Ex 11:10, And Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land. 
	In our last consideration, we focused on the fact that God’s Omnipotence is fully evident throughout His Word in even those people of this realm whose hearts are hardened unto Him. They still become His instruments to accomplish His plan and His purposes. As with Pharaoh and the others that we regarded, their hardness of heart caused them to do those things that would ultimately reveal the awesome power and deliverance and salvation of God’s hand in operation. God was shown, through the defiant obstinacy of these recorded leaders, as the One Who rules and overrules, no matter who is set against His revealed glory. 
	This is a lesson that we would do well to learn in our dealings with God as His Chosen people in Jesus Christ. You see, the hardness of heart that infests humanity is still resident, even in those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God. It can rear its ugly head if we allow it to become part of our daily lives. This is what we want to see over the course of this study. We must be very careful and on guard that we do not allow our hearts, softened and made flesh by the work of God’s salvation ministry, to become hardened again with the residue of our old nature.    
	As the Lord so declared through the Prophet Ezekiel, we are delivered from the heart of stone that was so opposed to God. In Christ, we are given a heart of flesh and the Holy Spirit to direct and to guide our walk on this earth. Ezek 36:24-27, if you would please follow along. Ezek 36:24-27,"For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 
	This is the promise that God has for His people, for those who will respond to His call upon their lives. What is vital to realize is that it is entirely possible for His Chosen Ones to become hard of heart toward Him, as are those who utterly refuse to accept His salvation. This is testified to by the Psalmist in Ps 95:6-11, Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness; "When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. "For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. "Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest." 
It was the very generation of the Children of Israel, who had been directly delivered from slavery in Egypt who so hardened their hearts toward God that He did not allow them to enter into the rest of the Promised Land. Despite the fact that they had seen, firsthand, the power and the might and the majesty and had personally experienced the salvation of the Lord, they refused to honor God. They tested Him and they turned their back on Him. They did not want to hear from Him and they grumbled against Him and against His prophet and priests. 
Even when given the opportunity to enter into the Promised Land, they refused out of fear and rejection of the Lord. This was the very core of the nation which God had chosen unto Himself. Yet, despite the absolute, revealed Hand of God in operation, they rather chose to practice all sorts of idolatry and rebellion and dissension to the point that God turned them away from the Jordan River. He marched them through the desert regions until they were no more. It was all because of the hardness of their heart against the One Who had proven Himself to them over and over and over again. 
	As the Writer to the Hebrews details for us, it is of absolute necessity that we do not allow our hearts to become rigid and inflexible to the ways and the desires and the will of God. We are commanded against doing that which will cause us to reject obedience to God through such hardness. Please read along with me, Heb 3:7-19. Heb 3:7-19, Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart; And they did not know My ways'; As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'" Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. 
Sadly, this would not be the last of the very nation of God who would reject the Lord out of self-deluded and defiled animosity toward Him and His authority and His way of salvation. The Prophet Isaiah had to deal with this same nation of people so set in their sin and their stubbornness of heart against what the Lord wanted to tell them. We read of this in Isa 6:8-10, Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" And He said, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on listening, but do not perceive; Keep on looking, but do not understand.' "Render the hearts of this people insensitive, Their ears dull, And their eyes dim, Lest they see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their hearts, And return and be healed." 
	Jesus, during His earthly ministry, dealt with this prophetic heart of stiffness and unwillingness to believe that God was at work in their midst as He taught and proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was at hand. He was continually challenged and tested and rejected by those He came to save. Matt 13:13-16, "Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. "And in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, 'You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; And you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become dull, And with their ears they scarcely hear, And they have closed their eyes Lest they should see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart and return, And I should heal them.' "But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. 
It seemed that the nation of Israel was so set in their doctrinal teachings and human wisdom and cultural regulations that they had no way to comprehend and appreciate the very love of God that was brought before them by the Only Begotten of the Father. Jesus, in proclaiming the will of God and in manifesting His great love, was not seen as the so great gift of God, but, rather, He was considered a threat to the entire fabric of the Jewish society. 
Christ declared to the people that what God was doing was for their benefit and their salvation. Yet, at every place He taught, in every crowd, there were those who challenged Him and sought to discredit Him and tear apart all that He was describing of the Love of God. Jesus told them very plainly, in detail that the hardness of their heart was a plague upon all that they had done and infested the every element of their lives. 
Even the stipulation for divorce, the tearing apart of that which God had joined together, was only because they demanded to be enabled to enforce their own inflexibility upon the marriage vow. Their hardness of heart was set to destroy that which represented the union of two into one before the throne of God’s grace and mercy. They defiled the sacred bond of marriage and allowed their hardness of heart to make a mockery of that which was to be the beautiful and glorious earthly representation of a living relationship of God’s creation. 
Please turn in your Bibles to Matt 19:3-9. Matt 19:3-9, And some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?" And He answered and said, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh'? "Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?" He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." 
	At every turn, the hardness of their stiffened hearts toward anything that would disrupt their position of power and authority was evidenced and aimed at destroying this Jesus of Nazareth. It was even indicative in the manner in which they accused Jesus of sin because He healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath, as we read in Mark 3:1-6. Mark 3:1-6, And He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there with a withered hand. And they were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, in order that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man with the withered hand, "Rise and come forward!" And He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him. 
The very leaders of the religious order, those who should have been most anxious and waiting for the Promised Messiah, were the ones who schemed and plotted the very death of the Lord’s Christ. If you would please now turn to John 11:49-53. John 11:49-53, But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." Now this he did not say on his own initiative; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they planned together to kill Him. 
	Even after the Lord was crucified and then resurrected, those who proclaimed the Good News of the Salvation of God were continually faced with the hardness of heart that refused to acknowledge that the Christ had come to save. We see this in the martyrdom of Stephen. Just before he was put to death, he proclaimed the very fact of their hardness of heart that motivated the accusation of his being blasphemous resulting in his being stoned to death. Acts 7:51-53, "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. "Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it." 
	It was to the point that the rejection of the Gospel by the very nation set apart by God opened the door for the proclamation of the risen Lord Jesus to be made to the Gentile nations. This utter denunciation by the Jews brought into fruition the fact that because God so loved the world, all the world could find salvation in Him. 
Acts 28:25-28, And when they did not agree with one another, they began leaving after Paul had spoken one parting word, "The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying, 'Go to this people and say, "You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; And you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; For the heart of this people has become dull, And with their ears they scarcely hear, And they have closed their eyes; Lest they should see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart and return, And I should heal them."' "Let it be known to you therefore, that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen." 
We have seen that there is hardness of heart in both the pagan rulers and the very chosen nation that was delivered from slavery. Next time, Lord willing, we want to concentrate upon that which needs to be true in us. As stated at the beginning of this morning’s study, we need to be very careful in our dealings with God and with each other that we do not become those who allow our hearts to be hardened to the love and the working of God. What we have seen in place within the religious leaders of God’s Chosen people can very easily become our sad legacy if we do not guard against it. We must constantly beseech the Holy Spirit to keep our heart of flesh soft and pliable by His working power and grace. So be it!
And Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land. Amen.

	This morning’s benediction is Deut 32:1-4. "Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; And let the earth hear the words of my mouth. "Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As the droplets on the fresh grass And as the showers on the herb. "For I proclaim the name of the Lord; Ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. Amen.