dropping to certain death. I don't think we're so unlike Pharoah—we just don't want to admit it.